Qass_ 
 
 Book_- 
 
MORNING LECTURES 
 
 TWEKTY DISCOUBSES, 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 gximU of %x*$tm m tit iriy of §tew §o*&, 
 
 IN THE WINTEE AND SPEING OF 1863. 
 
 BY ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
 
 Author of several volumes on the Harmonial Philosophy. 
 
 KEW YOEK: 
 C. M. PLUMB & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 2U CANAL STREET. 
 
 LONDON: J. BURNS, CAMBER WELL. 
 
 1865. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 
 
 i ) ^1 
 
 " FRIEND OF PROGRESS " PRINT, 
 274 Canal St., New York. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Lectures of which this volume is composed, were 
 lelivered Sunday mornings before the Friends of Progress 
 in the city of New York, during the Winter and Spring of 
 1863. The subject matter of the discourses, and the 
 language in which they are clothed, were drawn from the 
 inspiration given during the moments allotted to their 
 delivery — sometimes, indeed, the speaker had not chosen 
 either his theme, or the line of argument to be pursued, 
 until he arose to address the congregation. This fact will 
 amply account for both the defects and excellences which 
 may be found sprinkled through the following pages. 
 Doubtless the author would have given more time to the 
 selection of themes and the construction of arguments — 
 which is ever to be recommended — if his thoughts and time 
 had not been so entirely devoted to many and various 
 labors wholly disconnected with this course of Lectures. 
 And yet, in the light of his experience, it is questionable 
 whether the contents of this volume would have been 
 improved. If all scripture " given by inspiration is 
 profitable," why may not the same rule apply to Morning 
 Lectures, given under the quickening power of the same 
 universal principle ? 
 
 That this volume may be a friend to the lonely, a guide 
 to the wanderer, and a ray of light to those in darkness, is 
 the sincere prayer of 
 
 New York, June 1, 1864. A. J. D. 
 
CONTE NTS 
 
 Page 
 Defeats and Victories, - - - - 5 
 
 The World's True Redeemer, - - - - 28 
 
 The End of the World, - - ... 51 
 
 The New Birth, 82 
 
 The Shortest Road to the Kingdom of Heaven, - - 107 
 
 The Reign of Anti-Christ, - - - - - 134 
 
 The Spirit and its Circumstances, - - 154 
 
 Eternal Value of Pure Purposes, - - - - 188 
 
 Wars of the Blood, Brain, and Spirit, - 199 
 
 Truths, Male and Female, ----- 213 
 
 False and True Education, - - . 238 
 
 The Equalities and Inequalities of Human Nature, . - 253 
 
 Social Centers in the Summer-Land, - 266 
 
 Poverty and Riches, ------ 288 
 
 The Object of Life, - .... 310 
 
 Expensiveness of Error in Religion, - - - - 328 
 
 Winter-Land and Summer-Land, - 349 
 
 Language and Life in the Summer-Land, - - - 377 
 
 Material Work for Spiritual Workers, ... 405 
 
 Ultimates in the Summer-Land, - - - - 421 
 
MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 
 
 " Many a foe is a friend in disguise ; 
 Many a trouble a blessing most true." 
 
 I have for years observed that the earth is full of 
 downcast, melancholy persons, or of indifferent, stoical, 
 lukewarm, shipwrecked characters — both the logical 
 consequences of this over-spun popular but dogmatic 
 theology, which is the plague of the world in general 
 and the private sorrow of the millions of Americans in 
 particular. Atheism is a beautiful belief, honest and 
 soul-saving, compared with that desperate, godless, devil- 
 full theology, which gives such splendor to the physical 
 churches and such despair to the congregations of 
 believing millions who support them. Mankind must 
 obtain a new conception of the world in order to drive 
 out this theological disease, which has been communi- 
 cated to almost every sensitive, religious, spiritual, and 
 poetic mind. It has sickened and blighted every soul 
 that has unfortunately come under the sable wings of 
 this dismal, desperate dream of the Oriental world. 
 Hebrew mythology is the basis of the theology of 
 America this very hour. Only where there happens to 
 be a meeting Quakers, of Unitarians or LTniversalists, 
 
6 MORNISG LECTURES. 
 
 of Spiritual Reformers or of Progressive Friends- 
 only in such places is there any living protest to the 
 prevalence of the abominable miasma which has gone 
 abroad like the plagues of Egypt, filtering itself 
 through all human institutions, not even excepting 
 science, literature, and the arts. 
 
 Now I find myself called upon to speak in emphatic 
 words against the desperate, dismal disease-promoting, 
 despair-propagating tendency of Hebrew mythology, 
 which is the accredited theology and petted religion of 
 Christendom. And it seems to me that, if there be 
 vouchsafed enough light and strength at this time, we 
 may do something towards augmenting the force of this 
 protest by considering the question of "Defeats and 
 Victories." 
 
 There are two propositions which stand before my 
 mind as incontrovertible, and as necessary to a distinct 
 and full comprehension of the subject: 
 
 First: That forms, vehicles, mediums, organiza- 
 tions, institutions, equipments, agents, attorneys, are 
 transient, while that which they convey is permanent 
 and eternal — and, therefore, that even what are called 
 " Accidents/' are but the conductors or viaducts of 
 laws that are just as full of the wisdom of Deity as the 
 most delicious blessings that ever hugged your heart. 
 
 Second : That all great immutable scientific princi- 
 ples, and the eternal spiritual truths, have been con- 
 veyed to mankind by means of blood, fires, dungeons, 
 racks, gibbets, guillotines, governments, revolutions, 
 convulsions, spasms, fits, earthquakes, and hysterics. 
 
 These two propositions stand before* my mind with 
 as much distinctness and significance as does any per- 
 son's countenance in this room. To recognize the 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 7 
 
 Divinity in the accident, to see Good in dire disaster, 
 to be strong enough to overcome evil in your oppressive 
 misfortunes, to be pure enough to conquer the vice that 
 is within you, or just touching you, is to give evidence 
 of your complete and practical recognition of that sub- 
 lime truth in the first proposition which is essential to 
 every person's success and happiness in society, in busi- 
 ness, in death, in resurrection. The most beautiful 
 success is the most desperate disaster to him who is not 
 wise enough to accept God as much in cloud as in sun- 
 shine. 
 
 Now, I am looking at and speaking to the world 
 to-day from these propositions and principles. The 
 whole universe appears to me to be regulated by a sys- 
 tem of immutable, divine, benign, heavenly principles, 
 which ooze perpetually forth and declare themselves 
 even through our direst defeats, through our misfor- 
 tunes, our failings and faults, and through those vari- 
 ous and numerous accidents which occur in the history 
 of human experience. 
 
 Rightly looked at, Adam fell up stairs! (I am 
 speaking now of the accepted story in Hebrew 
 mythology with reference to the first human defeat — 
 perhaps the best, most full of wisdom, most searching 
 in its spiritual lessons.) This Hebrew myth, at basis a 
 beautiful truth, teaches that Adam fell upward and on- 
 ward — out of his ephemeral, butterfly, useless exist- 
 ence, into manly health and laborious progression. He 
 was born into luxury ; this was the primal cause of his 
 first defeat. He was physically and spiritually success- 
 ful from the beginning ; that^ caused his downfall and 
 expulsion. Born from the skies, inheriting an incalcu- 
 
8 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 lable fortune — never having earned a penny of it, not 
 having acquired an item of the powers and truths 
 which were, slumbering in his possession — consequently 
 he had no appreciation of either, and like all other 
 superficial riches and unmerited success, his advantages 
 took unto themselves wings and fled, dropping him in 
 one of the open fields which were longing for a Man ! 
 He met multiform obstacles on every side; but they 
 were his best friends. If the first man Adam had early 
 met a little hill of gold, not more than six inches high 
 and ten inches in diameter, I fear he would never have 
 successfully surmounted it. Undoubtedly he had suffi- 
 cient of the " Yankee " in him to have influenced his 
 mind to bow to " the golden image and worship it." But 
 instead, he met only thistles, thorns, tempests, hurri- 
 canes, earthquakes and fits; but they sternly and hon- 
 estly befriended him. 
 
 Do you not pity those feeble forest trees that must 
 grow where the winds never blow with tempestuous 
 fury? You never find a great, beautiful oak, never 
 a grand, well-developed pine, never thrifty fruit- 
 trees, nor a great variety of wild flowers, where the 
 winds are not permitted to work with great energy. 
 Instead, you find swamps of stagnation and cesspools 
 pervaded with deadly miasma ; also you find subterra- 
 nean beasts there — repulsive creatures, unfit to live 
 above ground, crawling and wriggling in the undis- 
 turbed sinks of nastiness. 
 
 Again, do you not pity a Brother man who is so well 
 fed in body that he has grown exceedingly lean and 
 mean in his spirit? General Banks (who now occu- 
 pies a very prominent office, probably standing on the 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 9 
 
 threshold of the most important movement about to 
 connect the East inseparably with the great States and 
 Territories west of the Mississippi,) graduated from one 
 of New England's cotton-mills, and not from some high 
 temple of learning, not from the fostering caresses and 
 enfeebling attentions of very rich parents. No ! 
 Master-men are the productions of those energetic 
 principles in Nature which produce and regulate all 
 accidents ; in the midst of apparent confusion develop- 
 ing the most orderly ends and guiding events to perfect 
 purposes. 
 
 I accept the doctrine that man is the ultimate image 
 of " a divine plan/' and that he is destined to be sym- 
 metrically developed in body and caused to ripen in 
 spirit. These ends are accomplished by means of out- 
 ward agents and spiritual influences — by mistakes and 
 personal faults — and not altogether by means of riches 
 and idleness, worldly success and bodily happiness. I 
 do not know of a single remarkable instance where a 
 man, made suddenly rich or popular, continues com- 
 mitted to the noble truths and large -sympathies which 
 distinguished him before his great success. But I do 
 know a man who was very poor from his birth, but 
 w r ho became gradually rich and victorious in the midst 
 of disasters and misfortunes. He never lost his interest 
 in the struggling poor of the world, but gave, and still 
 gives, wisely of both wisdom and wealth. 
 
 The English Commissioner of Revenue near a hun- 
 dred years ago undertook to gather exorbitant taxes 
 from the American people. He was obliged to depart 
 without the tax-money, and he sought his personal 
 safety out of Boston. The people would not submit to 
 1* 
 
10 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 tyranny that came over the free ocean. The tea was 
 thrown over in the harbor. Americans would no 
 longer be willing slaves to the requisitions and imposi- 
 tions of their trans-Atlantic masters. What was the 
 result? All history of this country is resplendently 
 begemmed with the consequences. 1776 is referred to 
 in all the school-bopks, and by all loyal persons, both 
 in song and in story, as the commencement of " an 
 era" of Freedom in the political and religious history 
 of the American. England's great defeat was justice 
 and success to her. It drove her snugly home, con- 
 centrated her upon the properties of her own kingdom 
 and commerce, and she has ever since been nationally 
 prosperous and self-possessed. But when she arro- 
 gantly came over here, dressed in red-coats, marching 
 to rich and costly music, she found that victory was 
 destined to be on the side of her opponents. 
 
 But this same victory of ours brought us a mighty 
 defeat. We earned our "independence," but found, 
 alas ! that we were masters of England not only, but 
 also of millions of slaves. And that sad success was 
 the germ of our present full-orbed defeats. As a nation 
 we have gone on with this terrible success until it has 
 put an extinguisher upon the effulgent light of our 
 Union. Almost are we gone nationally down into the 
 martyr's sepulcher ! Almost are hearth-stone enemies 
 ready to roll a great stone against its mouth ! But 
 America dead and in the martyr's tomb, with the stone 
 of adversity rolled against its mouth, is more mighty 
 and more triumphant than when tea went overboard in 
 Boston. 
 
 As a nation we must be forced into court and arbi- 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 1 1 
 
 trarily condemned. The cross of sorrow must be put 
 on the Northern shoulder, and the whole country must 
 be led up to the summit of Calvary ! All are now slowly 
 going thither. We shall be nailed to the cross, and 
 two thieves will be executed with us. (There will be 
 no difficulty in finding a couple.) Then we shall be 
 taken down, and the countries of Europe about the 
 foot of our cross will say : " We told you so — we 
 expected it. We have argued it and written it for the 
 last half century, that such a Republic as yours, such a 
 loosely constituted democracy, could not and would not 
 long exist." Then we shall be carried away, placed in 
 the earth — only for a day ! Then will angel-princi- 
 ples roll away this vast political obstruction, which 
 keeps the people in the darkness of Hades and the 
 misery of Gehenna. Behold we shall come forth ! And 
 then the nations of the world, like the old officers of 
 Rome, will be struck with blindness and paralysis. 
 America will come forth — clad in white — purified, 
 redeemed, transformed, free ! Our greatest national 
 success — which gave us the power to overthrow the 
 mastery of England — gave us also mastery over mil- 
 lions of Africans. That success is to-day teaching us 
 an expensive and desperate lesson, and we are slow in 
 learning it. 
 
 God, the greatest central good in the Universe, is 
 giving us our best development and our highest victo- 
 ries through disappointments, military defeats, and 
 political adversities. Minds, not perceiving this truth, 
 are cast down. They walk sadly in the vale of tears. 
 They live daily in bondage to a fearful, soul-sickening 
 sorrow. Oh, I pity those sightless editors of innu- 
 
12 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 merable papers — those atheistic men who move and 
 float along in and with the rough world "just as they 
 find it" — minds that see nothing higher and-feel nothing 
 better than the hum-drum of diurnal events. I do not 
 wonder that they oppose and decry the Government, 
 and set themselves against the administration of the 
 Government. All the atheistic criticisms of our coun- 
 trymen are so many moral stumbling-blocks in the 
 pathway toward perdition. Banking men contemplate 
 the demolition of their capital. Churches and colleges, 
 and the institutions of common education, are wrapped 
 up with the nation's commercial machinery. The 
 important men, who support these institutions, are not 
 lifted by their faith in Christianity high enough above 
 circumstances to see that America is destined to go 
 down through the Gulf Stream, then put out into the 
 cold water, and at last outsail all the storms of capes 
 and gulfs, and finally reach the clear open sea of 
 boundless liberty. They do not believe in God, and 
 they are accordingly cast down. And yet they go to 
 their churches, they hear beautiful music, utter formal 
 prayers, listen to expensive orthodox sermons that 
 are filled with grammar and rhetoric, and with very 
 beautiful allusions to the Savior and his exemplary 
 life; but when they go home from their carpeted 
 churches, they are the same cast-down, hopeless, athe- 
 istical persons they were before they assembled for 
 worship. A hopeful, buoyant, and honorable man or 
 woman is so in spite of his or her religious creed. 
 
 Look at mankind's defeats and successes in Science. 
 We have a beautiful science of anatomy — a knowledge 
 of all the bones that enter into the framework of the 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 13 
 
 human being, or of the lower organizations. Do you 
 suppose that a healthy man would ever have concerned 
 himself with the items of his structure ? Never ! Per- 
 fect success in health would have kept the world in 
 total ignorance of its anatomy and physiology. Dis- 
 ease has been our blessing ! It strikes at the bone. 
 Then comes the surgeon with his scalpel, separating 
 parts and revealing structure, and thus he becomes a 
 learned man : next he teaches anatomy to the classes, 
 and then the classes go out, and thus a true education 
 finally filters through the interstices of all human expe- 
 rience. And to-day almost every person knows that 
 he has 247 bones in his body, and that woman is con- 
 stituted precisely the same; and that the doctrine that 
 man lost a rib originally is just as true as any other 
 ancient myth — that is to say, in its external sense, not 
 true at all. 
 
 Then came the beautiful knowledge of physiology. 
 This science is now one of the useful ornaments of a 
 gentleman's education. Ladies, also, have, begun to 
 acquire great riches in the direction of organs and 
 functions. Disease has been the world's great teacher. 
 People just begin to discover that there are such things 
 as nerves ! They have been long told by physicians 
 that there were such conductors ; but now they know 
 the thrilling fact. Old sturdy Britons and Northern 
 lords knew nothing of nerves. Read their books, and 
 you will find scarcely an allusion to such impressible 
 structures. A nation had to become sick — the whole 
 people had to be cast down in sorrow — before man's 
 mind could be moved to seek out knowledge of that 
 mysterious system which connects his brain with all 
 
14 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 his senses, and the senses with the whole universe 
 without. 
 
 Insanity, too, had to exist before phrenology could 
 be practically developed and demonstrated. Mental 
 diseases had to abound, and crime in its most mis- 
 chievous forms also, before phrenology became the 
 world's absolute necessity. The science is the child 
 of research and misfortune, and for this reason phre- 
 nology has conquered much ignorance, and has given 
 men practical knowledge of themselves. 
 
 Again, mankind were obliged to be afflicted and 
 defeated with sickness in the spirit, moral prostrations, 
 vices, and discords. There had to be swearing, pro- 
 fanity of various kinds, and licentiousness also, before 
 men would seek out the great developments of music, 
 art, religion — those higher blessings which enter into 
 the spiritual education and happiness of the world. It 
 was necessary that the world should suffer from its 
 ignorance and defeats before men could be induced to 
 inquire concerning the spiritual laws and inner princi- 
 ples of their existence. Men who had never seen or 
 experienced any such evils as larceny, incendiarism, or 
 murder, would never hare concerned themselves with 
 virtue, with truth, and with legal agents and instru- 
 mentalities by which virtue and truth are advocated, 
 vindicated, and developed. Great saving constructive 
 truths would never have appeared to the human mind 
 were it not for the discords of society and the dire dis- 
 eases of individuals. • 
 
 The best knowledge in the world is attributable to 
 the world's ignorance. Misfortune is esteemed by 
 Divinity of as much value as success. Defeat is just 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. lj 
 
 as truly a part of God's great system as victory. A'' ice 
 is a portion of the system — it is not an accident — for it 
 brings victories as well as virtues. I verily believe 
 this country's salvation is inseparable from the colossal 
 lies which decorate the throne of Jefferson Davis. How 
 could it be otherwise? How could the political crab- 
 sterians of this country discover that the millions who 
 have been working for nothing in the South, are children 
 of God and the victims of wrong political circum- 
 stances, were it not for the moral, political, social, and 
 civil degradations which those same circumstances have 
 developed among the whites ? White ninnies and black 
 picaninnies walk side by side, and all parties are 
 moving on the road leading to an equal success 
 through desperate and blood-stained defeats. 
 
 Do you suppose that Abraham Lincoln would have 
 felt the " military necessity" which prompted his first 
 of January edict,- if our armies had been successful six 
 months before? The civilized world looks at the brave, 
 strong, powerful North, and is amazed at its de- 
 feats. But the future will look upon those weeks and 
 months of our national agony and despair with awe, 
 gratitude, and tlnnksgiving. The « military neces- 
 sity" of the 1st of January, 1863, will beget and 
 become a " moral necessity." 
 
 Already the people of the North are opening their 
 hearts to the conception that the black man is able and 
 anxious to defend the rights of the white man. " This 
 is a white man's war," said the proud, successful 
 Northmen. " We will fight our own battles, win our 
 own victories, and obtain much credit in the political 
 heaven for achieving all this sublime success." Our 
 
16 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 private merchants and our public ministers, as with one 
 voice, said : " We shall have the glorious honor of 
 beholding a white man's laurel on the brow of the 
 potential North. 7 ' Well, we have learned, sadly enough, 
 that all this boasting and presumption, this pedantry 
 and heartless assumption of power, has been forced 
 down with its knees in the dust. The whole people see 
 that further humiliations are in store before real vie- 
 tory can crown the brow of the North ; >and so seeing, 
 they are imperceptibly converted to a higher religion 
 than the churches can impart. I know that a few 
 churches begin to recognize this ; but did they recog- 
 nize it at the start ? No ! Ministers have been edu- 
 cated by this war as much as merchants, bankers, 
 farmers, and mechanics. Brigadier-Generals know no 
 more about the future than does the private warrior 
 who went bravely forth from the mechanic's shop, the 
 factory, or the field, bearing the musket snugly against 
 his shoulder, and groaning (sometimes with homesick, 
 despairiiigthoughts,) under the weight of his overloaded 
 knapsaqk. But he knows as much, thinks as clearly, 
 feels as much true patriotism as do the Brigadiers 
 and Major-Generals who ride with plumes along the 
 front, " the observed of all observers " — all being edu- 
 cated alike ; all gone to school together. 
 
 Old theology teaches persons who go through these 
 long avenues on to battle, that if they have not 
 accepted Christ and the means of salvation, they will 
 go down to endless night. Bm the divine truth of 
 Nature (which is God's only gospel) speaking deep 
 down in the soul of such persons, causes them to say, 
 "I do not believe it." The minister says, "That 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 17 
 
 is Satan's voice." Intuition, however, takes the 
 responsibility, and so .the soldier, without conversion, 
 marches on to battle. He vaguely, yet strongly feels, 
 in his deepest soul, that if he should die in the midst 
 of carnage, fighting for his flag and the country, the 
 duty which he is performing and the motive which 
 actuates him will be equal to the merits of Christ. So 
 he practically sees the goodness of God, and believes 
 in his own salvation. And what is more curious, his 
 mother at home believes it also. She says : " To be 
 sure, Charles never went to church ; he seemed to be 
 irreligious on Sundays ; but he was better than most 
 young men, and, though he was a little wild, yet he 
 died doing his duty, bravely and fearlessly at the can- 
 non's mouth ; and I know that our Savior is very mer- 
 ciful, and though he was not 'converted,' as was 
 supposed, no doubt God, who seeth the falling sparrow, 
 will take him home to glory." 
 
 That is the great gospel of Mother Nature ! That 
 is the voice of the living God speaking higher than 
 theology, and above all the superstitions which crowd 
 the mother's mind. Let us pray that all mothers — 
 when the deep sorrow comes to the heart — may have 
 the great joy of believing truth direct from Deity. 
 Notwithstanding his waywardness, his evils, imperfec- 
 tions, cruelties at home, negligence even — still, over all 
 and through all, is the intuitive belief that the heavens 
 open and receive the soldier-son. That, I say, is the 
 word of God speaking in the woman's heart in the cool 
 of the day, when sorrow presses heavily, when the wine 
 of truth comes bleedingly out of her spirit. 
 
 But let a mother go on with social and worldly 
 
18 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 success — let her feel the pressure of no great sorrow — 
 and her theology will be a pampered idol. She will 
 oppose the Reformer and sneer at the Spiritualist. She 
 does not believe in the war ; or, if she does, it is with 
 hate, like the politicians. But let a weighty sorrow 
 come to her heart, and forthwith she rises up into a 
 beautiful transformation of spirit ; and then from igno- 
 rance she goes to knowledge, from theology to wisdom, 
 from despair to hope, from doubt to faith, from defeat 
 to victory. 
 
 For all these reasons I pity a village that has never 
 had a mob. Go into a Connecticut town that has never 
 had anything to disturb it worse than a few boys steal- 
 ing melons in the summer time, or some dogs that kill 
 the sheep — suppose no great disturbance, no deep agi- 
 tation, had come to that town — behold the utter 
 imbecility there in regard to the great moving princi- 
 ples of the world ! They read old newspapers that 
 were published half a century ago, edited by persons 
 who got their education one hundred years ago, and 
 who taught things that are two and a half centuries 
 old. They own the oldest books, which contain the 
 oldest sermons and inculcate the poorest thoughts. 
 They read the Bible with the oldest pair of spectacles 
 in the house, and they judge of modern things through 
 the Testaments, portions of which are at least three 
 thousand years behind the age. 
 
 Now look at the city or village that has been stir- 
 red. Some reformatory man went there, who aroused 
 the passions and prejudices of the people. They were 
 obliged to hunt up their unmarketable eggs to express 
 their profound disgust with the reformer's sentiments. 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 19 
 
 Perhaps he was an Anti-slavery man, or a Woman's 
 Rights speaker, or some thorough-going temperance 
 reformer, or — which is still more dreadful — some long- 
 haired and large-brained Spiritualist. The community 
 so visited has received a shock, a vibration, a move- 
 ment from its center, which is the commencement of its 
 success in development. 
 
 Now take this country. The-iron-clads and the 
 Monitors that are to go forth to victory, have come out 
 of defeats. In Hampton Roads, in sight of Fortress 
 Monroe, the Merrimac had to come. She was the 
 Confederate's victory. But we had to be defeated 
 before a Monitor could come out of these machine- 
 shops — freighted with prodigious strength, with 
 almighty energy — blasting that invention of the Con- 
 federates in its very eyes, and giving such a demonstra- 
 tion of power as to alarm the North with its own 
 success. Do you not also* see that the Monitor had to 
 die, to sink, before future Monitors would be made 
 impervious to tempests and waves ? Let her go ; let 
 her bravely sink. " It is but to another sea." The 
 people rise up to a more perfect work. Our engineers, 
 our machinists, our scientific men, our inventors — all 
 spring like angels of light to the rescue ! Give us 
 defeat, not only in Hampton Roads, but also near Cape 
 Hatteras ! 
 
 Now, what has Disease done ? It has brought the 
 sciences of Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Therapeu- 
 tics — these volumes of education upon which scientific 
 and school men pride themselves. And what has been 
 the result? The expansion of useful knowledge among 
 the people, urging them to overcome the causes of dis- 
 
20 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 ease and to learn the simple ways of Health. There is^ 
 consequently, only about one person in every twenty- 
 three really sick at any one time. The twenty-two are 
 not perfectly well — that is too much for the terrestrial 
 sphere ; but there is only one of the twenty-three who 
 is prostrated, or silent, white, and waiting at the 
 golden gate of the Summer-Land. So that, at this 
 moment, while I am, speaking to you, there are not more 
 than 1,370,000 persons actually sick in America. 
 According to the last census there were about 
 32,000,000 persons in the United States ; and only about 
 one in every twenty-three was prostrated by disease 
 Why, the world is almost perfectly healthy— just sick- 
 ness and suffering enough to keep us busy and on the 
 high road to victorious Science. 
 
 The defeats of the Allopathic system — what have 
 they led to ? Why, they have led, through salivation, 
 to salvation ! Behold those crystal colleges, devoted 
 to higher medical education, teaching the system of 
 Hahnemann, or the system of Priesnitz, or both, and 
 the system of Franklin — electricity, and the system of 
 Mesmer — magnetism, and next the system of God — 
 
 INDEPENDENCE OF ALL MEDICINE ! 
 
 Let us thank all whp populate heaven for our 
 defeats, diseases, accidents, and disappointments. Why, 
 Bull Run was but the commencement of that race which 
 shall not stop until the golden summits of Liberty are 
 fully attained! We have only "gone around Robin 
 Hood's barn." There is vastly more courage and real 
 success in backing out of fire than there is in going 
 uselessly into it and dying foolishly. We had strength 
 and wisdom enough to retreat when disaster was upon 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 21 
 
 us. There was a Divinity shaping our ends — teaching 
 us that Freedom is the moral as well as the military 
 necessity of America's inhabitants. 
 
 Men in business do not arise to the true moral 
 position. They cannot do it until they are bankrupt, 
 and they may, therefore, soon become so. What makes ' 
 slavery so popular at the South ? Because of its great 
 mercantile, and commercial, and local advantages, and 
 not because of its moral, spiritual, and political advan- 
 tages. It is popular because men and women, resting 
 in the lap of luxury, can get money without earning it, 
 can whip or hire it done, and out of the affliction of 
 othej^ realize two or three hundred per cent, on their 
 hereditary investment. "That is the reason why it is 
 popular. Men are not constituted to continue long in 
 that which brings bankruptcy. The slaves of the 
 South have earned the weajth of the South. Many 
 great folks who live in luxury in the North, are trem- 
 bling lest these multiplied and triple-fold taxes will 
 sweep away their fortunes and leave them at the altar 
 of repentance. Many such persons tremble because 
 they are living on the earnings of slaves. Men who 
 have amassed large estates by th-e misfortunes and vic- 
 timizations of the black people, have had the most 
 miserable " success." Oh, what a desperate victory ! 
 It is dreadful, direful, devilful, hellful — damnation is 
 the result! Every such estate will melt like a moun- 
 tain of ice before the summer sun. 
 
 Before this war commenced many persons who were 
 unfaithful to the ordinary obligations of truth became 
 tangled up with and woven into this great national 
 trouble. They ripened on the very sorrows and sick- 
 
22 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 nesses and slaveries of the people. Let the moneyed 
 institutions groan ! It is an honest symptom of coming 
 success for Truth and Justice — but remember, such suc- 
 cess is coming through bankruptcy, through painful 
 defeats! It is very gratifying to go into business and 
 obtain money — mere animal excitement and happiness 
 — have credit, so that no man questions you, with all 
 your drafts instantly honored. Such a man does not 
 care to attend Progressive Meetings. He goes to a pop- 
 ular church every Sunday, where it is only necessary to 
 pay and keep still. But when the Sun of Righteousness 
 comes over the horizon of disasters and melts away .all 
 his property, and when his great wealth floats do v i 
 into the little rivulets of other individual possessions, 
 then he goes in haste to his minister ; he is spiritually 
 sick, is alarmed for his soul, and begins to inquire the 
 shortest way to the residence of the Holy Ghost. Do 
 we not read in the New Testament that the young man 
 was " very sorrowful, because he had great posses- 
 sions" ? He was materially successful — that was the 
 hidden secret — so successful, indeed, that he was 
 defeated every moment. 
 
 The man who is most unhappy, restless, defeated, 
 is the man who appears to be in the midst of plenty and 
 opulence. I wish mankind could see this immutable 
 truth more clearly. They would then never become 
 bankrupt. But not seeing it, they yield themselves to 
 discord, to disappointment, and die with a thunder- 
 stroke of Fate ! 
 
 But a true Spiritualist cannot be cast down. He 
 cannot be thrown into these vales of disappointment. 
 No matter where he is, or in what he is laudably 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 23 
 
 engaged, he finds that the eternal principles of the uni- 
 verse are filled with God's loving spirit, and in them 
 he knows that he is safe, and beyond the possibility of 
 defeat. 
 
 It is philosophical to believe in the benefits of ; 
 defeats. The shipwrecked mariner contributes by his 
 disaster just so much toward making all other ships 
 safer. The Great Eastern had mishap after mishap in 
 order that vessels hereafter should not be so ambitious 
 in size, but more secure. Every accident on a railroad 
 is but another step toward expedition and safety. 
 
 Seeing all this, I wonder how men can live or die 
 worshiping the idol of theology, or believing in any 
 creed in Christendom. I wonder not that they are 
 mentally prostrated, with only what they call " faith' 5 
 to give them a glimmering of rest just before the tomb- 
 gate opens to receive them. They go down into the 
 grave, and friends write on their tombstones that, 
 when the angel comes and the trumpet sounds, then 
 there will be a resurrection. But the true Spiritualist 
 sees that there is no sepulcher, no tomb ; that the 
 world is regulated without accidents, and that death is 
 nothing but a gentle " defeat," which excludes the 
 cypress and includes the laurel. Flowers bloom o'er 
 the death-bed of that mind which sees God's smiles 
 behind frowning clouds and tempests. The Christian's 
 " hope" and this knowledge among Spiritualists are the 
 same in their effect upon the sentiments. When the 
 Christian feels the "faith" which is peculiar to the 
 Spiritualism of Christianity and identical with the 
 knowledge of Spiritualism in these days, it is the light 
 of a common Deity speaking through the intuitions and 
 
24 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the moral faculties, saying to the prostrated one: 
 " Thou shalt live beyond the tomb." 
 
 " The Summer-Land is not afar off. It is environ- 
 ing this world of ours, encasing it as the general air. 
 It surrounds this world on all sides, so that, whether 
 pointing up at noonday or at midnight, you point 
 toward your home which is " eternal in the heavens." 
 It is through the narrow, strait gate of defeat and 
 of death, but it deepens into unutterable splendor and 
 undying exhibitions of infinitude. That world hovers 
 all around this world of winter, even as the golden era 
 of peace is ready to pervade this terrible era of war. 
 
 War is the production of the cellar-kitchen of 
 human nationality and progress. It never comes from 
 the upper chambers in the temple of human growth. 
 It is natural to have war in the basement of our life. 
 There war is perfectly natural ; not outside of God's 
 providence, but as much in it as is the highest and most 
 beautiful flower of peace. 
 
 The doctrine that you are fighting the devil when 
 you are favoring the Deity, is worthy only of low and 
 uneducated minds. Whichever way you work, .you 
 work for the ultimate glory of the universal systein. 
 God is in it. I mean by " God/' the highest Truth, 
 the highest Principle, the highest Virtue, the highest 
 idea of whatsoever is Central and Perfect. The embo- 
 diment of these conceptions — the crystallization of all 
 high thoughts and intuitions — is " God." God may be 
 a monster to one in a monstrous state of mind. He is 
 a heathen God to the heathen mind. He is a God of 
 battle to the Major-general, but always a God of peace 
 to " the pure in heart." 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 25 
 
 We have acquired a larger vision, and see princi- 
 ples in their grand, boundless operation, breaking out 
 of the Infinite bosom with great success, which come 
 from fine personal spasms and the awful experiences of 
 rough public defeats. When men learn that war is to 
 die, they will also learn that disease is to die ; but 
 while they believe that war is an inevitable part of 
 human society and progress, and " will continue through 
 all the cycles of human history," they then teach a des- 
 perate error, and are defeated through their lessons of 
 faith in God and Humanity. Their misery, their 
 despondendy, their downcast hearts, amd their deploring 
 spirits, will constitute their best teachers ; but we 
 believe that the time will come when they will attain 
 to the summit of a better conviction, and say : " Sin 
 abounded, that grace might much more abound;" dis- 
 cord, that harmony might come ; ignorance, that know- 
 ledge might bloom and blossom as the rose ; misfor- 
 tune, that success could come ; death, that immortality 
 could crown the life of man; the sepulcher being 
 necessary for the new truth, and the stone necessary to 
 keep it entombed until the time should arrive for its 
 out-bursting development. Behold ! defeat is crowned 
 at length with victory. The stone is rolled away, 
 truth arises, and those who stand guard over it say, 
 "Nay, this was buried, and it may now come forth." 
 
 Do you not feel thankful that the Romans came into 
 England, and that when they found the old ancient 
 Britons there they straightway put those Britons in 
 bondage? What would England be to-day if it" had 
 not been for the defeat of those Britons and for the 
 success of the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Nor- 
 2 
 
26 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 mans. Their defeat was necessary for that great, pow- 
 erful, commercial, arrogant nation, which to-day is 
 giving America her finest lesson. It is the lesson of 
 national consolidation — extending the front of educa- 
 tion, of art, of commerce, and of liberty, though 
 through a monarchial system. She became more lib- 
 eral than Rome, though Rome was a republic. Whal 
 kind of a republic? A republic for those who had 
 arms to defend themselves against the Goths and the 
 Vandals. It was not the Liberty, the high republic, 
 which gives to every man and woman an expression. 
 America, to-day, appears as a great success out of the 
 defeats of these elder nations. England is not a per- 
 fect republic, because England came from ancestors 
 who taught the mouarchial system. She inherits the 
 forces and features of the past. 
 
 But America threw off that hereditary disaster, and 
 out of the defeats of the Past she is urging forward the 
 victory of the Present. Suppose that persecution had 
 never reached those old Dissenters in Nottingham, in 
 England — suppose that persecution had never driven 
 them to Holland — what would have become of Ply- 
 mouth Rock ? The Pilgrims laid the foundation for 
 he Puritanic temple of perpendicular righteousness, . 
 nd of Yankee chicanery and machinery as well. , 
 otherwise the temple could never have been erected, 
 rovernor Bradford were a myth, had it npt been for ; 
 ie great persecutions and the bitter defeats which 
 •ose early Dissenters experienced. Defeats drove 
 them from Nottingham to Holland, and thence, in the 
 midst of their physical embarrassments and great priva- 
 tions, they came all the way across the Atlantic to the 
 
 . • 
 
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES. 27 
 
 Western shore. Plymouth Rock is the victory of 
 many defeats and misfortunes. But the descendants 
 of that Rock are destined to develop the palladium of 
 universal Freedom, and to make the immortal edict of 
 Emancipation a moral as well as a military necessity. 
 
28 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 
 
 «* Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." 
 
 The beautiful and sublime truths imparted by the 
 Harmouial Dispensation, will hereafter appear through 
 lips more touched by the Promethean fire — more 
 blessed by the enchanting powers of divine eloquence. 
 My mission at present seems to be to utter, in plain 
 style and understandable language, new lessons in 
 spiritual progress, and to explain and enforce old 
 lessons in a new and more practical, useful, soul- 
 exalting, body-saving form. 
 
 I find a great many social and religious sewers in 
 fashionable homes that need to be thoroughly cleansed ; 
 and one to enter upon such a labor must take off kid- 
 gloves and put on corduroy over-alls. And hence, 
 although it is hardly the form accepted in the so-styled 
 best circles, (where dress passes par, and truth is 
 quoted at fifty per cent, discount,) yet for the accom- 
 plishment of important ends in the day and hour and 
 minute in which we breathe, such methods and dresses, 
 and such unvarnished presentations of truth, are 
 deemed expedient and appropriate. Therefore, as 
 there are so many blessed witnesses to come after me, 
 who will bring to you the clearly-defined pictures and 
 express the highest melody of progressive truth, there 
 
THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 29 
 
 seems to be for me the rougher labor of laying the 
 granite foundation on which the temple of strong, vig- 
 orous Freedom, and of sturdy thought, can be planted 
 and erected in safety as upon the everlasting hills. 
 
 I come before you at this time with the question, 
 u Who — What is the world's true Redeemer ?" 
 
 A redeemer is one who takes up a circulation that 
 has had a very wide diffusion on the credit system. 
 The popular theory is that, from the first, mankind 
 have been doing a credit business with the kingdom of 
 heaven ; that the first thing we did as a race was to 
 run into an everlasting, deadly, and diabolical debt 
 with the Divine government, which is under the man- 
 agement and administration of that wifeless and melan- 
 choly trinity of co-equal gods — Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost. Hence, according to this theory, the world 
 needs some person, or thing, or principle, or transub- 
 stantiation, to liquidate this solid and solemn condition 
 of things, and thus put mankind again on " interceding 
 ground" — on the basis of a possible credit and accept- 
 ance at the bar of the Eternal in the heavens. 
 
 This, I repeat, is the general theory among so- 
 called Christians. In searching human history, how- 
 ever, we find this popular theory to be nothing more 
 than a hypothesis, based on Hebrew mythology and 
 superstition; But this Hebrew mythology was origi- 
 nated in a genuine spiritual perception — crude, indis- 
 tinct, and unphilosophical, but a perfect truth in 
 germ — that, in the great future, mankind would come 
 individually to realize that they were full of imperfec- 
 tions and weaknesses, and needed a saving power, a 
 redemptive personage, an uplifting energy, a purifying 
 
30 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 principle. Thus originated the hypothesis of a per- 
 sonal Savior. What was first a mere speculation, at 
 last became established as a positive fact. 
 
 The beauty and boundless catholicity of the Har- 
 monial Dispensation are seen in the fact that, in freely 
 and fearlessly sounding the deeps of all human history, 
 its teachers come at last to accept the spiritual essence 
 of all opinions in the world's religious creeds. They 
 discover that in all things there is a sovereign, eternal 
 truth, and their business seems to be, in part, to take 
 off the coating and clear away the rubbish of the 
 past — to divest history and mythology and experience 
 of adhering superstitions, and thus aid to exhibit the 
 majesty and harmonious perfections of the divine gov- 
 ernment, in its non-supernatural, inimitable, eternal 
 beauty. 
 
 Hence we begin by rejecting the word " Redeemer," 
 because it is a term developed by an hypothesis which 
 is in itself erroneous. We discover that mankind do 
 not stand in any such debit-and-credit relation to the 
 kingdom of heaven. We are not doing a day-book 
 and ledger business with God and Nature. Every 
 instant of time the account in the " book of life" is 
 balanced. The Bible is paper, and on the church theory 
 jit certainly is a paper basis of credit. Politicians and 
 ; jnerchants, bankers and corporations, profess to dread 
 and deplore this universal expansion of paper cur- 
 i rency. Indeed ! Then why do they not dread and 
 equally deplore it in the religion of the world ? It is 
 nothing but paper currency in the popular churches, 
 and much of it is exceedingly spurious at that. Multi- 
 tudes of early Scriptures were counterfeits. This fact 
 
• THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 3i 
 
 is inseparable from the history of all past negotiations 
 on this paper basis in religion. In the Council of Nice 
 the manuscripts which were rejected would make more 
 than two such Bibles as are read in the churches of 
 New York city. Those scriptures were repudiated as 
 counterfeit representations of the real paper currency 
 which it was supposed God had authorized to be dif- 
 fused among mankind. On this theory the Divine 
 government must have been exceedingly limited in' 
 suitable material for specie ! The pavements of Heaven 
 must have consumed all the gold and other metal they 
 had on hand. The New Jerusalem, according to that 
 old opinion, was so expensive in its metallic basis and 
 ornamentations that the Trinity could not afford a 
 specie basis for religion and morality. Of course they 
 were obliged to issue several varieties of paper cur- 
 rency, and these are what men call the " Old and New 
 Testaments" — legal tender notes, and notes promissory 
 and on mortgages. 
 
 Now I ask, Why not be as reasonable in religion, 
 theology, and spiritual necessities, as in this common 
 affair of banking and of mercantile business ? The 
 answer is that men dare to use their reason, their com- 
 mon sense, and their educational sense as well, in all 
 matters pertaining to the actualities of outward life, 
 and the* same men have resolved to be as nearly con- 
 summate block-heads and stumbling-blocks in matters 
 of religion, as they can possibly be and still maintain a 
 reputation for standing at the front of popular educa- 
 tion, good manners, and good breeding. This univer- 
 sal acceptance of Reason on all practical questions, and 
 this universal rejection of the same sovereign power on 
 
32 MORNING LECTURES. • 
 
 all questions in religion and spirituality, constitutes one 
 of the most astonishing anomalies, one of the most con- 
 summate illustrations'of imbecility, that ever started 
 this side of the upward " Fall" of the first human pair. 
 
 This doctrine of doing all worldly business on what 
 is termed " a paper basis" is, at the present time, quite 
 unpopular. (It is not unpopular with me. I like it, 
 and believe it will supersede the metals.) But in the 
 world at large the plan is beginning to be rejected. 
 Consequently, one of these days the same spirit of 
 " repudiation" will strike into the organizations of 
 religion. Then the kingdom of heaven will be appealed 
 to — through vigorous prayers — for an exhibition of its 
 supposed specie basis. 
 
 Is it not remarkable that people reject the idea of 
 Progress in religion, in all the spiritual principles of 
 human society, and at the same time accept it on almost 
 every other subject in the domain of human life? It is 
 everywhere held that man must not attempt to investi- 
 gate the spiritual with his Reason. But, thank heaven ! v 
 Bishop Colenso has had the sublime audacity, in the 
 midst of all his labors in heathendom, to make sound- 
 ings down through the so-called infallible Pentateuch. 
 He found and published to mankind, that the bottom 
 had fallen out long before it was ever put in — that is, 
 he broadly intimates that Moses is historically a myth. 
 According to the history, the chronology, the mathe- 
 matics of .the Bible, good old Moses did not personally 
 exist. But we find that in the spiritual history of the 
 world the great Law-maker did live and does exist. 
 This interior reality is all that is necessary for man- 
 kind. It is of little consequence, for example, whether 
 
THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 33 
 
 " Faith, Hope, and Charity, 55 were three young women, 
 excessively beautiful, in first-rate health, with fine 
 digestion, good teeth, fine hair, and well acquainted 
 with the wants of the human heart, or whether they 
 were and are merely artistic personifications of interior 
 sentiments and natural human necessities. It matters 
 little ; it matters not at all. The point is this : are 
 they faithful representatives of actual principles and 
 needs in the constitution of the human soul ? All the 
 world say " Yea," and therefore, " Hope, Faith, and 
 Charity, 5 ' are idolized images in our parlors — beautiful 
 goddesses for the adoring soul to gaze upon — repre- 
 sentatives of the internal, the eternal, and ever-present 
 necessities of the human spirit — hope, faith, charity ! 
 
 So Moses is related forever to the spiritual life and 
 history of the human world. So is Jesus a spiritual 
 fact — independent of history, mathematics, chronology, 
 and the Bible. Whether they lived or did not live, is 
 of little moment. It will be of little profit to persons 
 who live so near the summit of the nineteenth century 
 to make inquiries as to whether certain historical cha- 
 racters ever lived or not. Some minds seem to think 
 that, because the old systems are so pervious to the 
 waves of thought and investigation, therefore old 
 theology holds no essential truth. Many ministers are 
 thus troubled. The miserable gentlemen ! They are 
 affrighted at Bishop Colenso because they know nothing 
 of essential Spiritualism. They know nothing what- 
 ever of the fundamental principles of the Harmonial 
 Philosophy, by which the essentials of all things are 
 saved ; so that nothing worth saving is lost' in history, 
 theology, or mythology. If the world had more real 
 2* 
 
34 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 intelligent, scientific spirituality in its religion — in its 
 apprehensions of religion — it would never tremble if 
 the bishops and priests of all countries came out en 
 masse to-morrow and declared that the Bible itself, 
 from end to end — in its literature, meanings, princi- 
 ples, and applications — was nothing but a worthless 
 " paper currency" bequeathed to mankind through the 
 Jewish Rabbi and early Christian Fathers, who firmly 
 believed in their own honestly mistaken judgments and 
 superstitions. 
 
 No : give men more knowledge of real spiritual 
 truth, teach them of the philosophical depths of the 
 immortal spirit, and they will have no more silly fears 
 and hysterical tremblings lest the Bible should disap- 
 pear and all Testaments be swept from the face of the 
 earth. Suppose a great consuming fire should sweep 
 across the prairies of the West and burn all the har- 
 vests that are garnered — with their fifteen to twenty- 
 five miles of wheat and corn preserved in appropriate 
 buildings — would the world despair of future cereal 
 harvests? Would farmers and laborers never hope 
 and believe that other corn-fields would again rustle in 
 harmony with the music of the heavens? Would 
 mothers and farming-maids never again look with faitk 
 for great thrift and burly health flowing up from the 
 under-world, which brings in the new shocks of corn 
 and fills the familiar scene with the affluence of new 
 harvests ? No, no ! " Hope springs eternal in the 
 human breast." The soul of the world would still feel 
 assurance of future abundance. The summer comes, 
 and with it come also those beautiful invigorating 
 showers which awaken the slumbering principles of 
 
THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 35 
 
 » 
 
 vegetation, and once more they bring oceans of food for 
 the waiting millions, and all are fed. 
 
 So, also, if the present great spiritual and histori- 
 cal criticisms should sweep violently over the earth — 
 rolling like the flood of Noah, sweeping Bibles and all 
 books on other subjects wholly out of the world — 
 nevertheless the men and women who feel the depths 
 of these spiritual truths would not for one moment 
 tremble or be cast down, except, perhaps, in a passing 
 sorrow for the loss of so much property, representative 
 of the industry and education of the past — for it would 
 indeed be saddening to behold the destruction of the 
 labors of those who have lived before us, and who have 
 worked faithfully both night and day for years and 
 centuries. The regret on this point would be deep, 
 universal, and sorrowful ; but there would be no 
 spiritual trembling or vague fear ; for very soon the 
 divine harvests of Ideas would come again, more 
 spiritual books than ever, and far better Testaments 
 of truth, would unfold on the innumerable trees of 
 human life. Singular, therefore, is it not, that men do 
 not seek to comprehend and apply the law of Progress 
 in their theologies and religion ? It is because they 
 fear, from the mere influence of their education, to use 
 that sublimest power, the harmony of all the facul- 
 ties — Reason. 
 
 If there was ever a flower from the soil of heaven 
 planted in the garden of the human soul, blooming with 
 an ever-increasing beauty and with an eternal fra- 
 grance, it is Reason. Men instinctively dread the 
 absence of it in their children and in themselves ; but 
 nothing human ever dreads or deplores its presence. 
 
36 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 I 
 
 The most reasonable person is the one you are inclined 
 to love most. Eeason always implies harmony of the 
 faculties, for it receives happy contributions from all 
 of the affections and sentiments. Reason, in this high 
 sense, does not merely mean the power to think and 
 talk logically from premises to conclusion, or legiti- 
 mately to go in reflection from the outside to the center. 
 It means the power to see not only outward facts, but 
 the essential principles, also, by which alone the real 
 significance of the facts can be comprehended. It is 
 the German method. It begins at the heart of things, 
 with fundamental Nature — is deductive, and goes thence 
 outwardly, like God, through all the infinite spaces. 
 God does not live and think on the surface of the uni- 
 verse as Bacon did. The Divine is not strictly an 
 inductive philosopher. Every man of reason and every 
 woman of intuition knows that God is in the deepest 
 Heart — an inexhaustible fountain of Love, as well as 
 of Wisdom — expanding through all that illimitable 
 structure which we call " the physical universe." 
 
 Now God's method of living in the universe is the 
 method of Reason in mankind. Rooting itself in Intui- 
 tion, starting up with the lightning flash of thought, 
 and with often an inexpressible conviction of what is 
 and what is not true — such is Reason, blooming over . 
 the summits of the thinking and contemplative facul- 
 ties — the first born, the last born — the perfect grouping 
 of all the elements and attributes that go to make up 
 the immortal human mind. 
 
 And yet men dare not trust Reason in religion ! 
 Behold how all the pulpitarians and crabsterians use 
 Reason to prove that Reason is not to be trusted ! Go 
 
THE WORLD S TRUE REDEEMER. 37 
 
 to our logical clergymen — many of them arc tolerably 
 well-educated in logic — and hear how they habitually 
 employ Reason, almost like thoroughly trained law- 
 yers, to prove that Reason is most treacherous and 
 unreasonable, and that it is unworthy of consultation in 
 the presence of the Word of God ! 
 
 Now I stand before you to announce the necessity 
 of progress in the world's religion, and hence my sub- 
 ject is : " The World's True Redeemer." 
 
 I. In the first place I affirm that there is implanted 
 in man a natural desire for knowledge. Men say that 
 true human education did not begin until Christianity 
 was perfectly established. It is astonishing that they 
 dare so assert, when it is known that Egypt and 
 Greece blossomed with institutions of learning, which 
 have not been exceeded by anything educational in the 
 present century — only we have more of it diffused 
 among the people, and hence have made great progress 
 in the adaptation of true education to human necessi- 
 ties. But in the fundamental germs of enlightenment 
 and civilization the world was largely supplied centu- 
 ries before Christianity was established. 
 
 I repeat^ men desire Knowledge. They have an 
 ' implanted desire to know more ; they dread ignorance, 
 and they repel with indignation that which is a recog- 
 nized discredit to the Reason with which they are 
 endowed. I know a perfectly honest, healthy, splen- 
 did-looking, wealthy proprietor of many whale-ships, 
 who very frequently blushes because he is not educated. 
 He began in the cabin, next went before the mast, and 
 then became second mate, and so on and up until he 
 went as sole master of his vessel. At last he became 
 
38 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the proprietor of many whaling-ships and store-houses. 
 He staid at home in his comfortable mansion by the 
 sea, and saw his many ships sail out and return to port, 
 bringing him wealth and luxury ; but he knew nothing 
 of French, nothing of Greek and Hebrew, and so he 
 fancied, as he was not educated in spiritual principles, 
 that he was shamefully destitute of education. He had 
 never acquired the power of flourishing his pen, so that 
 he could not even write his own name very well. But 
 that man was most trustworthy. He was the trusted 
 friend of every man who needed his assistance and his 
 benefactions. Still he would not accept the smallest 
 public office in his native town, nor assist in adjusting 
 public affairs, just because he was consciously deficient 
 in the rudiments of Education. So he blushed and 
 remained at home, or rode quietly out in his carriage, 
 looking equal to any man that walks in the halls of 
 Congress. Thus the wealthy sailor lived, and at last 
 went completely out of sight in the midst of great accu- 
 mulations of wealth — all because he knew that he was 
 not educated ! I relate this case to show that people 
 naturally repel ignorance, and that most persons blush 
 when they know that they are not well-informed and 
 accomplished. It is a voice illustrating the natural 
 desire of the human heart for Knowledge. 
 
 Now who shall say that Knowledge shall not travel 
 into religious matters, as well as into navigation, into 
 matters of business, into the banking arrangements, 
 chemistry, the actual or the speculative sciences ? The 
 desire for Knowledge with reference to spiritual things 
 is just as powerful as the desire to know anything with 
 reference to other departments of human interest. I 
 
THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 39 
 
 think this question answers itself in every man's intui- 
 tion. 
 
 II. In the second place I mention that man has a 
 natural desire to make his knowledge Useful. . He 
 craves and seeks to acquire natural and useful Know- 
 ledge. When a boy sees a pair of skates, he wishes to 
 know how he can use them. If he sees a ball, he wants 
 to know how he can play with it; if a hook and line, 
 to know how he can fish with them. So with the man. 
 When he comes to recognize the facts of Science, or the 
 development of these great discoveries in the world, he 
 yearns to grasp them at once with the hand of Use. 
 Why not carry that desire for Use into Religion ? 
 Why shall we not make our knowledge in spiritual 
 things useful ? The question answers itself. We can 
 and we must. It is the inevitable tendency of the soul 
 of every born human being to outgrow ignorance and 
 to commence the investigation of spiritual truths. 
 Mankind must make intelligent incursions through all 
 these temples of ignorance, and error, and supersti- 
 tion — and over them, and through them, and in the 
 midst of their demolition — he must acquire useful 
 knowledge in spiritual and religious truths. 
 
 III. In the third place I will mention that man has 
 a natural desire to be consistent in his Knowledge. He 
 desires this jewel above all, in order to show the world 
 that he knows the true use of his Knowledge, and to 
 show that his use of it is exactly logical and every- 
 where intelligent and symmetrical. If a man knows a 
 spiritual truth, he wants to make a consistent applica- 
 tion of it. If he knows a scientific truth, he wishes 
 also to be consistent with that. 
 
40 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 This illustrates the intimacy with which one kind 
 of knowledge is connected with another. If a man 
 knows something of anatomy, he longs for a little phy- 
 siology to make his anatomical science not only useful, 
 but consistent ; and if he has a knowledge of physi- 
 ology he says : "Now, chemistry is really necessary to 
 make my physiology at once useful and consistent/' So 
 he goes into chemical questions and investigates as far 
 as his opportunities and prejudices will permit. If he 
 gets interested deep enough in chemistry, he begins to 
 look at the matter with a still broader view, and he 
 says, "I must make these things useful in my daily life. 
 I must show that I have real and positive knowledge. 
 And, in order to make that exhibition indisputable, I 
 must give it expression in my duties, in my daily avo- 
 cations, and in my worldly career." 
 
 This illustrates the desire of the human to be con- 
 sistent. In the Churches, both ministers and their 
 followers plant themselves on certain principles or 
 premises, and each one says : " I must reason correctly 
 from my fundamental propositions." If a clergyman 
 believes in the Trinity, his doxology at the end of the 
 sermon and hymn will always be a logical conclusion 
 from his creed. If the minister believes in eternal pun- 
 ishment, he will conduct himself like Henry Ward 
 Beecher, who, although naturally anxious to discard 
 the trammels of old theology, will, nevertheless, per- 
 haps at the end of every third week's sermon bring out 
 a logical hell-fire conclusion in harmony with an. 
 education received from his earthly father's orthodox 
 premises. 
 
 This desire to be "consistent," too often allies 
 
THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 41 
 
 itself with the Satan of Pride. Some men having com- 
 mitted themselves openly and above board to certain 
 fundamental opinions in politics or in religion, are 
 actuated by the feelings of pride, so much so that they 
 cannot be honorably open and simple-minded enough 
 to know where or what a new truth is. They desire to 
 stand by the old, and not to budge. They cling to the 
 time-worn falsehood very strongly ; for they design to 
 show, by their adhesion to it, that they have indubita- 
 ble evidence that they are not mistaken. Thus Mr. 
 
 H , a flourishing merchant of this city, in conversation 
 
 in Williamsburg several years ago, said to me that he 
 was "a believer in total depravity." Then came the 
 
 question: "What are your evidences, Mr. H V 9 
 
 He answered by enumerating human evils, piling evi- 
 dence upon evidence taken from history, quoted the 
 crimes of society, the sins of individual men, &c, &c. 
 Then we conversed concerning the hereditary and cir- 
 cumstantial causes of those evils and iniquities. 
 
 At length he yielded the point somewhat, and said : 
 " Well, to be sure, special circumstances and lack of 
 balance in phrenological organization, deficiency in the 
 strength of will to resist evil, and various temptations, 
 which flow in from the outside world upon the person, 
 no doubt do explain away the intentional cause of 
 many evils and vices ;" and so he measurably yielded 
 the point that the human heart was not totally de- 
 praved, seeing that so many iniquities and evils came 
 from the sphere of conditions and circumstances. 
 
 " Well," said I, " Mr. H , where now is your 
 
 evidence? 55 That unfortunate question at once re- 
 minded him of his position, and also aroused his pride 
 
42 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of logical consistency, and said he: "I have, Mr. 
 Davis, an unfailing evidence of total depravity." 
 
 "Indeed?" ' "Yes." "Well, Mr. H , where do 
 
 you find that unfailing evidence ?" " In my own heart. 
 Mr. Davis." 
 
 I told him I admired the self-sacrificing spirit he 
 manifested, but I detested the pride which caused him 
 to do it; for he probably knew that he owned as good 
 a heart as anybody, and it was not true that he went 
 to his heart to find " total depravity." It was the ambi- 
 tious desire to be " consistent" — the Devil of Pride — 
 that held him to his first propositions. The imp of 
 darkness thus shut down the vail over the good man's 
 eyes, so that he dared not see the higher and more 
 simple truth with all its rosy splendor. And so he 
 became the zealous editor of the Churchman. His un- 
 failing evidence of total depravity was simply the sac- 
 rifice of his own mind to his own avowed theory. He 
 would rather stand before me a self-acknowledged 
 spiritual criminal than to say that he really had no 
 absolute evidence of total depravity. 
 
 Now the world is just in this condition of pride and 
 fear with reference to the Trinity, or the doctrine of 
 eternal punishments. The people and priests have not 
 yet simple, spiritual, and interior childhood enough to 
 acknowledge that facts, heretofore accepted, are per- 
 fectly invalidated by new scientific and historic evi- 
 dence. They are not large enough to receive the new 
 truth, and to welcome it, as happy mothers receive the 
 new-born child. 
 
 Men love, in their pride, to be " consistent." But 
 in such passion they make great life-long mistakes. If 
 
THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 43 
 
 I had labored to be logical and "consistent" in any of 
 my discourses, no doubt I should have been, if possible, 
 less useful to you than I have. It is a remarkable fact 
 that I have sometimes attempted to teach you, but at 
 the end of the Lecture I found, not unfrequently, that 
 I knew much more than when I began, and was, per- * 
 haps, more benefited and more instructed than any 
 other person. It was because a new phase of a great 
 principle had been revealed to the interior, showing me 
 that my internal life was still sensitively awake to the 
 New, and that I was and am not wedded foolishly and 
 indissolubly to the past, either personal or general. 
 
 Now I wish to call your attention to the points 
 gained in this discourse: First. Internal desire for 
 Knowledge ; secondly, for Useful Knowledge ; and 
 thirdly, for Consistent Knowledge. 
 
 What is it in man that thirsts for knowledge ? 
 This inquiry answers itself in this way — that the har- 
 mony of all the faculties and attributes in the human 
 soul constitutes what we call Wisdom. The Author of 
 that harmony is also the Author of Wisdom. Persons 
 who are yet not harmonized in spiritual principles, have 
 only glimmering intuitions of Wisdom. It means the 
 axis of the human mind coming to a parallel, so to say, 
 in the plane of its orbit, with reference to the harmony 
 of Deity. The unity of man's spirit with God's spirit 
 is felt instantly when the fullness of wisdom is reached. 
 It is the new birth. You then feel that your spirit is 
 attuned to the harmony of eternal principles. The 
 harmony of love shows you at once that you are part 
 of an indestructible Brotherhood. Y«ur partialities 
 and jealousies die down, your little feelings and selfish 
 
44 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 traits depart, and the spirit of Fraternal Love, like the 
 dove that went forth from the Ark,*wings its way from 
 your soul towards every son and daughter of the world. 
 If you can rise to a feeling of that kind even once in a 
 month, you have evidence that a new birth is taking 
 place within you. 
 
 Furthermore, when you rise to see that the law of 
 gravity is not merely physical, but spiritual also ; that 
 the laws that regulate mechanism and chemistry are 
 spiritual as well as physical and mathematical, then 
 you have attained to some perception of Wisdom. 
 
 Wisdom sounds through the physical and reaches to 
 the profound depths where God sleeps and wakes every 
 instant of time. 
 
 The penetration of the chemist is but a physical 
 approach to the interior of things. He will take a sub- 
 stance into the laboratory and analyze it. He arrives 
 at its constituents and names them; and they are thus 
 marked and classified. And he finds that, by recombi- 
 nations, they make this, that, and the other substance. 
 But just where the chemist leaves off, the soundings of 
 Wisdom commence. The chemist fails to touch the 
 vital principle by which constituents are united to 
 make the various compounds. He knows that he fails 
 to reach the point where spirit moves the body, and so 
 he goes once more to the threshold of inquiry. When 
 he arrives at that place he stops short, but Wisdom hos- 
 pitably opens the door into the vestibule of the immor- 
 tal temple, just at this particular critical point ; and 
 thus, where the chemist, with his material methods of 
 probing and analyzing, must, per force of his material 
 methods, cease, there the penetrative spiritual philo- 
 
THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 45 
 
 sopher commences his investigations. And thence he is 
 led out through an infinitude of spirit culture. 
 
 Wisdom commences, I say, just where Science fails 
 in its power to go. You know there are persons who all 
 the time are in bondage to the sense. They behold gravi- 
 tation, but to them the law itself is physical. Look at 
 our material orthodox clergymen. They read the 
 ponderous religious quarterlies — or the monthlies — 
 which are lumbering and tediously elephantine in the 
 treatment of things ; what kind of knowledge have 
 they ? Talk with the most learned of these gentlemen, 
 who day after day visit our best public libraries — men 
 who dig through the great volumes that come across 
 the Atlantic — and you will see how utterly destitute 
 they are of internal perceptions of scientific and philo- 
 sophic truths. Being without knowledge in these mat- 
 ters, many of them are skeptics ; and although they 
 attend church Sunday after Sunday, and go through all 
 the forms, yet in their judgments they have no faith 
 either in theology or religion. 
 
 The world's true Redeemer is Wisdom, because 
 it passes through the dress to that which is essential, 
 to the spirit through the body, to the life within the 
 law, to the science within the substance ; and not only 
 so, but makes all of its discoveries at once consistent, 
 useful, and desirable. But Wisdom seems, to most 
 people, to be vague and abstract. Men do not see how 
 they can put the teachings of Wisdom into operation. 
 Well, then, let us see if we cannot make this truth use- 
 ful, consistent, and practical. * 
 
 Wisdom recognizes, as a central principle, the 
 balance of things — -the equilibrium of forces, the adapt- 
 
46 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 ation of one substance to another, of one force to 
 another, of a fish to the water, of a bird to the air, of 
 light to the eye, of sound to the ear, of flavors to the 
 taste, of odors to the sense of smell, of substances to 
 the touch, and so on throughout the whole system. 
 
 What is the image we see represented in poetry and 
 in art on this subject ? The image is Justice. She 
 holds the scales, which represent equality of propor- 
 tion. Justice is the central law. It is recognized as 
 the finest, most universal, and the highest expression 
 of the Infinite Mind. The entire harmony of the planet- 
 ary worlds, by which the stars move on in their sub- 
 lime courses, never varying from the moment the 
 pyramids were built to the present hour ! — in all these 
 splendid, vast, and incomprehensible systems, which 
 make up the heavens — comets burning their way 
 through space, crossing each other's paths beautifully, 
 like well-trained dancers waltzing on lines most 
 familiar to their minds ; and the planets, too, moving 
 on like respectable citizens in the high walks of the 
 sidereal heavens— all. in never-changing harmony with 
 the original design. What causes that? It is what 
 Wisdom recognizes as God's central law — Justice. 
 
 Bring it to the person, and what does it do? 
 
 It gives us the two hands, two feet, two depart- 
 ments to the brain, two eyes, two ears — doubleness, 
 duality throughout — all expressions of God's central 
 law, Justice. The foot cannot repel the head, nor the 
 head the foot. The cerebrum cannot repel the cere- 
 bellum, the cerebelftm cannot do without the cerebrum. 
 Love warms Reason ; Reason cannot exist and flourish 
 without Love. How is it that a man -can raise his 
 
THE WORLD S TRUE REDEEMER. . 47 
 
 arm ? It is done by the laws of contraction and expan- 
 sion — the two systems in harmony with each other. 
 Justice breathes throughout all the system. 
 
 Again, we find in the world what is called warmth — 
 red warmth — warmth which is mellow, which is pene- 
 trative, invigorating, and expanding. Wherever you 
 find balance, you find warmth. What is it ? It is God's 
 central principle — Love. Not the physical universe, 
 but that which gives us a physical universe, is naturally 
 full of warmth, flowing from the center through all 
 the minutest ramifications of the system — Love. 
 
 Now what is this all-pervading Love ? Is it a Love 
 which stops with a substance ? Does it exist only in 
 one heart ? Does it take no interest in anything out- 
 side of itself? You know that the selfish love of the 
 spirit brings no happiness to itself. Its happiness 
 comes from its dependence upon the corresponding love' 
 of another, then the two depend upon a third, and the 
 three upon a fourth, and the four upon the existence of 
 the whole world without. 
 
 The system of human life and society is entirely 
 dependent. One part is warmed by contact with 
 another, and the heat is expanded and removed accord- 
 ing to the principle of equilibrium. This is the divine 
 Love. It is central with Nature, just as Justice is cen- 
 tral with Deity. 
 
 Deity and Nature are counterparts, equals, and 
 compeers ; they are husband and wife, father and mo- 
 ther, wisdom and love, and are perpetually bearing 
 children. The warmth and the balance go hand in 
 hand, arm in arm, their arms about each other's necks, 
 working without discord through the illimitable spaces. 
 
48 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Hence Love, which is not limited and selfish, and 
 Justice, when married, constitute loving-justice — the 
 best practical definition of the world's true Redeemer. 
 
 Justice without Love is the sun without heat — with- 
 out its power to fertilize, and beautify, and adorn the 
 world; and the world without its Justice would be the 
 sun with only heat, that would burn, and parch, and 
 consume, and destroy all things. The balance of the 
 universe itself would be destroyed, so that where har- 
 mony dwelt, discord and conflagration would prevail. 
 Thus it would be in a world full of Love, of warmth, 
 but without Justice and light. 
 
 Try this principle in your homes. I know a young 
 man in one of the avenues of this city who has been so 
 petted and caressed by an over-loving mother — a ma- 
 ternal soul, who had Love in abundance, but not a 
 corresponding sense of Justice — and that misdirected 
 son is now the source of her daily anxieties and moment- 
 ary miseries. She is every week put on the cross, and 
 is sorely tried like one pulled joint by joint on the rack 
 of torture. Why ? Because when a little baby and a 
 child he had all things given him that he wanted; 
 never was practically instructed by Justice to recognize 
 the rights of another child. Justice was left out of her 
 Love. Thus the little one came up under the arms of ma- 
 ternal warmth ; and this very day that son, now a young 
 man in the city of New York, is carrying poignards and 
 stilettos in his disposition. He is to his mother a ser- 
 pent that was nurtured in a house full of Love without 
 corresponding Justice. 
 
 Try this principle with vegetations of any kind. 
 Let them have the warmth which the sun might give., 
 
THE WORLD'S TRUE REDEEMER. 40 
 
 but without its regulating, adjusting, and balancing 
 power, and soon you will find that the beautiful plants 
 and harvests would disappear, crisped, parched, and 
 destroyed, because the sun had not given down its cool- 
 ing and harmonizing power, which would bring 
 balance, and equilibrium, and proportion, and beauty, 
 and symmetry, as well as the all-important results of 
 warmth. I think you perceive that the world's true 
 Savior is loving-justice, and that Wisdom is the 
 apprehending and applying faculty. 
 
 How necessary it is that men should apply this 
 principle throughout. I will not detain you at this 
 time by describing its influence in the various depart- 
 ments of human interests. If, for example, these 
 fashionable ladies could be made to see the injustice of 
 their styles, with reference to other equally good ladies 
 who are circumstantially unfortunate, they would not 
 be guilty of another departure from wisdom. These 
 fashion-ladies have been brought up under the warmth 
 and wealth of the heart, without the cooling, regulat- 
 ing, and equalizing principle of social Justice. They 
 have learned their arts from Mother Nature ; but they 
 have none of the wisdom of Father God. 
 
 So they are all fashionable ladies ! They go to the 
 churches. They would not attend a Progressive Meet- 
 ing, lest it might impress an everlasting spot upon 
 their reputations! And yet they do openly and un- 
 blushingly that which I believe not a lady in this cause 
 would do. There is in nearly all they do a terrible 
 wrong, which badly affects the domestic who gets the 
 dinner, and the boy who serves at the table, and still 
 worse, the children, who are readiest to imitate the 
 3 
 
50 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 conduct of adults. I attended a party on one occa- 
 sion where there were forty ladies exquisitely arrayed 
 in the fashionable dresses of the day. By a careful com- 
 putation I made out exactly 720 yards of silk and satin 
 and costly brocade. Think of it, ye Christians! Seven 
 hundred and twenty yards of most expensive cloth, on 
 forty New York church-going women ! I have also seen 
 a party of forty faithful and industrious women, who had 
 scarcely ten yards over the mere necessities of passable 
 dress. They had scrimped themselves to just that pat- 
 tern which was necessary for convenience — of course 
 according to the style, so as not to be peculiar and 
 conspicuous ; but the calico they wore was way down 
 in price, and they were ashamed to appear among the 
 finely dressed. Yet these costly pagodas, these fashion- 
 able religious temples, are flashing and sparkling with 
 Stewart's iniquities. Alas ! they have not yet heard the 
 central gospel of God — Justice — down in the heart deep 
 enough to regulate their habits and characters. There- 
 fore, with all their religious professions, they are not 
 friendly to the kingdom of righteousness. 
 
 Finally, I suggest to clergymen and to all teachers 
 of public morals that they at once abandon the vicious 
 doctrine of the vicarious atonement, as well as the 
 preaching of all other mythological methods of getting 
 rid of sin and evil, and come immediately on to the 
 everlasting basis of loving-justice — the world's true 
 Redeemer. 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ■ " The original 
 
 Of all things is one thing. Creation is 
 One whole. The differences a mortal sees 
 Are diverse only to the finite mind." 
 
 The cheerful, yet solemn subject, announced for this 
 morning, should have attracted the editorial staff of 
 " The World" but it is more remarkable that there are 
 not present editors of other and more loyal sheets who 
 take an interest in the end of the " world." 
 
 My subject is the great question that frequently 
 agitates thousands of honest religionists. In treating 
 upon this subject I remark : 
 
 First, That the human mind begins to reason by 
 taking a literal view of everything, whether spiritual or 
 material. Its first apprehensions are confined strictly 
 to the apparent — to what appears — to the seeming. 
 Wisdom, mounting on the wings of untrammeled Ideal- 
 ity, penetrates to that which lives within. This state 
 of mind judges "not from appearances, but with a 
 righteous judgment" — that is, from the core outwardly, 
 and not from the mere husk, burr, clothing, protection, 
 appearance, or representation : thus wisdom renders an 
 infallible verdict concerning that which is interior, 
 spiritual, and eternal. To think or reason sensuously, 
 is an error — a mistake — which is scarcely reprehensi- 
 
52 MORNING LECTTJBES. 
 
 ble, hardly blameworthy, because it is the inevitable 
 step of the human mind when beginning its progress in 
 experience, thought, wisdom, and intuition. 
 
 Hence there prevails a universal externalism among 
 crude religionists with regard to the "End of the 
 World." There are scores of persons, who, judging 
 from the Bible sentences, fancy they read the fiery 
 doom of the physical universe. All who live and move 
 and have a being within the world, save " God and his 
 holy angels," are marked down for a resurrected 
 destruction. " His holy angels," according to the 
 theory, will be manufactured out of certain earthly 
 religionists, as their eternal reward for having believed 
 the delectable creed in advance of their skeptical neigh- 
 bors, even though the latter class may be respectable 
 members of popular churches. The holy and sacred 
 class are called " Second Adventists" — very pugna- 
 cious, warm-headed, discussionary characters, energetic 
 and truth-loving, over- fond of debate — especially from 
 a literal apprehension of the teachings of the Testa- 
 ments. Taking the sensuous interpretation as the basis 
 of all their reasoning, they have erected a system of 
 theologic thought (based wholly upon literal apprehen- 
 sions,) which they imagine logically leads — mathemati- 
 cally, prophetically, figuratively, and according to the 
 biblical almanac — directly to a tragical and chemical 
 termination of the physical world in which sinners now 
 live. They fancy that they recognize the prophecy to 
 be straight from God — of course through the mediation 
 of the old prophets — and think that Christ announced 
 the same awful fact whenever he spoke of the " end of 
 the world." Beholding this unbroken chain of an- 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 53 
 
 nouncement, this concatenation of prophecies, this 
 unmistakable literalization of the promises of God, the 
 Adventists naturally work themselves up to believe 
 that, in a very short time, the dissolution of the globe 
 and the end of all physical things will surely come to 
 pass. All this religious imagination is based on the 
 fact that the mind first takes a literal view of ancient 
 spiritual writings. It is the mind's first step in theology, 
 in spirituality, as in everything else it encounters on 
 the road of progressive thought, experience, and 
 wisdom. 
 
 The next step the mind takes as it expands from 
 intuition, is a figurative view of the Bible language. 
 Minds in this state apprehend that the old prophets and 
 the new apostles spoke in metaphors, wrote emblematic- 
 ally, with great opulence using figurative expressions. 
 Bible-believers, thus thinking, throw off the literal 
 letter and the materialistic conception, and swim out 
 into the open sea of pictorial and figurative interpreta- 
 tion. They now seek for examples, correspondences, 
 contrasts, and analogies. Swedenborg, for illustration, 
 being both a scientific thinker and a philosophical reli- 
 gionist, started more systematically to give to all figura- 
 tive, emblematic, metaphoric, and symbolic expressions, 
 the basis and dignity of a Science — reducing, in his 
 own opinion, all scriptural externalisms to an intelligi- 
 ble spiritual account. His principle of translation was 
 something more than analogy, something more than 
 mere comparison, something different from the purely 
 figurative, something different from the symbol — it was 
 what he called the " Science of Correspondence" — 
 meaning that the internal of an object, person, thought, 
 
54 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 affection, subject, or thing, is always represented in its 
 externals, and vice versa ; that while a sheep will rep- 
 resent nothing but a sheep to the external eye looking 
 over the fence into the field, at the same time to the eye 
 of the spiritual mind the sheep naturally represents and 
 really seems to be nothing but the sentiment or princi- 
 ple of innocence. De Guay, in his " Letters [No. XII] 
 to a Man of the World," gives the following familiar 
 examples : " The earth in general corresponds to man ; 
 its different productions, which serve for the nourish- 
 ment of men, correspond to different kinds of goods 
 and truths — the solid aliments to various kinds of 
 goods, and the liquid to various kinds of truths. A 
 house corresponds to the will and the understanding, 
 which constitute the human mind: by house we here 
 understand all that serves for lodging or retreat, the 
 palace as well as the hut. Garments correspond to 
 truths or falses, according to the substance, color, and 
 form, which they present. Animals correspond to the 
 affections ; those which are useful and gentle to good 
 affections, those which are hurtful and bad to evil 
 affections; gentle and beautiful birds to intellectual 
 truths, those which are ferocious and ugly to falses ; 
 fishes to the scientifics which derive their origin from 
 things sensual ; reptiles to corporeal and sensual plea- 
 sures ; and noxious insects to falsities which proceed 
 from the senses. Trees and shrubs correspond to differ- 
 ent kinds of knowledges ; and herbs and grass correspond 
 to various kinds of scientific truths. Gold corresponds 
 to celestial good, silver to spiritual truth, brass to 
 natural good, iron to natural truth, stones to sensual 
 truths, precious stones to spiritual truths." 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 55 
 
 So Swedenborg goes through the mystic sphere of 
 psycho-scientific research, and succeeds in reducing the 
 whole Bible, or at least so much of it as, according to 
 his superior illumination, was correspondentially writ- 
 ten, to a consistent system of interior interpretation. 
 It must strike every one as evident that the Swedish 
 Seer ever and anon struck the core of Divine fruit on 
 the biblical trees ; almost every second step he planted 
 his foot on the basis of everlasting truth. If he had 
 struck solid ground every time, the world would find in 
 him an infallible teacher. Unfortunately for him, per- 
 haps, but unquestionably fortunate for the human 
 millions, Swedenborg. touched spiritual truth just unfre- 
 quently enough to convince many persons who read 
 him that he was not infallible. Those who look at this 
 question independently, see that, although it is very 
 easy to think and say that a duck corresponds to a 
 doctor of medicine and a goose to a doctor of divinity, 
 still the so-called science is obviously arbitrary, and 
 may not be true universally. For your spiritually- 
 minded brother in Scotland, looking at the duck, may 
 not think of seeing therein represented " a doctor of 
 medicine/' and not always in the goose a " doctor of 
 divinity ;" on the contrary, these twaddling birds or 
 gawky fowls may represent very different affections, 
 thoughts, persons, or professions, and may continue 
 through all time to suggest something different from 
 Swedenborg's meaning. And yet I hesitate not to say 
 that the iC Science of Correspondence" is the closest 
 approach to a great discovery in the substantial sense 
 of spiritual communications recorded in the Old and 
 New Testaments. 
 
56 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 But there have been, and are, persons who have 
 conceived that, inasmuch as there was a spirituul sense 
 tucked away in the literal Word, so it would be unfair 
 if there could not be found a celestial sense still more 
 concealed within the spiritual. These ambitious souls 
 also think that it would be unfair for an hundred years 
 to pass away without producing some " celestial seer" 
 who could out-Swedenborgianize the Word. Among 
 Spiritualists there is, or has been, a person who thinks 
 and professes to believe that he has seen a finer sense in 
 the Bible than Swedenborg saw, rippling all the way 
 through from Genesis to Kevelations. His first ambi- 
 tious installment — "the Arcana of Christianity" — has 
 been published. 
 
 On the same principle, and by parity of reasoning, 
 you may apprehend that some other person will, by and 
 by, arrogate the discovery of a " heavenly sense" as 
 superior to the celestial ; and yet another who would 
 say that there was a " deific sense" superior to the 
 heavenly^ and so the absurdity might flow on ad infini- 
 tum. The reasoning is deceptive and sophistical. They 
 take for granted what remains to be established. Thus: 
 Since the literal sense of your Bible is extinguished, 
 since the spiritual sense is not sufficient, and since the 
 celestial sense is already exhausted, is it not necessary 
 now, in order to have the celestial sense perfectly com-' 
 prehended, to cap it all with the climacteric discovery 
 of God's own mind ? I believe that no such religious 
 fanaticism will ever appear in a healthy human 
 mind. Such an ambition could be nothing less than a 
 parasitical development on the healthy faculties of hu- 
 man reason. Let us hope and pray that such religious 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 57 
 
 monstrosities will never appear in the course of modern 
 spiritual development and philosophic growth. 
 
 Let me now ask your attention to the universal fact 
 that the internal and the external of all things are 
 married, and do literally correspond to and represent 
 each other; that what is true in the external, in any- 
 thing, anywhere, is equally true of the internal in the 
 same thing and place. Hence there cannot be such a 
 thing as a religious truth which is incompatible or 
 inconsistent with a scientific or a philosophic discovery 
 in a corresponding department. There can be no 
 incompatibility, no antagonism, between what religion- 
 ists call a " revealed and natural religion." Paul has 
 fully shown this ; others have demonstrated it ; and no 
 man can escape the laws and logic of Reason. The 
 changeless God who " built the palace of the sky," and 
 talks to men through various mediators, could do no 
 incohesive deed, could speak no inconsistent word ; but, 
 when understood, both the Deed and the Word univer- 
 sally harmonize as do fellow-notes when speaking in the 
 highest music. 
 
 This statement is the internal conviction of the 
 world ; the intuition of all peoples, both Heathen and 
 Christian. If the people of Christendom would take 
 those documents, which, bound together, are called the 
 " Old and New Testaments," as simply and only a por- 
 tion of the spiritually- written word of God, and hos- 
 pitably accept the scriptures of all heathen nations with 
 just as much reverence, and see that God spoke through 
 them all, even as he speaks through the organization and 
 habits of the meanest worm that ever crawled in mud, 
 as through the beauty and perfections of the highest 
 
58 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 seraph that ever sung under the finite sun, then indeed 
 would the earth rejoice in gladness ; for all religionists 
 and Spiritualists would be enlarged and ennobled by 
 the presence and influence of perpetual and universal 
 inspirations. 
 
 -But, on the other hand, confine all authoritative 
 inspirations to a stereotyped volume — excluding all 
 God's words to the Chaldeans, Arabians, Chinese, and 
 the other nations who in past times have received truths 
 from the same inexhaustible Divine source — do this, as 
 Christians do, and you exclude golden sunlight, pure 
 air, blissful health, and impartial wisdom from you ; 
 and, in consequence, you become miserable automatons 
 of a fashionable, popular, and outrageously expensive 
 religion, lull of dried creeds and dead men's bones. 
 
 The application of the principle announced would 
 be this : Just what is true in the world of science, we 
 shall find equally true in the social world ; what is true 
 in the social world, we shall find equally true in the 
 world of politics ; what is true in the world of politics, 
 we shall find equally true in the world's laws and 
 governments; what is true in outward governments, 
 will be found equally true in the internal history of par- 
 ticular races ; and what is true in all these, will be 
 found equally true in the geology of the globe and the 
 destiny of the human family ; what is true in geology 
 and the destiny of the aggregation of persons, you will 
 find equally, intimately, delicately, eternally true in 
 every single component part of your mental existence! 
 
 Geology — a scientific knowledge of the earth — has 
 been practically born within the last quarter of the 
 present century. It has already arisen to the com- 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 59 
 
 manding position of the wisest commentary that was 
 ever written on book-religion. It is this day the pro- 
 foundest expounder and pounder of Genesis; for the 
 authority of the book and the source of the authority 
 have dropped out long ago to those who have had the 
 industry, independence, and talent to investigate. Per- 
 haps, in this connection, it may be best to glance at the 
 outlines of the harmonial philosophy of creation in the 
 physical Universe. 
 
 The great original, ever-existing, omniscient, om- 
 nipotent, and omnipresent productive power,— the Soul 
 of all existences — is throned in a - central sphere, the 
 circumference of which is the boundless universe, and 
 around which solar, sidereal, and stellar systems, 
 revolve in silent, majestic sublimity and harmony ! This 
 power is what mankind call Deity, whose attributes are 
 love and wisdom, corresponding with the principles of 
 male and female, positive and negative, creative and 
 sustaining. 
 
 The first goings forth or out-births from this great 
 celestial Center, are spiritual or vital suns. These, 
 after due elaboration or gestation, give birth to natural 
 suns — those that become cognizable to the outward or 
 natural senses of man. These again become centers, 
 or mothers, from which earths are born, with all the 
 elements of matter, and each minutest particle infused 
 with the vivifying, vitalizing spirit of the parent Forma- 
 tor. The Essences of heat or fire — electricity, galvan- 
 ism, magnetism — are all the natural or outward mani- 
 festations of the productive energy, the vitalizing Cause 
 of all existences. It pervades all substances and ani- 
 mates all forms. 
 
60 MOENING LECTURES. 
 
 The Progress of Formation is from the lower to 
 the higher, from the crude to the refined, from the simple 
 to the complicated, from the imperfect to the perfect—- 
 but in distinct degrees or congeries. That is, the lower 
 must first be developed, to elaborate the materials, and 
 prepare the way for the higher. Thus, after the sun 
 gave birth to the earth — and the same of all other 
 planets — the action of the vitality within the particles 
 of matter, and its constant emanation in the form of 
 heat, light, electricity, &c. — first from the great Cen- 
 tral sphere to the sun, and thence to the earth, acting 
 upon the granite and other rocks, with the atmosphere, 
 the water, and other compound and simple elements — 
 then new compounds were formed, possessing this vital 
 principle in sufficient quantities to give definite forms, 
 as crystallization, organization, motion, life, sensation, 
 intelligence — the last being the highest or ultimate 
 attribute of production on our earth, and possessed or 
 reached to perfection only by man. 
 
 A glance at the progress of creation, in the produc- 
 tion of our earth and its inhabitants, will serve as an 
 illustration of the same process and progress of worlds 
 in the vast expanse of the universe, that are perpetually 
 and continually being brought into existence, and ulti- 
 mating the grand object of the whole — namely, to 
 develop and perfect individualized, self-conscious, ever- 
 existing, immortal spirits, that shall be in the "image 
 and likeness" of the Central Cause, and dwell forever 
 in the Summer Spheres. 
 
 I will now describe the process of the earth's ori- 
 gin. Within the circumference of the sun, elementary 
 particles of matter gather around a nucleus, which con- 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 61 
 
 tinues to aggregate and increase in dimension and 
 variety of parts, in its perpetual and endless revolu- 
 tions and evolutions, gradually advancing towards the 
 outer surface of this fiery orb, as it increases in com- 
 plexity and density, until it approaches the extreme 
 verge of the sun ; when, by the impetus or centrifugal 
 force it has attained, from its more compact structure 
 and consequent increase of specific gravity, it breaks 
 loose from its parent and flies off at a tangent into illi- 
 mitable space. If a ball of lead and another of cotton, 
 of the same size, be tied each to a string and whirled 
 violently around until the strings break, the leaden ball 
 will fly off in almost a straight line, for a long distance, 
 before it makes a curve towards the earth ; while the 
 cotton ball will perform a graceful curve from the mo- 
 ment it breaks loose, and soon falls to the ground. The 
 experiment will illustrate the movements of a planet, 
 when first thrown off from the sun (being much more 
 dense) ; or, in other words, it will account for the 
 eccentric movement of comets, which, in fact, are new- 
 born and baby earths or planets. The extreme tenuity, 
 fluidity, and rarefaction of its particles, and its conse- 
 quent feeble cohesive attraction, and its irregular 
 orbituary and axillary movements, give the new earth 
 elongated, attenuated, and many curious forms, as pre- 
 sented to the beholder on another planet. Sometimes 
 it happens that the caudal extremity gets so " long 
 drawn out, 55 and so far from the center of gravity — the 
 proper polarity or axis not being yet fully estab- 
 lished — that a part or parts become detached or broken 
 off. The detached parts become "satellites/ 5 or moons, 
 which continue to revolve around and within the orbit 
 
62 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of the new earth. Our earth has one of these parasites ! 
 Other planets several. 
 
 In the lapse of ages, the attractive and repulsive, or 
 the centripetal and centrifugal forces, become equalized, 
 the particles of matter have formed more intimate asso- 
 ciations, the outer surfaces have locked up a large por- 
 tion of the free caloric within the embrace of their own 
 substance, and have consequently condensed and hard- 
 ened — a globular form has succeeded the oblate sphere, 
 with its spinal extremity, and a regular orbit is defined 
 and maintained. Oxygen and nitrogen have united in 
 the proper proportions to form the atmosphere ; oxygen 
 and hydrogen have combined to form water ; oxygen 
 and silicon have entered into an adamantine embrace to 
 form quartz rock ; oxygen and carbon have formed a 
 tripartite union with calcium, producing immense beds 
 of carboniferous lime-stone. Numerous other combina- 
 tions of oxygen with gases, metals, and other elements 
 — and these again combining with other simple or com- 
 pound substances— have brought out of this vast amor- 
 phous mass of elementary materials — as they existed in 
 an intensely heated and rarefied state, when first thrown 
 off from the sun — new, and more solid, and more perma- 
 nent forms. 
 
 In all this beautiful, harmonious, and ever-progress- 
 ive flow of productive affinities, oxygen plays a very 
 conspicuous part, as a positive, energizing, vitalizing 
 principle. It appears to have grasped, and to have held 
 fast within its embrace, the very germs of vitality. Phos- 
 phorus is another form of its tangible development, not 
 yet understood by chemists or physiologists. No living 
 plant or animal can exist without it. It is always 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 63 
 
 found in the seeds and germinal principles, in the sub- 
 stance of the bone and brain and nerves, and in yet 
 other parts of vegetables and animals. 
 
 In the course of time, when " the waters had sub- 
 sided/' the heat and light emanating continually from 
 the sun — upon the waters of the seas, and in rain, and 
 mist, and dew — acted upon the surfaces of the granite 
 and other rocks, abrading, decomposing, and uniting 
 with their elements to produce other new compounds of 
 a more refined and perfect nature. Thus large beds 
 of gelatinous matter were formed in shallow pools be- 
 neath the water-level, and a slimy coating upon the' 
 surfaces of the rocks above the water. (See second part 
 Great Harmonia, vol. 5.) Thus soil was first formed — a 
 preparation, elaboration, and combination of material, 
 susceptible of developing vegetable life, marine and 
 terrestrial. The first vegetable forms springing from 
 these slimy rocks, were simple and not defined in their 
 structure, being lichens, or cryptogamous plants, about 
 seventy per cent, of whose substance is gelatin. 
 
 As one forcible evidence of the fact of vegetables 
 first originating from the elements of the rock on which 
 they germinate, and from the heat, light, atmosphere, 
 and moisture, is, that each rock of different chemical 
 composition, when exposed to these influences, will pro- 
 duce a moss peculiar to itself, and the same rock, in 
 any latitude where it can grow, will always produce a 
 plant of the same species, and each plant in its turn, of 
 the thousands of classes, orders, genera, species, and 
 varieties now in existence, will invariably produce an 
 animalcule, or insect, peculiar to itself. These are facts 
 
64 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 that have been abundantly substantiated by the most 
 scientific naturalists of the age. 
 
 The first forms of vegetation were brought into 
 being, and perfected in their kind — elaborating from 
 their own substance a germ .or nucleus of vitality with 
 the impress of its own individuality, inclosed within a 
 receptacle capable of preserving and sustaining it, till 
 the favorable action of the elements (in heat, light, 
 moisture, and the soil,) could bring forth from each 
 germ or seed " an image and likeness" of its parent — 
 the organized substance or body of the original plant, 
 having performed the ultimate object of its existence, 
 dies, and the elements of which it is composed mingle 
 with the thin soil on the surface of the rocks, adding to 
 its substance, increasing its complexity, and refining its 
 particles ; so that, with the return of the vernal equi- 
 nox, and the genial rays of the sun, not only the seeds 
 of the old lichen unfold and expand into the same spe- 
 cies, but a new and more complicated plant, with 
 distinct and marked differences (perhaps a fern,) 
 makes its appearance, and rears its graceful stem and 
 spreads its glossy foliage above the lowly moss. 
 
 Thus the ever-present and ever-active principle of 
 vitality and creative Energy, acting and reacting upon 
 the materials of our globe, started the kingdoms of 
 Nature, which have and will ever continue to pro- 
 gress — from the simple to the more complicated vegeta- 
 ble forms: animalcule, infusoria, radiata, molusca, 
 vertebrata, and Man as the Ultimate. The lowest and 
 imperfect first, and the more complex and perfect after, 
 in regular progression, but in distinct degrees. Each 
 new type being dependent upon all that preceded it for 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 65 
 
 its existence, but yet distinct and different from its pre- 
 decessors. 
 
 Thus it requires certain conditions, proportions, 
 and combinations of elementary inorganic substances 
 to produce a vegetable — and vegetable growth is 
 dependent entirely upon elementary regimen — while 
 animals cannot be produced or sustained in their exist- 
 ence by inorganic or elementary matter. The organic 
 compounds of the blood, muscular fiber, gelatin, skin, 
 hair, nails, or horns, &c, are all formed in exact con- 
 stituents or proportions from the elementary particles 
 that enter into their composition by the vegetable. The 
 vegetable kingdom must, therefore, have existed before 
 the animal— the vegetable realm being the stepping- 
 stone, or connecting-link, between the elementary or 
 mineral kingdom and the animal. Hence, if the 
 vegetable kingdom should by any cause be blotted out 
 from the face of the earth, the animal would soon be 
 annihilated. 
 
 All types in the endless chain of inorganic and 
 organized substances, are but links in the one system 
 of cause and effect, and each type or species is so marked 
 and distinct as easily to be distinguished, and each 
 variety and unity of the human species is so indelibly 
 stamped with its own perfected individuality, as to be 
 recognized from the myriads of the species. 
 
 Thus, fixed, unvarying, and universal laws of the 
 Father govern and regulate all his works. From the 
 first fiat that was sent forth throughout all the ramifi- 
 cations of the Universe, spiritual, physical, and celes- 
 tial, eternal unity, order, and harmony reigns- — 
 conception, development, progression, and perfection, 
 
66 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 mark all His work, and all point with the irresistible 
 force of reason and demonstration to the immortality of 
 the Soul. 
 
 In taking this philosophical view of the plan and 
 progress of Nature and the works of God, how grand, 
 how sublime, how comprehensive, how rational and 
 satisfactory — to the independent-thinking and inquiring 
 mind, who wishes to " have a reason for the faith that is 
 within hini" — how perfectly are the love and wisdom 
 and justice of the Father and Mother conjugated and 
 displayed ! And how real, conclusive, and overwhelm- 
 ing the evidence — appealing directly to the senses, the 
 intellect, and the affections — of the self-conscious, 
 immortal existence and progressive happiness of the 
 " spirit" that is within us ! The human species being 
 the last and highest Type upon our earth, and the only 
 one possessing reason and intelligence that examines 
 and investigates all that is beneath and around itself, 
 and that has a consciousness of th& future— endeavoring- 
 to raise or draw aside the thin, semi-transparent vail 
 that hangs suspended between the physical and the 
 spiritual existence — analogy, "reasoning from what 
 we know/ 5 points directly not only to the probability, 
 but to the absolute certainty and necessity of a future 
 existence — in short and finally, to the Summer-Land! 
 
 All organic forms below man not only produce their 
 like, but the substances of their material forms mingle 
 with previously-formed compounds, to produce a new 
 and distinct type superior to itself. But the human type 
 has no svperior development, and there is no retrogres- 
 sion in the works of Nature. Each new unfolding is 
 superior to the preceding. Man, then, is destined for 
 
THE END OF THE WORLT>. 67 
 
 other and higher Spheres. In those Spheres, or new 
 states of existence, man's spirit must present not only 
 an " image and likeness" of Nature and God, but a 
 consciousness of identity and individual selfhood. 
 Feeling anil knowing this, he should so live while in 
 this rudimentary and preparatory state of existence, 
 that all physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual 
 structure, formation, growth, and maturity, be fully 
 developed, cultivated, and perfected ; so that when the 
 " mortal puts on immortality," and seeks " a home in 
 the heavens," it can expand into a celestial being with- 
 out spot or blemish to mar its beauty, or impede its 
 progress in bliss and glory. 
 
 Thus Geology teaches, among her first lessons, the 
 rise, perfection, blossoming, decay, and disappearance 
 of various classes of vegetation. She teaches that the 
 simplest forms — gelatinous fibers oozing out from the 
 lonely margins of early seas — crept over the rocks, 
 gave out their effluence, laid the foundation for some- 
 thing better, gathered the electricities of the air, 
 absorbed carbon, became hard ; then the rains washed 
 them down into deep declivities and spacious valleys, 
 and carefully packed them away for the people to dig 
 out in the form of " coal" many hundred centuries after- 
 wards! Those primeval mosses and early vegetations — 
 the original plants and early trees, once the only glory 
 of the physical world — are all gone into dense*black- 
 ness, fit only for the stove, the grate, and the igneous 
 stomachs of Monitors, iron-clads, ocean steamers, and 
 locomotives. Then the earth brought forth higher 
 orders — grand, large, immensely high trees, which 
 packed away in their capacious trunks centuries upon 
 
68 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 centuries of growth and chemistry. Regally, supremely, 
 these trees flourished. But at length, gathering their 
 forces more closely within — deeper, with greater con- 
 centration — took fire and burned themselves to death ! 
 Soon out of sight, they became a portion 6f the floral 
 history of that epoch. 
 
 Then, in the depths of the many warm seas, gelatin- 
 ous compounds were slowly developed up into points of 
 "life." The early minute fishes flourished in myriads 
 throughout the seas, and also through infusorial organi- 
 zations, propagating incomprehensible harvests of finer 
 organizations, and then decomposing, becoming in hun- 
 dreds of centuries petroleum for the machinery of the 
 world — filling all the little crevices of rocks and val- 
 leys below the earth's surface, wherever they existed, 
 and died in large abundance in the era of their greatest 
 glory— now only oil, to-day being pumped up and 
 burned in our most fashionable parlors. So the early 
 points of life died, and though they were honored with 
 no tombstones to mark their graves, they have arisen 
 from the rocks and live in the world's best uses. 
 
 Let us go on through the animal kingdom, where 
 yet more distinctly the same lesson is taught. The first 
 animals were huge in physical organization — ponderous 
 and immense — slow in their motions ; they were 
 filled with indolence — mere gastric receptacles or sto- 
 machs* for the digestion of dense forms of vegetable 
 matter — built for the reception and impartation of parti- 
 cles upon which they fed to form the basis of something 
 better. Thus, primeval animals served for steps in a 
 flight of stairs — for laws and materials to walk upward 
 to the plane of finer organizations. You remember 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 69 
 
 what Geology teaches with reference to the megathe- 
 riums, the mammoths, and the ponderous saurians that 
 once roamed over the earth — the vast elephantine ani- 
 mals that were once so numerous and powerful that 
 nothing short of an earthquake could extinguish them — 
 now all gone, save those vestiges and remains of 
 nobility which continue in the modern elephant, the 
 camel, and in the various squirming vipers in the fields 
 of civilization and far off on mountain-sides, each 
 declaring itself to be nothing more than the relic of 
 vast viprous and animal populations long extinct. 
 
 These great lessons come from Nature's and God's 
 word. Say not, therefore, when you go from the read- 
 ing of this Lecture, that you have been where infidelity 
 was taught ; but when asked : " What have you been 
 reading ?" you can in truth reply : " I have been learn- 
 ing lessons from the word of God." These truths are 
 words of Deity, because they are written on the ever- 
 lasting rocks and upon the beautiful hills, which show 
 their secret instructions to those who will read and 
 have " a heart to understand" God's infallible ideas 
 written in the wondrous volume of Nature. Always 
 the wisest mind is the best reader — the fastest learner, 
 and the happiest. 
 
 It becomes now particularly important to observe 
 that the higher grades of animals — those which exist 
 on the earth to-day — are not the everlasting com- 
 panions of the world. You know that it is even now 
 difficult to keep certain animals in the world. Already 
 science is concerning itself with the propagation of par- 
 ticular fishes. These animals and fishes are growing 
 fewer, not simply because mankind feed upon them with 
 
70 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 such unbridled rapacity, but because, although they 
 show the usual large preparations for future pro- 
 geny, y.et only a small percentage of their young are 
 matured. Certain species of fish are, for this cause, 
 almost utterly extinct. Certain birds, too, are growing 
 " beautifully less" and less numerous, showing that 
 their type is slowly becoming extinct. 
 
 On this island of Manhattan, on which we exist to- 
 day, the time was when wild beasts — more wild than 
 the worst people in their passions — roamed through 
 thickets and dank swamps ; the red man was lord of 
 all ; and fishes worked through the murky waters, and 
 loathsome worms wriggled their happy lives away in 
 the dirt and slime beneath. Behold, now it is a resur- 
 rected Isle! Like the new "Atlantis" prophesied in 
 early Platonic history, bounded by the sea on all sides, 
 opulent with science, and art, and happy homes, adorned 
 by beautiful persons, filled with wisdom and affection, 
 and bound together by united interests. These things 
 for New York are prophesied on the basis of what now 
 exists, because the departure of the wildness from the 
 lower parts of Nature in the Island is a promise, in an 
 internal sense, of the advent of that which is better, 
 higher, grander, in whatsoever is human — in society 
 and in government. 
 
 Many vipers that once lived and propagated in 
 fearful abundance can now scarcely be found. Civili- 
 zation marches onward and exterminates them. What 
 is civilization ? Is it the especial intention of the pio- 
 neer who goes to the far west, to destroy poisonous 
 serpents or to kill wild animals ? No. Civilization 
 does not come of intention ; it is the impulse of the 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 71 
 
 great law of Progress which gives to man's instinct 
 two expressions: one to kill for purposes of hunger, 
 and the other to kill to gratify the desire to overcome 
 — to give the pleasure of extermination. Nothing so 
 much as man is endowed with this double motive to 
 kill. The animals beneath man kill only to satisfy the 
 demands of hunger. But man kills by the force of a 
 higher propulsion — to destroy whatever is inimical to 
 his highest material interests, dangerous to thej, children 
 that play at the door, and baneful to the progeny that 
 will come after them. A man is not made to stop and 
 think, when he is first called upon to kill ^ bear or a 
 lion, whether it would be likely to destroy a human 
 being, or not, if left with life. It is the inevitable 
 voice of conquest that cries within him — the irresisti- 
 ble, sturdy impulse, to convince his own faculties — to 
 show by skillful marksmanship that he can destroy the 
 enemy or animal before him. 1 say all this is testimony 
 that the law of Progress — welling up through the hu- 
 man faculties and blundering through the stupid head 
 yet clear eye of the marksman — is exterminating all 
 serpents and animals which are incompatible with the 
 coming grand future of this planet. 
 
 Time is a fine-comb, and Progress is the strong iron 
 hand that grasps it — drawing it through all parts of 
 the head of humanity ; and it will comb it clean ! All 
 ferocious and venomous animals, all poisonous plants, 
 all meddlesome bugs, all summer flies, all wasps that 
 sting — everything that comes out of filth • and opposes 
 refinement — everything that shocks civilization, that 
 comes as an insult and slight to the mind's higher sen- 
 timents — is destined, like these elder animals, and 
 
72 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 fishes, and primordial trees, and early submarine vege- 
 tations, to go down and die out of existence ! 
 
 You cannot escape the conclusion that the human 
 race is destined to pass through a similar experience. 
 The theologic, or intuitive dream of the l * End of the 
 World," is based in a fact as well as upon a figure of 
 speech ; it is the upshot of a principle as well as a con- 
 ception of its open manifestation. 
 
 When the early vegetation died out, to them it was 
 the end of the world. When the early saurians with- 
 drew, when the vast birds died, when the old dragons 
 and mammoth-bats which once roamed and flew through 
 the world became extinct, to them it was the end of the 
 world. When these various modern serpents, these 
 ferocious animals, these poisonous plants, become 
 extinct, to them it will be the end of the world. 
 
 Races and nations rise up ; they flourish, grow opu- 
 lent ; they reach the maximum of material happiness ; 
 they slide down a rough declivity toward the sunset of 
 history ; and where another and a new nation is born, 
 there those once great nations are sepulchered. To the 
 dying nations it is the end of the world. The early 
 Aztecs thought that once the world was literally 
 destroyed by a mighty Whirlwind. The Chaldeans, 
 the Chinese, and others, have a myth that the world was 
 once destroyed by a general Flood. (I believe there 
 is a very similar myth recorded in the Old Testament.) 
 The earliest Greeks taught that the globe was once 
 destroyed by a Fire. Perhaps it will help the myth by 
 saying that many Greeks were Alchemists and believed 
 much in fire ! Famine was the means which hungry 
 races supposed the gods used to destroy the world. A 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 73 
 
 few tribes of Indians in North America believed in the 
 destruction of the world by famine. Ther.e are, in fact, 
 some twenty-five to thirty different doctrines in the 
 world with regard to the means by which the physical 
 world was once destroyed. Christians take one plan 
 of destroying the world's population — that of water. 
 By the amouut of imperfection and corruption still 
 remaining, one would be justified in saying* that the 
 water had been withdrawn several centuries too soon. 
 It seems to have left the creed portion of the world 
 muddier than it was before. World-makers and world- 
 destroyers should not undertake to kill a population by 
 water unless they can do the work universally and 
 thoroughly. The world was not yet quite finished 
 when that great Flood swept over the mountains and 
 destroyed all ; and yet the drowning was not suffi- 
 ciently thorough ; it did not destroy the evil conditions 
 which caused the American rebellion ! There was left 
 in human nature a whole nest of evil eggs, which, when 
 incubated by the law of Progress, will bring out, in the 
 future of this country, the enactment of another Re- 
 bellion like this thing which is to-day startling and 
 upturning all the nations of the world. And why? 
 Because no literal Flood, however universal, however 
 high over the peaks of the Andes it might have been, 
 or may be, could not and cannot quite kill out all human 
 imperfections. " Perfection out of imperfection comes," 
 as flowers bloom out of the dark, dreary, and unrespon- 
 sive earth. That is the reason why the end of the 
 world does not come in haste. It is the infinite method 
 of doing finite things — the perpetual going over dreary 
 4 
 
74 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 wastes and imperfect conditions — up to that which is 
 blooming, beautiful, and perfect. 
 
 Now the physical globe is to follow this progressive 
 law. If a nation rises and matures, if it gathers around 
 itself all the arts, and sciences, and splendors, and 
 finally decays and dies ; so mankind may surely expect 
 that the globe itself, after its mission is all accom- 
 plished, will mature, decay, die, and disappear from 
 space! Astronomy, geology, chemistry, and all the 
 sciences, show that this earth began ; they demonstrate 
 with equal certainty that it will also grow old and be 
 dissolved. Its chemical affinities, in a few hundred 
 thousand years, will become antipathies. Its atoms will 
 rush to the embrace of thousands of other bodies. 
 
 The human race, properly so-called, is scarcely 
 forty thousand years old. How old that is to a planet's 
 population, you can judge by the aspect of the planet 
 itself. "What means it in this Temperate Zone, right 
 between two great extremes, that we have these change- 
 able seasons — these excessively curious exhibitions of 
 climate and of temperature 1 Because, I reply, the 
 earth itself is yet new — is not yet out of its teens ! In 
 its waters, in its mountains and valleys, in its chemis- 
 try, the globe is yet all undeveloped. Its treasures are 
 yet locked up in trunks of trees and fastened in recesses 
 far down beneath the soil. The atmosphere, even in 
 the temperate belt, is yet rampant with a thousand-fold 
 eccentricities ; it is daily giving grotesque expressions 
 of its innate, uncouth barbarisms ; is not yet civilized 
 enough to keep out of your doors even when you have 
 locked them ; not decent enough to cease "blowing you 
 up' 7 when you seek to comfortably and peaceably walk 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 75 
 
 through the streets or open fields. Why, our uncivil- 
 ized atmosphere is producing terrible havoc with 
 navigation — is interfering every day with the com- 
 merce of the world — like a barbarian not yet wise 
 enough to follow the ways of wisdom. The globe is like 
 a wild boy. He tumbles down stairs when he should 
 be walking, and falls through the ice while skating, 
 when he ought to be self-poised and too wise for acci- 
 dents. The atmosphere is like a powerful wild horse 
 not perfectly trained. Ever and anon it gathers up its 
 black powers, stands before a chasm with accumulated 
 vigor and tremendous energy, and bounds to the oppo- 
 site side with all the madness of unemployed power. 
 A wild horse sweeping over the prairies : that is the 
 earth's atmosphere. This all explains why the ele- 
 ments play mankind such pranks, unroofing houses, 
 tumbling over chimneys, and paying no more respect to 
 a church-steeple than to the pole of a hay-stack ! 
 
 When Benjamin Franklin sent up his card, he sim- 
 ply obtained a slight indication that Mr. Lightning 
 would, one of these days, be sociable and come to tea. 
 He did get some of the fearful fluid bottled up; just 
 enough to talk with it — nothing more. Now Mr. Light- 
 ning is social and chatty. . He tells all the truth, and 
 nearly all the lies, about the present war. " Electri- 
 city," alias " Lightning," cuts awful pranks with people 
 in cholera times, and causes all kinds of unutterable 
 mischief, according to recent discoveries, in the dis- 
 eases of animals throughout the country. All because 
 the fluid is not tame — it is wild, barbarous ; it has not 
 come into the best society ; and it does not know how 
 to behave among folks. 
 
76 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 All this is equally true of the globe. The earth is 
 eccentric ; it is sidewise in its orbit ; it does not yet 
 know enough to get down and lie straight in its bed. 
 Now it rolls in its path almost wrong end foremost. 
 When the poles of the planet shall come into harmony 
 with the plane of its orbit, then how beautifully the 
 sun will cause all parts of it to bloom ! The globe is 
 not yet sufficiently good to be so blessed. It will not 
 be so blessed while this orbital inequality continues to 
 exist. 
 
 Mankind must not soon expect our oceans to be 
 calm, nor our lightnings to save the churches, nor hur- 
 ricanes to respect haystacks, or people, or cattle, nor 
 that the atmosphere will soon be civilized enough to 
 favor men in their Arctic explorations or coast-line 
 navigations; 
 
 Men sneer at the fanatic who thinks he can ride in 
 the air. Are you quite sure that the man is a fool who 
 thinks that one of these days we will rise up in the air 
 and be as safe, more certain, and far quicker, in our 
 voyage, than when shipping for Europe^ on the best 
 steamer? Men laugh at those who dare suggest its 
 scientific practicability. Most people belong to the 
 race who have the power and the pomposity to laugh 
 at fanatics, until their children adopt the inventions of 
 those fanatics, and until mankind enjoy all the luxu- 
 ries which such improvements diffuse throughout the 
 world. Now, I say, mankind are not yet old enough 
 on this planet, nor is the atmosphere old enough, nor 
 is electricity tame enough, and the mental world itself 
 is not large and good enough, to realize aerial naviga- 
 tion. Therefore it will not come right away. But just 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 77 
 
 as sure as I am now speaking — as certain as birds fly — 
 so certain will safe, swift, and delightful air navigation 
 be man's achievement. 
 
 The earth is yet very young. , It is now only a few 
 millions of years old — in its early teens — has not been 
 in existence long enough to prepare the human race for 
 a higher degree of civilization. Only a few years ago, 
 across the Atlantic, in France, a man, although starving 
 to death, -gave to the world systematic intimations and 
 lofty demonstrations to the effect that a higher social 
 order would inevitably come. Of course it is popular 
 to slander him, and to blacken his character out of 
 sight ; but the 
 
 11 Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again." 
 
 Not all that Fourier or Swedenborg said is true ; not 
 all that I say is true. True men make their words as 
 near truth as possible. Mankind must be catholic and 
 all-embracing ; instead of excluding all the conflicting 
 creeds, better take them all in and pulverize them. 
 
 When you go upon the mountain hights, and with 
 your vision sweep the plain, and the whole horizon of 
 thought, can you not take the pictures home with you, 
 and tell your wife and children what you have seen and 
 enjoyed on the summit ? Perhaps your wife and little 
 ones live in the valley of thought ; they may look out 
 only through the open door, or through some panes of 
 broken glass, and see only a few pigs or the dirty fowls 
 that are squawking for something to eat, and crying 
 children that need bread to keep them still : this, per- 
 haps, is what the valley-minded woman sees in her 
 lowly estate. Or, perhaps the wife is the progressive 
 
78 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 member of the house. If the better-minded woman 
 goes, I pray that she will try to attract upwards with 
 her that ponderous being called " a husband. 5 ' Go on 
 together, if it be possible ; sweep the horizon of Pro- 
 gression, take in the thoughtful scene ; then, on return- 
 ing, tell your listening neighbors, who have not yet 
 gone up, of the rivers and mountains, plains, farm- 
 houses, and beautiful trees — all the picturesque 
 vision of higher forms of truth. 
 
 The mental world, I repeat, is young. The physi- 
 cal globe, too, is so young that it cannot be speedily 
 called to order. The tempests of the physical world 
 are only what we see mentally breaking out in the gal- 
 leries of political conventions. Hurricanes are but 
 parts of what occurs in the State Legislatures. Where 
 political heathenism exists, there will be tornadoes and 
 hurricanes ! It is natural for people to be dirty until 
 they are washed. People will be covered with politi- 
 cal, social, and religious vermin, until they are per- 
 fectly cleansed and civilized, purely clothed, and 
 thoroughly combed. All this is applicable to the phy- 
 sical world. 
 
 What of the races ? The nations and peoples are 
 not prepared for a higher order of society. They have 
 not lived up to their present knowledge, and of course 
 they are not ready for a grander social or political 
 development. Best minds are ready only to say and 
 believe that something better is possible, and that 
 is all. But " humanity sweeps onward." 
 
 The great world is grand and sublime, because it 
 rolls progressively away toward the coming centu- 
 ries ! The human race, about forty thousand years old, 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. 79 
 
 has but reached its thirteenth year in true civilization. 
 In its politics, in its republicanism, in its democracy, in 
 its poetry, in its music, and in its spirituality, the race 
 is yet very young. Much will happen when 100,000 
 more of these rolling years shall have passed away ! 
 "The notes of music which come through spiritual com- 
 munications — from the lofty summits of heavenly inspi- 
 ration — enable us to catch but imperfect glimpses of 
 the " good time 55 when the earth shall ripen and blos- 
 som as the rose. All this shows what the world is fast 
 coming to see. 
 
 When mankind shall have grown spiritually larger 
 and finer in body, they will have fewer and fewer 
 children. Down in the lower strata of society behold 
 how populous ! Take the early races : they propa- 
 gated rapidly. Earth's mothers have been broken down 
 by their exceedingly numerous progeny. Rise higher 
 in the scale, and the married have fewer children and 
 less frequently. Rise still higher and higher in the 
 mental scale, and you can easily believe the time will 
 come when reproduction will cease". There will then 
 be fathers and mothers with their descendants; and 
 the progeny will become a"S the angels — " neither mar- 
 rying nor given in marriage' 5 — having arisen above the 
 mission of propagation — all ready for the wondrous 
 apotheosis which will close the scene of the human 
 race. 
 
 In the vast future (I wish I had another hour this 
 morning, in which to speak of what will happen between 
 this and the future,) when the race itself has grown to 
 the highest point of maturity. Behold at last a family 
 group ascends from the " perfect sleep" into the Upper 
 
80 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 life ! They close the terrestrial drama, and the cur- 
 tain falls. The great bell of chemistry is now struck, 
 and instead of a conflagration, as the " Adventists" 
 believe, slow decomposition — dying like a puff — decay- 
 ing and dropping asunder like the stump of a tree with- 
 out vitality — then spreading its atoms over millions of 
 solar bodies that are ready to grasp these chemical 
 opportunities — thus this planet will cease, and its popu- 
 lation, all in the Summer-Land, looking down upon the 
 closing of this sublime tragical drama ! 
 
 The cerebellum, I again remark, will one of these 
 days cease to have any function with reference to repro- 
 duction. The finest, most poetic and spiritual mind, 
 gathers nearly all of its propagating powers and essen- 
 ces into the front-brain and top- faculties. Such persons 
 have few children. Men who are yet full of the world's 
 blood, and women who are full of similar vitalities, 
 still believe that many children, better propagated, 
 would be great blessings to the world. Only friends 
 of Progress dare to speak the whole truth on this sub- 
 ject. Not a church-minister in the city, with the vast 
 organization of moneyed men to support the pulpit, 
 dares to speak the truth which lies at the basis of 
 the happiness of mankind. 
 
 But friends of Progress are free to speak. We 
 sing new songs. We have new wings of great princi- 
 ples just starting. We are ready to soar wherever the 
 truth shall attract. We have free feet ready to scale 
 the highest mountains. We are a glad and cheerful 
 people, with unbounded hope. To our eyes the 
 heavens are open, and our souls are filled with the 
 attractive inspiration of the future. All this brings 
 
THE END OF THE WORLD. • 81 
 
 us joy and peace in the midst of carnage and confusion 
 in the physical world. The true harmonial pro- 
 gressive Women and Men stand unruffled and 
 unchanged. They know that, in the far-off future 
 time, the better will dominate what is merely good ; 
 that the best will dominate the better : that fruits and 
 flowers will yet blossom in the wilderness ; and that, 
 from out of the earth's dark places, the white lilies of 
 peace shall bloom with an immortal beauty. 
 4* 
 
THE NEW BIRTH; 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE SPIRIT'S PROGRESS IN TRUTH. 
 
 "To commune with God amidst the beauty of earth, in thanksgiving, 
 For life, health, our daily bread!" and, by second birth, 
 A home in heaven." 
 
 The first view of this question that comes before the 
 ignorant mind is the supernatural. It is incorporated 
 with all religious education, and has been strengthened 
 by the psychological influence of all ecclesiastical teach- 
 ers. Hence there exists in almost every mind an unde- 
 finable conviction that the new birth — " a change of 
 heart" — is a supernatural effect, produced by instru- 
 mentalities differing wholly from those laws of growth 
 which bring mankind into existence, which cause the 
 flowers to burst into blossom and the sun to shine ; that 
 in order to understand what is meant by a new heart, 
 or to have the " mysterious experience of such a 
 " change," we must come into a state different from the 
 whole system of laws, causes, and effects, which charac- 
 terize and regulate the unchangeable universe. 
 
 Dr. Bushnell, a most classical expounder of the 
 popular theory of the supernatural, holds the conviction 
 that, above the will and reason of every person, there 
 is a super-plane, an extra Divine sphere, differing from 
 all the fixed natural laws and mathematical principles 
 
THE NEW BIETH. 83 
 
 which move and systematically distribute the pondera- 
 ble bodies of space. The supernatural, he would say, 
 is the great voluntary system of God ; the involuntary 
 portion is the system of Nature, which is an organiza- 
 tion endowed with laws, and with characteristics and 
 attributes and forces, without inter-consciousness to 
 operate throughout the interminable periods of the 
 future, as it has through all past eternities, in unvary- 
 ing accordance with the fixed plans of the Infinite 
 Mind. If anything should occur in the departments of 
 human nature contrary to the established laws and^ 
 legitimate effects, it is a " miracle." It is furthermore 
 held that God reserves to himself a realm of voluntary 
 powers, with which, whenever in the depth ^of wisdom 
 and love it seems best, he volitionally interposes, sus- 
 pends, repeals, reverses, subverts any of the fixed laws 
 of Nature — breaking them utterly — otherwise miracles 
 would never occur, and the supernatural world would 
 not be revealed and vindicated. Dr. Bushnell has 
 probably given as complete an exposition of that side of 
 the subject as can be found in the language, although 
 necessarily very unsatisfactory and irrational, because 
 the subject itself is involved in mazes of the greatest 
 obscurity and superstition. 
 
 No miracle is possible without conflict with the 
 established atomic laws of the physical universe. 
 Whatever occurs in harmony with the requirements of 
 any of these laws, is no miracle ; though the occurrence 
 might be a higher manifestation of the same general 
 plan, not before fully understood. The definition of a 
 miracle would be the development of something in con- 
 
84 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 tradiction, in antagonism, with the immutable atomic 
 affinities of the physical universe. 
 
 The controversy between Progressive minds and the 
 Church-people turns exactly on this one point,- viz., 
 whether Deity ever contradicts the established laws of 
 the physical and spiritual universe ? Did he, or does 
 lie ever suspend the operation of natural principles, in 
 order to accomplish anything for the especial benefit 
 of any class of people, or for the sake of any particular 
 person ? 
 
 Desiring to ascertain the exact truth of the ques- 
 tion, we have gone into investigations of what, in the 
 past, have been accredited as " miracles," and which 
 have ecclesiastically been and are yet considered mar- 
 vels absolutely necessary to substantiate the peculiar 
 claims and Messiahship of Jesus. The theory is, that 
 he depended very much on these " signs and wonders" 
 to arrest the attention of the people, and thus lead 
 them, through their marvelousness, to a perception of 
 higher truths. The different Churches say that the 
 test of his Messiahship — the evidence that he was sent 
 as the only begotten of God to humanity — is the super- 
 natural power displayed in his miracles ! 
 
 Now, we have investigated and analyzed this chap- 
 ter of Bible-miracles, which these churchmen dare not 
 do. They sometimes confess that they dare not take a 
 miracle and probe it to its primal elements. Some 
 clergymen cannot always afford to follow the plain 
 truth ; others are constitutionally cowardly ; and others 
 are intellectually incompetent; whilst many of the 
 evangelical school eat too much, and are indolent. But 
 Progressives have freely examined the question of 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 85 
 
 Bible-miracles, with a sincere desire to know " what is 
 truth/' and they find that there is nowhere recorded, 
 either in the Old Testament or in the New, a transac- 
 tion which, in any possible degree, violates the estab- 
 lished order and fixed laws of Nature. If any one 
 among you know of miracles, or fancy that you know 
 of positive events, in direct contradiction to the 
 unchangeable principles of human nature or of the 
 physical universe, you should at once give a full exposi- 
 tion of what you think you know on the subject. 
 
 " A change of heart" — in the fact of which we 
 firmly believe — is no supernatural manifestation of 
 God's grace. We very earnestly believe in a " new 
 birth ;" yea, in a succession of new births. We believe 
 that there are many individuals*who need to be born 
 again and patched up a good many times to be anybody 
 worth mentioning. This is true because there are so 
 many persons who seem to have been badly born from 
 the first — " conceived in sin and brought forth in ini- 
 quity/' 
 
 But there are other natures born in righteousness. 
 We thank heaven for these beautiful bows of human 
 promise, even though they come without especial 
 intention or merit on the part of their progenitors. 
 Halos of immortal effulgence now and then flash forth- 
 through the beautiful birth of approximate Saviors. In 
 music, in art, in science, in philosophy, in every 
 direction towards which human interests tend, or from 
 which human needs are supplied, we behold well-born 
 and highly-endowed sons and daughters of wisdom and 
 liberty. A highly endowed person may be surprisingly 
 "well-born" in one particular respect, and yet may 
 
86 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 remain uneonceived in almost every other department 
 of mind and soul. 
 
 No, we do not accept the doctrine of a supernatural 
 spiritual conception, nor a new, miraculous birth. We 
 hold that man's mind is so constituted as to desire 
 sensuous Knowledge and also beautiful Wisdom, or 
 wise Knowledge, which is spiritual Understanding. It 
 is natural for man to desire to expel ignorance from his 
 mind. The soul throws a power from the center of its 
 being, saying to ignorance: "Get thee behind me!" 
 and then, turning to heaven, it says : " Give me under- 
 standing, I entreat Thee ; and give me also wisdom ; 
 and oh, give me power, and true knowledge also, by 
 which that power can be made executive and practi- 
 cal." The desire to Know, is the first implanted ambi- 
 tion of the intellectual faculties. Useful knowledge is 
 the next demand ; then knowledge that is consistent, as 
 well as useful ; then beautiful knowledge, as well as 
 consistent ; then spiritual knowledge, as well as beauti- 
 ful ; then knowledge celestial, as well as spiritual — 
 these are the gradually awakening prayers and unde- 
 finable longings of the perpetually-borning human 
 spirit. 
 
 There are persons who pass on for years, feeling 
 only a feeble desire to know more — to have less igno- 
 rance in common, every-day concerns. It is not 
 important to them whether they know " the whole 
 truth," so long as they have the common-place ex- 
 changes of a talkative society. To this end they take 
 the established Quarterlies, read the political pamphlets 
 and the fashionable periodicals, and peruse such por- 
 tions of the daily papers as inform them concerning the 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 87 
 
 common doings of the world. Such information seems 
 to be a complete gratification to many minds. On 
 Sundays they attend some established church, and 
 during the brief moments spent there they hear music, 
 and come under the influence of devotional prayers, or 
 listen, it may be, to an eloquent, a beautiful, and per- 
 haps a spiritual sermon, and, for the time being, such 
 minds feel vague longings for something more " inte- 
 rior" which they do not consciously possess. But they 
 hasten home to dinner. That settles all the fine emo- 
 tions that were excited. Down they drop into their 
 newspapers, and presently into a solid, snoring nap, and 
 on waking, find themselves the persons they were after 
 business hours on Saturday night. Others become 
 excited^ They feel enthusiastically warm all through- 
 out their beating hearts. They feel that the physical 
 dinner cannot come between them and the blessed truths 
 of heaven. They go devotionally to their rooms to seek 
 the Lord in prayer. Then they come under the influ- 
 ence of a new psychology; a finer feeling has com- 
 menced to flow from the mysterious fountains of spirit. 
 They wish to know the will of their heavenly Father — 
 beautiful, loving, saving justice, power, purity, and 
 truth, which are God. Holy emotions rise from the 
 depths of the spirit and set the moral faculties in action, 
 and the whole religious group of organs bow them- 
 selves reverently before that newly-awakened desire to 
 be at peace with God. With deep sincerity such minds 
 go to their closets, shut the door, and prostrate them- 
 selves in prayer, or pray themselves into prostration. 
 They attend the revival-meeting both day and night, 
 until, like one of our celebrated pugilists, the over- 
 
88 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 joyed heart rises and boldly declares itself " saved by 
 God," through the supernatural interposition of the 
 sanguineous sweat of the Vicarious Redeemer. And 
 the upshot of this excitement is called " a change of 
 lieart!" 
 
 Some are only spectators. Some have been through 
 the mill. Others have been concerted and "born 
 again" a good many times. There are persons in all 
 communities who have had the mysterious bewilderment 
 of this experience, and have come safely and reasonably 
 out of it ; and they testify that, while in it, they were 
 happier, but did not know as much; were not large in 
 thought nor liberal ; but they felt warmer, felt kind- 
 lier, felt a closer connection with something incompre- 
 hensible and mysteriously sublime. Young hearts, 
 between the ninth and twentieth year, are especially 
 susceptible to such Methodistical conversions ; just as 
 between the cradle and the twelfth year the physical 
 system is susceptible to measles, mumps, whooping- 
 cough, and kindred infirmities. I say there is an 
 impressible period in each human life when a theologi- 
 cal change of heart — a church-rousing among the 
 young men and maidens — comes about and produces its 
 devotional and probational effects as naturally as the 
 little distempers of childhood afflict the tender physical 
 organs. 
 
 A man just begins to be somebody when he is 
 plumply forty-five years of age. Before that time he 
 has an uncertain history and an unsolidified character. 
 A woman truly begins to be when she is forty. There 
 is then womanly beauty and practical strength. The 
 orb of life is truly balanced at this age in its path 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. . 89 
 
 around the sun of Duty. Hopes have been disappointed 
 and buried, and they have been also resurrected and 
 educated. Ambition and vanity have been checked 
 and chided many times; and baseless expectations of 
 worldly victories have been driven and punished out 
 of the temple. The person begins to comprehend the 
 solid facts of life, and to feel largely and sympatheti- 
 cally acquainted with the current wants, impulses, and 
 experiences of human nature in general. After the 
 fortieth year there occur few sudden conversions. 
 
 Almost every religious person in Christendom can 
 remember to have experienced something like 6i a change 
 of heart." Now and then, however, some one has 
 dropped over-board in the voyage, or stranded upon 
 some cliff by the way, and therefore she or he has never 
 sensibly drifted into the ecclesiastical current. Some 
 have stood upon the shore of religion and contemplated 
 the mysterious voyage in which others were embarking. 
 They stand to-day and remark : " I never was taken 
 into any Church ; I never was converted ; I have tried 
 to be, but never could be." This is the experience of 
 a few religious souls in Christendom. Large numbers, 
 on the other hand, testify that they have passed into the 
 mysterious experience of feeling a oneness with Deity} 
 and a certain conscientious reconciliation with the 
 spirit of the historic Redeemer. 
 
 If you were intimately acquainted with the religious 
 experience of the Mahommedans, Chinese, Chaldeans, 
 or Persians, who have nothing essentially at war with 
 the spirit of Christianity, you would recognize your 
 own human nature with the same mysterious, sub- 
 jectively spiritual experience, under the identical law 
 
90 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of psychological contact with Deity. They also obtain 
 and experience the " new birth/' or " change of heart." 
 Many* religious souls have had this experience who 
 never heard the name of Jesus— that " name" which 
 many Christians consider essential to the ultimate 
 safety of souls. 
 
 That celebrated religious phenomenon, which Unita- 
 rian missionaries obtained in the Eastern world — I mean 
 Mr. Philip Chunder Jogut Gangooly, who probably 
 cost about five thousand dollars to get him squarely 
 converted, educated, and shipped to this country — 
 testified that Christians, not excepting Unitarians, were 
 in need of true knowledge relative to the leading doc- 
 trines and ceremonies of Hindooism. He found the 
 American people religiously ignorant — found that we 
 knew but little, and what we did know was, like super- 
 ficial drinking at the Pierian spring, calculated to 
 make all a little drunk with religious feeling and con- 
 ceit. His influence, however, had the effect of rendering 
 our missionaries more eloquent and our bumps of 
 benevolence more susceptible. Mr. Gangooly said 
 nothing remarkable about a " change of heart." 
 
 Bishop Colenso is a convert to God's preaching 
 through the unsophisticated, but highly religious nature, 
 of those far distant heathen children. They put ques- 
 tions to him which he would not answer dogmatically. 
 The noble bishop would " once more think of it." Once 
 more the teachable teacher felt that he must study his 
 own theories — go back again to the cardinal proposi- 
 tions of his Church — down to the primal principles of 
 his own long-cherished doctrines. And this accom- 
 plished and noble-souled gentleman was sent by an 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 91 
 
 evangelical institution to teach its religious dogmas to 
 the heathen, by which they were to be led to God ! But 
 the entreaties of the heathen children led him prayer- 
 fully to a re-examination, to a new analysis and mea- 
 surement of his creedal propositions, and lo ! the result 
 is " conversion" — a new birth in the heart of the good 
 Bishop Colenso. And then Bishop Rochester attempts 
 to send the news to the kingdom of heaven, through his 
 formal prayers, and advises all the prelates and priests 
 of that region to send like word, that poor Bishop 
 Colenso has strayed from the fold of truth.* " Pray 
 for him ! He is laboring under a soul-destroying 
 heresy I" What evangelical ignoramuses ! what con- 
 summate twaddlers ! what accomplished imbeciles ! 
 Why, the priests and prelates are asked to pray against 
 the very truths which those simple children of the Most 
 High put to the susceptible and honest spirited Colenso ! 
 The heathen converted the Bishop to a higher know- 
 ledge of God. Let all men and women see in the 
 teachable spirit of that excellent minister a beautiful 
 example, and let them not be behind him in simplicity 
 and integrity. "Are you quite sure" — they asked 
 him — " are you quite sure, Bishop, that all who never 
 heard the name of Jesus will eternally suffer ?" He 
 could not reply, for he was not quite sure ! Sent by a 
 great ecclesiastical power to teach the heathen, yet he 
 
 * The Bishop of Oxford has recently addressed a pastoral letter to 
 his clergy, in which he lamejits that Dr. Colenso has resolved to per- 
 severe in the course on which he has entered, and adds, that while it- 
 is a matter of deep thankfulness that no leaven of this unbelief is to be 
 found in the Oxford Episcopate, it is not best to be contented with 
 mere immunity from error. " Rather," says the Bishop, " let the sight 
 of a brother so misled humble and warn us." 
 
92 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 was "not quite sure"! Let us thank God — God does 
 not want us to thank him — well, let us be grateful to 
 the Heart of all principles, for the. teachable, the 
 beautiful, and child-like spirit of Bishop Oolenso, which 
 caused him, with power, to say : " Dogmatism, depart ! 
 These heathen children ask me if I am quite sure of 
 .eternal suffering for all who have not accepted Jesus. 
 No ! I am not sure P' Then he goes to his New Testa- 
 ment ; goes in deepest prayer ; he prayed as good as 
 the best of you can pray, and with as sincere a heart ; 
 and he finds therein what he never found before, viz., 
 that the Divine never designs to cast off anything per- 
 taining to the constitution of the human soul ! He finds, 
 on the other hand, that the truths and real revelations 
 of the New Testament are worthy of the paternal Soul 
 of the universe. He says, therefore, to ail the world: 
 "I am a new man." And we respond, Amen ! He has 
 experienced a "new birth." And yet the dogmatic 
 Church, which holds that the new birth is essential for 
 a .sight at the kingdom of heaven, is bowed down in 
 lamentations over his conversion ! Presently another 
 class of religionists will undertake to wheel the Bishop 
 into line with their peculiar forms and notions. 
 
 If I were able, I would speak with an emphasis of 
 ten tons to the square inch, so that the whole world 
 should hear that the system of Christianity — I say 
 " the system," not the spirit, remember — as it is to-day 
 preached and presented to mankind, is, generally 
 speakirig, just as monstrous a piece of quackery as any 
 practice we find in the discordant world of medicine. 
 Christendom is filled with ecclesiastical quacks and 
 charlatans on this very subject of " the new birth." 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. ■ 93 
 
 You cannot in American cities walk over five hundred 
 yards without noticing a new sign up, announcing a new 
 method of introducing you into the kingdom of heaven. 
 The Methodist differing from the Episcopalian, the 
 Presbyterian from the Baptist, the Quaker from the 
 Universalist, the Congregationalist from the Uni- 
 tarian ! 
 
 Every one who reads the Bible — as I am glad every 
 educated person can in the independence of conscious- 
 ness and reason — sees in it precisely what his or her 
 state of mind makes apparent, and that is all. A man 
 will see its teachings literally or figuratively, symboli- 
 cally or spiritually, Swedenborgianally or quite other- 
 wise, in accordance with the elections of his state of 
 mind. And he will furnish the " class-meeting" with 
 descriptions of his religious and spiritual development, 
 or new birth, in accordance with his intellectual cali- 
 ber, education, and worldly experience. If his priest 
 has impressed him to be a dogmatist, he will hold up 
 the stupid sign and say : " Lo ! this is the only way to the 
 new birth, and the shortest route to the kingdom of 
 heaven." 
 
 Friends of Progress should help men over all this. 
 Let them understand that, by means of true spiritual 
 growth, they can become united, and thus destroy the 
 monstrous mistakes and expensive theological quacke- 
 ries which infest Christendom. No wonder so many 
 honest souls get so badly-horn in the conflicting 
 Churches ! No wonder so many come out sanctimoni- 
 ous and hypocritical, but not sanctified ! True, many 
 tender-hearted converts in the Churches are inclined to 
 be spiritual, and some of them are permanently im- 
 
94 # MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 proved and benefited for life by the mysterious shock, 
 coupled with the institutional or societary check ; but 
 a far greater number, on the other hand, are rendered 
 permanently small and limited in their understandings 
 of the human world, of the great truths of Christianity ; 
 and the life-long moral consequences are — bigotry on 
 most questions, narrow-mindedness, social bitterness, 
 and a squeamish or malignant protest against the 
 onward work of Reformers. 
 
 Now, all interior and common-sense men have prac- 
 tical and similar understandings of the origin, nature, 
 and validity of the " new birth." Many of them, how- 
 ever, becoming utterly disgusted with supernatural 
 theories, have gone to reading books of Medicine, or to 
 reading Law, and have resolutely given up all specula- 
 tive thoughts and the cultivation of all sentimental 
 inclinations toward the popular Church, and toward 
 spiritual things in general. Some of them still hold to 
 progression and improvements in moral reforms, and 
 such teach that the truest new birth consists in a true 
 generation and a true exodus of both body and soul. 
 "The true practical birth," say they — the only one 
 which will save the trouble of all the pseudo-regenera- 
 tive processes which the Churches have inaugurated, 
 and do away with all the mysterious stragglings to get 
 born again — "is to be perfectly born from the begin- 
 ning." These results rest directly with the mother and 
 the father — the true Joseph and the true Mary — who 
 are to bring the gentle human Saviors into the world. 
 The Christs are to be born from the spirit, without 
 miracle, through the organs of human reproduction. 
 There is to be a multiplication of Saviors, " both male 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 95 
 
 and female/' Instead of one being born every ten cen- 
 turies or two thousand years, there will eventually be 
 one born every ten years, and ultimately, every time a 
 child is born the angels will sing." glad tidings of 
 great joy/' for each child will be a Christ-spirit and a 
 Savior. Let us, therefore, exalt woman's mission and 
 situation, and esteem man as the all-embracing, exter- 
 nal, protective, and positive sphere in which woman 
 secretly performs her allotted duties. She is to be the 
 Savior in the sense of being a fountain from which a 
 stream, a river, a lake, a sea, an ocean of purer bodies 
 and souls will flow for the progress and purification of 
 the world. 
 
 Is not this a practical doctrine of being born again ? 
 You know that few people are well-born. Their 
 spiritual genesis is defective ; their deformities are 
 numerous — not only physiological defects, but also 
 mental and moral. Henry Ward Beecher is physically 
 hearty and morally stout enough — I am so glad that he 
 has made himself also popular and sufficiently accepta- 
 ble — to convert a Congregationalist pulpit into a public 
 Sunday rostrum ! The accomplishment of that " new- 
 birth' 5 in the functions of a pulpit is a decided indica- 
 tion of his great inherent power, and of his great 
 mastery over the feelings and thoughts of his hearers. 
 xVnd in the freedom of his Congregational platform, he 
 says, that a man born right the first time is very superior 
 to the man who has been " converted" under the influ- 
 ence of religion. (See Progressive Annual for 1862.) 
 The converted man — notwithstanding the restraints of 
 the Church and of Paul's gospel, and the additional 
 checks to bad morals constantly dropping from the 
 
96 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 eaves of the sanctuary — is not so good a man as a man 
 who was born good and rightly trained from birth. 
 That is to say, a naturally good man is superior to a 
 converted bad man in the Church. I am so glad Henry 
 said it ! I wish all gospel-ministers were sufficiently 
 stout in stomach and fearless in brain to make pro- 
 gressive platforms out of their pulpits, and then preach 
 the wisdom thereof to their astounded congregations ! 
 Pity they are not more morally vigorous. They have 
 not the power of God with them. That is the cause of 
 their feebleness and bigotry. It would take twenty 
 Trinities to give Protestant clergymen moral courage 
 adequate to preach, investigate, and enforce new prin- 
 ciples of human regeneration. But my Brother Beecher, 
 on the Sunday Rostrum, notwithstanding his substra- 
 tum of skepticism as to the existence of the Trinity 
 itself, is yet enabled to announce a most thrilling prin- 
 ciple of redemptive Truth. He is not afraid to tell the 
 people that they had better propagate their children 
 right from the start — not in " sin and in iniquity," but 
 with the pure, beautiful, celestial principles of health 
 and harmony in the body, and with the balance of 
 righteousness in the spiritual organization. From 
 thence goodness in the subsequent individual flows as 
 from a fountain, while " conversions" do nothing more 
 than modify and patch up that which, after all, at heart, 
 is out of moral shape and due working proportion, and 
 the crookedness of which cannot be straightened for a 
 lengthened period in the Summer-Land. I wish my 
 Brother Henry had also said that the morally mis- 
 shapened and intellectually crooked do not quite 
 recover until the Summer-Land pours its fine discipline 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 97 
 
 and its healing magnetism through and over the affec- 
 tions and character. But he has not got so far. 
 
 In the New Testament, in the third chapter of John, 
 we find a most practical view of this question of a new 
 birth, and yet it was given to mankind, as it were, acci- 
 dentally, or as part of a common conversation. It 
 makes one feel as though Nicodemus ought to receive 
 the thanks of Christendom for the spiritual answers 
 which his materialistic interrogatories elicited. Nico- 
 demus was a distinguished Pharisee. The Pharisees, 
 you know, were almost all dogmatic men, just like these 
 American religionists and doctors of divinity. They 
 held high positions, and filled all the important offices 
 in Israel. Nicodemus was a Ruler. He had heard 
 that the " young man 55 was teaching strange, mysterious 
 doctrines through the country ; and, being a Ruler, 
 like the Governor of one of our States, he went to the 
 " young man/' and very politely asked him to " explain 
 himself/' The Israelitish gentleman did not wish to be 
 conspicuous in such a matter. Therefore, somewhat as 
 Mr. Lincoln left Baltimore for Washington, so the 
 Ruler put on an unusual coat, and a different hat, and 
 away he stealthily went to have a religious talk with 
 the son of Mary and Joseph. Said he to the spiritual 
 man : " What is this doctrine of being born again ? 
 What do you mean by it?" So spake Mr. Nicodemus. 
 The "young man" held up the doctrine, -plainly, sub- 
 stantially, that, " unless a man be born again, he can- 
 not see the kingdom of heaven." Nicodemus first paid 
 him a compliment ; for, said he, You are a very influ- 
 ential, successful person ; you must be " of God/' You 
 do these wonderful things — you accomplish these so- 
 
98 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 called miracles among the people— consequently, you 
 must be a Son of God, and I am willing to call you 
 " Rabbi/' or master. (Now-a-days we say " Mr.," 
 instead of " Rabbi.") 
 
 The Ruler was investigating " for himself." Said 
 he : " What is the meaning of all this ?" Jesus gave 
 him an obscure answer : " Except a man be born again, 
 he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." Now, merely 
 seeing the kingdom of heaven is not always satisfactory 
 to one's spiritual cravings. You might see a very fine 
 dinner in the next room, with a strong window between 
 you and it, and you hungry and without money. Would 
 seeing the dinner be calculated to satisfy the cravings 
 of your appetite? Mr. Nicodemus did not seem to 
 get much satisfaction out of the answer to his question. 
 The theme itself was so extraordinary. fcC How can that 
 be ?" he thought. He took things literally. Said he : 
 " How can an old man enter back through physical 
 organs and be born again ?" 
 
 Nicodemus naturally enough supposed he had the 
 " best of the argument." His common experience and 
 materialistic views, assured him. Says he : " That is 
 absurd ; I can bring medical books to show that the 
 thing has never occurred." Jesus, on the contrary, did 
 not need any medical books to convince him. He knew, 
 by the light of Intuition, that the new birth in the 
 Ruler's mind, was impossible. Miracles never occur. 
 Jesus did not pretend that there was anything miracu- 
 lous in his gospel of the new birth. He did not say 
 that a man could possibly return and be born a second 
 time through the physiological organs. He knew that 
 such an event could not happen, any more than an 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 99 
 
 elderly man could swim back to the baby year and 
 begin life again — any more than any event which has 
 happened can be annihilated from the history of the 
 past. 
 
 Jesus did not admit that Nicodemus's thought was 
 possible. But instead he said: " Unless a man be born 
 of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the king- 
 dom." That is something more comprehensible. A 
 man cannot come to dinner unless he pays the price. 
 He cannot come to this feast of fat things — cannot 
 drink the wine on the lea well-refined — unless he walks 
 through water and in the Spirit. 
 
 Now of all this I believe that I never had any 
 doubt. I believe it, and have long believed it, because 
 it is utterly without miracle, and because the conception 
 is so beautiful in itself. No spiritual person ever ques- 
 tions that beautiful reformatory principle divulged in 
 the third chapter of John. 
 
 But Nicodemus was evidently astonished. He might 
 have said : " I cannot make anything out of what you 
 say; it is all incomprehensible stuff to me. I cannot 
 comprehend your ideas about water and the Spirit" 
 Then what did Mary's spiritual son do ? Why, he cited 
 a very interesting illustration of it — that is, interesting 
 to commentators who make it their business to expound 
 Scriptures, but very obscure to those who ask the ques- 
 tion. Said he : " You do not understand the wind's 
 mysteries, neither do you understand this. You cannot 
 understand whence the wind cometh, nor whither it 
 goeth. So of every person born of the Spirit." That 
 limpid explanation must have been very unsatisfactory 
 to Nicodemus. He very naturally said : " Well, I shall 
 
100 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 never succeed in being born again. If I cannot under- 
 stand the process any more than I can understand the 
 wind, then I am a gone case ; for I certainly don't un- 
 derstand either how the wind comes or how it goes." 
 And so he went away no wiser. 
 
 Missionaries who go out to teach the heathen, do 
 not know any more about spiritual regeneration than 
 did Nicodemus. When the affections of men are born 
 again, the third chapter of John is of little moment. 
 All truth is read with new eyes when the spirit is wise. 
 If you be really " born again," the world's Bible, as 
 well as Nature, will be new volumes to you. But you 
 must be first born again, independently of the Bible, 
 and become something within yourself, and then the 
 Bible and Christianity will mean something more than 
 a book and a system. The world also will become a 
 new development to you from the day you become har- 
 monious and new within yourself. The doctrine is 
 plain and beautiful, that the new birth is not possible 
 " except a man be born of water and of the Spirit." I 
 am glad the account does not read " brandy and water," 
 or " bread and wine ;" for then, to follow authority, we 
 would have to spread a table and proceed to celebrate 
 the Eucharist. He did not say a man cannot be born 
 again, except through the use of bread and wine, which 
 is only a Hebrew act of commemoration. That will do 
 as a Passover. (I always pass it over !) A human 
 heart is not born again by means of brandy and water, 
 nor alone by means of the " spirit." In some Churches 
 they dip " converts" into a large tank, simply because 
 the Bible-text reads " water 55 ; and so baptizo becomes 
 a very influential mystery in the regenerative vocabu- 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 101 
 
 lary. I am so glad that Jesus was led into Jordan. It 
 seems to promise that, one of these days, people will 
 adopt the rational means of securing physiological per- 
 fection. There will be sweeter people on earth when 
 bathing becomes universal. Swedenborg and all spiritu- 
 ally-minded people say that water. is a beautiful emblem 
 of purity, renovation, or regeneration. What a spark- 
 ling element it is, going through the world, with immor- 
 tal music on its bosom, flowing down mountain-slopes 
 and forming cascades, and forever hymning gratitude 
 and praise to Deity ! No man can enter into the king- 
 dom of harmony unless he be born, first, through phy- 
 siological harmony, or "water/' and, second, through 
 the balance of his affections and faculties, or through 
 the " spirit" of wisdom and justice. 
 
 Many of us will know something more substantial 
 about being "born again" one of these coming days. 
 Mary's son put i; water" before " spirit," and so do we. 
 It is true physiological reform. There is no mira- 
 cle or mystery in it. He said : " A man (that is, 
 anybody,) born < of water 5 — of physical cleanliness, 
 physical neatness, physical harmony, and away from 
 disease — and ' of the spirit 5 — that is, of the balance of 
 the powers of the heart and faculties of the brain — such 
 an one can enter into the kingdom of heaven. 55 (Have 
 you tried it ? If you have not, suppose you begin to 
 lest the truth of it to-day.) He says the Son of Man 
 shall be " lifted up" — the only begotten of God. What 
 is the only begotten ? It is the spirit of Truth issuing 
 from this beautiful marriage between " water" and 
 " spirit 55 — the nuptial union between " body" and 
 " soul. 55 The power and the spirit of Truth rise out — 
 
102 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the only begotten — and thus the individual is " lifted 
 up. 5 ' Then what? No man can be lifted out unless he 
 be first immersed in something. What is he lifted out 
 of? Out from his personal Satans — out of sympathy 
 with his unclean spirits — out of the pit of his demons. 
 What are they ? Passions, appetites, and inversions. 
 " The only begotten' 5 is the principle of Truth — rising 
 out from the secret recesses of the superior faculties, 
 and " lifting" man out of his passions and appetites, 
 which are demons and unclean spirits. 
 
 It matters not how great a man's reputation may be, 
 if he is, to any extent, in bondage to his stomach, to his 
 passions, to any bad habit or acquired appetite — such a 
 man is not " saved." He realizes nothing of the new 
 birth. A selfish man, a deceiver, a hypocrite — a man 
 who lives in his family like a beast and before folks 
 like a gentleman — has not experienced a change of 
 heart. A swinish character always gets " lengthwise 
 in the trough." He stretches himself at full length in 
 the advantages of his homeland closes out the choicest 
 friends of his wife and children. Or the fashionable 
 religious woman, member of whatever Church, who will 
 require the coachman to go out in the storm to drive 
 her to Church, is not born again. And these women 
 who work and slave, who are deprived of their just 
 rewards, who labor in the kitchens, and who garnish 
 the rooms where maidenly attentions are most required 
 — these are cheated of an extra twenty-five cents a 
 month by persons who go to some graceless church. 
 And are such born again ? " Can't you work in my 
 kitchen early and late for six dollars and a quarter a 
 month ?" Bridget thinks she deserves seven dollars. 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 103 
 
 Who would labor for less ? (I would charge twenty, 
 if 1 were Bridget.) It is the hardest thing in the world 
 for an intelligent person to be Bridget, and to do 
 Bridget's work. She ought to have ten or twelve, 
 instead of six and a quarter dollars per month. But 
 the favorite orthodox minister gets all the extra money 
 which Bridget ought to have for her tedious labors. 
 All because the religious lady of the house is not just — 
 is not " born again" — but is under the dominion of 
 popularity, style, fashion, churchianity, and orthodoxy. 
 Look up these opulent Avenues, so full of dressings 
 and great mansions. Do they not administer to the 
 destruction of the principles of human liberty, justice, 
 happiness, and fraternity ? Persons who live in them 
 lose much of their simplicity of character, and they are 
 not teachable. * They are unhappy and in " outer dark- 
 ness." There are " weepings" in the basements, " wail- 
 ings" in the bed-chambers, and " gnashings of teeth" 
 whenever the large bills come in for payment. I do 
 not wonder that they live in outer darkness, nor that 
 they go to church to see whether there is anything 
 " cheerful" in the prospect after a death by gout. The 
 man who needs a Church, or the woman who needs a 
 Minister, or the bishop who needs a Bible, or the reli- 
 gionist whose feeble faith needs the bolster of a Mira- 
 cle, is not born again. Such may have the form — the 
 signs and symbols — but not the spirit of Truth. 
 
 A new birth lifts the mind above dependence upon 
 externals, for the " only begotten" in the spirit begins 
 life by drawing upon the Infinite Father for truths and 
 principles. A new birth, therefore, consists in a mar- 
 riage between the affections and faculties of the social, 
 
104 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 intellectual, and moral nature. The spirit will produce 
 its kind. Jesus also said that. Did he not say truly : 
 " That which is born of the flesh, is flesh ; that which 
 is born of the spirit, is spirit" ? Don't you believe it ? 
 If -the Nazarene were in New York to-day, he would 
 undoubtedly be thankful for an opportunity to re- 
 announce that beautiful principle. Spiritualists would 
 all enjoy it, and each would say : " Well, I have heard 
 that before — a thing produces its kind." The physical 
 body, however healthy and perfect, will produce only 
 physical happiness. Aromal emanations from the pure 
 body are always precious, life-giving, and beautiful ; 
 but the harmonious human mind gives oif far sweeter 
 aromal fragrances which elevate and chasten all who 
 come within their celestial influence. 
 
 Now the body — " water" — and the soul — " spirit" 
 — become balanced and married. That is the true 
 relation. When there is marriage between body and 
 spirit, what is the result ? Progeny. Next comes a 
 " new birth." Unless that true, private, interior mar- 
 riage takes place, you will experience only an illegiti- 
 mate birth. Many obtain such births in revival 
 meetings. They deem themselves "converted." But 
 think the subject all over, and see if you do not decide 
 that all such "conversions" are illegitimate births from 
 the spirit. Let there be a true marriage between the 
 body and the' soul — be blended by " water and the 
 spirit" — and then observe how purely the offspring is 
 legitimate Truth. Then, truly, you begin to compre- 
 hend high motives and ideas. First, whatsoever is 
 good ; second, whatsoever is useful ; third, whatsoever 
 is consistent ; fourth, whatsoever is beautiful ; fifth, 
 
THE NEW BIRTH. 105 
 
 whatsoever is spiritual ; sixth, whatsoever is celestial ; 
 seventh, whatsoever is heavenly and eternal. The truer 
 your marriage, the higher and more beautiful your 
 spiritual children. Just in proportion as you grow inde- 
 pendent of externals — just in proportion as you rise out 
 of passions, appetites, unclean spirits, and demons — in 
 that same proportion you enter into the kingdom of 
 harmony. No matter where you reside, or with whom'* 
 you live, that glorious emancipation and consummation 
 will be the result of your interior growth. 
 
 Now, therefore, let us all go to work with " water" 
 — I mean, let us cleanse out our affections. Water 
 means purification. Regulate your bodily appetites, 
 discipline your hidden passions, harmonize the action 
 of your thinking faculties. Erect for yourself a high 
 standard ! Set out for personal harmony ! You have 
 a watch in the spirit. Just wind up that spirit-watch, 
 and see that every second of time is kept right. Wind 
 up your habits, and set your house in order. When 
 you attain to " inward peace," you are born again. 
 Then you can each live a spontaneous, easy, free, 
 orderly, happy life. What will be the result ! Truths ! 
 Beautiful children are they ! and ever and anon ano- 
 ther " new birth." There is recorded on the blank 
 leaves of the old Family Bible, by our parents, a 
 
 memorandum, thus: "Born on the day, in the 
 
 year of our Lord," &c. But there are theological 
 births which occur under the psychology of the ortho- 
 dox minister and pulpit. These theological births are 
 seldom recorded in any book under the sun — most 
 rarely in the "book of life." As before admitted, 
 sometimes such a birth is a true one, and the person 
 5* 
 
106 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 does begin to live a well-ordered and more beautiful 
 life. Such cases are extremely rare. The rule is, as 
 my Brother Henry truly said, that a man who was 
 good before, is essentially no better after his "conver- 
 sion. 53 
 
 There are many " changes of heart" in one's life- 
 time, and very many " new births." The marriage of 
 the body to the spirit — this is a delightful birth. It is 
 delicious harmony, producing what Epicurus termed 
 " bodily ease and mental tranquillity." He never could 
 have uttered and enforced the principle unless he had 
 experienced its birth in his mind. Out of that marriage 
 spring attractive and powerful truths ; the progeny are 
 exceedingly pure and beautiful ! You can begin to count 
 your new births from that time — the - birth of good 
 truths ; the birth of useful truths ; the birth of consist- 
 ent truths ; the birth of beautiful truths ; the birth of 
 spiritual truths ; the birth of celestial truths ; the birth 
 of heavenly truths ; the birth of infinite truths ; the 
 birth of God in the heart ; and in all directions, eternal 
 Progression. 
 
THE SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM 
 OF HEAVEN. 
 
 " Oh, restless spirit ! Wherefore strain 
 Beyond thy sphere? — 
 Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain, 
 Are now and here." 
 
 We start with the question, What does the religious 
 world mean by the " kingdom of heaven" ? Almost 
 every one's educational memory will answer that by 
 the expression is meant, a place far off — the residence 
 of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost ; a solemn 
 celestial abode where mirthfulness is not permitted ; 
 where persons appear as monks and nuns, beautifully 
 arrayed in white, but always with a thoughtful, medi- 
 tative, abstract, poetic appearance, and on their faces 
 an indescribable expression of unsmiling, cadaverous 
 piety. The whole population of the Paradisaical realm, 
 according to the world's estimation, wear an unsport- 
 ful, reverential, pious aspect ; all engaged in the same 
 rapt devotions to the august family of Gods. It must 
 be a cold and dreary place for human nature as it is 
 now constituted ; a place of unbroken circumspection 
 and habitual interiority. It makes us feel as though 
 we were on the verge of an everlasting graveyard to 
 think of it; the churchyard, with its white mementos, 
 with its many reminders of that ghostly purity which 
 
108 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 is to characterize the few who ar£ saved by the blood 
 of the Lamb. 
 
 The religious world, you know, not only looks upon 
 the "kingdom of heaven" as a place afar off, but also 
 as a situation attainable alone by means of the superna- 
 tural miracle of the atonement. Thus both the " king- 
 dom" and the " road" are absurd to human reason and 
 comprehension, and very properly the preachers repu- 
 diate the independent use of Reason on such pulpit 
 questions. The miracle of the Atonement constitutes a 
 sort of Air-line railroad to the kingdom of eternal 
 monotony ! No one pretends' to know how his reddened ' 
 iniquities can be whitened. No one pretends to know 
 why the angels will adore the blackest sinner the 
 moment he arrives, via Atonement Railroad, and knocks 
 at the great magical gate of St. Peter. It is all a 
 stupendous miracle to the thick-headed sinner ; but the 
 Church tells him, " Believe ; it is all the more gracious 
 for its mystery, and all the more like God because of 
 its incomprehensibility." And thus the stupid sinner, 
 not having thought ten minutes consecutively on the 
 subject since his birth, drops out of skepticism and rolls 
 into the lap of that mysterious conviction, and next 
 permits himself to fall into a slumber of dogmatic faith 
 most deceptive, which the Church pronounces the 
 " sleep of the blessed" — all, if only in his soul he adopts 
 the Gospel of Miracle by which the consequences of 
 all sins shall be purged away. 
 
 In the course of my lectures on the "Summer-Land" 
 it will be shown that no atonement-treated sinner 
 realizes beyond the tomb, what these pulpit accoucheurs 
 say he may in unbounded confidence expect to receive 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 109 
 
 at the hands of the Savior. Memory is an undying 
 thinking power, gathering its education from all the 
 faculties, and from every thing or influence that ever 
 touched them — a power which weaves and winds every 
 impression up snugger, and snugger, and snugger — 
 reeling all thoughts firmer and more close together than 
 threads on the roll of the silk-spinner — all which is to 
 be unrolled through all the post-historic labyrinths of 
 the great future, standing at every moment in the tem- 
 ple of personal consciousness as an accusing angel. And 
 then, what men call " Conscience" — the sense of recti- 
 tude which every faculty bestows upon its possessor — 
 locks arms with Memory, and thus the two dwell 
 always with the individual, however ideally dressed he 
 may be ; however angelic in personal appearance ; how- 
 ever accomplished in the scholastic arts and fashionable 
 attainments. 
 
 But we will not dwell upon that subject this morn- 
 ing. I have but simply alluded to the world's theolo- 
 gical conception of the miracle of " Atonement." How 
 many believe it to be the directest road to the king- 
 dom of heaven! My object in speaking on the point 
 was to declare against that foolish and pernicious doc- 
 trine of miraculously saving sinners from the legitimate 
 consequences of sin. As a theory it is immeasurably 
 worse than the system of the allopathic medical 
 schools, which hold- that men are better for swal- 
 lowing a dose of calomel on every disturbance of 
 the liver. This error is not a whit more pernicious to 
 the body than is the doctrine of the ecclesiastical 
 schools, that " faith" in the vicarious atonement i3 per- 
 manently good to save mankind from the consequences 
 of sin in the soul. 
 
110 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 To enter directly upon the subject, I will call your 
 attention — 
 
 First : To the fact that every person has an Ideal, 
 which to realize would, in that person's opinion, consti- 
 tute " perfect happiness," and perfect happiness is the 
 usual understanding of the " kingdom of heaven." 
 Every one will remember his or her Ideal. An ideal 
 comes, first, out of the particular organic structure of 
 the mind. Second, out of the condition of the spirit 
 which lives within that structure. So that a person's 
 ideal is material or spiritual, little or large, just in pro- 
 portion to the construction of mind ; and besides, the 
 ideal will always represent the status of the spirit, 
 which resides beneath those organs and behind those 
 structural conditions. 
 
 Second : Every person's Ideal is modified by the 
 force and flow and shape of Circumstances. And hence 
 the mind's Ideal will partake invariably of the image 
 and likeness to the circumstances with which it is sur- 
 rounded. 
 
 Third : These influential and shaping circumstances 
 of your organization, and then the conditions of your 
 spirit, are what originate and modify your Ideal. All 
 persons receive some form of education — all experience 
 some kind of development of the internal powers. 
 Much valuable education to the faculties comes by fric- 
 tion, contact, imitation, and the force of discipline in the 
 society of those about you. They constitute your severest 
 teachers, and the effect of their painful teaching is edu- 
 cation. Perhaps it will be a mis-education; perhaps 
 an un-education ; perhaps a complete education ; per- 
 haps it will be nothing but consciousness of unhappy 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. Ill 
 
 ignorance and discord. But whatever the mental effect, 
 which may be comprehended under the general term 
 M education," that is sure to greatly modify the Ideal 
 which your circumstances, your organization, and your 
 spiritual status first developed within the sanctuary of 
 the mind. And this " Ideal' 5 is the first thing for us to 
 analyze, because its complete attainment, its actualiza- 
 tion, the embodiment of the internal image, is the 
 individual's conception of the " kingdom of heaven" — 
 or, perfect personal happiness. 
 
 In order to ascertain what is meant by the spiritual 
 status, also what is meant by the structure of the mind, 
 I will reaffirm the fact that man's spirit is constituted 
 of several fundamental principles. These principles are 
 internal and inseparable. Phrenologists have enumer- 
 ated them up from 30 to 39 ; some have subdivided and 
 counted mental organs to the number of 40. I am not 
 impressed that this enumeration is the practical one for 
 an internal and final, analysis. It has always seemed 
 to me, nevertheless, that the classification of phrenology 
 was valuable to the mind, inasmuch as thereby it came 
 into a sort of external acquaintance with itself. These 
 cerebral convolutions, formed and forming from within, 
 are real indications of exercises in specific nerves and 
 substances of the brain. Thus Phrenology demonstrates 
 that these nerves are inhabited by mind, or spirit: and 
 where the spirit is most exercised, there will take place 
 and be visible the largest protuberance. Phrenologic- 
 al classifications have been based almost entirely upon 
 this understanding, that wherever there is a projection 
 or depression, there the brain is either exceedingly 
 much used, or greatly too idle* This organ-plan of the 
 
1 1 2 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 brain was primitively necessary ; and the Phrenologic- 
 al classification will continue to be necessary for many 
 ages. It is a kind of gate-of-invitation through which 
 people can go easily in and out — thus, to some extent, 
 forming an acquaintance with themselves, and particu- 
 larly in a pre-eminently ^practical way. 
 
 Now, if it be true that there are thirty-eight or 
 forty brain-gates to your spirit, as the best phrenolo- 
 gists say, then you will be obliged intellectually to go 
 through each one in order to attain to a knowledge of 
 yourself; not only so, but you would also be obliged to 
 flow out through the brain-channels in order to express 
 yourself truly to a wife, to a brother, to a sister, to the 
 world in general. 
 
 Now I think it is every one's conception that hap- 
 piness consists in an equal development of the spiritual 
 parts and physical organs, and the equal gratification 
 of their natural desires. I suppose this to be the short- 
 est and completest statement of wjiat would constitute 
 the " happiness" of a person — the supply of every want 
 without friction, and the gratification of every desire 
 without exorbitant expense or excessive industry. In 
 fact, the ability to bring ends to means, and to adapt 
 physical conditions without friction to the requisitions 
 of the spirit, would constitute the first, clearest, quick- 
 est, directest fulfillment of the " ideal" of personal rest, 
 peace and satisfaction with life — in a word, Happi- 
 ness. . 
 
 I wish now to show you that the realization of such 
 an " ideal" is at present impossible on the face of the 
 earth. But let me here mention that the fundamental 
 principles of the human soul, according to the cassifica- 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 113 
 
 tion of the Harmonial Philosophy, are only twelve in 
 number. There are six fundamental principles of Love, 
 and 'six of Wisdom. [See 3d vol. Harmonia.] The 
 six radical affections are the ingredients, constituents, 
 or the fountain sources from which flow life, motion, 
 sensation, and also the mysterious consciousness of con- 
 sciousness — the wondrous psychological fact that a 
 human mind is conscious of its own consciousness — 
 aware of itself — the ever present "I," which is the 
 central reality. Hence the power of the human mind 
 to go into deep solitude, and yet be in the midst of 
 things. Hence the power of the human soul to retire 
 on the far-off isle of the sea, and call poetry and music 
 and thought and affection and friendship and philoso- 
 phy and angels and Deity, all into its service and con- 
 sciousness. These twelve faculties in the spirit, these 
 twelve principles, are like all other principles, everlast- 
 ing ; and not only so, but it is true that each separate 
 principle makes a perpetual demand upon the everlasting 
 universe in which it finds itself ever-recurringly con- 
 scious ! 
 
 Hence the doctrines in the intuitions of the soul that 
 man essentially pre-existed, and also that he is destined 
 to live after the destruction of all these physical 
 appearances. It is this Intuition that gives the sense 
 of weight about the spirit. The soul longs to leave this 
 realm of dust and discord, and to sweep on through 
 interminable spheres — endeavoring thus to realize her 
 "treasured " ideal" by striving to attain to the ultima 
 thule of the present aspiration. 
 
 Each of these twelve radical and eternal principles in 
 the constitution of the human mind makes, as I before 
 
114 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 said, requisitions more or less vivid, positive, and ener- 
 getic, upon their individual possessor, and that, too, even 
 in this state of existence. Out of their wondrous depths 
 spring the onward-drawing " ideal/' which, attained, 
 is termed " happiness," but which, not attained, is pro- 
 ductive of unrest and dissatisfaction, and a feeling of 
 incompleteness which ever and anon flashes painfully 
 through and through the self-conscious mind. 
 
 It is indisputable, I think, that " happiness" would 
 result from the harmonious action and melodious blend- 
 ing of all the faculties.* Discordant minds cannot be 
 happy. Only those who travel without friction along 
 the "shortest and directest road to the kingdom of 
 heaven/ 5 can realize what it is to tread the high royal 
 road that leads to happiness unutterable. But there is 
 many a person who has the constitutional misfortune to 
 be a sort of grindstone, revolving in the center of out- 
 ward circumstances and weight. Such people not only 
 make other people and things with which they come in 
 contact awful sharp and severe in feeling and dispo- 
 sition, but exceedingly like a cross-cut saw — working 
 against each other with irresistible strength and with 
 painful, destructive friction. Such minds reciprocate each 
 other's favors by spinning and rasping off the surface- 
 steel. They work and chafe and wear away the nap on 
 the spirit of those about them, until they get down to the 
 bleeding sensations of life itself, and then come the 
 depressions of despair, with the feeling that the wound 
 which is bleeding day by day in the family, under the 
 very roof of apparent and reputed happiness, and in the 
 society which is recognized as fashionable, can never be 
 healed of the feud or forgiven the offense. 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 115 
 
 Unrest is the testimony which the Eternal of the 
 universe has implanted in the constitution of the spirit, 
 saving, " You cannot spiritually die so long as there is an 
 unsatisfied desire. Your life will continue so long as 
 there exists within you a want that has never been met, 
 a condition that has not been fulfilled, or great prophe- 
 cies that have never met their entire satisfaction in the 
 unfoldments of Science, Art,. or History." This intui- 
 tion is one of the strongest arguments in favor of the 
 immortality of the soul. 
 
 Men undertake by prayer* to bring " the kingdom 
 of heaven on earth." It is the old error in masonry of 
 building an impossible temple, which the children of 
 Babel first attempted in their ignorance, and which, 
 as the story most beautifully illustrates, was a stupend- 
 ously practical failure in materialistic religion. The 
 ambition to make a mammoth broad-church balloon, to 
 construct some theological Great Eastern, or to erect 
 some skyward pointing temple upon which mankind can, 
 without losing their present physical relations, reach 
 the kingdom of Peace, is nothing but a foolish dream 
 of error and ignorance. 
 
 Perfect happiness, be it remembered, is the received 
 definition of the kingdom of heaven. This is what all 
 the- world is after, and it will have nothing less. But 
 let me ask, Why do many apparently practical persons 
 go " through hell" in order to arrive at the heavenly 
 kingdom? Is it because they fancy that "the under- 
 ground-railroad" in experience and religion, is the 
 shortest and the safest way ? or is it because such per- 
 sons err in their fancy and judgments as to the means 
 
116 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 by which happiness is attainable and procurable ? 
 These questions are important. 
 
 It is instructive to note the mistakes and errors of 
 men respecting the means of happiness. I saw a man 
 who supposed that his present happiness and success 
 would be promoted by stealing a horse and riding swiftly 
 across the State of Illinois to meet a companion who 
 was expecting him. Not having the money to purchase 
 a conveyance, and not being able to go in the regular 
 way of travel, he attempted to secure his happiness by 
 the adoption of spurious *and vicious means. He sup- 
 posed that he would secure present comfort by securing 
 his ends ; which, instead, secured him a great deal of 
 physical confinement in jail ; for nothing like spiritual 
 rest could issue from his mistake. At first he was 
 intellectually infatuated by the conviction that if he 
 could only but steal a horse he would be, for that time, 
 at least, comparatively happy. Did he not sadly err 
 as to the means of personal happiness ? Yet somehow 
 I never supposed that that man designed to be evil — in 
 fact, I believe he did not premeditate a crime, but 
 adopted the readiest means of immediate success ? but, 
 like hundreds of others, he found that the path of error 
 and injustice is the most " hellish road" he ever trav- 
 eled to reach the heaven of development. 
 
 Once I met a young lady whose " ideal" was a 
 mansion — one just out of Boston. She was beautiful, 
 unmarried, the darling of rich and accomplished pa- 
 rents ; the father a distinguished, influential banker, 
 and the mother once a belle at Newport and often a 
 central figure at Saratoga. In noticing this case it 
 is well to recall our propositions. Her mind had 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 117 
 
 inherited a peculiar structure, and the structure gave 
 birth to .her ideal, and the ideal, borrowing itself from 
 the spiritual status, declared that " perfect happiness" 
 consisted in the splendid equipments and proprietor- 
 ship of a beautiful mansion near Roxbury. I saw her 
 and heard her ideal expressed several years ago. In 
 three years from that time she was a wife, and in two 
 years afterward (as I have been informed) she formally 
 and proudly entered upon her ideal life in a great, rich, 
 domestic establishment. I have heard of her twice 
 since that year. Is she happy ? Just think of a " ma- 
 terial house" for a spirit endowed with twelve radical, 
 eternal principles ! That young wife's mind was har- 
 nessed to her home, which rises up with mystic 
 grandeur, and which is dressed from base to attic in 
 the most fashionable style, with all the appliances of 
 compound comfort and distressing luxury — indeed, so 
 beautiful are the chairs, and sofas, and tete-a-tetes, that 
 they had to be immediately clad in very common look- 
 ing stuff, and so concealed were they that an observer 
 hardly knew, without being told, whether the gorgeous 
 furniture was made of anything superior to pine boards. 
 Chestnut or red-oak saplings, whitewashed and dressed 
 up in coarse brown linen, would have looked quite as 
 weli. Beautiful things ! So costly, so exquisite and 
 so fragible, that not a child dared to move round 
 among them ; and as for grown persons, it was to them 
 almost like treading upon the honey-combed edge of 
 Vesuvius. The young wife was nervous all over the 
 house. Her nerves were just as numerous and as much 
 present in the bedroom as in the kitchen. I know a gen- 
 tleman who said he had tried to find a place in that 
 
1]8 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 great splendid house where her nerves were not. Nerv- 
 ous ladies are all so very happy in great city houses ! 
 City doctors* know that many patients have had their 
 " ideals" beautifully embodied in the possession of do- 
 mestic splendors! Servants and waiting-maids know 
 the ubiquitous nature of the nervous system. Dust ! it 
 is the special horror of the soul with twelve radical 
 principles. Well, there is, perhaps, a spiritual meaning 
 in such abhorrence. If my friend Emerson were here, 
 perhaps he would say it means the testimony of the 
 spirit against the crude earth. That interpretation is 
 poetical, philosophical, and constitutional. But the 
 habit of being more conscious of dirt than of refinement, 
 is the chronic difficulty with a great many people who 
 pretend to be " perfectly happy" in great town or city 
 dwellings. The cook in the aforesaid lady's house was a 
 portion of her happiness, and the girl who kept the cook 
 at work was another happiness, and so was the girl whose 
 special duty was to see that the girl who attended 
 to the cook did her work, and then the other girl, whose 
 labor was to visit daily all the extra rooms, and to 
 see that all parts of the house were exquisitely arranged 
 and put " to rights" just ten minutes before two o'clock, 
 P. M. — all parts of the lady's ideal ! It was all deemed 
 necessary — all beautiful ! And when the time came for 
 parties ! You know what exquisite joy there is in the 
 flutter of a fashionable party ! And physicians know 
 what a healthy pulse is, and they also know when it 
 beats way up ten or fifteen beyond fever-heat, which is 
 always the case when there is " perfect happiness" in 
 the ideal possession of a great mansion, and especially 
 when a Party is about to be inaugurated on a grand 
 
SHORTEST EOAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 110 
 
 scale, "regardless of expense." Joy everywhere ! but 
 not in the " ideal" of that mistaken, miseducated, but 
 wealthy wife in old Massachusetts. She would not 
 attend a lecture like this ; would not go to hear James 
 Freeman Clark in Boston ; would never hear Theodore 
 Parker ; thinks that the Devil, William Lloyd Garri- 
 son, and Wendell Phillips, constitute the infernal 
 trinity ! Oh, so " happy !" 
 
 Once I met a gentleman whose ideal of "perfect 
 happiness" consisted in roving o'er land and sea. He 
 longed to get away from the perpetual embarrassments 
 of home ; to throw off the entanglements of a wife who 
 had borne him many children. At length he was at 
 liberty, as he thought, to pursue his idea of happiness. 
 So he started on a journey, which terminated in China ; 
 then it lapped over and terminated in New York ; but 
 he was scarcely perfectly happy yet ! Though he had 
 all the bufferings of journeying and all the mishaps and 
 losses of unfortunate enterprises, yet he found, on his 
 arrival in New York, that " perfect happiness" con- 
 sisted in doing almost the same thing right over again, 
 only he had concluded that he would embark for a differ- 
 ent port and on the other side of the rolling globe. I 
 do not know how perfect his present happiness is, but 
 I know that when he had made the tour of twenty- four 
 thousand miles he reported himself, and said that jour- 
 neying was a good deal of " a tax," and he would give 
 it up if he had not acquired " the habit," which, like 
 tobacco, must be chewed over and again in order to be 
 perfectly enjoyed ! Poor fellow ! He has cherished 
 that " ideal," working on through the dreary wastes of 
 ice and snow in the Arctic regions, seeking in desola- 
 
120 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 tion for the experience of perfect happiness. It comes 
 not out of his mistaken ideal. I asked him one day 
 concerning his mother, and found that she had never 
 been away from home long enough to gratify her desire 
 for an excursion, and this desire was strongest in her 
 just before his birth. Thus the great law of reproduc- 
 tion is reaffirmed : her desire to take a journey not 
 being gratified, became the source of misery every hour. 
 She was relieved from it only by exhaustion and dis- 
 ease, but never by a natural gratification of the imperi- 
 ous desire. Inheriting this consequential construction, 
 and also imbibing the spiritual status which that desire 
 necessarily imparted, on the law of reflex action, to the 
 depths of her nature, her child was unreasonably cen- 
 trifugated from his wife, and from all the endearments 
 of the family and home. The blind impulse actuated 
 his thoughts and led him into the open field of loose, 
 aimless, objectless journeying. Of course he is not 
 happy. How can a man be happy who holds in his 
 constitution twelve radical principles, when nothing is 
 done to feed and gratify them save journeying over the 
 outward world ? 
 
 I know a person who supposed that marriage would 
 be the climacteric point in the happiness .of the soul. 
 Many there are who look upon that as the relation. 
 All such are, I think, truly inspired with a sovereign 
 and eternally important conviction. But those who 
 expect that even the highest gratification of Conjugal 
 Love will satisfy the eleven other mental principles, will 
 find themselves mistaken in eleven parts of their exist- 
 ence. I have known persons who sought the marriage 
 relation and found it, and who considered that, at the 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 121 
 
 time, it was the coronation of the heart ; but at length 
 they found that the crown of happiness had not settled 
 upon their heads, and that } 7 et other and equally im- 
 perative demands were made from within. Ere long 
 the unsatisfied pair quarreled with each other, because 
 they had not wisdom to see that eleven parts of their 
 existence could not be at rest and satisfied with the 
 gratification of the one. There was restlessness in the 
 eleven parts of their existence and complete gratifica- 
 tion in only one; so they complained to each other of 
 each other ; and from their discord came diabolism, 
 and out of that a brood of Satans instead of angels ; 
 and thus the conjugal home was rent asunder like the 
 temple, because their idea of happiness was built upon 
 a foundation of sand ; and although they were beauti- 
 fully and truly married, and were, as a consequence, 
 capable of building up the " harmonial union/' yet they 
 sadly and madly separated, and will probably remain 
 so until some divine attraction either brings them 
 together, or else sets upon their hearts the seal of eter- 
 nal divorce. 
 
 How many beautiful love-temples you and I have 
 seen, in the once happy home, all in ruins ! Temples 
 of domestic conjugal happiness rent in twain by these 
 great, burly ignoramuses, who have much money, but 
 deficiency of judgment. Such men are strong in the 
 arm, but " weak in ye head." And ladies, too, per- 
 fectly accomplished in the externals — knowing by 
 intuition what it is to love, and as well what it would 
 be to be loved, but who have not met their mates on 
 the philosophic basis; and so both men. and women, in 
 all parts of the world, do not often travel on the 
 6 
 
122 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 directest, shortest, safest road to the kingdom of 
 heaven. Standing socially against each other like 
 sworn enemies, the quarrel begins through the use of 
 affectionate terms in excess, beautiful little epithetSv 
 Even before persons they begin with a little curl of 
 satire around the mouth, to name each other " My 
 dove \" " my darling V " my precious !" Alas ! it is to 
 be feared that they have each purchased a ticket on the 
 under-ground railroad. All because the married do 
 not know that conjugal love is but one-twelfth part of 
 the individual's life and being. 
 
 You know probably that I have been, for the last 
 fifteen years, so related to the public as to receive ap- 
 plications from persons in every imaginable situation. 
 Some have lost faith in prayer ; they do not believe in 
 the confessional, nor in the dismal doctrines of the 
 Protestant clergy. Many such minds do not know what 
 is best for them to do. Some of them frequently visit 
 " mediums ;" others go to " clairvoyants," who have 
 some secret knowledge of things, persons, &c, and may 
 be able to vouchsafe true counsel. I have received 
 almost innumerable letters from every class of persons. 
 (My correspondence during the past ten years is a 
 remarkable chapter in the history _of human spiritual 
 necessity.) I have sometimes almost commiserated the 
 orthodox God, if his ears had to hear those selfish 
 prayers that are uttered during the weakest and most 
 contracted and foolish days, hours, and moments of 
 men's lives. Awful is the internal history of human 
 shallowness which the world's prayers betray — so full 
 of practical imbecilities, of insanities, of special self- 
 interest, of inexpressible follies among people who 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 123 
 
 really have reputations for being sensible — men praying 
 for God to do for them what they would not of them- 
 selves deem reasonable for any brother to ask of them. 
 I remember the case of a lady whose " perfect happi- 
 ness" she thought would consist in becoming a mother. 
 Some two years afterward she became a mother, and I 
 distinctly recall the experiences which she related. 
 After the second year, she found that perfect happiness 
 would consist, not so much in being a mother, but in 
 knowing for a certainty that her darling little Eddie 
 would grow up to be " a good man." She was exceed- 
 ingly anxious to get away out of the city into a beauti- 
 ful little retired place, where no bad children could 
 molest him or teach him bad habits, but her finances 
 forbade it. Hence the lady's " perfect happiness" on 
 becoming a mother was nothing but the beginning of 
 solicitude, anxiety, and unrest. 
 
 Now, what was that good lady's error ? I need 
 not mention it. You know that she had eleven other 
 elements in her spiritual organization which a child 
 could never more than partially gratify. Parental love 
 is one, and only one of the radical principles of the hu- 
 man spirit ; and even when that is • perfectly gratified 
 there are yet remaining eleven others which have equally 
 imperative demands that " will not down at your bid- 
 ding." And the lady's error was her irrational belief 
 that her " happiness" would be complete with the grati- 
 fication of one-twelfth part of her nature. There was 
 her mistake, and it is the error of thousands. Indeed, 
 this illustrates the entire secret of nearly all human 
 mistakes. The error consists in mistaking the means 
 of happiness. By the attainment of one point you 
 

 124 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 thence proceed on the false notion that all the other 
 parts of your nature will receive corresponding gratifi- 
 cation and be at rest. 
 
 How many are there who are made "perfectly 
 happy" in the actualization of the " ideal" that fortune 
 or wealth is in itself the only important ultimate ! You 
 know how few there are who are made truly happy in 
 that way. Many there are who wish to-day to try the 
 experiment of acquiring property. John Jacob Astor 
 attained his "ideal." I suppose that many of you 
 remember what his past testimony was — he merely 
 received " his victuals and clothes ;" and yet he was the 
 man of fortune. The more fortune, the more the slave. 
 When the cares of property multiply and replenish - 
 themselves in your path, the greater becomes your ser- 
 vitude and the further you recede from the kingdom of 
 true peace and happiness. I am glad that Mary's and 
 Joseph's son saw and uttered this spiritual truth. No 
 merely rich man, with his money-bags " strapped upon 
 his back," could enter heaven any more than could a 
 camel go through the eye of a needle. When the young 
 man of fortune came to him and declared that he had 
 done all the unutterable things, had performed all the 
 virtues and made all the trips to obtain happiness, then 
 the Spiritual man said, "Sell what thou hast" — that is, 
 put it beneath you, make it subservient to true human 
 interests, let it not be your master. That is what is 
 meant by selling your " possessions." It is not neces- 
 sary to throw away your property upon Thomas, and 
 Richard, and Henry ; but the true way is to use your 
 wealth for good purposes, and not be used by it. The 
 Harmonial Philosophy teaches that self-possession — 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 125 
 
 true self-ownership— is one of the paths leading to the 
 shortest road to the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 I know many citizens who are made corporeally hap- 
 py by the wealth of others. At least a hundred and fifty 
 persons are made daily more comfortable, their exist- 
 ence is made to them vastly more tolerable, and their 
 paths of labor are strewn with perfumed flowers,- all 
 because certain good property-men are not servants to 
 their riches, but they have " sold all they have" — that 
 is, they have become spiritual philosophers, and are 
 using their means with discretion and with gratitude, 
 for the augmentation and expansion of human happi- 
 ness. That is for them the " shortest road ;" they walk 
 therein ; and such men are, therefore, always philan- 
 thropic, cheerful, and happy. 
 
 I know a man of this stamp who has a beautiful 
 social and moral presence ; his very breath is imbued 
 with purity and benevolence, like the fragrance of 
 roses. Such a human spirit has in itself the beautiful 
 realization of sitting down in the kingdom of heaven 
 with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob — a sweet, harmo- 
 nious, largely magnanimous character, beaming and 
 graceful out of his goodness. I also know ladies of 
 this noble, regal, heavenly pattern. They generously 
 give of their abundance, but are not the less wealthy. 
 They do not squander on personal ornamentation ; nei- 
 ther do they throw away riches without thought into 
 the treasuries of old Missionary Societies, when it 
 requires $4.99 to pay the expense of one cent to the 
 heathen. Nay, nay. They give their money to the 
 worthy objects that are within their gates, or to cases 
 of want just within the radius of the eye, and to humble, 
 
126 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 industrious poor who come within the reach of the 
 spirit. 
 
 I wish, therefore, to bring to your mind clearly and 
 distinctly, without one exception, that the secret of 
 happiness consists in removing unnecessary friction in 
 one's own pathway, and in assisting to remove it from 
 the pathway of others. Whoso doeth such deeds is a 
 possessor of tickets on the shortest, safest, directest 
 road to the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 First, however, it is philosophical to take it for 
 granted that this world cannot bring you the perfect 
 and complete realization of any one of your interior 
 "ideals;" and, secondly, that an ideal which is but 
 partially fulfilled can never fully satisfy the twelve 
 radical elements of the human spirit. Hence your na- 
 ture demands a Sphere of life after death for the pur- 
 pose of growth. Mankind are made upon imperishable 
 principles, each one of which is the harmonial voice of 
 God, which speaks through all parts of the tree of life, 
 moving its leaves in the winds of circumstances, and 
 vibrating them in the currents of terrestrial affairs. 
 Each one of these principles, I repeat, is a word from 
 heaven — from God's own central spirit — saying, " Your 
 best ideals are not attainable in three score and ten 
 years ; no, nor in a century, neither in a hundred cen- 
 turies, nor in myriads of millions of ages, through all 
 which time you will yet be young in the Summer- 
 Land. 
 
 The Spiritualist is a philosophic believer in eternal 
 life. He cannot help it. Every voice from heaven 
 proclaims eternal ideality^ and, at the same time, gives 
 promise to reason for an eternal opportunity for actuali- 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 1 27 
 
 zation ! It is this fundamental, natural, spontaneous, 
 intuitive logic — dominating all the schools of Material- 
 ism — that will not down to any man's argument, which 
 is the upwelling revelation of truth from within, 
 that no ideal, however perfectly realized, can satisfy 
 the whole spirit ! And this dissatisfaction, this unrest, 
 this yearning, is a premonitory symptom, so to say, of 
 the future which is in store for -man's mind, and which 
 must open, like a flower in the garden of truth, to 
 receive and welcome man to the inextinguishable light 
 of the future. By planting yourself upon these twelve 
 radical principles, the destructive friction of the present 
 will be measurably removed, and at once you will find 
 yourself a pilgrim on the shortest road. 
 
 No man can be perfectly cosmopolitan and wholly 
 catholic. No man can do all things with equal skill, 
 pleasure, or profit. A natural merchant cannot be as 
 good a mechanic ; it is neither easy nor pleasurable for 
 him to be. It is not easy for a natural musician to be 
 a successful merchant, nor for a mechanic to be a suc- 
 cessful musician. It would not be easy and pleasurable 
 for Blondin to enter the pulpit, nor for the devotional 
 minister to be a pugnacious and logical lawyer, nor for 
 the natural lawyer \p enter upon the practice of medi- 
 cine. It is not easy for man to take the position of 
 woman, neither is it easy for woman to merge out into 
 externalisms and do battle with the entanglements 
 which give pleasure to the physical man ; but, at present, 
 each one is hampered and bound to a special sphere, 
 neither realizing the implanted "ideal." For the 
 present stage of human progress this incompleteness is 
 necessary and unavoidable. But by removing friction^ 
 
128 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the life which we are all involuntarily leading will be 
 more freighted with solid happiness. The road of life 
 would be less dusty and more attractive. And then, 
 most of the present iniquities and miseries which clog 
 and throng our way — the stumbling-blocks of igno- 
 rance in each one's path on earth — would be utterly 
 destroyed. If, for example, you have any habit which * 
 causes your daily physical and domestic life to be a 
 source of annoyance, down with it ! Because, by inherent 
 strength, you are " master of the situation." 
 
 There is no primogeniture in this harmonial doc- 
 trine. No man inherits special wealth and extra power 
 because he is the oldest son in the family of God. No ! 
 Every man and woman inherits equal wealth and power 
 from the innermost. Every one is born with an equal 
 fortune. Alas ! some there are among us on earth who 
 yet live in the slumberous quietude of idiocy, leading 
 only an imbecile life ; others there are, among all races 
 of civilized man, who have not yet escaped beyond the 
 animal plane of feeling and conduct. But it is your 
 prerogative to look from a high standpoint, and with 
 great tenderness, upon the less fortunate in the world. 
 Kemember that each human brain is a nest of eggs des- 
 tined to hatch out twelve immortal doves, which are 
 twelve radical, impersonal Principles. Your mission is 
 to remove " stumbling-blocks," not only out of the way 
 of your individual paths, but the paths of others—- 
 not merely not to " lay a stra 1 ^ in the path" of your 
 neighbor, but to take away straws that some other less 
 spiritual person has laid there to work a brother's or 
 sister's misfortune. Take them all away ! Down with 
 your Satans! (I mean your Appetites and your Pas- 
 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 129 
 
 sions.) Of course I do not advise any one to attempt 
 to live without appetites and without passions ; but this 
 is the point : let no man or woman be mastered and 
 overcome by them. Put all" unclean spirits" beneath 
 your feet ; bruise the serpent's head, crush and kill 
 him. 
 
 If you belonged to these popular pagodas — if you 
 worshiped in these temples of the gods that are without 
 these walls — I could not " preach" to you such things. 
 You would be unfriendly to the ideal of progress, and 
 would have a different conception of the object of life ; 
 and as for your sins, why, you would expect happiness 
 only by and through the " atonement." But I will ask 
 you, friends of Freedom ! whether, standing as you do, 
 firmly and independently on your own feet — feeling all 
 the way up your back the ascending vertebrae of har- 
 monial and independent life, each vertebra representing 
 a round in a Jacob's ladder on which influences descend 
 and ascend — the brain being a nest of the faculties to 
 be hatched into immortality— the whole a conscious 
 oneness — standing thus, are you to consent to be mas- 
 tered by "demons" and "satans" that are nothing but" 
 personal passions, and by " unclean spirits" that are 
 nothing but your own over-indulged appetites ? Never! 
 You know as well as I that the " shortest road to the 
 kingdom of heaven" is to become master of your own 
 proper person ! Whatever your situation in life, whether 
 you reside in the city of New York, or away in some 
 rural home — whether your business is to cook or pro- 
 vide dinner for the family who employ you, or whether 
 you are partaker of a dinner which others have pre- 
 pared — in either case, as under every temptation, your 
 6* 
 
130 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 spiritual mission should render you " a peace-maker," 
 and thus remove friction. By so doing, or even by 
 so desiring to do in secret, you shorten the road to the 
 kingdom of heaven, not only to yourself, but for every 
 other human pilgrim on the globe. 
 
 And yet, let no one suppose that he or she is to 
 be "perfectly 55 happy in this world. It is a shallow, 
 idiotic, and illogical dream ; it is the very opposite, the 
 antagonist of the doctrine of universal progress. What 
 is a perfectly contented person ? What sort of a mind 
 is that which feels no onward-drawing needs or wants ? 
 It is an idiot, with no ambition to move from its 
 place — a nobody ! What brought you out from your 
 warm homes on this cold, wintry morning ? Because 
 you thought you would be happier by coming • to this 
 Hall. What is that which will soon take you away 
 from this Hall? Because, when this discourse is 
 finished and the choir have sung, you will then think 
 you will feel happier to go away. Whatever motive 
 immediately moves you, it is all traceable to that im- 
 pulse within which dominates logic — the spirit of 
 " change, 5 ' of " progress, 55 of " development, 5 ' which 
 rises higher than the highest steeple in this city, say- 
 ing, "Onward! father, mother, brother, sister. 55 And 
 onward you go into the open air — and away toward 
 other attractions, Central Park, Brooklyn, to the meet- 
 ing of friends, to your home — anywhere, to get happi- 
 ness. Never perfect after all ! 
 
 Well, that is what you should always expect, and 
 not be disappointed. For myself I am glad that I find 
 just what I philosophically know that I shall find, not 
 " perfect happiness,' 5 but the present partial gratifica- 
 
SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 131 
 
 tiou of honest, healthful desires — just this, and nothing 
 more, nothing less, unless I should greatly err in the 
 use of means and opportunities. 
 
 Can you not, therefore, be rational ? To be rational 
 in everything is a ticket on the " shortest road to the 
 kingdom of heaven. 55 Try the opposite course. Make 
 the worst of your life, as millions on the earth do, for 
 want of true knowledge of means, uses, and opportuni- 
 ties. Some shallow heads think it is very fine to be full 
 of taste and full of petulancy ; they fancy it is smart to 
 be able to scowl at every annoyance, and to wrinkle up 
 the thoughtful brow, and to make decided speeches with 
 inflated language on very small occasions ; very smart 
 to use the word " infinite" about the limited varieties 
 of pocket-handkerchiefs ; and lastly, it is the hight of 
 sense and of fashion to join the vast army of ladies who 
 go shopping at Stewart's great Broadway agony. All 
 this looks to many people like being as high in wit and 
 happiness as anybody can be outside of pandemonium. 
 
 I tell you now the day will come — and each of you 
 will remember it after it passes as well as the fact of 
 being here this morning — when mankind will look down 
 upon all this externalism with unutterable contempt, and 
 not less with self-sorrow and unpardonable shame. 
 Why should this be ? Because such a life is unworthy ! 
 That is the reason, and it is suflicient. Every intelli- 
 gent person knows that the " shortest way to the king- 
 dom of heaven" is, not to expect in this world the 
 perfect fulfillment of any one " ideal/ 5 but, instead, to 
 remove friction from the track of progress, to be indus- 
 trious and comfortably happy in the midst of what you 
 may have — this is the surest and safest side- road leading 
 
132 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 toward what is better and superior in the straight and 
 harmonious way. 
 
 I stand before you as an illustration of the truth of 
 what I am now affirming. I will not refer to my his- 
 tory — every step of which is a living demonstration 
 that a man can come from the darkest place in the 
 social Egypt and find the promised Land. In the supe- 
 rior condition of mind a man can stand on his own feet, 
 the proprietor of those great truths which no man's 
 material wealth can purchase. A person with such a 
 history may stand as a representative merely — a kind 
 of philosophical promise — of what is possible in the ulti- 
 mate of every human life ! Let all welcome whatso- 
 ever gives hope to the millions. 
 
 And now, Sisters and Brothers, it is just as easy to 
 commence from this hour as any future time. Com- 
 mence to make the best, and not the worst, of what is 
 yours or what may come. Shorten the road to human 
 happiness, and you will greatly lengthen the duration 
 of human life. Do not wait for the future. Begin 
 to-day ! Now, from this moment, say, " I will not be a 
 grindstone ; I will rather be a fountain and a day- 
 spring on high. I will not be a moon to anybody ; I 
 will be either a sun or a fixed star." 
 
 Can you not say so, and indorse it by practice? It 
 will sweeten and strengthen your feelings as soon as 
 you commence. You will look in the mirror with 
 vastly more satisfaction. How few wrinkles there will 
 soon be on your face ! How much cleaner and purer 
 your skin is ! The eye looks beaming and cheerful, 
 and there is a clear, heavenly light in it, which testifies 
 that you have adopted a new life ! And when you 
 
& 
 
 SHORTEST ROAD TO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 133 
 
 awake in the morning, it will seem to you as though 
 everybody's existence had commenced anew, and that 
 there is no dreary past in your own history ! All this 
 goes on the fact that you have ordered down your vehe- 
 ment passions, and said to your unclean spirits and 
 demons : " Away to the dark and dreary past — away ! I 
 turn my back forever upon you ! You shall not again 
 come before me ! If you do, you shall be at once consigned 
 to an everlasting death !" 
 
 These sayings are not fictions. I know that a true 
 Harmonial Philosopher — a real, spiritual, living soul — 
 can rise up and live a higher life in the midst of his 
 circumstances. Neither his bodily diseases, nor his 
 habitual passions, nor his great wealth, nor his extreme 
 poverty, nor his ignorance, can utterly deprive him of 
 heaven and angels. Whatever his situation, he may 
 become a candidate for an eternal voyage; for his 
 spiritual ship is freighted with every means of happi- 
 ness and progression. 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST- 
 
 " Be thou like the old apostles, 
 
 Be thou like heroic Paul : 
 If a free thought seeks expression, 
 
 Speak it boldly ! speak it all ! 
 Face thine enemies — accusers, 
 
 Scorn the prison, rack, or rod ! 
 And if thou hast truth to utter, 
 
 Speak ! and leave the rest to God." 
 
 I shall not be able to say more than half that I feel 
 ought to be said on this subject to the hundreds and 
 thousands who live and think within sectarian walls ; 
 but, according to the law of progress, the time will 
 arrive when all ears will hear and all hearts under- 
 stand the gospel of God in contradistinction to the 
 prevalent gospel of Diabolism. 
 
 Past peoples followed the course of human preju- 
 dice concerning the faults, evils, and iniquities of their 
 neighbors. Nothing was easier to understand than the 
 supposed or real imperfections of souls outside of them- 
 selves. And yet se^f-knowledge was esteemed to be 
 the highest attainment of wisdom. Every true Philo- 
 sopher, Spiritualist, or Progressive Bibliarian — every 
 person, in short, who taught or teaches from a high 
 point of spirit-culture, advocates and urges that true 
 seZf-knowledge is the highest and most valuable educa- 
 tion. But those conceited minds who are not truly 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 135 
 
 self-informed, who do not yet begin to Ignow themselves, 
 who still need the hints and revealments of phrenolo- 
 gists and psychometrists, who most ardently wish to 
 have themselves analyzed — are the very minds who 
 judge, with great assurance of perception, the charac- 
 ter and conduct of their nearest neighbors; they 
 assume to fully know their neighbors' motives and the 
 most secret thoughts that led to individual manifesta- 
 tions, as much in social life as in the public arena. 
 
 Nothing is more illustrative of the truth of these 
 remarks than the history of theology. When Buddhism 
 appeared, the Brahmins, who were the aristocratic reli- 
 gionists of ancient Asia, rose up and said, "That is 
 Anti-Brahma, and should be overthrown." When 
 Buddhism became perfectly established, and when its 
 doctrines were sufficiently respectable to exert a wide 
 influence in China and in many portions of the East, 
 then Brahminism, suspending its opposition, cordially 
 shook hands with it ; then the Old and the New ex- 
 changed compliments, and sent letters of fellowship 
 to each other ; but, notwithstanding all this, one never 
 got invited to the other's temple or pagoda. They 
 became somewhat tolerant and respectful, but never 
 reconciled to each other. And they are perfect illus- 
 trations of the Mosaic and the Christian dispensations. 
 
 When the Mosaic dispensation became very respecta- 
 ble, and great synagogues and costly temples and vast 
 cities were consecrated to it — to the laws of Moses, 
 which were, in a religious point of view, as complete 
 and inexorable as were the laws of the Medes and Per- 
 sians — then a pious Eastern lady had the unparalleled 
 audacity to believe and to declare that her first babe 
 
136 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 was conceived and " sent of God." And then the star, 
 according to the story, went over and stood — where? 
 Not over a palace, but over a stable! Wise men went 
 thither to learn, and some of them to worship. Thus 
 began a new chapter in theological history. 
 
 But when the babe grew to a young man, and be- 
 came sufficiently c < meddlesome" to interfere with the 
 Rabbinical wisdom and religious authorities of the 
 times, then the learned doctors and profound Israelites, 
 concentrating the opposition of both sects — of the Phari- 
 sees on the one side and the Sadducees on the other — 
 made common cause and set themselves as one man 
 against the young Reformer. And when the meddle- 
 some carpenter attained his thirtieth year, and as soon 
 as he bravely began his three years' work for the com- 
 mon humanity, then they rose up as one party and said : 
 " He hath a devil !" " This is Anti-Christ !" " Cru- 
 cify him, crucify him V 9 And when he was outwardly 
 successful — for it is human nature to.admire and al- 
 most worship " Success" — when the young Spiritual 
 Reformer was successful, then very gladly large mul- 
 titudes " followed him." They gathered in vast con- 
 gregations to hear the amber words of wisdom as they 
 dropped from his inspired lips, and in their enthusiasm 
 the disciples cried, " Hosanna V 9 (" three cheers" — that 
 was what they meant.) "He is successful in his signs 
 and wonders ; he is our man." But when what the 
 sightless world terms " defeat" overtook him ; when his 
 sweetest truths evoked a public hissing ; when his asso- 
 ciates were openly scorned ; when the Sermon on the 
 Mount was derided on all sides by the learned in the 
 temples ; and when there was a great startling convul- 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 137 
 
 sion of the world's political relations, which struck 
 terror to the highest officers in Judea — then human 
 nature, undeveloped and full of pride, declared itself, 
 and many of the enthusiastic persons who followed 
 him — some of them the most conspicuous among his 
 friends — betrayed and forsook him, and sided with the 
 opposition and largest party, and cried : " Crucify 
 him V' 3 " He is Anti-Moses !" " He is a pretender to 
 the throne of Judea V 9 " He assumes to be what he is 
 not!" "He is an impostor!" And then a Jewish 
 magnate held his court of inquiry. The young Spiritual 
 Reformer was there arraigned and accused. His crime 
 was said to be sedition and conspiracy against the Ro- 
 man government. He had aroused the prejudices of 
 the Israelites. They heard him not in self-defense. 
 That was a packed jury ! And I believe that every 
 juryman there had in his ear a private whisper, not 
 from the angels of heaven, but from those prejudiced 
 Israelites who pf owled round about, saying, : " He is 
 not fit to live!" "Crucify him!' 5 "Let us defend, 
 obey, and save good old Moses, and let us cling firmly 
 to the Laws and the Prophets !" 
 
 But why dwell upon this event ? You all know the 
 history. It is a clear, simple narrative, and is in 
 almost every one's external memory. Jesus was Anti- 
 Moses. That crime was sufficient. Consequently, down 
 he went perforce into the earth beneath. But at that 
 moment he was greater, vaster, more almighty than all 
 the world above ground ! When the hour arrived for 
 the eternal truth to manifest itself, the birth of it only 
 astounded those who saw with their physical eyes. But 
 the civilized world, to-day, looks upon that august 
 
138 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 apotheosis — the going up of a Spiritual Reformer to 
 live among the Gods — as one of the grandest victories 
 over materialism, and as one of the sublimest spectacles 
 that was ever painted on the canvas of the past ; and 
 nearly all the accredited eloquence of this age is thrown 
 about it; all the resources of rhetoric; all the devices 
 of grammar ; all the symbolic reasonings and pictorial 
 conceptions of Christian scholars. Music, fashion, 
 wealth, and all the civil and political institutions of 
 this country, more or less, harmonize with the convic- 
 tion that when Jesus died the world lost its central 
 figure in the tragedy of salvation. 
 
 Now what is this that is called " Christianity" ? 
 What is the history of Christendom ? I tell you, in 
 plain truth, that its history, from first to last, is an ex- 
 act reproduction of its tragical origin. As soon as it 
 attained to adequate power, it became the persecutor of 
 every Scientific and Spiritual Reformer. In its turn, it 
 has echoed the word " Anti-Christ" all the way down 
 human history. The record is before you. Henry 
 VIII declared, in the midst of his regal selfishness and 
 personal lustfulness, that he would not be bridled in 
 his seekings after various companions in marriage. The 
 prelates and bishops at Rome assembled and sat in 
 judgment against him. They shouted " Anti-Christ," 
 and denounced him, declaring that his relation to 
 Catharine of Arragon was holy and valid, and that any 
 other conjugal relation would be false as hell and 
 opposed to the gospel of Jesus. You know the sequel 
 of the story. He immediately broke with the whole 
 Roman Catholic world, and from that day to this the 
 Catholics have been denounced by Protestants as 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 139 
 
 " Anti-Christ ;" and as " one good turn deserves an- 
 other, 55 the Protestants are denounced as " Anti-Christ" 
 by Roman Catholics the wide world over. 
 
 Martin Luther and. his companion, Melancthon, who 
 stood on the threshold of that vast religious reform 
 which brought the blessings of freedom of conscience 
 and free speech, were deemed "Anti-Christ' 5 by the whole 
 religious world then called Christendom. These were 
 early and bitterly denounced as disbelievers in the 
 Bible. And then, as soon as Protestantism became per- 
 fectly established, (I will not go into details of its 
 history, which are familiar to all,) it began the anti- 
 Christian work of persecuting and crucifying every 
 Reformer that has arisen. And in nearly every instance 
 the new man or the new movement was stigmatized as 
 "Anti-Christ 55 and opposed as " Anti-Christian. 55 
 
 Now the real anti-Christian — whether man or move- 
 ment — can be easily known and recognized. The 
 genuine Christian is one who goes about doing good, or 
 does good whilst staying at home — not evil anywhere. 
 A theologian — a mere theorist in religion — is a very 
 different person. " Christ signifies Savior 55 — the oppo- 
 site of evil and destruction. Anything, therefore, which 
 saves, or partakes of and imparts the saving principle, 
 illustrates the true Christ. " Such a person, or such a 
 principle, is truly " Christian/ 5 On the contrary, any- 
 thing which militates powerfully and intensely against 
 the advancement of a Truth, which sets itself against 
 the growth of a Science, or opposes the light of Reason 
 and Intuition, is necessarily an antagonist of the good 
 principle, " anti-Christian, 5 ' and practically an ene- 
 my of mankind. The Word of God is composed 
 
140 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of Love, Justice, Truth, Wisdom, and Liberty. 
 Principles, wherever you find them, whether in reli- 
 gion or out of it, are infallible and imperishable words 
 of God. A Christian is one who wishes to live in rela- 
 tion to his fellows as he would have others live with 
 reference to him. It is the adoption of the principle of 
 perfect justice and reciprocation — of doing to others as 
 you would have others do to you — having unbounded 
 sympathy, saving charity, practical benevolence, 
 crowned by a warm love of truth, and a reverence for 
 what is truly Supreme. Therefore to cherish q, wor- 
 shipful love of Father God and Mother Nature is to be 
 Christian and religious also, in the largest spiritual 
 sense. 
 
 The opposite is easily comprehended. To be the 
 opposite of all this is to be " anti- Christian. 55 To live 
 unjustly and combatively, so as to produce discord and 
 enmities among your fellow-men ; to give misinterpre- 
 tations to the plainest truths that you may hear; to act 
 falsely, with duplicity and hypocrisy ; to deal with man- 
 kind maliciously and selfishly ; to hold passions, to 
 harbor prejudices, to foster intemperate appetites ; in 
 short, to do, or feel, or think, whatsoever breeds dis- 
 cord and destruction in human family or society, is to 
 be necessarily and diametrically opposite to the 
 redeeming principles, and is, strictly speaking, " anti- 
 Christ." 
 
 But sectarianism does not judge by this standard. 
 Each Church holds that everything is anti-Christian 
 which does not fully accept its adopted creed. Thus 
 the Methodists are Anti-Christ to the Presbyterians. 
 Calvinists could not endure John Wesley 5 s anti- 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 141 
 
 Christianism ; not that Methodists were not just as 
 good pietists and citizens as the Presbyterians, but be- 
 cause Wesley's followers did not receive the gospel 
 which Calvin taught as biblical and infallibly true. In 
 like manner when Unitarianism appeared, it was every- 
 where denounced as "Anti-Christ." The same 
 denunciatory spirit is written in the history of the Dis- 
 senters in England and Scotland. They fled to the 
 mountain-glens and sought safety among the distant 
 valleys. The Waldenses and the Huguenots — how 
 cruelly they were persecuted in consequence of not 
 adopting the religious creed which passed current as 
 God's Word among those in power at the time ! Not 
 because the Huguenots were not just as good as others ; 
 not because the Waldenses were not upright and 
 honorable persons, industrious and frugal, exemplary 
 in their families ; but simply because they did not 
 believe in the various cardinal principles which were 
 authoritatively called t; God's Word" in the creed of 
 the dominant Church. 
 
 The same persecuting spirit appeared and was 
 applied to the early leaders and teachers of the Uni-^ 
 versalist denomination. They were all " Anti-Christs." 
 Universalism was so terribly Anti-Christian because it 
 was not in harmony with the doctrines of eternal suffer- 
 ings for a few years of sin. John Murray did not take 
 a large amount of stock in a personal Devil nor in a 
 literal hell ! and so he was opposed to and denounced 
 by the Churches that flourished in grandeur around 
 him. And therefore these Churches said, with one 
 voice : " He is Anti-Christian — crucify him ! crucify 
 him!' 5 You know the history of George Fox and of 
 
142 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Elias Hicks ; it is all the same story, a repetition of 
 the same outrageous conduct among the evangelical 
 sects. 
 
 Now look at the evil spirit of sectarianism in con- 
 nection with the world of Science. The Churches say: 
 " Any Science that conflicts with the doctrines of our 
 creeds, is no science, and it must not be taught in our 
 schools/' That was the early trouble of the so-called 
 Christian world. It was seen that the doctrines held 
 by scientific men, with reference to Nature, were calcu- 
 lated to destroy utterly the creeds of the Churches not 
 only, but threatened to destroy as well the foundations 
 of Christianity. Science and common sense— both pow- 
 erful agents from God— early began to destroy the 
 fiction-basis of miracles, and to reduce all mental and 
 physical transactions to the systematic operations of 
 immutable law. The Churches said that this scientific 
 and rationalistic opposition to their creed was " Anti- 
 Christian/ 5 not because these scientific men and ration- 
 alists were bad men ; not because their families were 
 less respectable than the families of believers in the 
 Bible ; but because they taught the impossibility of 
 the Trinity ; because they found nowhere in the bound- 
 less geography of God's universe a place for the eternal 
 explosion of soul-burning sulphur; and, more especially, 
 because Science and Reason said this world was not the 
 center of the physical Universe, but a very insignificant 
 part of the material system — on account of all this, the 
 Churches rose up and said : " Anti-Christ ! — down with 
 such Science ! Crucify its first apostle and advocates V' 
 You know that the first scientific astronomers were 
 obliged to seal their lips, to carry the beautiful truth 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 143 
 
 upon the heart, and to worship the divine secret in the 
 silence of a prison. When Science said, " God is more 
 illustrated, and magnified, and vindicated, in these dis- 
 tant planets than on this small globe/' and when it said 
 that " this globe revolves around the sun, and not the 
 sun around it" — then the sects cried out in great bit- 
 terness: "This is surely Anti-Christ!" and they rose 
 in monumental" resistance to the development and diffu- 
 sion of such information. They opposed Science because 
 it was opposed to the accepted " Word of God," as 
 written out in their sectarian creeds. 
 
 Universalists, Unitarians, the Quakers, the No- 
 thingarians — the evangelical and respectable sects, all 
 the way down to the bottomless pit of old Hebrew 
 mythology — have arisen, as one man and one power, and 
 said : " Spiritualism is ' Anti-Christ/ " The respectable 
 sects say : " There is no question or doubt about it ; 
 at last we have found out the evil one who is among us. 
 He comes in s the garments of light' — which the Devil 
 sometimes either borrows or steals — and calls himself 
 Spiritualism" Therefore the leaders and teachers of 
 this new truth must be opposed and vanquished. Not 
 that Spiritualists in the community are any worse per- 
 sons than their Christian neighbors ; not that they act 
 offensively ; not that they keep their children from the 
 public schools, or fail to pay their taxes, or decline to 
 make Presidents or unmake them ; nor that they fail to 
 fulfill their responsible relations as citizens, as husbands, 
 fathers, brothers, or sisters, wives, and mothers — no, 
 the opposition comes from the fact that modern Spiritu- 
 alism is to popular theology what Christianity was to 
 the Spiritualism of the Egyptio-Israelites. The modern 
 
144 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 movement began about fifteen years ago. It has 
 gathered strength and momentum every hour since. 
 Impelled by its original moving-power of principles, 
 it rapidly rolls past the Churches of Christendom, 
 although they shout " Anti-Christ !" No imaginable 
 opposition could now arrest its progress. In addition 
 to its inherent motive force of principles, it adds the 
 strength of " facts," which have been accumulating in 
 all past Spiritual history. But there is a vaster and 
 more influential attraction — viz., the discovery that the 
 Future is larger, grander, and more permanent than the 
 present ; and that when we go forward, it is towards 
 the light out of darkness, toward purity out of imper- 
 fection, toward harmony out of discord. This is the 
 powerful attraction that draws onward the Spiritual 
 movement. Its inherent momentum, and the vitality of 
 its central principles, lift it far beyond all the growling, 
 barking institutions that pride themselves on not being 
 Anti-Christ. I will now ask your attention to eight 
 points of Sectarianism — each being a form of "Anti- 
 christ." 
 
 1. What does sectarianism do ? It breaks up hu- 
 man sympathies, divides families, breeds animosities, 
 leads to misrepresentations, brings confusion, and ends 
 in war. It goes out into politics, separates the coun- 
 try, divides limb from limb. This is what it does in 
 the civil, social, and political departments of the world. 
 Has Spiritualism brought sectarianism into the world ? 
 What is its spirit ? Love of mankind — brotherly love 
 and sisterly love — comprehending the Father and 
 Mother principles. That is Christian, and it is also 
 Spiritual. It is the opposite of sectarianism. Sects 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 145 
 
 have arisen out of theology and priestcraft. Each 
 decides the question for the other. But Spiritualism 
 stands to-day as the boundless Protestant, as the Luther 
 of Luthers in the midst of this jargon, saying, " Away 
 with creeds and party walls ! Break down the parti- 
 tions, and build up liberty, sympathy, and unity, among 
 these discordant, chaotic, and estranged elements." 
 And this is what is called " Anti-Christ !" We say 
 that evils, even if they be stubborn as goats, may be- 
 come white and gentle sheep one of these days. Some 
 believe that a portion of the human race will be con- 
 signed to the great goat-gridiron, to be fried forever. 
 Goat-steak for breakfast — broiled goats for dinner — 
 stewed goats for supper. But to teach that all goats 
 are on the way to the sheep-fold ; that all may become 
 brothers and sisters; that all are on the way toward 
 the infinite, approaching from a countless variety of 
 paths which lead toward one Positive Mind, and toward 
 one encircling sphere of immortal glory and happiness, 
 preparatory to a larger and a grander experience in 
 individual progress — because Spiritualism asserts and 
 advocates these principles and ultimates, it is denounced 
 as " Anti-Christ." 
 
 Orthodox ministers could do nothing without " a 
 personal devil" or something equivalent to him — could 
 do nothing for the salvation of souls without these cells 
 in the lower portions of God's universe, where lost souls 
 are burning and seething with unutterable suffering. 
 Anything opposed to those beautiful cardinal principles 
 is Anti-Christ ! ! ! Spiritualism, Quakerism, Unitari- 
 anism, Universalism, Atheism, and Deism, are oppo- 
 1 
 
146 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 nents of such teachings in old <iheology. Therefore 
 they are denounced. 
 
 II. Next we will, consider Vindictive Punishments. 
 Did Spiritualism bring into the world such punishments ? 
 The teaching of the pulpit is, that God punishes arbi- 
 trarily ; not as the natural result of violated principles. 
 The principles themselves (we say) contain the whips of 
 justice by which both the criminal and the victim are 
 brought to repentance and compensation. 
 
 The Churches teach that "man is to be arbitrarily 
 punished, and that God may justly punish to all eter- 
 nity for a few years, a few hours, a few days of sin. 
 But reason rebels ; for the relation of punishment to 
 the crimes committed, is out of all human sense of pro- 
 portion. Orthodoxy regards it all as God's great 
 wisdom, and it teaches that men ought to keep still and 
 not criticise. But human nature insists that punish- 
 ment and crime should sustain some relation to each 
 other ; that if a man sins a certain number of weeks or 
 years,, he should experience punishments which extend 
 over something like a corresponding period of time ; or 
 that his punishment, if shortened in duration, should be 
 at least equivalent in quantity and quality to the nature 
 and extent of his crimes. 
 
 Perhaps the best thing that can be said of Spiritual 
 reform is, that it brings in this Gospel — that punish- 
 ment and crime are always in harmony with each other ; 
 that one is balanced by the other, and that there is no 
 vicarious atonement, and no virtue in what is called 
 death-bed repentance. Theology says, " Our faith will 
 sweep you all clean, you miserable sinners ; it will get 
 you into the kingdom all beautiful at last, even though 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 147 
 
 you may have destroyed the lives of hundreds of your 
 fellow-beings !" Spiritualism holds a very different 
 doctrine with regard to the future of all such persons. 
 Although there is no despair, there are opportunities 
 and privileges, labors and schools, influences of exam- 
 ple, and the magnetic attraction of love, all tending 
 slowly, winningly, lovingly, to develop better faculties 
 in such sinners, and to conquer their imperfect habits 
 and badly developed powers. That is what Spiritual- 
 ism teaches. Is it Anti-Christian ? 
 
 III. In the world there is the doctrine that God 
 sends War as an arbitrary punishment. Spiritualism 
 teaches that War comes- as a concomitant of human mis- 
 direction, of miseducation, and undevelopment. War 
 is in harmony with man's lower mental and moral con- 
 ditions. When he unfolds a more beautiful character, 
 then Society will be sweeter, then nations will be har- 
 monized, and then bloody Wars will cease! The 
 Church says " War comes out of heaven ; God sends it 
 as a punishment." Spiritualism teaches, on the other 
 hand, that War comes out of man's lowest estates, 
 and that it is natural to those inferior conditions. But 
 this is what the churches call " Anti-Christian Philo- 
 sophy." 
 
 IV. Next look at the universal passion for Selfish 
 Aggrandizement. Spiritualism comes as the opponent 
 of such selfishness. But the churches do not oppose it. 
 Did you ever hear a revival-minister stand in the pul- 
 pit and teach the doctrines of social reforms, by which 
 alone mankind can be developed out of their selfish- 
 ness ? Nothing of this at a revival. But the people 
 are told that Christ died for sinners, not to cure you 
 
148 * MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of your selfishness, but to make it possible that, although 
 you are as red as fire with iniquities, you can be made 
 as white as snow — not saved from the commission of 
 sin, but from its " consequences." Spiritualism teaches 
 that the doctrine of vicarious atonement for the conse- 
 quences of sin comes out of undevelopment, out of a lack 
 of justice in man, out of a low, selfish condition of men- 
 tality. When men learn the principles of community ; 
 when they discover that large cities may become corpo- 
 rate bodies, as really and practically as these Insurance 
 and Banking corporations ; and that the whole city may 
 become a monopoly in human happiness, instead of a 
 mill for social, commercial, and mercantile conflicts, 
 then will come among men the delights and beauties 
 and equilibriums of the kingdom of heaven. Spiritual- 
 ism teaches the absence of selfishness and inculcates 
 doctrines of justice and truth to cause men to unite their 
 interests. It will be easier to live for each other's 
 interests than to live against each other's interests. 
 
 V. Next, I think it will be admitted that the doc- 
 trine that Woman should occupy a position equal with 
 man is not " Anti-Christ," though the Church affects to 
 look upon it as such. The Church says : " The woman 
 should not teach, or if she does, she should do it in pri- 
 vate, and with her head covered/' Paul, a great 
 authority in the Churches, held that woman had a place 
 more brilliant, more attractive, more grand, away from 
 the public arena. There are many intelligent persons 
 who agree with Paul; but it will come to be seen one 
 of these days that Paul and all who think with him are 
 Anti-Christians. And those who hold to the doctrine 
 that woman is spiritually, socially, intellectually, and 
 
 i 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 149 
 
 physically man's equal, but in a different way — that 
 woman will have a career parallel with man's through 
 all the eternal spheres — such doctrines one of these 
 days will be called good orthodox Christian truth. 
 Now, however, it is '• Anti-Christian " and is denounced 
 as the Woman's Rights movement. Not a church in 
 New York City is open for a speaker upon this ques- 
 tion. Dodworth's Hall, or Peter Cooper's Institute, or 
 some lesser place, must be hired, to advocate the doc- 
 trine that the mother is equal to the father, the sister 
 to the brother, and that in the future of society and of 
 government they are to stand side by side as compeers 
 and mutual supporters. 
 
 VI. Next, take the question of Slavery. Slavery 
 must be several years older than Spiritualism. It 
 started some time previous to the development of the 
 heathen mythologies. You find it before Calvin taught, 
 before Luther declared himself independent, or before 
 Henry the Eighth broke with the Romish Church. You 
 can trace it in all the lower, brutish, and selfish condi- 
 tions of human society. Spiritualism declares itself the 
 fixed and unalterable opponent of all human chattelism, 
 servitude, tyranny, and despotism. It emancipates the 
 individual, and proclaims freedom alike to man and 
 woman, Jew and Christian, child and adult, black and 
 white. Such is the philosophy of this new dispensa- 
 tion, which the Church calls " Anti-Christian." I 
 know it is anti-creed and anti-church, but it is not 
 Anti-Christian. 
 
 VII. Again, Spiritualism teaches that all Excesses 
 are vicious"; that persons who indulge in anything ex- 
 cessively are guilty of vice, which is certain to be pun- 
 
150 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 ished ; and that no vicarious atonement can save them 
 from such legitimate suffering. But the Churches hold 
 up the doctrine that man can be cleansed by a miracle, 
 and so pass off into the other world pure as a child 
 born from the bosom of God. Spiritualism teaches that 
 intemperance is as much applicable to eating as to alco- 
 hol, as much to activity as to idleness, as much to 
 spiritual as to any other human manifestation. Intem- 
 perance in any of these departments is vice, is wrong ; 
 and balance, equilibrium, harmony in all things, is 
 right. 
 
 VIII. Lastly, look at the doctrine in the religious 
 world that men are spiritually fallen in animalism, and 
 that if they live hereafter it will be by some miracu- 
 lous arrangement. Ask the Church people what they 
 think of the future ; they will give you the most vague 
 and unsatisfactory answer. The Future, in their creeds, 
 is an incomprehensible Supernaturalism. They seem to 
 think that the other world is as different from this as 
 truth is from error. 
 
 Spiritualism, on the other hand, proves the other 
 world to be as much a part of this existence as the hu- 
 man brain is a part of the spinal marrow. The spinal- 
 marrow has been gathered up, and folded over, and in 
 and out, and over again, and convoluted into the mental 
 organism. The spines of all the lower world — working 
 up through fishes, reptiles, birds, quadrupeds, and 
 bimanals into the human, growing finer and finer until 
 they become human cerebrum, or front brain — flowering 
 out from the animal world through the cerebellum, or 
 back brain, and hanging itself over on the front, the 
 receptacle of the immortal mind ! Thus we trace the 
 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHPJST. 151 
 
 first particles of this human brain back through the 
 history of all the organic kingdoms of the world 
 below. 
 
 The Churches do not seek such knowledge, and they 
 openly repudiate it as " Anti-Christian." But we look 
 upon Science and Philosophy as the hand-maids of this 
 new Religion. Spiritualism opens the human brain as 
 the sun opens the petals of the flower, when it trembles 
 and bursts into fragrance and beauty : and as Minerva 
 sprung from the brain of Jupiter, so the human spirit 
 comes forth and rises into that existence which is a con- 
 tinuation of this. When these soldiers, facing and 
 fighting the enemies of Freedom, are struck down, they 
 are not down except to the external physical eyes, but 
 are in reality immediately shot up and out into a larger, 
 sublimer existence. With this knowledge they can 
 march on without trembling. They need not be one 
 moment in bondage to the fear of death ; there is no 
 grave for the immortal spirit, only a natural and imme- 
 diate resurrection. 
 
 But all this the Church calls "Anti-Christian." 
 Christian clergymen have ventured to call it the rhap- 
 sody of a fanatical brain ! Spiritualism brings a great 
 knowledge of the future. The old materialistic school 
 of Infidelity has no chance with Spiritualism. Men who 
 had no knowledge of the future and no faith in man, 
 have now a scientific assurance and a beautiful hope. 
 These truths come as an illuminating religion, expand- 
 ing the human heart, refreshing the senses, and opening 
 the reasoning powers, enabling the mind to see that 
 there is no break in the laws of individual progress. 
 If such a doctrine is " Anti-Christian/' then human intui- 
 
152 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 tion has no power by which it can distinguish the truth 
 from error. Anti-Christianism is teaching that which 
 is opposed to the future and to God, to purity and to 
 progress. Reformers are obliged to marshal their forces 
 against the Anti-Christianity of Christendom. Any- 
 thing which militates against the doctrine of Spiritual 
 freedom and progress, and the development and expan- 
 sion of fraternal love, is Anti- Christ, and it is undenia- 
 ble that the Churches are the worst opponents of 
 Freedom and Progress. Hence you perceive that the 
 worst Anti-Christianism is the Churchianity op 
 Christendom. 
 
 In conclusion, I have but to remind you that the era 
 of Spiritual harmony is approaching ; it is coming to be 
 part of the common inheritance. Not by any miracle, 
 not by any supernatural arrangement, not by the death 
 of Christ or any other reformer ; but the New Age is 
 coming by the principles of an eternal Divinity, which 
 are imperishably implanted in human nature. When 
 the new truth comes, it is natural for persecution to 
 come also. The opposition is necessary to bring out a 
 grander and more perfect development ; so that, while 
 we deplore and denounce this sectarian opposition, we 
 see that it is natural and proper in the course of human 
 progress. 
 
 I would not have any man or woman believe these 
 principles any sooner than Nature and Reason will aid 
 them to believe. Be just and natural in your spiritual 
 growth; then you will be as firm as the everlasting 
 hills. God is the central magnet of the universe ; the 
 spiritual world is the continuation of the natural world ; 
 and man's spirit comes out of his brain at death just as 
 
THE REIGN OF ANTI-CHRIST. 153 
 
 the flower comes oat of the bud in the garden ; it is all 
 beautifully natural, and there is no miracle ; and, there- 
 fore, when you ascend to the higher life, it will not 
 even surprise you ; but will seem like a welcoming 
 stream of water to the thirsty, and like a feast of 
 wholesome food to the hungry. 
 
 This spiritual truth gives help to all and extracts 
 help from all. Instead of finding an antagonist in 
 popular science or philosophy, or an enemy in any of 
 the reforms, Spiritualism finds in each and all of them 
 true friends, dear relatives, and old acquaintances. 
 Therefore, when a man is a Spiritualist, he will very 
 likely be something else beside — a Woman's Eights 
 man, an Anti-Slavery man, a Temperance man ; and he 
 believes in the development of higher governmental or- 
 ganizations. He is loyal to the government while it 
 must exist, but is ever working and longing for some- 
 thing better. He is in favor of punishment, if it be 
 reformatory and not vindictive. He is therefore in 
 favor of Justice, and is the opponent of all forms and 
 degrees of oppression. A Spiritualist is very likely to 
 be cosmopolitan. He will have a tender and saving 
 regard for his fallen brother everywhere, and feels soli- 
 citude for the man who occupies a place higher than 
 himself. He extends the fraternal grasp to those who 
 are above and those who stand beneath. The modern 
 Spiritualist stands erect between these positions — be- 
 tween social and religious extremes — and becomes a 
 central influence, a medium for the expression of the 
 principles of progress, and a friend to all who would 
 grow in wisdom and harmony. 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 " The weapons which your hands have found 
 Are those which Heaven itself has wrought : 
 Light, Truth, and Love ; — your battle-ground 
 ♦ The free, broad field of Thought." 
 
 A startling proposition was offered and then urged 
 some time since, to this effect : That, although all human 
 minds are constituted upon and with the same funda- 
 mental principles, yet each differs from the other both 
 in quantity of mentality and also in the quality of the 
 ingredients. By quality and by quantity men are less 
 or more in contact with the divine principles that regu- 
 late the spiritual universe. 
 
 It can be shown that an " adjective" is all-important. 
 People pay for an adjective when it is properly applied 
 to fruit, to grains, or to goods of any kind in the physi- 
 cal world. For example: If a peach, without an 
 adjective, is worth one penny, then a good peach is 
 worth three cents, a better peach is worth four, and the 
 best peach is worth six cents. The value is enhanced by 
 the adjective, the superlative degrees always command- 
 ing the highest price. 
 
 This reasoning is applicable to man's spiritual na- 
 ture. As fruit is improved by cultivation, so the 
 development of spiritual quality and excellence is de- 
 pendent upon true mental education. All persons do 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 155 
 
 not inherit the same amount of spiritual property; 
 some minds are born comparatively millionaires in their 
 endowments and attributes, and some correspond to 
 musical instruments in the arrangements of their attri- 
 butes ; while others are born in the lowest physiologi- 
 cal dell, and are compelled to enter society through the 
 lowest doors, and must plod their way through the 
 coarsest circumstances. 
 
 In meeting certain persons, do you not perceive that 
 there is either an excess or else a deficiency in their 
 mentalities ? Other natures are large and opulent from 
 no 'definable or apparent reason. Their personal 
 presence seems to fill the whole' space. They may not 
 utter a word ; and yet their very silence — which is the 
 twin of mystery and the chief indication of power — 
 pours itself with eloquence into your consciousness. Do 
 you not sometimes feel the immensity of particular per- 
 sons who are, through their whole life, habitually silent 
 and thoughtful ? 
 
 Other persons, however demonstrative and garrul- 
 ous, impress you as being empty and void of soul. They 
 may utter, and write, and do things that are precious 
 and agreeable to your convictions — may hold to ideas 
 that are sympathetic with your long-cherished senti- 
 ments — may tell political or religious truths to the 
 people that you have long been waiting to hear utter- 
 ed — and yet these same persons will impress you with 
 a hollowness of character, with a sense of sounding 
 brass and tinkling cymbals, which repels you from 
 them, and all this without any well-defined reasons or 
 cause that you can understand or express. 
 
 Others, again, are M passable." They impress you 
 
156 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 indifferently, or not at all. Such seem to be about 
 fairly equipped for the voyage of life. They neither 
 impress nor depress the social sphere about them. They 
 are comfortable passengers, sleeping in the middle cars, 
 between the two extremes. 
 
 My work this morning is to trace out the causes 
 that lead to so many battles between the Spirit and its 
 Circumstances, and, if possible, to give suggestions by 
 which those conflicts may be avoided or shortened, and 
 the conquest of the individual all the more perfect and 
 permanent. 
 
 When a great and important battle is contemplated, 
 it is one part of good generalship to ascertain all the 
 directions whence your enemies can approach ; and not 
 only so, but to examine and estimate their resources, 
 study their tactics, find out their nationality and tem- 
 peraments, learn what they design to do, ferret out 
 their motives, and pierce them to the heart by the most 
 searching investigations. Then take an inventory and 
 make an honest estimate of your own powers and re- 
 sources — neither under-estimate nor over-estimate 
 them — be wholly calm and steady, without heat or 
 trepidation, but with great self-preservation and con- 
 scientiousness, having perfect reliance upon the virtue 
 and integrity of your motives and the divinity of the 
 ends to be accomplished. Find out, first of all, what 
 you have to battle with and what weapons you will be 
 called to use. This forethought and preparation will 
 give you a true estimate of your own powers and re- 
 sources, and you will know the various obstacles with 
 which you will be forced to contend. 
 
 In investigating the constitution, and resources, and 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 1 57 
 
 responsibilities of the human mind, I find that iew per- 
 sons think — fe\v r persons give themselves time enough to 
 stop to think — what it is to live in this world. Few 
 realize that life to a human being is infinitely more im- 
 portant and more significant than is life to an animal- 
 Take the most perfectly trained and learned animals 
 of the acre, and you will find that their progeny return 
 to the first animals of like species in all their charac- 
 teristics. Their progeny never improve in any habit ; 
 they never acquire new thoughts or instincts ; never 
 adopt new methods of living in this world. They are 
 entirely harmonious — soul with sense, inward life with 
 external parts. They have no war with their circum- 
 stances. They are embodiments of but few principles. 
 Motion, life, and sensation — these constitute the whole 
 of an animal. The soul fills the physical parts to over- 
 flowing, and that completes an animal's existence and 
 happiness. Its senses are balanced and in perfect har- 
 mony with that combination of powers and instincts. 
 There is therefore no controversy in the single-con- 
 sciousness of an animal. Its mind hesitates only when 
 two things, like two bundles of hay of unequal size, 
 happen to be presented to it ; then there is a momen- 
 tary exercise of inclination in reference to a purely 
 selfish gratification. The animal mind is swayed and 
 governed invariably, not by a moral conviction, but by 
 that simple sense of attraction which moves its feelings 
 the strongest. The same is true of all human beings 
 who are yet on the animal plane. Yes, there are plenty 
 of human beings who walk through society in just that 
 sensuous way. You will see, on analysis, that all such, 
 while so permitting themselves to live, are nothing but 
 
158 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 quadrupeds in many of their sensations and tastes. 
 They have not arisen to experience the noble feelings 
 and large spiritual proportions of true human souls. 
 Of course I know that, under some conditions and pe- 
 culiar circumstances, all persons have such sensuous 
 experiences — occasionally that all mankind so " live, 
 and move, and have their being" — and thus all are, by 
 the instincts of their constitutions, made conscious of 
 one truth in our philosophy, that the animal world pre- 
 ceded the human ; that our ancestral roots are deeply 
 driven into the great physical under-world of organic 
 life ; that we have inherited all of their instincts, incli- 
 nations, and attributes; and, therefore, being legitimate 
 offsprings from the Divine source, through these pre- 
 human instrumentalities, mankind have inherited all 
 anatomy, physiology, phrenology, and social propensi- 
 ties of their remotest pre-human ancestors. 
 
 Man is alone capable of knowing the difference be- 
 tween himself and his circumstances. When a " circum- 
 stance" is realized to be a circumstance, and when 
 man's spirit feels itself to be a " centerstance," a sun- 
 center, around which all circumstances and satellites 
 are destined to revolve in orbital obedience, then is 
 born within him the first assurance of his implanted 
 prerogatives and kingship. This sense of supremacy 
 may come in such memorable moments as when a man 
 is driven to his highest mental point through excite- 
 ment — sometimes through sublime indignation — at the 
 climax of which comes the terrific fire and the thunder- 
 shock from the soul's Sinai ; then descends a flash of 
 celestial lightning from the spirit's heaven, and in an 
 instant is born a strong divinity within the soul, which 
 
THE SPIKIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 159 
 
 brings mountains to the valley and raises that which 
 was low instantly to the level of its will. It is rarely 
 that an appeal so sublime as this comes to human na- 
 ture. But something of it is known in nearly all pri- 
 vate lives. There comes to every one of you a moment 
 of decision which will demand and compel the culmina- 
 tion and climacteric determination of all your powers. 
 The strength is declared from the inward fountain, and 
 in that moment you realize, perhaps for the first time in 
 your life, that there is an infinite difference between 
 yourself and all that is moving about you— that you are 
 spiritually a master, and that every " circumstance" 
 which proposes to conquer and govern you is designed 
 to be subservient. I say that such a conviction may be 
 born in you for the first time in your life, in the midst 
 of some ordinary transaction. When it comes, you 
 should hail it as a prophet ; it is a John the Baptist. 
 It is going before experience, announcing that a better, 
 grander, sublimer era will dawn in your autobiogra- 
 phy, when " circumstances' 5 will be comparatively your 
 servants, . and you their immortal king within the 
 temple ! 
 
 The world is filled with substances with which 
 spirit is constantly in contact. Why ? Because Spirit 
 is substance itself. Spirit is something and substantial. 
 It is connected, through the finest substances, with all 
 the coarser substances in the visible world. It is all a 
 system of perpetual centrifugation. Man's spirit is like 
 a sun. It is revolving on its own axis, in its private 
 orbit, and, as it revolves, throws off, by its centrifugal 
 power, first, its most delicate substance — that is, the 
 " body of the spirit ;* and then a yet coarser substance — 
 
160 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 that is, the " physical organization ;" and, lastly, still 
 coarser substances, which are the "circumstances" round 
 about it in the world. 
 
 Eyery one is either a king in that central kingdom, 
 or else a subject. It depends entirely on your constitu- 
 tion, education, and state of mind, whether you be mas- 
 ter or servant — whether you be " a thing" or " a 
 power." Your position and your progress will be de- 
 termined by your power, not by your force. There is, 
 as you perceive, a great difference between force and 
 power. Force is animal ; it is filled with impetuous 
 vital electricity ; and after manifestation, it suffers from 
 a corresponding degree of exhaustion. When it retires, 
 you are fatigued. Power, on the contrary, never sub- 
 sides. Power is linked with the eternal Spirit ; always 
 feels its identity, and has no other ally. Do you sup- 
 pose that God ever gets tired, as the old theology 
 teaches ? that he needs to rest from Saturday night till 
 Monday morning ? Such seasons of rest will do for 
 force. Force requires it ; power never. Power is the 
 deep ocean of omnipotent life. It flows through all 
 physical and mechanical laws, and through all the or- 
 ganic phenomena of the visible world. 
 
 This perpetual evolution of the infinite power is 
 silent. It is only when forces meet that there occurs an 
 earthquake, a revolution, a war, or a battle. Where 
 power is, there is only an overcoming, attended by no 
 war, by no discord. The crooked is straightened with- 
 out conflict. That which was rough is smoothed as by 
 the omnipotent spirit of Deity. When filled with 
 " force," you feel impatient and largely capable of ac- 
 complishing rudimental ends. When filled with 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 161 
 
 "power," you are overflowing with riches, feel no 
 haste. Impulse subsides under true " power,*' and a 
 quiet, earnest, indefatigable sensation sweeps all through 
 the vine-clad groves of the spirit. This feeling of di- 
 vine strength refreshes every faculty, gives you a new 
 volume of confidence in the omnipotent God, and opens 
 the truth that he liveth and reigneth in all things. 
 
 Old Testament writers seemed to be filled with the 
 spirit as well as the power of Jehovah. That is, they 
 realized the difference between force and power. When 
 they dropped out of it, they acted just like our modern 
 warriors and politicians. They said and did coarse and 
 crude things. But in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and 
 in the Proverbs, you get words from the " superior 
 condition." When they felt the Divine " power," when 
 their impatient force was subdued and tranquilized, you 
 know how beautifully and reverentially they wrote and 
 sung of the Infinite Spirit. How sublimely they reposed 
 on the unfathomable bosom of unknown Deity. " God," 
 " Lord," and « Jehovah," were expressions they fre- 
 quently used. What they called the " promises of God," 
 we, in modern days, call the fulfillments of the un- 
 changeable laws of Destiny. These promises or fulfill- 
 ments of fixed laws are mapped out from the heart of 
 the universe. We behold them in all the physical phe- 
 nomena, and feel their operations infallibly in the life 
 of spirit. 
 
 Now, in arranging ourselves for the work of indi- 
 vidual progress, we must ascertain the sources of our 
 private enemies, and comprehend the magnitude and 
 variety of our inevitable struggles. First, to begin 
 inductively to examine the field of battle, we must com- 
 
162 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 mence with the outermost surfaces and go toward the 
 center — go toward the internal man or spirit. You 
 will observe, therefore, that physical circumstances first 
 attract and demand your constant attention. They are 
 the soil, water, air, heat — the physical elements and 
 the social conditions of the outside world, in which you 
 happen to be born and reared. You will always notice 
 the difference between persons born on opposite sides 
 of the Atlantic; also a difference between persons born 
 on different portions of the American Continent, and 
 still closer, the difference between individual members 
 of the same family. Plants, in like manner, indicate, 
 first, the soil from which they spring, and then the kind 
 and amount of attention they receive. Moisture or dry- 
 ness, the amount of sun-heat and amount of sun-light, 
 will be clearly visible in the growth of the plants. 
 Their history is within. If you had deep-seeing eyes, 
 each one of earth's flowers, trees, and vines, would give 
 you a careful account of the " circumstances" which su- 
 perintended its development. Of course, in flower- 
 gardens and orchards, there are intermediates — such as 
 human eyes, and human skill, and human magnetism, 
 and the gentle encouragements to growth. 
 
 Trees, plants, vines, and flowers, are all affected 
 more or less by the human beings who superintend their 
 development. Thus their external history is like that 
 of persons in the world. Cross to the opposite side* of 
 the Pacific — go onward in the west until you arrive in 
 the east again— and you will see that the mystery and 
 philosophy of the Egyptian race — all they did in science 
 and art — are characterized by and inseparable from the 
 sands, plains, plants, valleys, and the almost mono ton- 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 163 
 
 ous world in which they lived. People and country 
 correspond ; the country first, next the people. On this 
 principle, every tree, every plant, all vines, will form 
 among themselves very small organic beings — animal- 
 cule — if you will but give them opportunities and 
 suitable conditions, so that the omnipresent organizing 
 principle can operate through their parts. The bugs 
 and worms on plum-trees always differ from those upon 
 vines and plants in the garden. The apple-tree, the 
 cherry, the pear, and each flower, bring out living crea- 
 tures peculiarly adapted to their own productive sources 
 and circumstances. 
 
 It is even so with the physical and human world. 
 The constitution, propensities, and characteristics of 
 human beings, are in keeping with the constitution, pro- 
 pensities, and characteristics of the soil. The amount 
 and kind of sun-light and heat, the kind of lunar influ- 
 ences, the amount of star-shine, the kind of water, the 
 nature of the vegetation, and the character of the ani- 
 mals — all go into the formation of a people or a race. 
 Since the Egyptians left their soil, the soil itself seems 
 almost to have died. Let a spectator examine it, and 
 it would appear as though the valley of the Nile, with 
 all its primeval abundance, had gone into slumber. 
 
 Those great mountains and exceeding floral splen- 
 dors, which are so wonderfully beautiful and grand and 
 startling in the southern hemisphere of the globe, are 
 far from where the Egyptians once lived. In southern 
 regions you at once see that the physical " circum- 
 stances' 5 are fully reported in the temperaments and 
 tendencies of the people. Volcanic peoples in volcanic 
 countries. Silent, stealthy impulses in human nature 
 
164 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 just where Nature is impulsive. Volcanoes take a 
 long time to mature. When they get ready to break 
 open the crust of the earth, they do so, and immediately 
 swallow whole cities with one terrific elemental convul- 
 sion. In such countries you find yourself among people 
 who have in their characters corresponding impulses 
 and designs. Give them time, and they, too, will 
 silently incubate the largest revolution and produce the 
 most ponderous monarchy ; they will remorselessly over- 
 throw and utterly destroy any government or constitu- 
 tion which shuts them from the indulgence of the largest 
 interests and propensities. Thus the volcanic "circum- 
 stances" of the world are repeated and reproduced in 
 the temperaments, tendencies, and morals of the peo- 
 ple ; and thus, too, are visible in folks the water and 
 the soil, and the sun-light and heat, the lunar influences, 
 the star-shine, and also the millions upon millions less 
 noticeable circumstances of the age and clime. 
 
 In this connection I adduce the reflections and facts 
 of a mother concerning the influence of parental circum- 
 stances on offspring. She says : " The precise character 
 of the father, or the mother, is, probably, never repro- 
 duced in a child ; the characters of children are a vari- 
 ously proportioned compound of father and mother, 
 modified, often in a great degree, by the circumstances 
 and condition of the mother during her periods of ges- 
 tation. The circumstances, or the condition, of both, 
 differ in most of, probably in all, her gestations, some- 
 times greatly. The influence of the father on the per- 
 sonal and mental characters of his children, which is 
 evident, makes it probable that that influence varies 
 with every child ; according to the varying circum- 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 165 
 
 stances, the varying surroundings, pursuits, cares, 
 pleasures, occupations, and states of mental ..and bodily 
 health of the father. But the varied influence of the 
 father is not easy to be traced out : though we may 
 make some probable guesses, that some of the most la- 
 mentable variations in the children of the same family 
 do proceed from variations in the father. But the vary- 
 ing influence of the mother is evident to all observers; 
 and the observer by questioning even very unphiloso- 
 phical mothers can make them, by the facts they can 
 recollect, readily admit that certain of their experiences 
 during a period of gestation do coincide with the pe- 
 culiarity of the child of that period. 
 
 " The mother during one gestation may be sick — 
 during another, she may be in health ; she may be 
 lethargic and indolent during one, and active in mind 
 during another ; be delighted in reciprocal conjugal 
 love, respect, and confidence, at one period, and be de- 
 sponding, under blighted hopes and blighted affection, 
 at another; or be experiencing suspicion, jealousy, and 
 hatred, under real or imagined injuries ; at one period 
 her intellect is beneficially active under the influence of 
 the highest feelings ; at another those feelings are dor- 
 mant, causing the feelings that we call the worst 
 (because when not under the control of the higher feel- 
 ings they operate injuriously) to have undisputed sway ; 
 and her intellect becomes devoted to melancholy, or to 
 bitter and revengeful ideas ; at one period she may have 
 pecuniary prosperity, at another, poverty, or the dread 
 of it ; she is excited or depressed by the varying condi- 
 tions of her family and her friends ; by varying ele- 
 mentary conditions ; and by varying conditions in her 
 
166 
 
 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 locality, or in her country. The variety of combina- 
 tions from all these circumstances is without end ; and, 
 as they are ever varying, it is very unlikely that the 
 condition of a mother can be alike during any two pe- 
 riods of gestation ; while it is certain that they cause it 
 frequently to vary very greatly. 
 
 "Can we expect the children formed under very dif- 
 ferent conditions of the mother to be exactly alike ? 
 We see that they are not alike in form, size, and health ; 
 and as most of the mother's variable circumstances act 
 diversely on her brain, and all her other variable cir- 
 cumstances act indirectly upon it, it is only reasonable 
 to suppose that though we cannot weigh or measure the 
 different portions of the brains of children, their brains 
 must differ more than their bodies do. And as even 
 those physiologists who say that mind is a spiritual ex- 
 istence added to matter, admit ttott the manifestations 
 of mind, or mental character, will be according to the 
 size, organization, and condition of the brain, modified 
 by the condition of the body, both Materialists and 
 Spiritualists agree that differences in brain and body 
 caused differences in character at the time of birth. 
 
 "That children are affected by transitory im- 
 pressions on their mother's mind, is proved by the cases 
 of physical markings, and deformities, familiar to every 
 one as consequences of some short-lived desire, or 
 fright, in mothers during gestation. I know a case of 
 a child whose right hand is without fingers, as if the 
 four fingers had been cut off; the mother had expe- 
 rienced a momentary fear that her fingers would be cut 
 off, as she placed her hand under the descending knife 
 of the butcher, directing him where to cut the meat ; 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 167 
 
 she received so slight a scratch that, as she says, she 
 6 thought no more about it' until her child was born. 
 If such transient emotion can cause such a variation, we 
 must suppose that the more permanent mental conditions 
 of the mother, often lasting through the whole period 
 of gestation, must have a marked effect on the mental 
 character of her child. Intelligent observers have 
 collected a mass of facts upon the subject which amount 
 to proof (as nearly as proof can be obtained on a sub- 
 ject that must be inferential) that differences in the 
 mother's circumstances-caused condition do produce 
 mental differences in children. I will narrate a few of 
 the facts known to myself: 
 
 " A wife with good intellect, and still better moral 
 feelings, during her last gestation, forbearingly,' from 
 past love and respect, sustained a melancholy secret, a 
 suppression of any expression of disgust and fear of a 
 husband, who, by natural intellect and by education, 
 once seemed her superior, but who, at this time, de- 
 based by drunkenness, had brought her to poverty, and 
 to dread of debt and want ; and who, in the frenzy of 
 delirium tremens, was seeking to take the life of the 
 wife he still respected and loved. The child of this 
 gestation (now in the prime of manhood) possesses the 
 intellect of his parents and the moral worth of his 
 mother ; but, unlike his parents in their happier days, 
 unlike their earlier child, but like his mother when she 
 bore him, he has ever had a manner of sadness, and has 
 ever been eminently secretive, so uncommunicative of 
 nis ideas, feelings, and plans, that he can be estimated 
 only by his actions. 
 
 " Another wife, of different character, during her 
 
168 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 last gestation, was deserted by he-r husband, was left to 
 poverty, and to experience the pang of jealousy in a 
 high degree ; her feelings were not controlled by any 
 remembrance of former respectful love, for her husband 
 was not so constituted as to excite that for himself, or 
 to feel it for her, and in the time of her great trial she 
 had but little moral restraint on her feelings — she 
 indulged in hatred and in bitter, vindictive feelings ; 
 her child, now fifteen years of age, is, as he has always 
 been, the personification of sourness of temper and of 
 that ill-nature that likes to give pain by word and 
 deed — and such is his character. His features wear 
 the same expression that his unfortunate mother's wore 
 while she bore him. 
 
 " The mothers, in most cases, recognize the connec- 
 tion between their feelings and the character of their 
 child. 
 
 " Mothers of several children, having one especially 
 passionate child, have admitted that they were un- 
 usually passionate while bearing that child, from the 
 circumstance that the husband or somebody else had 
 been more provoking at that time than any other. 
 
 " A mother, rejoicing in the serene and happy 
 temper of her fourth child, told me that the circum- 
 stances of a hope of a better state of society, which she 
 was experiencing during her gestation of that child, and 
 her having then learned that her temper would affect 
 that of the child she bore, had given her happier feel- 
 ings, and caused her to guard against ill temper and to 
 cultivate kind feelings. 
 
 " A married couple, with a medium amount of brain 
 between them, were happy in mind and in pecuniary 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 169 
 
 condition — the wife was without care, and without pur- 
 suits, when their first child was born ; that child had a 
 smaller proportion of brain than either of her parents, 
 and when she was twelve years of age, her mother said 
 of her : < She is just as thoughtless as I was when I 
 bore her ;' but during the wife's second gestation, there 
 was a variation in the circumstances of the couple ; the 
 pecuniary failure of a trusted friend reduced them to 
 poverty, and to the necessity of finding some new 
 means of supporting themselves and children ; this 
 aroused every faculty of their minds that before was 
 sluggish — the change being greater in the wife, who 
 then, and ever after, participated in earning their 
 living, and who became active in contriving to obtain 
 for her family the utmost comfort that small means 
 could afford ; the second child was weak in body, but 
 active and vigorous in mind ; the third child had a 
 quiet, thoughtful force of character, and they and all 
 the succeeding children had larger brains than the 
 first child had, and they promised (under ordinary 
 mental culture,) to have larger brains than their 
 parents have. 
 
 " These cases will suffice to illustrate the principle ; 
 such cases come within every one's notice. The exist- 
 ing national circumstances will have marked effect on 
 many children now in the womb ; hope in some minds, 
 terror in others ; timidity in some, courage in others ; 
 and all the various states of mind that the war 
 engenders will make many children, born during its 
 continuance, differ in character from their brothers and 
 sisters." 
 
 America is a new continent. We have here the 
 8 
 
170 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 richest and most expansive prairies. Do you see any- 
 thing corresponding to them in the American people ? 
 Yes ! Broad, rich, expansive, enterprising minds ! In 
 the far-spreading West, where great prairies sweep 
 away like shoreless oceans, there the most impressible 
 people are largely liberal and prairie-like in their 
 ambitions. I do not mean that those who have recently 
 gone from eastern States are in character like the 
 external prairie ; but especially do I mean those who 
 were born and reared there, who have received their 
 first impressions of Nature from the windows and doors 
 of a prairie-home. Such minds are like the physical 
 " circumstances " which surround them. They slff>w 
 muscular tendencies and mental powers which have 
 been imparted by their physical environments. They 
 are like the soil — very independent of embarrassment 
 — not always deep, but very broad and sweeping in 
 their opinions of men, customs, and fashions. The 
 spirit of Freedom, like the fire that unrestrainedly 
 rolls over the ocean land, gathers strength every hour 
 in the West. It is to be the most remarkable seat of 
 social and national experience in this country. The 
 most remarkable battles will be fought in the West. 
 Freedom there is not the New England idea of Free- 
 dom. It is the spirit of do-what-you-have-a-mind-to- 
 do-ativeness — a sort of individual license not yet 
 attuned to either justice or freedom. It is the prairie- 
 form of national independence, however, which is 
 beginning to rapidly educate and expand the powers 
 of the Western mind. I do not mean to say that these 
 "circumstances" will mature and culminate in a revo- 
 lution in the West. But this I am impressed to say. 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 171 
 
 that the Western world is affecting the minds of the 
 people in such a manner as to cause them, in one of 
 these coming years, to lose all national and political 
 relationship to the people of the great mountains of the 
 East; and the people of the mountains in the Eastern 
 States, who will aid in determining these historic 
 events, will be ready to yield to the West the most 
 wholesale independence. The people are being edu- 
 cated out of old-time opinions and institutions. They 
 are emancipated from their primal soils and climates, 
 and they begin to forget the sunshine and starshine of 
 previous generations; so that they easily glide into 
 new " circumstances/ 5 by which they are imperceptibly 
 molded and developed to a different plan. 
 
 The American mind, I think, is gradually assuming 
 the form and tendencies of the mind of the Aborigines. 
 The American mind is every day becoming less govern- 
 able by old-time codes. It will no longer import its 
 ideas of government ; it no longer can import its 
 religion ; music for the people can scarcely be copied 
 from trans-Atlantic sources. Fifty years more, and 
 the American mind will be setting up for itself in 
 religion, in government, in music, in art. New schools 
 upon the new soils will spring up. Americans have 
 hitherto imitated and profited by the old examples and 
 masters. Possible artists yet go over to Italy to study 
 the old pictures. But the true American would rather 
 study the artist, when he gets home, than to study 
 what he has studied. When the art-lover returns and 
 receives again the " circumstances " of his own native 
 country into his mind, then he rises out of slumberous 
 Italy and above all those Medieval schools of inspira- 
 
172 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 tion, and becomes once more loyal to the providential 
 spirit of Progress which pervades the Continent of 
 America. 
 
 The aboriginal spirit is bold, defiant, incorrigible, 
 and independent. It can be broken and dispersed ; it 
 cannot be conquered. Some minds pride themselves 
 upon their Anglo-Saxon origin. They think that that 
 race is unconquerable. That is not history. If we are 
 really the descendants of Anglo-Saxons, we shall be 
 conquered; because they were conquered in the very 
 first stages of their development in England. And they 
 have in them the spirit of " obedience" to " law 55 to 
 such an extent that a potentate would be welcomed by 
 them. There is a welcoming prayer put up, especially 
 through commerce and politics, for the safe and speedy 
 arrival of some Dictator. Many descendants of Anglo- 
 Saxons would vote for the inauguration of a Monarch in 
 this country ! But the spirit of the true people of the 
 country has not yet been declared. That is supremely 
 aboriginal. It is the spirit of personal independence, 
 of national largeness, of great commercial expansive- 
 ness, and of unbounded research and enterprise. These 
 conditions in the minds of true Americans come from 
 physical " circumstances/ 5 from climate and the soils, 
 including water, the action of the sun through its heat 
 and light, the influences of the moon and stars, and from 
 yet more powerful effects bestowed by the Summer- 
 Land. 
 
 Next come the nearer and more potent " circum- 
 stances' 3 known as societary influences. Fortunately, 
 they are transitory. But they come very near. They 
 almost touch your nervous system. They control your 
 
 i 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 173 
 
 actions more than any or all the other influences men- 
 tioned. Not more positively, perhaps, but more sensi- 
 bly and immediately. When a human mind is touched 
 by its immediate discordant surroundings, the soul feels 
 them as quickly and as disagreeably as you feel a dress 
 that does not fit your form, or a new shoe that pinches 
 your tenderest toes. Societary influences act directly 
 upon your character. If I should let fall but ten drops 
 of ink into a tumblerful of water, those ten drops would 
 be instantly dissolved and diffused through all parts of 
 the fluid, and there is no chemistry that can restore that 
 water to its original condition. The new element 
 becomes incorporated inseparably with the receptive 
 water. 
 
 So the circumstantial and potent drops that have 
 been added to your soul's fluids from the streams of 
 society have not been thrown off, but have been ab- 
 sorbed. They have bqcome parts of your sensations and 
 exterior character. Your outward faculties are im- 
 pressed to assume the shape and properties of the near- 
 est and strongest powers. Societary influences are 
 positive and imperative, and they mold mankind in 
 proportion to their nearness. They are inevitably con- 
 nected with family relations, with particular duties, 
 with business obligations, and always with selfish pur- 
 suits and interests. 
 
 The next set of " circumstances" which are always 
 around a man, and which are still more inward, and 
 influential, and potential, are phrenological. It is not 
 customary to say that the brain organs in a man's 
 cranium are " circumstances." But if you examine 
 yourself closely, you will find that you have a. phrenology 
 
174 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 which you are not, but belonging to you as tools belong 
 to a mechanic. You naturally say to the Phrenologist : 
 "I wish an examination of my phrenology — of my or- 
 gans" — Jhus making a philosophical and perfectly 
 accurate distinction between yourself and your phrenolo- 
 gical " circumstances." You say to him: " Sir, I wish to 
 know what powers (organs) I have, according to your 
 science and measurement." You thus get mapped out, 
 for future reference, your phrenological circumstances. 
 You take the book containing your Chart, and examine 
 the names, and figures, and sizes, and functions, as one 
 would look at a box of carpenter's tools. There is 
 "tune," and here is "ideality," "sublimity," "con- 
 science," and .close under the brain is " combativeness," 
 and so on — all the time separating yourself, and reserv- 
 ing your individual judgment and consciousness, from 
 the details of the map which locates and describes your 
 phrenological circumstances. A t thoughtful man never 
 naturally says: "I wish the phrenologist to examine 
 me." He who so addresses himself to a phrenologist, 
 says something he does not comprehend. The compre- 
 hending power in the spirit never so speaks with refer- 
 ence to itself. It speaks only of something which is 
 "circumstantial" to its most interior consciousness. 
 However analytical you may be, you never undertake 
 to analyze the consciousness of the consciousness which 
 first sought and suggested the investigation. At one 
 time I supposed that I could ultimately comprehend my 
 own inmost. The consciousness of consciousness in me, 
 which longed for and dictated the investigations, would 
 not submit to self-comprehension. I found, what every 
 one of you will find, sooner or later, that your inmost 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 175 
 
 consciousness is an eternal reservation. It touches in- 
 finitude on every side. It demands and permits no final 
 sell-comprehending analysis. It allies itself eternally 
 with infinite Principles, and takes little interest in 
 evanescent "thoughts." Spirit indulges the sportive 
 play of " thoughts" in a supplementary way ; merely 
 tolerates them, but always with graceful concessions to 
 their fleeting juvenescence. 
 
 Now it is to be remembered that these phrenological 
 " circumstances" aifect us more potentially than do our 
 most intimate social " circumstances," because the former 
 are so much more closely identified with the brain's 
 workings. We are incarcerated within these cranial 
 walls, and we reflect truthfully that we did not erect 
 them. Many find entire justification, as they suppose, 
 for any eccentricity, or for the habitual gratification of 
 any impulse, or for any misconduct or mismanagement 
 of which they are culpable, on the ground that they have 
 rceived, by transmission, a bad phrenological organiza- 
 tion for which they are not responsible. They justify 
 themselves and say to mother and father : " Look at 
 my phrenology! How could I help it?" Do you not 
 see that there is reserved power in spite of which you 
 seek justification in your " circumstances " ? But while 
 you will not always find justification, you may find 
 plenty of pity and sympathy from kindly-natured per- 
 sons, who estimate carefully your circumstances, and 
 who try in charity to comprehend what measure of 
 influence they* exerted upon your motives and actions. 
 Phrenology proves that " organs" about the soul exert 
 upon personal disposition and character a distinct and 
 positive influence. 
 
176 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Next, we are to examine our physiological "cir- 
 cumstances." We did not primarily make our physio- 
 logical organs, but we do make the " conditions" under 
 which those organs are required to perform their func- 
 tions. Our physiological conditions come out of our foods, 
 and drinks, and methods of living, and out of our 
 habits — out of too little sleep, or too much of it ; out 
 of our industries, or out of our continued idleness — in 
 short, whatever we may do, or not do, contributes to the 
 formation of our physiological " conditions/' But our phy- 
 siological circumstances (by which I mean organization,) 
 were bestowed without premeditation from our parents. 
 We inherit the bodily forms and functions with our 
 phrenology, as the latter came with our social and phy- 
 siological surroundings. Thus it stands : A man is 
 born into his physiology, born into his phrenology, born 
 into his society, born into his geography, into his climate ; 
 so that each individual is deposited (so to say,) amid 
 many and various concentric circles of shaping and 
 molding influences. Mark you, the man is born into 
 them ; they do not make the man. The human spirit is 
 born into the center of these concentric dynamic circles 
 of circumstances; and the circle nearest to the spirit 
 will first exert its constructive influence upon disposi- 
 tion and character. 
 
 Your physiological circumstances are first predomi- 
 nant. The contents of your phrenology — the brain 
 organs — do not first influence you. The child first 
 responds to the demands of its physiological circum- 
 stances. The young mind is affected first by the shape 
 of the spine, by the action of the several joints, by the 
 tendons and ligaments, by the size and proportions of 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 177 
 
 the organs within the body, and, lastly, by the per- 
 formance of their functions. The little child is in sym- 
 pathy with its bodily organs and forces — with the 
 ponderable parts and imponderable powers that make 
 up the physiological circumstances of its inmost life. 
 Its mind and feelings will be in bondage to them. Its 
 life- manifestations will be in accordance with them 
 until the phrenological circumstances begin to exert 
 themselves upon the feelings and character. Then the 
 little child changes from a physiological to a phrenolo- 
 gical being. 
 
 This dependence upon phrenology may continue for 
 years. Then come the constructive powers of social 
 and physical circumstances. The child-mind then be- 
 gins to exhibit the action of social and physical circum- 
 stances upon both its physiology and phrenology. The 
 young constitution very soon responds to the most out- 
 ward "circumstances" — the physical globe, its clima- 
 tology, its topography, and the soil ; the action of the 
 sun, its heat and its light; moisture, dryness, &c, &c. ; 
 whatever, in short, is considered appropriate or exist- 
 ing in the world of physical circumstances, is concerned 
 more or less conspicuously in framing and making up 
 the human character. 
 
 Spirit is in the center. Begin thus, at the pivot, 
 and count the concentric circles. First, its physiologic- 
 al circumstances; second, its phrenological; third, its 
 societary; fourth, its physical or geographical — the 
 most external of all. Now do you not know that some 
 persons remain through life under one or two of these 
 concentric "circumstances"? Certain minds allow 
 themselves to be molded and fashioned by whatever is 
 8* 
 
178 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 nearest and most allied to their interests. They die at 
 the end of fifty, sixty, or perhaps one hundred years, 
 having been molded and shaped by one set of circum- 
 stances, and only transiently affected by the others. 
 
 Spirit, the inmost and eternal, is no such victim. It 
 is the source of power. Force is animal. The soul is 
 composed of motion, life, sensation, and intelligence. 
 In the animal but little; in the man, much. That 
 power which is at the center of life, which is destined 
 to gain the mastery, which takes hold upon infinitude, 
 which is allied with whatsoever is divine and omnipo- 
 tent, which is twin-born with justice, and truth, and 
 virtue, and with all that is pure, and noble, and sub- 
 lime — that power resides at the heart-seat of your life, 
 the coming Lord of all circumstances. I am now 
 •speaking to that power in you. Some will hear; others 
 w r ill not. In the millions the Inmost has not yet 
 asserted its supremacy. Of course such do not feel them- 
 selves even partial masters of their influential circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The spirit's battles are to be fought through power, 
 not through force. But " force" is necessary. It is 
 part of man's intelligence — is natural to motion, life, 
 and sensation. But there is invariably as large an 
 amount of defeat as there is of victory in battles of mere 
 force. " Action and reaction are equal ;" so say all 
 who study the laws of mechanics. They must calculate 
 for loss of power by reaction in all mechanism which 
 moves by means of motive power. Now what is man? 
 Does he not start out as a mechanism — the most perfect 
 and the most fearful and wonderful piece of machinery 
 in the world ? The necessities and circumstances of 
 
THE SPIItIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 179 
 
 his physiological organs cause him to call for drink, for 
 clothing, for protection, for home, for love, and the inef- 
 fable attentions and blessedness of that love. Then his 
 phrenology brings in its influence. All his brain- 
 organs have motives, impulses, and powers, hidden in 
 their centers. 
 
 But the time comes wlien, over and above all, a di- 
 vine power — according to the definition first given — is 
 born and revealed from within. This power comes 
 through the soul. The soul is the battle-ground. 
 Forces, instead of powers, first prevail. People are 
 weary with battling with intellectual error, and, most 
 of all, weary from battling with their " circum- 
 stances" — fatigued, annoyed, exhausted, despairing. 
 Certain minds grow disloyal to principles by means of 
 too long indulged indifference. They cease to take an 
 interest in themselves, and they retire from the battle- 
 field vanquished and " demoralized." Others go through 
 all of life's battle, then they lie down at the end of the 
 many struggles, and finally die from sheer mental ex- 
 haustion. But it is only " force" that fails. Power 
 never feels exhaustion, never desponds, never " gives up 
 the ship." Force, through the organs of your intelli- 
 gence, plans the way. Power, however, will often con- 
 duct you to a very different plan and different result. 
 You begin life with the impulsive ambitions of " force" 
 — with many inclinations for worldly distinctions — and 
 you fix all your intellectual plans to consummate the 
 ends of such ambitions. But presently you find that 
 there is a " power" behind and within and above, shaping 
 your destiny ! And every step you take in your plans 
 is a disheartening defeat. The very end which you 
 
180 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 supposed " impossible' 5 is the only thing " possible" for 
 you to do. And those things that seemed to you most 
 desirable and possible — most in the direction of your 
 selfish preferences and energies, and most gratifying 
 and attractive to your ambitions — were just the things 
 which could not be done by you, because you had not 
 power to control your concentric circles of "circum- 
 stances," which included the affections, thoughts, plans, 
 and wills of many people. Society would not permit 
 itself to be marshaled into the files of your aims. 
 Therefore you could not conquer by " force" — some- 
 thing deeper, something higher, which may be termed 
 " power," was needed. 
 
 What else have you with which you could conquer ? 
 Use mere " force" and you are utterly vanquished. 
 Church people talk very beautifully and approvingly 
 about those submissive, pious souls, who say, " Father, 
 thy will, not mine de done." Well, there is in that 
 moral condition an interior truth. Do you suppose that 
 those who were lovingly engaged in laying the founda- 
 tions of the Christian system, were all mistaken in their 
 spiritual experience? Certainly not. They uttered 
 and wrote memorable words from an inward conviction 
 and experience. What does it mean to be submissive 
 to God's will ? It means that " spiritual power" — not 
 mere vital force — must . be permitted to have its own 
 way in mapping out and regulating your destiny, and 
 thus always to have the predominance of authority in 
 the shaping of private experience. Power is long and 
 patient in suffering, can unmurmuringly bear great out- 
 ward persecution and contumely, and can bear up under 
 all the trials and defeats which afflict you in the pil- 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 181 
 
 grimage of life. Power, which is always from spirit, is 
 never conquered. Force, which is always from vitality, 
 or soul, is vanquished at every step. Sometimes, indeed, 
 it commits suicide. It loses breath and drops below 
 from the very climax of its victory, because force is 
 only an animal energy arising from the physiological 
 and phrenological organs, and its eiforts must necessa- 
 rily be violent, exhausting and suicidal. 
 
 Whoso feels this " power" feels also what we term 
 a Principle. Whoso feels what we term a Principle, 
 also feels good and truth, or God, invariably in that 
 same proportion and to that same measure of interior 
 consciousness. And whoso feels God living in the 
 form of Justice and Truth in his soul, is never con- 
 quered. 
 
 Suppose the soul that feels Truth, or Justice, or 
 • God, be put on a cross and crucified — what does that 
 outward persecution amount to? I never could under- 
 stand the " Much Ado about Nothing'' in the Churches. 
 What soul-harrowing accounts of the heart-crushing 
 persecution which attended and destroyed " the Man of 
 God" — that is, the Man of Power! One of two things 
 is certain — either that when "the Man of God" was 
 being crucified he failed to realize the presence and 
 power of his own immortal Spirit, or else the whole 
 Calvary scene was spectacular and dramatical, and 
 permitted for " effect." It was either a performance, or 
 else there was a failure on the part of the persecuted 
 to realize the presence and power of Truth. If it was 
 no failure in this particular, then we must conclude his 
 physical sufferings were not different, nor more severe 
 or agonizing, than were those of numbers of human 
 
182 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 beings who have innocently died on gibbets, in flames, 
 or upon scaffolds. Physiological suffering is the same 
 with all organized humanity. Very sensitive persons 
 experience inconceivable intensity of suffering for a few 
 moments. But who believes that any human being has 
 ever sweat " drops of blood" in consequence of his physi- 
 cal suffering? If, at the moment of the crucifixion, 
 either by cross or by other means of destroying human 
 life, the spirit should lose its conscious contact with the 
 source of " power/' then, indeed, the sufferer might 
 almost sweat blood in the throes of his mortal and 
 spiritual agony. Blood might flow out from a bursted 
 vein. But there is too much said about "the sufferings 
 of Jesus." The exaggeration of his agony, in simply 
 dying as part of his mission, is unjustifiable; the tears 
 of sympathy that have been shed over the mortal agonies 
 of a man who died a no more terrible death than thou- - 
 sands of others have, ought to have been shed for more 
 genuine sufferings. Jesus first carried his cross to the 
 place of execution, and was then physiologically put to 
 death. There is no logical proportion between the 
 physical sufferings of the individual and the dramatic 
 effect with which pulpits " harrow up one's feelings." 
 One view or the other must be taken — either Jesus died 
 in great agony to emphatically impress the world with 
 the importance of his mission, or else it was really true 
 that he felt that God had departed from his soul, and 
 that, perhaps, he was suffering without any just and 
 sufficient reason. An overwhelming feeling of agonizing 
 doubt might have caused blood to rush from his veins ; 
 but if he had a full sense of his perfect spiritual unity 
 with the Divine Source, what would it have been to be 
 
THE SPIRIT AXD ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 183 
 
 " shot," or forced to drink " poison" like Socrates, or 
 "gibbeted," or " burned at the stake," like the early 
 martyrs and patriots? What would such bodily agony 
 amount to in a righteous cause ? Nothing at all. Look 
 at the brave-souled martyrs, in the consuming fires, all 
 going heavenward with songs of praise on their lips ! 
 How many of them were moved with prayer and to 
 expressions of gratitude while standing in the midst of 
 flames ! Vastly more sublime, many of them, than was 
 the scene of the Cross-death on the mount. Why be 
 absurd in weeping over this matter of a teacher of 
 Justice and Truth dying in vindication of his testimony ? 
 Let us now return to our theme. The shortest 
 method to conquer " circumstances/' is to ally yourself 
 with Principles. Suppose you say : w I can comprehend 
 only one thing, viz., the idea of Progress." Keep in 
 mind, now, that the idea is a Principle. Now. suppose 
 you say : " To that Principle I will be loyal, though the 
 heavens fall." Can you not take that positive position? 
 Whatever seems to me to be true, that I will adhere to, 
 though I lose the whole world. And I will adhere to 
 it with power, not with ;< force." Force is animal : it 
 is not " power." Secure your spirit by an indomitable 
 adherence to some divine. Principle. Fix your nature 
 in its true orbit, and forthwith you are above anger, 
 above enmity, above petty vices, above low motives, 
 above vindictiveness, and, therefore, you are master and 
 p-overnor of all those demons of discord that beset vour 
 path. In proportion as you are- loyal to a Principle, 
 you will receive inspiration, and thus " power'" is added 
 to that life which is integral and eternal. The divine, 
 in ultimates, always gains a victory over what is earthly 
 
184 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 and unworthy. In theology, however, the devil always 
 has the upper hand. But, in fact and in truth, the devil 
 is always under — in outer and in utter darkness. Dis- 
 cord — force — the war element — is finally put down. 
 The animal world is beneath man ; the angel world is 
 above man; higher worlds roll over the angel-world; 
 the divinest Sphere through and within them all ; and 
 the Supreme eventually conquers. In this rudimental 
 world of ours, the man of war is not a conqueror, nor is 
 the earth itself a conqueror; but the sun, with its 
 inconceivable opulence and abundance, is grandly 
 triumphant. And yet how silently the sun does all its 
 omnipotent work ! It does not send out a flaming 
 letter to say : " I shall give you a very fine day 
 to-morrow; I shall show you a worldful of warmth; 
 a great flood of light will I pour over your habitations." 
 But it rolls right on, and shines beneficently, and 
 warms the fields, and brings mankind a wondrous wealth 
 of golden harvests. The sun is the "power" of wise 
 affection personified. 
 
 Whenever the consciousness of a Principle is born 
 in the human spirit, from that moment it ceases to be a 
 "thing," and becomes a "power." In force you see 
 what is rudimental ; in " power" that which is sublime. 
 No defeat in power ; always defeat in force. 
 
 Take any divine Principle; such as Liberty or 
 Brotherhood. Learn the beautiful lesson of strict loy- 
 alty to your deepest conviction. Become harmonious 
 with a principle, and you become, to the same extent, 
 " a power. " Instead of feeling weary in battling with 
 circumstances, you receive accessions of celestial strength 
 from invisible sources. A friend may ask : " Do you 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 185 
 
 Dot grow weary with labor V " No/' you reply. " I 
 never think of it." Why? Because God and Nature, 
 or immutable Justice and Truth, breathe into your nos- 
 trils " the breath of life" — that is, if you are absolutely 
 loyal to a Principle. Loyalty is power, as knowledge is 
 power; and in true power there is victory, without 
 exhaustion. You stand as " a power" in the center of 
 substances — a centerstance — in the center of your phy- 
 siology, in your phrenology, in your society, and amid still 
 more external atmospheres and soils. 
 
 In the Bible you read that if a man does not single- 
 heartedly and absolutely follow Truth, if he does not 
 leave his father and mother " for my sake, he is not 
 worthy of me." That is what Truth said to the world- 
 long, long ago. The writer, unfortunately, wrote down 
 the name of an individual instead of " Truth." To 
 some minds, "the man" personifies a Principle. It is 
 reported that he said, " I am the way, the truth, and 
 the life." Matthew, Mark, and Luke, have reported 
 the Nazarene as identifying himself with the principle 
 of Truth, or with God. " If a man does not forsake 
 "father and mother, son and daughter, he is not worthy 
 of Truth." 
 
 Let each identify himself with divine Principles, 
 and if wife, or husband, or son, or daughter, or Mrs. 
 Grundy, or any other relation does not choose to har- 
 monize with that Principle, but is determined that you 
 shall be an apostate and a rebel to it, then you should 
 say, ifc Clear the way. My path is chosen. I shall walk 
 according to my deepest, highest, most sacred con- 
 victions, though the heavens fall." Feel and follow the 
 principle of Truth, and you will find that no earth-rela- 
 
186 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 tion is important. Take any Principle your soul maj 
 choose, and he faithful to it, " come what may." Sup- 
 pose you be driven out of your business to-morrow ; 
 suppose your children starve ; suppose they should 
 perish and die. Some of you look upon the death of a 
 martyr as " sublime.'' Or you go back in your ima- 
 gination to Calvary, and there you behold another 
 " sublime spectacle/ 5 There you behold the death of a 
 man who went into society at the lowest door, who was 
 persecuted and despised in the midst of his philanthro- 
 pic labors. Did he set a very good example of obedi- 
 ence to his mother or his father when the doctors in the 
 temple needed his instructions ? His mother, you recol- 
 lect, was very apprehensive about him. Did he stop 
 for that? It was more important that he should be 
 engaged in the impartation of what was welling up in 
 his soul than to obey the requisitions of his mother, 
 who had no distinct idea of what her son's mission was. 
 The Catholics, however, have made a Saint of her. 
 Beautiful picture! I love the painted Madonna; there 
 is an idea in the conception. Anything truly beautiful 
 is eternal. But the son did not seem to know any- 
 thing very important about his mother. He had to be 
 loyal to Truth, even if seemingly disloyal to heart- 
 requisitions. 
 
 Now we are all children. We have parents, and 
 grandmothers, and grandfathers. These relations make 
 positive social requisitions upon us. A kindly religious 
 mother says : " Don't ! I beg of you — don't go to Pro- 
 gressive Hall; if you do, I shall get heart-sick and 
 die." Well, if it be necessary, let her die. Be strong 
 and firm. There is much folly in " compromise." If you 
 
THE SPIRIT AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 187 
 
 have a Truth, stand by it ! Let people see that you, 
 like a miner in a dark world, carry a lamp in the front 
 part of your mind — " the light that lighteth every man 
 who cometh into the world" — shedding its effulgent 
 rays over all your terrestrial path. If you be faithful 
 to your best experience and highest convictions, it will 
 shake the citadel of old theology to its foundations, and 
 your expanding influence will revolutionize the cities 
 and the kingdoms of the world. If you try it, there 
 will be a great struggle among your relatives to rule 
 your course. In these days, however, you will find 
 plenty of spiritual company to aid you in your strug- 
 gles. But the time was when a person had to' make 
 spiritual struggling all alone. Happily, that time is 
 passed. Let your spirit fully identify itself with Princi- 
 ples. Then you can surely and noiselessly " overcome 
 evil with good." You will go on, quietly conquering 
 and to conquer — victorious every step of the way — and 
 thus reach the inmost heart of the Eternal Mind. 
 
ETERNAL VALUE OF PURE PURPOSES, 
 
 " A good man is God's best legacy to tfcis straying world." 
 
 The human mind irresistibly seeks for uses, ends, 
 results. It is impossible to repress this tendency of our 
 intellectual and imaginative powers. They naturally 
 trace out ultimates. This is true, because the mind is 
 constituted with a specific ultimate — because it is itself 
 the development of a central design. The mental 
 organization carries out its tendencies as naturally as 
 the dancing streamlets flow from mountain-sides to the 
 welcoming plains. It is the involuntary flow of the 
 interior — through the reasoning powers — toward ulti- 
 mates! If the reasoning powers are well-balanced, 
 vigorous, and pure, the rule then is, that the under- 
 standing, by moving steadily along the line of logic, 
 will arrive at the most reasonable solution of whatever 
 problem is' presented. This uniform reasonableness is 
 what men call " common sense. 5 ' Persons having this 
 sixth sense — this admirable arrangement of these beau- 
 tiful and immortal endowments — can take in a large 
 field of observation, and arrive rapidly at healthy and 
 certain conclusions. It is, so to say, a clairvoyance of 
 the reasoning powers. Some minds, by the exercise, of 
 such common sense — that is to say, by obtaining the 
 
ETERNAL VALUE OF PURE PURPOSES. 189 
 
 verdict of a well-balanced class of intellectual thinking 
 powers — seem to see as accurately through the incoming 
 future, and to prophesy events and results, as though 
 Clairvoyance itself sat enthroned in the spirit. Clair- 
 voyance is the far-soaring eagle's flight — the lightning's 
 flash — along the line of cause and effect. It arrives at 
 remote results without the exercise of the reasoning 
 powers. Hence the clairvoyant may not, in the ordinary 
 state, possess what is called " common sense." Clair- 
 voyance, in many minds, gets the start by years, and, 
 in some instances, it may be centuries in advance of 
 the moral growth and out-rounding of the soul. 
 
 The forecasting abilities of the intellectual facul- 
 ties — the grasping healthily all parts and details of the 
 field of perception and consciousness — is the normal 
 exercise of man ? s normal and beautiful endowments. 
 Their exercise promotes and advances the individual to 
 the superior state ; to attain which, many minds are 
 obliged first to be magnetized or mediumized. Very 
 great mediums are sometimes no better or wiser in 
 matters within the sphere of common sense, even while 
 under the influence of the afflatus, than are some persons 
 who have no such experience, but who, by the natural 
 and just exercise of their energetic and well-balanced 
 powers, philosophically see principles, causes, effects, 
 and their results. 
 
 This irresistible tendency, streaming through all 
 the thinking powers, demonstrates the central fact that 
 the spirit is constructed on a plan of pure reason and 
 harmony. This harmonial design lies in the very found- 
 ation of the human mind. The spiritual universe is 
 filled with Designs. You naturally ask, " Cui bono ?" 
 
190 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 — what use, or what good ? This question was asked 
 of every new thing that ever started. The irrepressi- 
 ble tendency of the spirit to put this question, is owing 
 to the fundamental fact that the mind itself is con- 
 structed upon a living divine Design — upon Use. 
 Nothing grows, nothing walks, nothing wings its way 
 through the free air — whether great or insignificant, 
 beautiful or otherwise — but gives rise to questions of 
 Use, in the little child as well as in the mind of the full- 
 grown man or woman. The first conception that a 
 man or woman must attain to, before the spirit-mind is 
 rounded out and fashioned into the beautiful and har- 
 monious proportions of a pure Purpose, is this concep- 
 tion of inborn Use. You remember the Platonic, 
 spiritual verse in the third chapter of John, where the 
 materialist, Nicodemus, came and held a conversation 
 with the illuminated son of Joseph and Mary. How 
 beautifully and truthfully it was said that " That which 
 is born of the flesh, is flesh, and that which is born 
 of the spirit, is spirit." We know by the uni- 
 versal testimony of the world — yet more certainly by 
 experience and observation — that that which is flesh 
 dies, goes down, sickens, and despairs ; while that 
 which is spirit goes up and on — because retrogression 
 to it is impossible — because, like truth, it is immortal 
 and cannot die ! A Purpose that is conceived in the 
 spirit, which is brought forth in the beauty of its 
 powers — a Purpose which goes before the soul like a 
 pillar of guiding light, drawing it magnetically onward 
 — is certain to consecrate, to lift, to renew, to baptize, 
 to round out, to make perfect, angelic, heavenly, even 
 as the Infinite is perfect. 
 
ETERNAL VALUE OF PURE PURPOSES. 191 
 
 A high, pure Purpose, be it remembered, is possible 
 only to spirit. Ambition is earthly; aspiration is 
 spiritual. They are analogous, resemble each other, 
 just as common sense, in its healthful exercise, bears a 
 likeness to the superior condition, with its pure and 
 independent clairvoyance. A human mind may be 
 actuated by ;t ambition," and the individual may suc- 
 cessfully go on in the road which the ambition indi- 
 cates, but its success will be parallel with the earth, 
 with society, with what is for the hour called " success," 
 "victory," " conquest ;" while the mind that dreamily 
 and confidingly floats in the celestial rivers of " aspira- 
 tion," may not be successful according to popular 
 standards of judgment. . Such a person may seem to 
 fail,- or really fail, when measured by the world's rules 
 of success ; but, believe me, that soul surely succeeds in 
 whatsoever is permanent and glorious, because its pure 
 Purpose brings the inmost spirit into harmony with 
 pure Truth, which is eternal ! There is no failure, no 
 defeat, no killing disappointment, in the mind that is 
 exclusively moved by a high Purpose in its external 
 relations to mankind. Success always attends the steps 
 of such an one. But when a person is moved by an 
 "ambition" to accomplish an ordinary end — which 
 would be considered by society a high and victorious 
 result — he is sure to be defeated. This wretched expe- 
 rience dates from the time he starts, and is continued 
 until he sits down in his uneasy chair to review^ the 
 ill-spent past. 
 
 The Jews killed the spiritually-unfolded son of Jo- 
 seph and Mary. They were pre-eminently " victorious" 
 in the judgment of the whole Roman Empire. His 
 
192 MORNIN<J LECTURES. 
 
 arrest, trial, condemnation, and execution — each step 
 was pronounced a "success" as far as the circumstances 
 were known. (The fact is, however, that little or 
 nothing was known of the transaction, except locally.) 
 The crucifixion was considered a great " triumph" of 
 law and order over anarchy and heresy. And many 
 thanked those who nailed his body to the wooden cross. 
 But there was one in the midst of all that row and riot, 
 bloodshed and diabolism, who was momentarily and 
 perfectly " successful, v viz., the man who had a pure 
 Purpose enthroned in his spirit, magnetically and per- 
 petually calling him onward and upward in the divine 
 line of his work. 
 
 It has been shown that Nature, through all her 
 forces, works for the development of individualized 
 human beings; that all the lower kingdoms and sys- 
 tems of life, combined, are but the scaffolding of the 
 building ; and that all parts subserve the elaboration 
 and perfection of human bodies and souls. From the 
 lowest monad to the animal that comes nearest man, in 
 association and usefulness, there is visible^ this con- 
 tinued beautiful flow of " Design," mounting up to the 
 well-proportioned, harmonious human organization. 
 
 Nature, then, has a high Purpose, and she works to 
 no other End. It is not merely to organize a physiolog- 
 ical being, to make a perfect anatomy and a fine phy- 
 siology. Our great Mother's purpose is far, far higher. 
 It is a to so construct an anatomy and physiology that 
 the soul, like a garment, may be accumulated and folded 
 about the more interior being, the Spirit, which is 
 golden and immortal ; which will be so beautifully and 
 so harmoniously arrayed, that, when we each pass from 
 
ETERNAL VALUE OF PURE PURPOSES. 193 
 
 this existence, the revolutions of eternal spheres and the 
 destruction of innumerable stars can never impair our 
 youthfulness, or in any degree disturb the deep flow of 
 the heart's exalted happiness. Yea, Nature has a high 
 jand pure Purpose. If her work was simply to make a 
 ifish, she would fail. If she had not a mission far above 
 and beyond all fishes, reptiles, birds, marsupials, and 
 mammalials — a Purpose to which those organized forms 
 of life unitedly labor, of which they are but parts and 
 fragments — she would " fail" utterly in all her move- 
 ments and ministrations. To individualize the immortal 
 human spirit, and to make for it a garment — an envelop- 
 ing soul — after the fashion of the physical body, which 
 shall withstand the revolutions#of eternity, and always 
 be young and beautiful to look upon — this is the high 
 Purpose, the pure Design, which consecrates the unal- 
 terable labors of Nature, and lifts the whole system 
 into a divine and glorious significance. 
 
 Nature, therefore, has given the lesson. Can you 
 not follow it ? How can you fail to respond to the 
 vibration of that electric current of " Design" which 
 the Divine has communicated to all parts of the spiritual 
 universe, and which goes quivering and shimmering 
 through systems of suns as it throbs through the facul- 
 ties of your immortal mind ? I know you cannot resist 
 it. You begin life by asking, " Cui bono ?" This is 
 the beginning of Use. In the most inferior and ridicu- 
 lous expression of that interrogatory you may see the 
 alphabet of that harmonial poetry of pure " Purpose," 
 which will be epical and lyrical as it sweeps through 
 eternal years. 
 
 Suppose a young man enters college. He is induced 
 9 
 
1 94 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 to study for some particular profession — a lawyer, a 
 physician, or, if he be not in mental and physical health, 
 a clergyman. But if he be bodily robust and intel- 
 lectually sturdy and strong, and is good with his jack- 
 knife, why, then, perhaps, his best friends will want 
 him to study for a boss-mechanic. If he has inherited 
 large scheming powers, with the outlines of a lawyer, 
 but deficient in the intellectual substance required for a 
 high post in that profession, then he may direct his 
 education toward Congress or for the Presidency. The 
 young man is solemnly admonished to " aim" his studies 
 at something. But this is true, that, if his aim be for 
 nothing more than what is called "success" in the 
 chosen profession, he is«extremely likely to turn out a 
 mistake and an ordinary character. If his Purpose in 
 life is embodied in the thought of being ordinarily 
 "successful" in any one of its departments, then he will 
 be " defeated" and crippled from the very moment of 
 his graduation with such an ambition. What percent- 
 age of the students, who come out of colleges, amount 
 to anything, as men among men ? About twenty in 
 every hundred of those who graduate from our best 
 colleges amount to something in the world's esteem — all 
 the rest " fail." Merchants fail in a very much larger 
 proportion. Politicians fail at the rate of 140 per 
 cent. Men fail in all situations just in proportion to 
 the immorality of their motives. 
 
 When a man desires to be of service to the Uni- 
 verse, when he yearns to live not for his own sake, not 
 for his own personal benefit alone, but for the benefit, 
 advancement, civilization, and spiritualization of the 
 millions, then he has in him that Savior which will 
 
ETERNAL VALUE OF PURE PURPOSES. 195 
 
 preserve him from harm and from defeat through all 
 disasters and earthly besetments. He can not experi- 
 ence what is called demoralization or discouragement. 
 He may overwork, he may lie down, as did the great- 
 minded Theodore Parker, in the midst of his gigantic 
 industry, and die up into the Summer-Land ; but as 
 surely as that transformation takes place on earth, so 
 surely, if you will but look with your intellectual tele- 
 scope, you may behold a new, bright, beautiful orb, 
 shining in the spiritual heavens. The politician dies at 
 the same time — the man who lived for himself, for little 
 earthly, siokly, temporary purposes — and goes also to 
 the Summer- Life at the same time. You would be 
 obliged to look with a powerful microscope to see who 
 or where he was. One man's spirit shines out goldenly 
 and immortally in the firmament that spans the heavenly 
 sphere. The other man's spirit, on the other hand, 
 hovers and shivers in the midst of all that diversified 
 beauty and ineffable glory of the Infinite — is small and 
 mean and cold beneath the teat and light of myriad 
 suns — and would fain become a part of even one of the 
 heavenly rays. 
 
 What are we Americans doing ? What has the 
 administration been trying to do ? We have been trying 
 to "conquer a rebellion," but not to improve anything, 
 either institutional or constitutional. The immoral 
 purpose at the start was, not to improve a man, woman, 
 or child on the continent, in respect to their civil, 
 political, or religious circumstances, but to " crush the 
 rebellion" and to restore things as they were — a philo- 
 sophical absurdity, a political sham, a religious impos- 
 sibility. Thus our people started with an impure 
 
196 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 purpose, filled with immoral designings, only to accom- 
 plish the traditional ends of conservative power. Such 
 is political power when not consecrated to divine uses ! 
 The result has been " failure" on all sides, or at best, 
 but indifferent temporary success. 
 
 You have read about a Father who so loved the 
 world that he gave " his only begotten son" to rectify 
 its errors and to save it — in short, gave his son for the 
 pure purpose of doing all the good he could. On the 
 same principle a great many fathers and mothers have 
 also given " their only begotten sons" to march and die 
 for Freedom. Why all this sentimental weeping and 
 this sickly lamentation over that glorious sacrifice of 
 the infinite heart that had as much power to endure as 
 to propose the work ? (We are now supposing the theo- 
 logical notion to be a truth ; not that we accept it 
 literally.) Here are mothers and fathers, I repeat, 
 who have given their "only begotten" to save American 
 Freedom from destruction ; not only so, but those sons 
 have been sent to expand our Liberty, to multiply it, 
 and to cause it to abound from the Atlantic to the Paci- 
 fic, from the remote North to the far South. How 
 many of those dearly beloved " sons" have been cruci- 
 fied ! How many of them have been in our hospitals, 
 drinking gall and the bitterness of wormwood, and 
 swallowing as medicines all sorts of contemptible trash! 
 How many of them have had bayonets thrust into their 
 bleeding sides ? How many have freely poured out 
 their whole lives that Liberty might " believe, be bap- 
 tized, and be saved" ! Would it not be wisest to search 
 outside of the realm of creeds to find objects sufficiently 
 touching and sacred for the shedding of tears and the 
 building of monuments ? Let us have real objects and 
 
ETERNAL VALUE OF PURE PURPOSES. 197 
 
 genuine causes for sadness and lamentation, for holy 
 sorrow and devotional gratitude : but no more of this 
 dramatically-manufactured " holy sorrow,' 5 taught by 
 men, who, perhaps, sincerely believe it, but who have 
 not the courage to investigate it to its silly mythological 
 foundation. Here, in this war, we have the real sacri- 
 fice of truly begotten sons. The purposes of these fathers 
 and mothers have been high and beautiful. * They have 
 in them a source of consolation that no Bible or church 
 can either impart or remove. Their patriotic sons are 
 slain — crucified on the cross of battle. Look at their 
 downcast and weeping friends. No minister can 
 assuage their sufferings. Their heart-pains cannot be 
 mitigated by prayers. Nothing will do it but time 
 with its upliftings, and the onward march of the 
 soul of each. 
 
 There were many in need of useful and profitable 
 employment. Some of these enlisted for the war as 
 they would go into any hazardous labor. I saw and 
 conversed with a Massachusetts soldier — a fine enough 
 looking man — going as a private down to New Orleans 
 with General Banks. I said to him, " Why did you 
 enlist V " Well," he said, M wagon-making was poor 
 business in our town, and I have a beautiful wife and 
 two darling little ones, and they must be supported, 
 and I got a bounty— r more money than I could possibly 
 get if I had worked at home for a long time — and I 
 gave it to them and made other provision, so that, if I 
 should not get through the war, my beloved family 
 will be as much benefited as though I were to remain 
 with them." 
 
 There was dwelling in that soldier's soul a " pure 
 purpose. 5 *' He took his life in his hands and went to 
 
1S8 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 work for his beautiful wife and his darling two chil- 
 dren. But if he had felt the urgent demands of Liberty 
 also, how much more noble ! 
 
 Thus, if a man enters as a merchant into business, 
 or, as a mechanic, accepts of labors, however low and 
 undignified or however high and commanding, with a 
 desire to benefit others by his labor, he is in the same pro- 
 portion ma-de spiritually buoyant, and the ordinary 
 friction of life that would otherwise wear upon him is 
 chiefly removed. He goes lovingly on to his business, 
 not "dragging one foot before the other;" because he 
 feels lifted and is blest — baptized and strengthened by 
 the purity of his intentions. 
 
 Live selfishly for yourself, and you will sit down at 
 the end of life dissatisfied with human existence. You 
 will be misanthropic, no matter whether you are sur- 
 rounded by wealth or by poverty, by enemies or by 
 friends. 
 
 Therefore take to your heart the motive which is 
 beautiful and heavenly in itself, live to make others 
 better, and you will make yourself rounder, sweeter, 
 more effective in all you do, gladsome, cheerful, buoy- 
 ant, never cast down, always ready for good deeds ; 
 and a beautiful warmth will pervade your home, will 
 follow you into the street and into society, and noble 
 beings will associate with you wherever you mingle 
 wisely and lovingly with your fellow-men. 
 
 Great men are always good men. " A good man is 
 God's best legacy to this str.aying world." Such never 
 " fail." The truly good cannot be unsuccessful. The 
 son of Joseph and Mary was not defeated when cruci- 
 fied. Verily, there is eternal value in Pure Purposes. 
 
WARS OF THE BLOOD, BRAIN, AND SPIRIT. 
 
 44 If more would act the play of life, 
 
 And fewer spoil it in rehearsal ; 
 If bigotry would sheathe its knife 
 
 Till good became more universal ; 
 If men, when wrong beats down the right, 
 
 Would strike together and restore it ; 
 If right made might in every fight, 
 
 The world would be the better for it." 
 
 The impression comes to speak this morning on the 
 subject of war — first, of the Blood ; second, of the 
 Brain ; third, of the Spirit ; or, in other language, (\.) the 
 war of Gehenna, which means the underworld of pas- 
 sion and selfish lusts that burn perpetually ; (2.) the 
 war of the middle world, or Hades, which means the 
 transition and wintery sphere in which we now live ; 
 (3.) the war of the overworld, or Heaven, which means 
 the moral and spiritual sphere of the immortal mind. 
 
 Let your minds contemplate the universality of 
 war. You will discover, after investigation, that war 
 is universal. War is not excluded from heaven — i. e.- 9 
 from the presence of the inmost Spirit, although it ori- 
 ginates only in the blood and in the force-departments 
 of the brain. I speak now of the universality of the 
 struggles, the encroachments, the infringements, and of 
 the aggressional tendencies of all forces locked up and 
 
200 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 embodied in the organization of matter — beneath, 
 within, and round about us in the great universe that 
 fills immeasurable space. 
 
 All investigators discover penetralia within pene- 
 tralia, truths within truths; or, as it is commonly 
 expressed, wheels within wheels, designs within designs, 
 and uses within uses in endless succession. Such 
 inquiring minds come at last to the wise conclusion that, 
 in the inmost of things, is written the unchangeable 
 commandments (the laws of Nature) by which all things 
 are regulated and governed in perpetual order, good- 
 ness, and perfection. 
 
 A handwriting in milk held to the fire, becomes 
 plain, though invisible before it was so subjected. So 
 the infinite designs and immutable laws written in human 
 nature, as upon the whole universe, do not become 
 plain to your understanding until you are fully sub- 
 jected to the fires of infringements and transgressions, 
 and tried by the irrepressible tendency of your investi- 
 gating powers to pass through, and over, and between 
 all things. Something important to the whole universe 
 takes place every instant of time. No tide is perfectly 
 inert. Water presupposes motion, forward and back- 
 ward, or rising and falling. The action of rising and 
 falling tides upon substances pulverizes and converts 
 them into itself — dissolves solid rocks and makes them 
 flow with its movement. Physiologists discoyer that the 
 liver is composed of an infinite number of lesser organs; 
 or, more strictly speaking, they find that the liver is com- 
 posed of very minute lobes, which in appearance exactly 
 resemble the whole structure. The liver is a cellar, 
 because it is composed of cells. How many persons 
 
WARS OF THE BLOOD, BRAIN, AND SPIRIT. 201 
 
 experience the truth of this ! The liver is Hades. It is 
 the dark repository or grave-yard of whatsoever is 
 broken-down in the constitution of the arterial blood. 
 It is always gaining and always losing. Disease is pro- 
 duced just as quickly by an excess as by a deficiency. 
 
 Now what is the world's system of politics? Is it 
 not the liver or kitchen department of human govern- 
 ment and enterprise — a desire for system and regula- 
 tion and order — composed of an infinite number of 
 lesser policies, as the liver is composed of a countless 
 number of infinitesimal livers ? 
 
 It was said that a writing in milk when exposed to 
 fire, becomes plain to the eye. So the Infinite laws and 
 ultimate designs, exposed to the progressive abrasions 
 and fiery frictions and irrepressible conflicts of human 
 mind and moving matter, are brought into open reveal- 
 ment; and only those faithful seers, who have wise 
 eyes, can read the handwriting clearly, and truly inter- 
 pret the Idea at the heart of the infinite designs. How 
 do scientific men stand before the great universe of 
 design ? They say, " Matter is regulated by unvarying 
 methods. These methods are laws." Here the spiritual 
 philosopher approaches. He discovers within laws 
 principles, within principles ideas, within ideas the 
 infinitely and eternally thinking Father-God, and the 
 impersonal love-fountain of the universe, or Mother- 
 Nature. The spiritual philosopher finds something 
 deeper and better and more interiorly satisfying than 
 that which is brought to the world through external 
 scieuce. He discovers that the impersonal love-fount- 
 ain, from which all things flow, is Nature, and that 
 this productive heart of infinite love is ;t Mother." He 
 9* 
 
202 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 discovers that Nature is not matter. Nature is a general 
 term for the Mother-fountain of Love which moves and 
 forms and molds all things, in conjunction with the 
 masculine laws of Wisdom. The impersonal mind- 
 fountain — of formative laws and organizing energies — 
 is the Father-Nature. " God is a spirit." The New 
 Testament adds : " And he seeketh such to worship 
 him." 
 
 Why use the masculine adjective with reference to 
 Deity? Because the mind instinctively thinks of God 
 as the source of thought and energy — executive, forma- 
 tive, and legislative. 
 
 If I were a clergyman (which, fortunately, I am 
 not,) I should state this theological proposition in very 
 different phraseology. Undoubtedly, I would employ 
 New Testament language, or such words as would cor- 
 respond to lessons that I had learned from authoritative 
 books on theology. And yet, although I do not so 
 employ language, I believe that I am not in conflict 
 with the essential truths at the center of enlightened 
 minds. I know not a civilized clergyman in the land 
 with whom I might not shake hands on some of these 
 theological principles. For example : They believe, or 
 profess to believe, in a Supreme Source. So do we. 
 They give it the theological, religious, and oriental 
 name — " God." We give it the spiritual, philosophical, 
 and scientific name — " Father-Nature." The secta- 
 rian war rises and continues from a vastly different use 
 of human language with regard to identical meanings. 
 Not interpreting the meaning which we intend to con- 
 vey — by the use of different words, we kindle up 
 antagonism in our neighbor's mind ; and on the other 
 
WARS OF THE BLOOD, BRAIN, AND SPIRIT. 203 
 
 hand, when he announces his thought, the meaning 
 whereof not being fully conveyed to our mind, a corres- 
 ponding fire is kindled up, and forthwith an explosion 
 takes place — and an everlasting enmity and opposition 
 drive out the angels of peace. There can be no recon- 
 ciliation so long as men will not stop, in their haste, to 
 give each other the ■ central meanings which they 
 designed should flow through their educational use of 
 language. Let all men be cautious and just. Within all 
 this mountainous mass of educational verbiage and con- 
 troversy you may find, if you look patiently, the beautiful 
 Sowings of identical immortal truths. The brotherhood 
 of truth makes this " fraternity of ideas" absolutely 
 certain in all true human hearts. 
 
 Mother-Nature and Father-Nature— who might 
 with propriety be named the Love-life and the Wisdom- 
 power- of the universe— live in eternal conjugal rela- 
 tion each with the other. Matter is the indestructible 
 chariot in which they together ride through the illim- 
 itable star-strewn spaces of infinitude. We must learn 
 to think deeply on this subject. We must deepen out 
 of words into meanings, and penetrate through mean- 
 ings to the source of inspiration. 
 
 Water is the expression of inherent contention — the 
 to and fro movement of the material and spiritual uni- 
 verse. By means of this movement — this perpetual 
 overthrow of equilibriums — all things are organized, 
 inspired, and brought forth. Not only so, but they are 
 also made to continually advance along the onward 
 way; yea, all improvement is accomplished and guaran- 
 teed by the reciprocal action, or warlike contention, of 
 opposite forces and immutable powers. 
 
204 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Let me illustrate. Justice is recognized by a 
 perfect balance — a state of exact equilibrium. Place a 
 stick across your finger. There is a point in that stick 
 from which both ends will be precisely alike — each will 
 weigh the same — and, as a consequence, the stick will 
 rest exactly in balance, without the least motion. If 
 the universe were constructed 'upon that principle, all 
 throbbing hearts and the infinite powers would cease to 
 move; not a heart would beat; not a brain would 
 think, not a tide flow, not a bird sing, not a tree would 
 grow, but inertia and death would be universal. And 
 yet the universe is constructed on Justice. But one 
 end of the stick must weigh more than the other in order 
 to produce motion. Then comes in a governing power 
 to restore the lost balance ; by the act of balancing it, 
 the power loads the opposite end, and thus is established 
 the principle of reciprocation. The weight, (by 
 changing from point to point,) produces every descrip- 
 tion of motion. So the planets revolve about the sun. 
 So also your blood flows from heart to brain, from 
 brain to feet and hands, and back again to its central 
 sources. All this illustrates the spirit of contention. 
 This is what I mean by " the universality of war."' 
 
 Eight is the source of true might. An organ is not 
 the cause of motion. The heart does not make the 
 blood flow ; it is rather a regulating and modifying 
 organ — chairman of the movement. Neither do the 
 organs of the brain cause the blood to flow. The brain 
 is not the primal source of its energies. The cerebral 
 organization cannot keep itself in motion. It continu- 
 ally inhales and exhales ; always giving off an equiva- 
 lent to what it may have taken in; always expelling 
 
WARS OF THE BLOOD, BRAIN, AND SPIRIT. 205 
 
 the body of that which has been duly appropriated ; the 
 magnetic and material weights are thus constantly 
 changing from one pole of the cerebral battery to the 
 other. The perpetual change is perpetual motion. This 
 ceaseless motion produces refinement ; this refinement 
 insures advancement ; and all true advancement is 
 progress. Whatever is refined is expanded ; whatever 
 is expanded occupies a larger sphere than it did a lew 
 minutes before ; and whatever is refined and expanded 
 is more powerful, because it covers a larger radius in 
 space, and permeates and inspires a larger mass of gross 
 matter. 
 
 Now do you suppose that God is a person, confined 
 like a fountain of energy,* at the very center of things? 
 Theology taught an astronomer to say that God sent 
 all these orbs that sparkle through the infinitude ; that 
 they were projected, as balls from the cannon's mouth, 
 out of his formative powers. No man or woman, who 
 thinks truly, would ever attribute such works to an 
 Infinite Spirit. An Infinite Spirit must be diffused through 
 infinite space; and is therefore omnipresent in matter, 
 and infinitely and universally powerful. Confinement, 
 to the limits of personality, would limit its presence 
 and power. In the infinite depths of the visible uni- 
 versal whole you will find the beautiful Love-Fountain, 
 and the Fountain of Wisdom, which are to our spirits 
 both " Mother 55 and " Father" — both Nature and 
 God — sweet, pure, perfect, beautiful — living with 
 celestial and unchangeable harmony through all the 
 life of things. 
 
 What most satisfies your best affections ? It is that 
 holy experience by which you touch and feel the warm 
 
206 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 love of Deity. Where can you find that love, if not in 
 the divine life of living things? Can you find it in 
 dead books, or. in lifeless sentences ? Is it possible for 
 bookmakers, down at the Bible House, to turn out that 
 which will communicate God's love to your mind by 
 actual impartation. Reason tells you that it is not pos- 
 sible. True, a spiritually-inspired sentence may arouse 
 your slumbering thoughts to high action ; but if there 
 be an impartation of life to your soul, it is from the 
 life of things — from some hovering angel, or from some 
 beautiful principle of truth that is both within and 
 without. I admit the conviction that beautiful sen- 
 tences, contained in the Bibles of the world, do, now 
 and then, rouse dormant natures to thought and medi- 
 tation, and to progress ; but I deny that anything within 
 these printed words is the cause of that progress, medi- 
 tation, and growth ; for all life proceeds from the living, 
 breathing, palpitating Father and Mother, who are 
 within all immutable laws and within all impersonal 
 principles. It is the ideal and heavenly presence of 
 their love and wisdom, which awakens and rouses, to a 
 blooming grandeur and holy meditation, the inmost of 
 your deepest intuitions ; for, under such influence, you 
 feel as though you had just heard the "voice of God" 
 in the " cool of the day," while you were silently walk- 
 ing to and fro in the garden of thought. 
 
 War is the outward method by which laws, princi- 
 ples, and ideas work. (1.) Blood is animal; (2.) brain 
 is thoughtful; (3.) spirit is heavenly. Heavenly wars? 
 Yes. Every man's spirit is a soldier. Brain wars too ? 
 Yes. Plenty of illustrations in the world's intellectual 
 and political history. And also blood wars? Cer- 
 
WARS OF THE BLOOD, BRAIN, AND SPIRIT. 207 
 
 tainly, all beneath brain wars on that principle. I said 
 the brain does not circulate the blood ; neither does 
 the heart; but that the heart is a regulator, a sort of 
 chairman, and that the brain is conductor or superin- 
 tendent of the movement. What, then, is the blood I 
 And how is it moved ? It is circulated by the laws and 
 perpetually-broken equilibriums of reciprocal powers. 
 The venous blood is negative ; the arterial blood posi- 
 tive. Each overbalances the other by turns. How so ? 
 By the respirational processes, and also t*y the magnetic 
 and electric actions, through the breathings of the 
 lungs and skin. All parts of a living body are inhaling 
 and exhaling, every instant of time, like summer flowers 
 that receive golden life and give off the spirit of fra- 
 grance. The blood contains the power of its own 
 motion. Human life ceases when the blood is poured 
 out and lost, or when the vitality has been pumped out 
 of the blood by the magnetic powers of the brain, which 
 keeps drawing and pumping in order that its own forces 
 may be renewed and existence guaranteed. A physio- 
 logically well-balanced man or woman is one whose 
 blood flows independently of either brain or heart; that 
 is to say, the circulation is from the intrinsic motive- 
 energy of the blood itself. 
 
 Blood wars, consequently, are inherent. Who taught 
 the lion and the bear to go out and slay for their food 
 and subsistence ? Not a teacher of war have they ever 
 had, save the inherent voice of blood. It is constitu- 
 tional. " What do you mean by that V I mean that 
 the animal is acting in accordance with a Divine 
 " idea" (design) expressing itself irrepressibly and 
 unconsciously through the throbbing blood. 
 
208 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Blood wars are Gehenna — full of fire and destruc- 
 tion. Hades is the middle world, and the liver is the 
 dark repository or grave-yard of the debris of the 
 victims of war in the chemistry of life. In like manner 
 the whole organic world is a burying-ground or reposi- 
 tory, a hepatical-hades, for the victims of progressive 
 laws, which, in the animal world, as in man, operate 
 through the life of the blood. 
 
 All mankind inherit animal blood. We received it 
 from our predecessors in the order of organization. No 
 theology, no science, no philosophy can refute the doc- 
 trine of the rudimental origin of human beings. I 
 speak not of man's spirit, but of his material organiza- 
 tion. Love and wisdom, in man and woman, came not 
 from the lower world. But this organic machinery, 
 which we name the physical body, and this blood which 
 flows through its parts, and these elemental forces which 
 constitute the body and final covering of the spirit, all 
 these came out of the reservoir of matter and principles 
 which preceded mankind in the growth of the universe. 
 Blood wars are described by the burning words of Dante, 
 who saw, in " The Inferno" of his thought, the wars of 
 demons, and now and then an " angel of light' 5 flitting 
 through the darkened sky. Pollock and Milton, and 
 indeed many other poets, who were gifted with powers 
 adapted to conceiving and giving embodiment to ideas, 
 have described wars in the lower world. Poets, unhap- 
 pily, have located these conflicts to suit the Christians, 
 in their fabled hell which God is supposed to have 
 made from the foundations of the world. Poetry and 
 theology will, in their details and geography, have no 
 value in the grand analysis which is to come. We 
 
WARS OF THE BLOOD, BRAIN, AND SPIRIT. 209 
 
 accept only the inward flow of meaning'. It is this : 
 Poets have set to words and to music the actual ;; war" 
 which originates from the combative forces that are 
 accumulated and treasured up in the blood. 
 
 Next, we come to consider the conflicts of Brain. 
 These wars are based on differences of organization. 
 There is no spirituality, no moral 'restraint, in brain 
 wars. Intellect does not conciliate. The thinking 
 powers are animated mostly by policies, convictions, 
 ways and means, and expedients. They resolve upon 
 the execution of their purposes. In this respect each 
 man's brain is alike. Hence the origin of brain wars. 
 It is thinking- force against thinking- force. Men cipher 
 out problems through their intellectual organs, and 
 each sets all his forces to work to accomplish results 
 most congenial to his own interests. How many govern- 
 ments have gone to war upon the principle of brain — 
 thinking that it would be best. 
 
 All the kings and emperors, all tyrants and poten- 
 tates, go to war from the dictates of the brain. These 
 are the wars of aggrandizement, wars for more power, 
 wars for the possession of larger territories, wars for 
 the acquisition of greater resources of wealth, wars for 
 the establishment of kingdoms already possessed, wars 
 for the accumulation of wider privileges on sea and 
 land. These brain-wars are planned and premeditated 
 with as much indifference to the claims of humanity as 
 one would cipher out a sum on a slate. 
 
 Spirit is not heard from in the jargon of such 
 wars. It is very still — in the depths of the mind ; 
 locked up, imbedded, as life sometimes is in the germs 
 of trees. The wars of the spirit — how different ! Such 
 
210 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 wars never occur except where Right is in jeopardy. 
 Men of blood and men of brain avail themselves of all 
 enginery, powers, and forces, that are known to be most 
 destructive. But the Spirit, on the other hand, goes to 
 war from its highest standard; to penetrate the dark- 
 ness of ignorance and error, and to shine lovingly into 
 and throifgh the darkness that rejects it ; to persevere 
 in warring its way through, until it reaches the " point 
 of light" in the world, or in the kindred spirit of a 
 brother man. The moment the heart of love is touched 
 by the penetration of spirit, like the rod that smote the 
 rock, the waters of truth and affection flow, reconcilia- 
 tion takes place, and the lion and the lamb lie down 
 together. 
 
 A war in the spirit is "a war in heaven" — per- 
 vading and penetrating, impressing and uplifting, chas- 
 tening and purifying, harmonizing and rendering 
 universally happy the discordant forces and conflicting 
 elements which come up to dwell with Spirit from the 
 kingdoms of the under world. 
 
 The man who fights "the good fight" ^from his 
 Spirit, is infinitely more of a power than he who pro- 
 ceeds to battle from the forces of his brain and blood. 
 Neither man nor animal fights from blood except when 
 its fires arrive at the point of a Gehennal-conflagration. 
 The blow is struck somewhat as the ball leaps from the 
 cannon's mouth— from an inherent, propulsive, explo- 
 sive energy that cannot be repressed. Blood goes for 
 the instantaneous destruction of its antagonist. It takes 
 no thought; therefore it is frequently forgiven in our 
 courts of Justice. Unpremeditated murder, the destruc- 
 tion of life in the heat (hell) of passion, (Gehenna,) is 
 not as punishable as is murder of the calculating brain. 
 
WARS OF THE BLOOD, BRAIN, AND SPIRIT. 211 
 
 This form of Justice is intuition coming up through 
 drunken judges ; it is the spirit of truth in man reach- 
 ing out clumsily, yet really, after justice, love and 
 right. 
 
 The effect of the war of the Spirit upon the lower 
 world is marked and lasting. The mythological state- 
 ment is that Diana, by her long, eternal kiss of love, 
 woke the dead Endymion " to life/' Thus these spirit- 
 wars in man's highest powers lift out of the " lowest 
 darkness" the impulses of blood and other imps of self- 
 ishness. As lilies of purest celestial whiteness grow in 
 ponds, and bloom in their loveliness from the depths of 
 corrupt marshes, so from Hadean and Gehennal regions 
 in mankind — from the regions of the liver, the blood, 
 and the brain, which are fed and filled from the dark- 
 ness and corruptions of the physical world — out of all 
 these come results which will ultimately bring happi- 
 ness, and ornament, and beauty, and progress, and that 
 sublime courage which is the hope of the world. The 
 war of the Spirit may be represented and characterized 
 by the picture of Raphael. He has beautifully and 
 powerfully painted St. Margaret standing with her foot 
 on "the great dragon." St. Margaret may be called 
 " the Spirit" conquering the impulses and abolishing 
 the wars of Blood and Brain. The human world is 
 constituted of races somewhat as ethnologists have 
 classified them. Commence at the top and count down, 
 thus: Caucasian, Mongolian, African, Indian and 
 Malayan. These five races may be subdivided, or they 
 may be made more homogeneous and brought much 
 nearer together. They would then literally represent 
 Blood, Brain, Spirit. The Caucasian race (which, 
 according to mythology, came from that beautiful 
 
212 MOUSING LECTURES. 
 
 mount from which the name is derived,) may be called 
 the race of Spirit. Their greatest wars will be wars of 
 spirit — the wars of Thought, of Ideas, of Principles — 
 against the darkness of ignorance and error, against 
 the brain and its calculating selfishness, against the 
 blood and. its passion-fed fires and gehennal impulses. 
 The true, forthcoming Caucasians will be conquerors ; 
 they will be masters of the races of the human world. N 
 The Mongolians are not conquerors ; the Africans are 
 not ; the Indians are not, but are, in fact, passing away. 
 
 Now the blood-races are beneath, in Gehenna ; the 
 brain-races afe transitional, in Hades * the spirit-race, 
 the Heavenly-family, is. to come. Promises of the 
 spirit-race have always dwelt among men. The race 
 of brain will flower out and become spiritual inspira- 
 tion, seeking after principles and ideas, seeking after 
 God, liberty, fraternity, harmony. Members of the 
 Spirit-race believe that all lower wars will be abol- 
 ished ; that all men will be converted at last to the 
 beautiful ways of good and truth ; that the might of the 
 lower world will be directed by the whole world's 
 Right ! 
 
 The Spirit-republic, unhappily, is not yet born. 
 Its faintest foregleams are just now visible in the 
 transitional republicanism of the land. Present signs 
 presage the erectioji of that glorious future temple of 
 truth and Brotherhood which will be carpeted with the 
 beautiful designs of the Infinite mind — designs that 
 will be revealed plainly to man's understanding by a full ■ 
 exposure of the world's life to the fires of blood-wars 
 and brain-wars, which will cease only when the harmo- 
 nial era is fully unfolded. 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 
 
 " The Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, 
 And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, 
 As makes men's memories her joyous slaves, 
 And cling around the soul, as the sky clings 
 Round the mute earth, forever beautiful." 
 
 Nature, left to herself, expresses outwardly what is 
 inmost. Her truest and largest expression is two-fold 
 — male and female — a divine revelation from the 
 central golden fountains of the universe. It is a com- 
 mon intuition that the universe is sexual. All human 
 tongues, in one form of speech or another, name and 
 address the different objects in Nature as though they 
 were sexual. Full-grown men, like little boys, when 
 speaking of a steamboat, say — "There she comes," or 
 " How beautifully she sails \" Of the sun, " He shines." 
 Of an iron-bodied and fire-heated locomotive the friend- 
 ly engineer will very tenderly say, " She is the best 
 machine on the road." Throughout the world you will ob- 
 serve the same instinctive, unconscious acknowledgment 
 of this universal truth. Not an intelligent man on the 
 farm or in the garden but what is obliged to recognize 
 these dual principles — male and female — in the swaying 
 vine as in the animal stock, in the fruiting tree as in 
 the blooming flower. Everything that grows, mani- 
 
214 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 fests the internal and immutable principles of husband 
 and wife, or father and mother. Enshrined in the 
 golden fountains of the spiritual universe, is the central 
 law which expands throughout infinitude, and expresses 
 itself through an infinite variety of apparently opposite, 
 but really united, principles of action, organization, and 
 distribution. 
 
 This subject comes challenging your reverent atten- 
 tion this bright morning. Mankind do not naturally 
 or intuitively associate and combine " God" and " Na- 
 ture" as though they were one under different forms of 
 expression. I know that it is possible to reason oneself 
 into a proposition admitting the total identity and 
 unity of the two ; so much so, indeed, that the absolute 
 individuality of each may cease for a time to occupy any 
 place in one's thoughts. But the moment you cease to 
 think on the question of the difference between " God" 
 and "Nature," or when you settle down into your 
 normal consciousness, then Intuition from its deep 
 sources declares fully of an eternal difference. Un- 
 consciously, or rather without intellectual conscious- 
 ness, you will allude to God, or to that mental something 
 which represents the Divine source, as a masculine 
 Energy, and then, as unconsciously and unthinkingly, 
 you will speak of "Nature" as a feminine Fountain of 
 love, beauty, and tenderness. It is natural, therefore, 
 to feel and speak of NATURE'as "Mother and of God 
 as " Father." The human spirit left to itself, unre- 
 strained and unwarped by educational impediments, 
 instinctively adopts this form of expression. 
 
 Here it becomes again necessary to say that I mean 
 by the word Nature, something different from the phy- 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 215 
 
 sical constitution of things. The term is often used to 
 signify merely the phenomenal universe — the objective 
 world or system of worlds. I have often used the word 
 in that commonly received sense. When so used, it 
 should always be written without the capital N — 
 simply, nature, meaning the objective sphere or the 
 nature of. things. When used in an interior spiritual 
 sense, it should invariably be written with the capital 
 N not only, but the whole word might appear in capi- 
 tals, because it assumes a new and far loftier situation 
 in the spiritual order of thought. Vastly more interior 
 sentiments and infinitely higher reflections are awakened 
 and symbolized and expressed by this use of the term. 
 " Nature/' in the interior sense, is the love-center of 
 all Existences — the mother-heart of which " God" is 
 the father-head or positive principle. Nature is the 
 center of which God is the surrounding sphere of order 
 and organization. 
 
 Nature means, therefore, the internal love-source 
 of all being. The common dictionary signification 
 makes the word mean the fixed order of things. But, 
 in the interior, the word will be found to signify and 
 express the fountain-heart of the life of things. The 
 physical universe — the objective sphere of matter — is 
 not Nature. The following proposition is more truth-, 
 ful and philosophical: The phenomenal universe is a 
 physical organization, and the spiritual universe is a 
 spiritual organization; and the two are expressions of 
 the male and female principles, which iire interior and 
 invisible, and are not easily perceived nor comprehended 
 by the external mind of sensuous thinkers. Nature, the 
 infinite heart, and God, the positive sphere, like soul 
 
216 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 and brain married indissolubly, propagate both the 
 physical and spiritual universe, which is interrelated to 
 summer-spheres beyond all comprehension. Objects in 
 the physical worlds, and human beings, including the 
 higher grades of intelligences, are children born from 
 that beautiful, infinite, central marriage of the " Father" 
 and " Mother," the union of the Eternal heart with the 
 Eternal head — the conjunction of Love and Wisdom — 
 the positive and the negative in unchangeable conjugial 
 harmony, giving rise to all that is, and to all that will 
 ever be. As you behold in your children your propensities 
 and your tendencies, your attributes and habits, your 
 complexions, your hair and face, and the tone of your 
 voice, so in the external workings of the physical 
 . universe, you may behold the attributes, the elements, 
 and the primal principles of the Infinite Father and 
 Mother. 
 
 When you come to truly investigate the composition 
 of mind, you will find in thoughts that are evolved two 
 varieties of sentiment, or two classes of truths, that are 
 strictly in harmony with the desires of the intellect, 
 which the intellect alone recognizes and harmonizes 
 with as its own legitimate offspring. These purely 
 intellectual truths gain your respect, and sometimes 
 your admiration. And yet they are not warm and 
 loving ; they are cold and calm, the keen-ey^d children 
 of the reflective and perceptive faculties. They may be 
 mathematically accurate, and geometrically perfect in 
 all their forms and expressions ; yet they eliminate only 
 that clear, calm, electric life which the moon gives off to 
 artists, and to the photographers, who too soon dis- 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 217 
 
 cover the absence of another principle by which alone 
 chemical action can occur. 
 
 Investigate further into the mind, and you will discover 
 another class of truths which are nearer your affections, 
 which cling like loving children around your heart and 
 sympathies. Do they not belong to more interior parts 
 of the mind ? They are sequestered and deeply vailed. 
 They are inexpressible and indefinite. They float and 
 sail like beautiful birds through the mind. They come 
 together, they perch and sing for a moment, then 
 depart for months. Other truths rest within ; they 
 dwell in the heart, and are a part of it. We call these 
 always-present truths the tendencies of the mind, or the 
 instincts of the heart, which will express themselves in 
 the various sentiments, actions, and relations of indi- 
 vidual life. 
 
 There is yet another class of truths which seem to 
 have been born since we were born, that are not neces- 
 sarily a part of us, that come in and go out in conse- 
 quence of contact with other minds. These correlative 
 or transmitted truths well up in us during the course of 
 our ordinary development; while those truths which 
 were born with us, which are parts of the spirit itself, 
 cause us to love flowers and music, poetry and beauty, 
 affection and wisdom, Nature and God. They are the 
 principles which should systematize the external action of 
 men — should regulate and govern mankind during all 
 their lives. 
 
 Nature gets the start of the judgment, forestalls all 
 discipline, and anticipates the highest experience. Edu- 
 cation may greatly modify the inherited impulse and 
 action of temperaments, yet the cure is not radical ; for 
 
 10 
 
218 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 when the temperaments have an opportunity to declare 
 themselves, they will utterly centrii'ugate all educational 
 restrictions, and will express themselves freely, and 
 that too from their own resources of instincts and ten- 
 dencies. Such natures are called " incorrigible" by 
 teachers in the different schools. They do not long 
 submit to be ruled and disciplined by the methods of 
 the schoolmen. There are multitudes of both men and 
 women, of girls and boys, who are thus untrainable and 
 unsusceptible ; they are not necessarily " wild," but 
 have, from the start of life, adopted their own deter- 
 mined instincts and tendencies, and are unhappy, even 
 miserable, unless they are left undisturbed to live the 
 life of congenial proclivities. 
 
 Other natures, perhaps born of the same parents, 
 are plastic and easily molded. Such minds are more 
 conscious of two different classes of truths than are 
 either of the others. They can realize that there are 
 truths which come into the mind from without ; and yet 
 other truths which come up from within, as water 
 springs from the earth. Before these truths came you 
 were like sealed fountains, waiting in fullness to flow. 
 Every soul waits for some magic power to break down 
 the embankments between the spirit and its external 
 expression. That awakening power is remembered 
 pleasurably through all your life as the captain of your 
 exodus, when the whole current of life's inner being 
 was turned into the celestial channel of a new expe- 
 rience. How many there are who seem, even to them- 
 selves, to be treasurers of great innate powers — waiting 
 for some person, influence, or event, to give them -the 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 219 
 
 golden key with which to unlock their never-fully- 
 expressed existence. 
 
 These natures are waiting for the approach of those 
 male and female principles. They are waiting for the 
 approach of the masculine truth, or for the coming of 
 this feminine truth, and they are alone until the right 
 truth arrives. The spirit is in its bachelorhood, or in 
 its maidenhood; it is waiting for the bridegroom, or 
 for the bride. 
 
 It is the presence of male and female truths in the v /r 
 soul, their nuptial relation, the joining and interrela- 
 . tionship of what before had not met, and which, when 
 joined, will never be sundered. In Solomon's Songs, (so 
 many of them seem unfit for human reading,) if your 
 eyes be deep-sighted enough, you may go beneath the 
 verbiage, and find that by the " maiden" is represented 
 the female-principle in religion — the mother-soul, the 
 wife-nature, the uumarried, a beautiful virgin going 
 forth and seeking her mate. What is Judaism but a 
 marriage of Egyptian philosophy with the religion of 
 the Israelites ? The children of Israel were spiritual- 
 ists in bondage in Egypt. The Egyptians were a people 
 learned in science, in the objective facts and realities of 
 the world — master Masons ; were vast and strong and 
 ponderous in their thoughts and in many of their deeds, 
 and thus they displayed the principle of masculinity. 
 The Israelites furnished the female principle, and the 
 marriage of those two made Judaism. There is no 
 other way of accounting for the coming of that offspring. 
 It was born legitimately. Judaism, however, was a 
 masculine element. It was not a fine order of cultured 
 and reverent affection for truth. It was objective, 
 
220 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 ceremonial, full of law. It had not its mate. Judaism 
 was therefore a great, strong, religious giant, holding 
 fast to Egyptian laws. It was obliged to meet its mate 
 — the feminine element — before progeny could come ; a 
 true marriage was necessary before something better, 
 more adapted to future generations, could be born. 
 Hence the feminine part of the Grecian element, repre- 
 sented by the Platonic philosophy, had to be blended 
 with Judaism before the world could receive what is 
 called Christianity. # 
 
 It is the sheerest folly to say that Christianity began 
 with Jesus. You might as well say that music began 
 - with Mozart, or that the principle of independent con- 
 science began with Luther, as to say that Christianity 
 began .with a person. Christianity is the legitimate 
 child of the marriage of the female Greek principle 
 with the masculine Judaic principle. Coming, from such 
 parents, it inherits traits and truths from both of them, 
 does it not ? You who are acquainted with Christianity 
 find the characteristics and features of both parents rep- 
 resented in the child, do you not? Do you not see 
 Platonic philosophy and religion and theology in 
 Christianity ? What is the Gospel of John but a 
 Platonic epistle? Is it not original Platonism from 
 first to last ? The most beautiful writing in the New 
 Testament is the beautiful Gospel of John, and that 
 Gospel is almost a perfect embodiment of the spiritual 
 teachings of Plato. You read thu&: " In the beginning- 
 was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the 
 Word was God/' (John I, Verse 13.) And again: 
 u The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full 
 of grace and truth." Platonism, you recollect, teaches 
 
TRUTHS. MALE AND FEMALE. 221 
 
 the same doctrine; that things are the forms of pre- 
 existent spiritual patterns or ideas, in other language, 
 things are the incarnations of archetypal thoughts that 
 were God, or were with God in the spiritual universe. 
 Saint John and Saint Plato both taught that spiritual 
 types or ideals were prepared beiore creation, waiting 
 for embodiment ; and that when the time arrived for 
 expression, or " creation/' (as some writers term it,) 
 then expression came. Wherefore we read in the Tes- 
 tament this Platonism : ;i The Word became flesh and 
 dwelt among men." To this conclusion you arrive : 
 What you find that is superior in theology and ethics 
 in the Xew Testament, is but an offspring of the mar- 
 riage of the Grecian female philosophy with the mascu- 
 line element of Judaism. In the theology and ethics of 
 Christendom, we find representative traits and impres- 
 sive propensities of its father and mother. In examining 
 Christianity you will discover the distinguishing cha- 
 racteristics of the father and mother, both parents and 
 grandparents ; the feminine Greek philosophy and the 
 Judaic masculine element — the latter an offspring of 
 the spiritualism of the Israelites in marriage relation 
 with the masculine science of the Egyptians. 
 
 In Christianity, however, we recognize also a mas- 
 culine element which required new companionship, and 
 went abroad seeking its true bride. It found no com- 
 panionship in Greece. Plato was not the founder of 
 a masculine philosophy — Socrates was not. But Aris- 
 totle, and those of his school, were founders and 
 champions of the masculine in Greek philosophy. Many 
 of them taught and represented perfectly, long before 
 the element went out to seek its companion, the full 
 
222 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 development of the male principle in the spiritual life 
 of the world. 
 
 It was this masculine element, which, going into 
 Rome, formed a marriage relation with the Roman 
 feminine principle ; which was exhibited as an internal 
 fondness for whatsoever was at once decidedly beautiful 
 and strictly useful. A union of the Roman principle 
 with the Greek principle, in this intimate relation of 
 marriage, introduced Christianity to all Europe. With- 
 out such marriage, Christianity could not have lived 
 through the medieval age and obtained an expression 
 in the Western world. The feminine in Platoism and 
 in Christism, blended with the masculine in Judaism 
 and in Greek philosophy, brought out the latent attri- 
 butes of the Roman mind. The Roman mind was 
 strictly and perfectly pledged to the development of 
 Use and Power. Utilism, strong political and legal 
 institutions, and energetic devotion to what was deemed 
 the most beautiful and lasting. The Roman did not 
 possess a philosophic miud. His was not an artistic, 
 poetic, or musical mind. Greece alone furnished the 
 feminine principles of which Art, Poetry, and Music 
 are expressions to mankind's five senses. In the Roman 
 mind you find the Greek expressions cropping out, 
 because in the offspring you always behold more or less 
 of the characteristics and ruling propensities of the pro- 
 genitors. Therefore in Rome you find the Art and 
 Science, some of the Philosophy, a good deal of the 
 Music, a little of the Poetry, and a very large propor- 
 tion of the Drama, Tragedy and Comedy of ancient 
 Greece, and also of the Arabian and Persian world. 
 Children always receive from their parents, by physio- 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 223 
 
 logical .and psychological inheritance, and the same is 
 true of nations, races, ages, and institutions. 
 
 Now when Rome arrived at the climax of her 
 power she was substantially a rich giantess and the 
 supreme head of the earth's law-makers. In the latter 
 respect Rome was masculine. It eventually became 
 necessary for this element to seek a new relation. That 
 new relation was easily found in more Western Europe. 
 The marriage resulted in the large and beautiful family 
 of Literature and Art and Science and Music and 
 Poetry, and resulted also in all the various forms of 
 the State and Church, of Law and Democracy, of Phi- 
 losophy and Progress, and in the public spirited move- 
 ments of the present age. The masculine and feminine 
 principles — the whole family of them — seemed to have 
 culminated and gathered for their first and most grand 
 expression in England and in France. The conjugal 
 blending of those opposite principles was the gathering 
 of long-estranged elements into a happy group to dwell 
 for a time together in peace. It was like the gathering 
 of the scattered and discordant tribes of Judea. When 
 they should be gathered together, there was to be great 
 rejoicing, for the foundation of the New Jerusalem 
 would soon be laid. (So says the pleasant dream.) But 
 the New Jerusalem was really nothing but the meeting 
 of those long-wandering male and female principles— 
 the children and grandchildren and the great-grand- 
 children — the aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, 
 and cousins near and distant — the various feminine and 
 masculine principles past and present which assembled 
 like a Congress in the age of Charlemagne. Then 
 they found their finest and sweetest expression; but 
 
224 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 how very crude, how very barbarian, how exceedingly 
 far beneath what is to-day seen and known of them ! 
 
 Grave and slow old England, when many of these 
 principles were gathered in her heart, openly exhibited 
 a masculine development. The blending of the mascu- 
 line Roman principles with the feminine principles of the 
 age of Charlemagne, gave the purest and clearest 
 development of Science through the mind of Bacon. 
 The German inductive philosophy came also ; and this, 
 unlike the English Science, was truly and healthfully 
 feminine. 
 
 Anything which engerms and inspires a love of truth 
 in the soul, is feminine. Science, which insists upon 
 facts and accuracy in things, is invariably masculine. 
 The spiritual effect of Bacon's philosophy is masculine, 
 or inductive ; but the truly German philosophy is femi- 
 nine, or deductive. Phileo means to love, and sophia 
 means wisdom. Hence the term " Philosophy," literally 
 signifying the love of wisdom. Love signifies the seat 
 or heart of the affections ; the life-principles and imper- 
 sonal ideas of the inmost spirit. When the heart, 
 therefore, goes out toward a truth, it is a bride going 
 out to meet the bridegroom. The offspring of the 
 Baconian philosophy are all great healthy boys — that 
 is, strong, vigorous, progressive, irrepressible Sciences 
 — the positive methods which that school of philosophy 
 has developed throughout civilization. 
 
 What comes next ? When a perfect marriage takes 
 place between these outer sciences and a love of truth, 
 the world is soon blest with young saviors. Such is the 
 origin of the Daguerrean and Photographic arts, and of 
 every new invention for human good, each being duly 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 225 
 
 baptized and placed upon record, just as a new babe 
 is added to the family and a new hand is made for 
 industry. 
 
 A truth goes out from one mind and obtains a hos- 
 pitable recognition in another mind: only an intellectual 
 apprehension and entertainment. But there is also 
 such a fact as a spiritual love of truth. No mind can 
 develop anything good and beautiful unless he first feels 
 in his deep soul a love for whatsoever is good and beauti- 
 ful. First, he must have the feminine inspiration and 
 aspiration for and toward truth : and next, the mascu- 
 line intellectual apprehension of the scientific details by 
 which that truth can alone receive its finest and highest 
 expression. Thus, Daguerre went to work with the 
 love of heart, which is the bride of truth, and also with 
 the Baconian philosophy, which is the bridegroom, or 
 form of truth, and the result was the development of a 
 new art. When he received into his mind the mascu- 
 line apprehension of those exact facts in chemistry con- 
 cerning the action of light, and when he united with 
 that apprehension the love of the good, the true and the 
 beautiful, the next event was a marriage in his being, 
 which in due course of time unfolded that wonderful 
 art'by which the sun is made everybody's artist. 
 
 Wherever mankind are, there you will observe this 
 blending of the bridegroom and the bride. In the 
 smallest, least, and most unimportant, as in the grand- 
 est, most essential, and magnificent,, it is clearly and 
 truly like the marriage of the beautiful maiden with 
 her own beloved mate. It is indorsed by Nature, our 
 spirit Mother, and by her eternal companion, our spirit 
 Father ; and no union can be more sacred and pro- 
 10* 
 
226 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 ductive of human progress and happiness. The issues 
 of such marriages are legitimate — beautiful offspring 
 called " society/ 5 "education," "art," "poetry," "mu- 
 sic," science," " philosophy," "religion," and "civiliza- 
 tion," and giving " hope" and " courage" and embellish- 
 ment to the great temple of human " liberty" and " pro- 
 gress" — these are the darling offspring, the legitimate 
 progeny, of the perfect marriages of principles of male 
 and female truths in the human mind. 
 
 You know, by your own experience, that you have 
 intellectual conceptions of truths which bear no fruit — 
 truths that are sterile and barren of children. Do 
 you not also think of friends and acquaintances, who 
 apprehend high truths and principles as clearly as you, 
 and yet whose lives and characters have never been 
 improved and beautified by those truths? Their lives 
 and homes have never been modified or softened or 
 sweetened by that which in you has been a perpetual 
 source of great strength and spiritual fertility. The 
 secret is: The unchanged character has only had in his 
 mind the masculine element of the truth — merely an 
 intellectual apprehension of the truth, and of course it 
 does not bear fruitful results in him. Perhaps in your 
 own nature you have a beautiful and holy truth that 
 has not improved and strengthened you. Perhaps you 
 do not feel invigorated by your truth for any great 
 work, either in private or public life. You may have a 
 clear, sweet, reverent, religious devotion to some par- 
 ticular beautiful truth, which has been alternately nest- 
 ling and slumbering in your bosom for years, but it has 
 never imparted to you a ray of strength — never given 
 life and light enough to enable you to carry out a 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 227 
 
 millionth part of its dictation and positive requirements. 
 What can be the cause and the reason? Because, per- 
 haps, instead of a male, you may have a feminine truth, 
 which may never have met with its masculine counter- 
 part or principle. If there be no marriage there can 
 be no parentage or results. Suppose now that you 
 should hear some preacher, politician, orator, or some 
 man or woman, who said "just the right thing" — just 
 what you had been " longing'' to have said, but knew 
 not before exactly what it was you so longingly wanted, 
 and which you were never able to give a tangible 
 expression. It may be but a single word in the whole 
 discourse, but that " word" struck your pent up and 
 barren soul as Moses' rod struck the rock, and forth- 
 with the deep fountains of your interior life are unsealed, 
 and they send forth their golden spray into the great 
 world about you. You are spiritually, morally strong. 
 You go out into the world and you return to your 
 family with a new life and a new comprehension. The 
 explanation is, that the opposite element has entered 
 your spirit. The bridegroom has sought and found his 
 bride, or the reverse has transpired, and marriage was 
 perfect and immediate. You rise strengthened, built 
 up anew, and are, as it were, " born again ;" the light 
 of new skies is showered upon you, and your awakened 
 mind is all starry and begemmed with new and beauti- 
 ful conceptions of the Divine. Persons susceptible to high 
 religious influences, know the reality of these expe- 
 riences. You may read the best books, you may attend 
 the highest order of literary lectures, you may go to 
 the most living churches for years; but unless the 
 " right thing is said," and said in " the right way" to 
 
228 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 your inmost, you will still be waiting and longing. 
 The bride will be waiting for her mate, or the mascu- 
 line for his feminine companion, within the temple 
 of life. 
 
 I used to think, uncharitably and unphilosophically, 
 that men were very blameworthy for all deviations from 
 what is deemed just and right. I have not wholly arrived 
 at that conscienceless and comfortable point where 
 " whatever is, is right;" but I do most clearly see that 
 men are not as culpable as they are supposed to be by 
 the religious creeds of the world. Men and women 
 wait for the advent of the master — the masculine and 
 the feminine principles — the interior union of love and 
 wisdom in the spirit. 
 
 See, for example, how in these days America waits 
 for champions to lead her armies to battle. Men had # 
 military principles and tactics taught to them at West 
 Point; the masculine science of planning and fighting 
 great battles. They knew, in theory, how to march 
 and countermarch, to plot and counterplot; they under- 
 stood commanding, and the management of the sword 
 and musket. They understood also, by theory and 
 illustration, all the pharaphernalia of an army in its 
 march to the field of battle. But all this learning was 
 the masculine element ; it amounted to nothing for the 
 world's progress. The West Point Cadets, when in the 
 city of New York, appeared like the other people, except 
 in the matter of their uniform. But the day and the 
 hour arrived for some of these men to receive the femi- 
 nine principle. What was it ? It was the love of an 
 unchangeable principle ; the love of Liberty for all the 
 inhabitants of this continent. When this love entered 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 229 
 
 into the soul of these men a marriage was celebrated 
 through all their faculties, and instead of being mere 
 uniformed officers, they rose to manhood, and the faith- 
 ful among them equaled the might of a thousand men. 
 Some of the military leaders wait for opportunities. 
 They will yet show you grand and valorous general- 
 ship; they hesitate, waiting for the expression of the 
 interior marriage that has not yet occurred. Others 
 again go into the field mechanically ; are nothing but 
 military men, with no love for any ennobling principle, 
 having never felt the marriage of the principles of Lib- 
 erty and Justice with the principles of military science. 
 Now take spiritual truths. In our motto you read, 
 "Fair truth! for thee alone we seek," &c. Does that 
 sound as though you were addressing a masculine prin- 
 ciple ? A great many men may think they ought to be 
 so addressed, but you know that it would be an inap- 
 propriate use of language. " Fair truth I" Did the poet 
 not see truth to be a female — the woman principle ? 
 William Cullen Bryant, in his well-known lines, says: 
 
 " Truth crushed to earth will rise again ; 
 The eternal years of God are hers.'" 
 
 After recognizing thus the feminine of truth, he adds : 
 
 " While Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
 And dies amid his worshipers." 
 
 What man is there that will not shrink from the 
 poet's testimony that error is masculine? We men, 
 however, can read Genesis for consolation. We find 
 there that woman was the cause of the world's universal 
 damnation. She began the quarrel ! But, on the other 
 hand, we are compelled to acknowledge that the Prince 
 
230 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of Darkness was masculine. We have not heard that 
 the Christian's devil was a woman. The great sphere 
 of action, energy, force, is masculine ; and force, in its 
 desperation and ambition to gain its point, falls, as did 
 the Prince of Darkness, from these mountain-high ts of 
 joys delectable down to the dreary depths of hopeless 
 perdition. Such operations and overthrows occur 
 throughout the world, in all history, and in much of pri- 
 vate experience. 
 
 The woman element, on the contrary, visits all these 
 various recesses of darkness. Lovingly she 'goes to 
 every part of the inhabitable globe as a missionary. 
 Woman-life is a divine power; it is not force, which is 
 masculine. Woma#, in essence, is love ; she is not 
 intellect. Rarely does the principle of ambition gain 
 highest expression in the woman mind. Force and 
 ambition are masculine. If a woman's ambition is great, 
 and if her love of admiration is also great, her conduct 
 will correspond with such temporarily predominating 
 masculine elements. But when the feminine principle 
 in her spirit rouses, then she is affection, full of gentle 
 dependence and of healing sympathy ; she is the inter- 
 blending and transforming power of love, endowed 
 richly with the missionary spirit. All women, when in 
 their freedom, are missionaries in their homes and in 
 all hearts. No mother can live without the inspiration 
 of unselfish love for children. She goes as a missionary 
 every time she visits her babe in the cradle ; thus, too, 
 she visits the sick one in the chamber of sorrow and 
 suffering. Man goes to lift up the body of the little 
 one; to change its position in the bed ; to do something 
 for the suffering. A woman goes, not only to do, but 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 231 
 
 also to rescue and save and heal. The mother-nature 
 comes to teach, to bind up the broken-hearted, and to 
 pour over us all the streams of unselfish affection. The 
 father-nature, the masculine element, holds up the physic- 
 al relations, keeps the positive principles in action, and 
 does the outward work of life. But the action of the 
 mother-principle in the human mind is identical with 
 the action of the masculine principle.* For if a stful loves 
 a spiritual truth, it will give that soul, whether man or 
 woman, warmth and zeal and enthusiastic fertility. If 
 love does not exist in the spirit by the side of an intel- 
 lectual apprehension of the truth, there is no growth, 
 no improvement. But let the love of truth be blended 
 with the intellect's admiration for and apprehension of 
 it, and there very soon occurs " a new birth." The 
 person henceforth not only is, but begins to be, and to 
 do and to live from that divinely fertile center. Deeds, 
 righteous and wholesome, are the darling progeny. 
 Instead of bringing over-action and fatigue, such off- 
 spring bathe the spirit with rest and happiness. 
 
 A recent writer on the "Poetry, History, and Wis- 
 dom of Words," unintentionally gives the substance of 
 our philosophy in his solution of the origin of lan- 
 guages : 
 
 " The causes of that marvelous identity we call the 
 English language, lie deep in the manifold influences 
 [the conjugal relationships of the previously existing 
 male and female principles] that have made the English 
 Nation. The history of a language is measurable only 
 in the terms of all the factors that have shaped a 
 people's life. A nations history is the result of the 
 double action [i. e., the sexual meeting and marrying] 
 
232 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 • of internal impulses and external events ; and language 
 expresses the infusions from all these — subtiiely absorb- 
 ing the ethnology of a nation, its geography, govern- 
 ment, traditions, culture, faith. 
 
 "The heart of our language is Anglo-Saxon. This 
 is the spine on which the structure of our speech is 
 hung. And yet had the Saxon been left to itself, it 
 never co'uld have grown into the English tongue. It 
 needed a new element. This it found in the ^Norman 
 French introduced with that great political and social 
 revolution, the Norman conquest, which was, no doubt, 
 precisely the best thing that could have happened. And 
 here we have to mention the deep debt we owe to that 
 illustrious nation, Italy — which for so many centuries 
 led the van of European civilization — in operating the 
 renaissance of Greek and Latin language and thought. 
 The breath of antique genius passed over the English 
 mind like the air of spring, bursting and blossoming in 
 luxuriant growths of thought and speech. Of those 
 three grand factors -Saxon, French, and Classical — is 
 our language made up. It is the mutual influence and 
 action of these that form the warp and woof of our 
 English speech. Not but that other elements are, in 
 greater or smaller proportions, present, and weave their 
 threads into the divine web ; but these are the main 
 sources whence our language has enriched itself. 
 
 " Of course the English language must take on new 
 powers in America. And here we are favored by the 
 genius of this grand and noble language, which, more 
 than all others, lends itself, plastic and willing, to the 
 molding power of new formative influences. [What 
 new "formative" influences can there be but such as are 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 233 
 
 rendered fertile and reproductive through the meeting 
 and marriage of male and female principles ?] The 
 future expansions of the English Language in America 
 are already marked in the great lines of development 
 this idiom shows. It is for us freely to follow the 
 divine indications. The immense diversity of Tace, 
 temperament, character — the copious streams of human- 
 ity constantly flowing hither — must reappear in free, 
 rich growths of speech. Over the transformations of a 
 language the genius of a nation unconsciously presides — 
 the issues of words represent issues in the national 
 thought. And in the vernal seasons of a nation's life 
 the formative energy puts forth verbal growths, opu- 
 lent as flowers in spring. 55 
 
 Science, I repeat, is masculine ; philosophy is femi- 
 nine. Poetry, when genuine, is instinctive — feminine. 
 It is the blending of outward and inward truths at the 
 heart of the spirit. Poetry is spiritual ; Music is spirit- 
 ual ; therefore both Poetry and Music are feminine. 
 But the science of music, as of poetical composition, is 
 mechanical, or masculine ; the great, strong, beautiful 
 Apollo is a representative character in old mythology. 
 Pandora's box was the source of innumerable evils. 
 That is also mythology. But for woman's cause it 
 should be remembered that it was not Pandora's heart, 
 but her box, in which she was supposed to have accu- 
 mulated evils and pestilences and disorders from 
 masculine sources. 
 
 Perhaps there is more truth than mythology in the 
 story. Look at the -feminine principles in your mind. 
 Unless they be married with something which is mas- 
 culine — full of energy and full of action — they will often 
 
234 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 be sources of annoyance, pain, distress, and disaster to 
 those about you. The most beautiful and affectionate 
 principles in the human spirit, when not properly 
 balanced with their mates and counterparts, will assault 
 and break down the most beautiful relations subsisting 
 in the social sphere between men and women, between 
 women and women, and between men and men. We all 
 need more balance. We are frequently imperfect. All 
 men should have the power to modify and contain as well 
 as the power to impart and express. 
 
 Now the deductive principles, the method of the 
 German, come fom the heart of thought. This method 
 is always feminine ; reasoning from the center, out- 
 wardly. Intuition is thus revealed ; it is the spirit of 
 Nature ; the life of our Mother, going from her central 
 fountains toward the surface. Intuition always starts 
 from the germinal fountains of the immortal spirit ; it 
 throws its showers of golden spray worldward — some- 
 times in music, sometimes in poetry, sometimes in 
 affectionate speech, sometimes in terse affirmations of 
 great truths. Whatever way it expresses itself, it is still 
 truly feminine. Truth is incessantly busy gathering 
 to itself the means and objects of gratification. Science 
 furnishes the parliamentary forms by which men may 
 deal with each other in their relations to the truth. 
 
 Women are not great inventors; neither are the wo- 
 manly elements in any mind. The uncompanionated love 
 of principles in a man's mind never invented anything. 
 The love of truth is a source of inspiration. It is the 
 intellectual sight and comprehension of truth, calm and 
 cool, without enthusiasm, full of steady-eyed science? 
 with an abiding sense that something like philosophy is 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AND FEMALE. 235 
 
 at the bottom — from such a mind, whether male or 
 female, inventions will come. The sources and causes 
 of inventions are the same in individual minds of either 
 sex. Men are quicker in the sphere of physical results. 
 Xo womanly element, however, in either man or woman, 
 can invent. Hence many men, like women, " die without 
 issue. 3 ' The woman element will Inspire,' give life, love, 
 affection, unchangeable devotion ; but the masculine 
 element gives form, proportion, manifestation, embodi- 
 ment. The woman-nature imparts inspiration to the 
 intellectual faculties. The man-principles of mind 
 think; they plan; they move; they bring in the details 
 of heartless science; they open the way through swamps 
 and mountains ; they dig the channels and prepare for 
 the inflowing of the golden rivers of Paradise. The 
 conjugal blending of male and female truths in the 
 mind, is happiness; the healthy, beloved, beautiful off- 
 spring of these married truths are deeds of use and 
 beauty„ of philanthropy, fraternity, and progression. 
 
 How can you put the doctrine of this lecture into 
 daily practice ? I answer, easily. First find out which 
 is the predominating sex in the state of your mind — 
 whether there be more love of principles than an intel- 
 lectual comprehension of them ; or, on the other hand, 
 analyze yourself to find whether you have not more com- 
 prehension of principles than love in your deep affections 
 for them. Whichever way you find yourself unbalanced, 
 proceed at once to adjust your life to the married law. 
 For example, in America we find the sentiment of lib- 
 erty — i. e., the love of the principle — fifty years in 
 advance of the comprehension of the requirements of 
 the principle. Few persons, therefore, are competent 
 
236 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 to define what Liberty is. In this respect the great 
 mass of the world is dumb. But as to the sentiment — - 
 the feminine love of liberty — they are over-glad to sing 
 it and have it sung, and are willing to contribute their 
 property, their lives and sacred honor to defend and 
 establish it. And yet the intellectual conception of the 
 requirements of the Idea has scarcely entered the heart 
 of any American'. Because the masculine side of the 
 'principle is not yet married to the soul's love of it. 
 
 How can you be large, unsectarian, broad and phi- 
 lanthropic until you have the conception of justice, as 
 well as a profound love of it, so that you will give as- 
 much freedom as you will take ? You will not be 
 large-souled enough to open the doors of freedom to all 
 human beings, until you see, and love to see, that the 
 divine idea of Liberty positively calls upon you to be 
 just and true to its requirements, " at whatever cost." 
 
 And thus, also, with all the other truths. Take, 
 for instance, the principle of marriage between the 
 sexes. Love, unless regulated by wisdom, leads to dis- 
 cordant expressions. The masculine element, the 
 intellect, recognizes adaptations — the science of physio- 
 logical and temperamental relations between men and 
 women — and yet no relation known as marriage could 
 exist without love. The protecting sphere of wisdom 
 should be thrown around the conjugal love. That is 
 what is meant by having truth dwelling with and in 
 you, and your dwelling with and in the truth. How 
 can you be " at home" unless you have a true concep- 
 tion of what it is to be a man — a woman— bound together 
 in true marriage? Unless these conceptions and these 
 loves dwell with you every day, giving you largeness 
 
TRUTHS, MALE AXD FEMALE. 237 
 
 of thought and warmth of soul, you will be restless and 
 discordant with all about you. People who have none 
 of these loves and conceptions in their homes, live like 
 animals — full of strife, sensuality, profanity, evil- 
 speaking, and destructiveness. 
 
 The inmates of these fashionable city homes repel 
 the doctrines of u woman's rights,'* 5 no matter how 
 plausibly or reasonably presented, saying that they do 
 not want more rights- than they now enjoy. They 
 detest such controversies. Why ? Because they have 
 not yet so much as the love of human rights born in 
 them, much less the far-reaching idea, the intellectual 
 conception and comprehension. A masculine truth in 
 the mind is simply admired. It does not warm your 
 affections ; it is not necessary to your present happiness. 
 You may admire your own truth ; you may think it is 
 superlatively good; the best thing; and yet you know 
 it is only a part of your intellect. If it be a truth 
 which you love also, it will always cause you to glow 
 with gladness and work with joy. 
 
 The conclusion of all is, that all truths in the mind 
 need to be truly married. There can be no balance of 
 character on any other basis. Any guardian angel, 
 any passage of poetry, any strain of music, any scene in 
 Nature, that will blend any two truths together and 
 make them one in your spirit, is the high-priest of life 
 to you. From that hour you will go happily forward 
 in your proper sphere of labor, doing good, and exhibit- 
 ing the pleasant ways of wisdom and righteousness to 
 your fellow-men. The marriage of all principles in the 
 mind will be known as a revelation to that mind of 
 " the unity of truth."* 
 
FALSE AND TRUE EDUCATION. 
 
 " A voice withiu us speaks the startling word, 
 1 Man, thou shalt never die V " 
 
 Education means eduction — drawing out from 
 within — extracting that which is deposited. It is the 
 work of quickening and bringing into active life dor- 
 mant genius. True education is a process of incuba- 
 tion — the internal is roused and evoked to a natural 
 revelation. 
 
 Long ago Dr. Channing asserted that culture was 
 the guardian angel of civilization, and the Unitarian 
 organization has ever since been largely pervaded by 
 the beautiful spirit of his teachings, through which a 
 refining influence has gone out upon the whole world. 
 Universalists have proved useful educators in doing 
 battle against the dismal error of eternal punishment. 
 Orthodoxy has never recovered from the effects of 
 their blows. 
 
 We now stand upon the threshold of a new dispensa- 
 tion — the most golden that ever rolled in from the sea 
 of the centuries. We recognize the truth that the 
 human mind is a soil, and that Education is a cultivation 
 of that soil. Education brings out that which is hid- 
 den, straightens the crooked, embellishes the unsightly, 
 and equalizes the vigor and action of the faculties. 
 
FALSE AND TRUE EDUCATION. 239 
 
 Mark how educational processes inaugurate a new- 
 dispensation in the garden, on the prairie, in the Central 
 Park ! See how the uninviting waste lias been converted 
 into beautifully-carpeted lawns and walks, the dirty 
 IVog-ponds and cess-pools cleansed and'dimpled all over 
 with Heaven's smiles — because thev have been educated. 
 Accidents have been built up into beautiful caves, and 
 craggy clilis subdued and embellished. How we admire 
 the beauty, purity, and attractiveness of what before 
 was filthy and repulsive ! Such is education in the 
 physical world. And see how the inhabitants of this 
 planet are growing out of their sectarian bonds by cul- 
 tivating a higher knowledge of rocks, and shrubs, and 
 trees. All days are sacred in the universal temple. 
 It is open, like the atmosphere, every day of the week. 
 How beautiful and chastening to dwell with Nature. 
 
 Education is the same when applied to the human 
 mind. Look at the boy not truly educated, and you see 
 what the Central Park was before it felt the magic 
 hand of artists. Imagine what the Central Park will 
 be one hundred years hence, and you will obtain a hint 
 of what true education is destined to accomplish for the 
 humau mind. 
 
 By education is not meant a knowledge of Latin and 
 Greek, nor familiarity with the routine of popular 
 fashionable accomplishments. The truly educated are 
 those who have come out from Within, who have grown 
 up from the mental quadruped state to the full-blown 
 development of the immortal faculties and attributes. 
 
 Imitation is not the basis of true Education. Many 
 are but learned pigs ! Some talented men are but 
 trained animals. They walk and talk after the manner 
 
240 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of their masters. Medical colleges and theological 
 seminaries inculcate simply the lesson of consulting and 
 following rigidly in the footsteps of certain authorities. 
 Their students are taught to diagnosticate and minister 
 to diseases, and to pound and expound the Scriptures, 
 in strict accordance with an established rule. Their 
 ministrations are simply a routine, a trained perform- 
 ance. Depart from the prescribed methods, and a with- 
 drawal of the good opinion of teachers and patrons is 
 sure to follow. And the excellence and importance of 
 these established codes are profoundly felt by fathers, 
 who give their money, and by mothers, who offer even- 
 ing prayers that their sons may become ministers. Take, 
 for example, a family of boys. The strongest and most 
 vigorous goes out upon the soil, or he wields the energy 
 of his existence in the machine-shop. Another, with 
 sympathetic nature, chooses the practice of medicine; 
 another the law ; while the last, who is fond of grave- 
 yards and poetry, and is likely to have the dyspepsia, 
 and is not over-fond of manual labor, studies for the 
 ministry. Like a young ghost he goes to the theologic- 
 al school, and in due course of study comes out a 
 fashionable goblin of old orthodoxy. But no such per- 
 son is truly educated. 
 
 True education, instead of cramping and incarcerat- 
 ing, liberates the mind. It has no programme beyond 
 the discipline whose object is freedom — emancipation 
 from the Teacher, and perhaps also, from the doctrines 
 taught. Spiritualists, like all who labor for the diffu- 
 sion of this true type of education, are incubators and 
 social agitators. How powerfully have the recent 
 efforts of such educators moved the thinking world I 
 
FALSE AND TRUE EDUCATION. 241 
 
 Teachers often become consolidated, established, and 
 finally infidel to the progressive principles which under- 
 lie true education. Time was when one Quaker could 
 shake the country for ten miles in every direction. 
 Now it takes a section of country twenty miles every 
 way to shake one Quaker ! Whitefield and Wesley 
 each brought a new magnetic light and a higher spiritual 
 enthusiasm. They spread democratic religious con- 
 victions, and broke down the church barriers as a loco- 
 motive would demolish a temple of glass. Methodism 
 was a great Protestant movement. It was a religious 
 democratic innovation. We welcome the general lib- 
 erating influence of the lessons they taught. Now, 
 however, the Methodist Episcopal Church has become 
 fashionable, proud, respectable, consolidated, immova- 
 ble, and a stumbling-block. 
 
 True education visits man somewhat as the true 
 horticulturist goes to plants, the pomologist to trees, 
 the agriculturist to the field, the astronomer to the 
 heavens, the musician to harmony, and as all true minds 
 labor in the departments of science and art. Such influ- 
 ences are exerted not to embarrass and imprison, but 
 to open, to extract, to call out, to unfold and perfect 
 from properties and essences that exist within. 
 
 Pythagoras listened, as he passed a blacksmith's, 
 shop, and heard different musical sounds from the blows 
 of different sized hammers upon the anvil. By those 
 sounds he was educated. He went to his room, sus- 
 pended four hammers of different weight and form, and 
 striking them, elicited different notes, and so began his 
 education in the science of music. Aristotle worked 
 differently. To him the different sounds were different 
 11 
 
242 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 facts, to be used to put his pupils in bondage. His les- 
 sons were heavily freighted with the despotic and abso- 
 lute. All who differed from his propositions were 
 pronounced to be in error. Those who went out from 
 his school were simply his disciples. They lived and 
 died as such. The students of Pythagoras, on the other 
 hand, went out feeling that philosophic truths, and not 
 the teacher of them, were of eternal importance. But 
 they were not strong to withstand the influences and 
 temptations of the times, and they fell from power. So 
 will fall all Spiritualists who commit themselves too 
 largely to popular influences and aristocratical institu- 
 tions. Let all reformers learn by the example of the 
 disciples of Pythagoras, to avoid every attempt to 
 accomplish great social and political changes by means 
 of popular institutions. The lesson is, that new social, 
 religious, governmental, and educational develop- 
 ments require new means and new men. Old forms 
 and institutions subserve the ends for which they were 
 established. Such organizations usually die when their 
 purposes are fulfilled and their objects attained. 
 
 Nutrition, not education, is the first natural want 
 of the little child. The first things that interest the 
 babe are its fingers, its toes, and its stomach. These 
 define the conscious needs and furnish the amusements 
 of the opening mind. In these it finds delight, wonder, 
 and satisfaction. It soon, however, discovers that fin- 
 gers, toes, and stomach, have limits. New sources of 
 diversion are sought. New toys must be brought in. 
 The desire for nutrition being quickly gratified, other 
 and higher wants are unfolded ; and so on and on, 
 and in and in, until you begin to hear from the spirit. 
 
FALSE AND TRUE EDUCATION. 24:3 
 
 The body's dispensation slowly passes, and almost im- 
 perceptibly the spirit begins to unfold its nature and 
 needs. The young spirit takes the shape of its physical 
 home. Impressions are thus made upon the young mind 
 that cannot easily be eradicated. Still more important 
 is it to know that the child will, ever and anon, mani- 
 fest traits and characteristics in accordance with what 
 acted upon it before birth. 
 
 Young Safford, the remarkable mathematical genius, 
 received his powers from his mother, who, before his 
 birth, became almost infatuated by her love of figures. 
 Another mother was so circumstanced with a penurious, 
 niggardly, and oppressive husband, that she was com- 
 pelled to steal her pin-money from her legal master, 
 habitually resorting to evasions and deceits to conceal 
 her practices. Petty lying and theft became a settled 
 habit with her, and as a result, her next-born child was 
 as great a prodigy in lying and stealing as young Saf- 
 ford was in mathematics. The ante-natal law in both 
 cases is precisely the same. 
 
 According to this ante-natal psychologic law, some 
 persons are born prodigies in music and others in mur- 
 der. This is the law of ante-natal true education or 
 mis-education. Spiritualists do not fear to speak in 
 public on this subject — to mothers and to youth in each 
 other's presence. Thus Reformers are out-growing the 
 restraints of vulgar gentility or genteel vulgarity, and 
 do not hesitate to proclaim and redeem truths that shall 
 make mankind truly glorious, beautiful, and righteous 
 in all things. Spiritualists, more than any other class, 
 have dared to investigate education back of birth, back 
 of the marriage relation. 
 
244 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Science and Philosophy truly educate and liberate. 
 They open up a broad field, and lead the mind far out 
 into the spheres of infinitude. They bring facts, prin- 
 ciples, and laws, to the understanding. Music and Art 
 also tend to liberate. Not always are artists and mu- 
 sicians truly liberated, because of the false constraints 
 and circumstances of social life which hamper them ; but 
 the influences they involuntarily exert, through the in- 
 strumentality of their works, are emancipatory and 
 exalting to all human kind. 
 
 But for one moment look at American theology ! 
 That assumes to settle all doubtful questions. Ecclesi- 
 asticism is the great Apollyon under the shadow of 
 whose wings are all the educational institutions of the 
 country. Children and young men usually come out of 
 them very sickly — if possible, more sickly in mind than 
 in body. The established system of Education under 
 the wings of the Church is a system of monotony. All 
 must appear, think, and act alike. Members and sup- 
 porters must not differ. No vital controversy is per- 
 mitted. By this system Science is regarded as dangerous, 
 and Philosophy as the handmaid of the devil. Art and 
 Music are good, and the Church approves and appropri- 
 ates them. Poetry, too, it needs and uses. But touch 
 upon philosophic truths that tend to liberate, to break 
 up authority, and knock the bottom out of perdition — 
 destroy the devil, extinguish the fires of hell — and at 
 once the Church says: "You go too far;" and forth- 
 with the occupants of thirty thousand pulpits unitedly 
 oppose and strenuously resist your efforts, and they 
 zealously pray for the Almighty to restrain such infidel 
 tendencies. 
 
FALSE AND TRUE EDUCATION. 245 
 
 Education, as well as the. State, should be divorced 
 from the Church. 
 
 The human mind contains within itself all the ele- 
 ments for the development of a perfect character. The 
 child is an ovarium. The inmost mental germs ask to 
 be quickened, brought out ; for then harmony and bal- 
 ance of the faculties will result. It is well to teach 
 Science, but we should be cautious and not overload 
 one side of the mind. The world longs for balanced 
 and industrious minds. 
 
 Parents should not be obeyed because they are 
 parents, but rather, because they are worthy of obedi- 
 ence. No wonder that some children set up for them- 
 selves; it is because they have no real parents. 
 Parentage means more than physiology. The temple 
 of Childhood is built without the sound of a hammer, 
 and obedience (in the true family relation,) is as natural 
 as the revolution of the planets. The sun does not 
 compel obedience, but is simply in harmony with the 
 immutable laws by which obedience among lesser 
 bodies is natural and inevitable. 
 
 The Church teaches benevolence and charity for the 
 reason that Christ was charitable and benevolent, which 
 is no reason at all. Yet I accept the record, and I 
 there read that Jesus, when a child, went with his 
 parents to Jerusalem, and after the feast of the Pass- 
 over he remained in conversation with the doctors. His 
 parents returned for him, and his reply to their ques- 
 tions and invitation to accompany them home, was ; " I 
 am about my Father's business/' Here is an example 
 of disobedience to physiological parents. He felt that 
 he had a spiritual Father, and hesitated not, under the 
 
246 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 pressure of the higher obligations, to transcend the pre- 
 rogatives of his physiological parents. 
 
 The record informs us that Mary " laid the words 
 to her heart." Let all mothers do likewise. If your 
 child disobeys, lay the lesson to your heart, and learn 
 which was in fault. Who knows but a child is " about 
 his Father's business" when he seeks the fresh whole- 
 some air, in defiance of the parental command to stay 
 pent up in the house ? His spiritual Father tells him 
 that he needs air, exercise, and sunshine ; if denied an 
 opportunity by the physiological parent, he steals away 
 out of the house, and thus learns burglary and deceit. 
 Apply the lesson and introduce a new law — the 
 God-code — in your families. Woe be to the fashionable 
 code, conflicting with the divine, for thus come discoid 
 and evil ! 
 
 In the same record we read that spirits were 
 preached to in prison ; shut out from the light of 
 heaven. Those who were free, as the truth alone makes 
 free, went to them who were in darkness and proclaimed 
 glad tidings of great joy. This morning it seems neces- 
 sary to preach to minds in like condition. 
 
 The constant reproduction of human experience — 
 which is owing to the spiral progress of the race, causes 
 many to disbelieve in human improvement. It is true 
 that there are a few lost arts ; a few fragments of 
 human discovery have been jostled out. Still, when we 
 examine the national tumults of the past, the wonder is 
 not that we have lost a few arts, but that we have saved 
 so many discoveries from oblivion. Some arts have 
 been lost because of the excess of business consequent 
 upon the immense accumulations of higher arts and 
 
FALSE AND TRUE EDUCATION. 247 
 
 sciences. The universal currental drift — the unbroken 
 tide of material and spiritual progress of the centuries — 
 has gathered up and floated onward the fruits of all 
 nations and the inventions of all peoples. In our physic- 
 al garments, in our furniture and adornments, in our 
 arts, sciences, mechanics, &c, are seen the wealth, 
 experience, discoveries and industries of Egypt, Europe, 
 and Asia. 
 
 Holding complete and perpetual communion with 
 the supernal world, is regarded as one of the w lost 
 arts." Yet justly regarded, the experiences of pecu- 
 liarly qualified persons, here and there in the past, give 
 golden promise to the individuals of all nations, that, in 
 the full-orbed future, every truly unfolded man, woman, 
 and child, shall have a distinct consciousness of an envi-. 
 roning spiritual sphere. This fine art of holding com- 
 munion with the Superior Life is not " lost," but is 
 demonstrably reaffirmed in modern experiences. Time 
 never was when man, as to his internal nature and 
 career, appeared in such regal splendor. Mankind are 
 just learning of man. 
 
 Men's minds are imprisoned by whatsoever is false, 
 evil, erroneous, authoritative, and respectable. We are 
 here on earth expressly to grow. The gospel we 
 announce is not essentially different from the spiritual 
 past, which commenced in Egyptian darkness. We do 
 not ignore this past, though we are Protestants on a 
 boundless scale. We would speak to all who live in 
 mental prisons, for so the teachers of another world 
 frequently speak to us. 
 
 The prejudiced people of the churches are " in 
 prison.' 5 Their very beautiful compartments are num- 
 
248 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 bered as are the cells of criminals. The prison-keepers 
 (the clergy) would fear to have me speak to their people, 
 lest our spiritual truths might make their prisoners too 
 free ! Not a-pulpit minister in this city would exchange 
 with me, through fear that the lessons of mental free- 
 dom we teach might overthrow authority and liberate 
 imprisoned congregations. 
 
 Now, think of the wealth and beauty of the immor- 
 tal human spirit ! Artists and poets almost exhaust 
 their powers in portraying the beauty and glory of out- 
 ward creation. But this great natural universe, in all 
 its sublimity, is nothing when compared with the essen- 
 tial properties and immortal capacities of man's spirit. 
 A man who can conceive of an eternal Truth, gives evi- 
 dence that he, like the truth, is eternal. His career is 
 coextensive with his truth. 
 
 A man who conceives of Beauty demonstrates that 
 he possesses it within himself, and that ho is destined to 
 become that which he conceives. The power to con- 
 ceive of an immortal spirit, stript of perishable flesh, 
 deprived of its material avoirdupois, guarantees to the 
 conceiving spirit a future and immortal existence. 
 All Truth, all Beauty, all Philosophy, and all Science, 
 that crop out from man's mental tree, are prophecies 
 that mankind are to be what they thus have the power 
 to apprehend or conceive. In the depths of the past, 
 spiritual men dreamed of a great political and social 
 Republic. Americans have come exceedingly near realiz- 
 ing that dream. Plato's Atlantis is more than realized 
 in America. The wonders of Arabian Nights 7 Enter- 
 tainments, however surprising, do not begin to portray 
 the real scientific developments of the nineteenth cen- 
 
FALSE AND TRUE EDUCATION. 249 
 
 tury. Man's mind is superior to Art, Science, Philo- 
 sophy, and Theology. All these have come through 
 him in the course of the centuries. 
 
 We have, I repeat, no hostility to whatever in the 
 past is good, true, beautiful, or great. The good of the 
 olden time is living still. But those who are shut up 
 in prisons by the foolish education of the past do not 
 dare to open themselves to the education of the present. 
 To bring such out of religious darkness we are first to 
 teach that all men are yet in slavish bondage to their 
 various habits, passions, and popular opinions. 
 
 We live in the midst of a great city. People are 
 thrown into " prison" by the police of custom. Our 
 children are educated to resemble each other in dress, 
 in public movements and private deportment. "Children 
 must not differ from the neighbors' children ; ladies' 
 bonnets are all of one absurd pattern. " Better be out 
 of the world than out of fashion." 
 
 Any principle of Truth that will emancipate you is a 
 Moses or Jesus to you ; no matter whether it comes to 
 you in the form of a book, a tract, a piece of music, or 
 a fragment of a poem. Any thing — person, influence, 
 or principle — that lifts you out of your mental prison 
 and emancipates you, is worthy of your truest devotion 
 until another and a newer teacher comes in answer to 
 your newer necessities. 
 
 It was remarked by an intelligent lady in my hear- 
 ing that she had taken into serious consideration which 
 should take the precedence, Reason or Rags. After 
 due deliberation, with prayer superadded, she concluded 
 that Rags had it, and Reason, with its protests, was 
 forced to allow the trial to go by default ; she wears 
 11* 
 
250 MORNING LECTURES. - 
 
 dresses as long and as graceful as others, and yields 
 her judgment and experience to the tyrannical bondage 
 of a contemptible Fashion. Not on]y do women need 
 emancipation, but men also — for they are in prison to 
 Custom. The leaders of Fashion cannot take a step 
 forward without the approval of fathers, husbands, and 
 brothers. It is almost in vain for women to seek to 
 emancipate themselves from this despotic rule without 
 the aid and support of their associates and masculine 
 acquaintances. Thus men imprison women, and women 
 turn the keys of Custom on the young members of the 
 household. Prison is built upon prison, but the 
 Spiritual Reformer should work to- give freedom to the 
 captives. 
 
 Many intelligent persons are in prison to " the fear 
 of death." Modern light comes as a savior to the dun- 
 geon-door to all in this gloomy prison. It comes, also, 
 to teach the lesson of charity for those who entertain 
 conflicting opinions. The Christian and Jew are to be 
 regarded as equally honest. If you have not equal 
 charity for both, you are in the prison of prejudice. 
 Accept the idea of human progress, and you rise out of 
 the " slough of despond," and forthwith begin to enjoy 
 the glorious liberty of the Sons of God. 
 
 Some Spiritualists have been inclined to move off 
 from the world, like Shakers, and combine themselves 
 for the establishment of industrial and economical com- 
 munities. They will not be successful, because they do 
 not entertain sectional opinions, but believe in the pri- 
 vate efficacy of universal principles, and repudiate indi- 
 vidual authority. For this reason practical Spiritualists 
 will remain in the world. They will wield a wide influ- 
 
FALSE AND TRUE EDUCATION. 251 
 
 ence directly on the institutions of society. They have 
 the true idea that the way to reform society is not to 
 remove from it, but to make it what it should be from 
 its centers. The theory and practice of isolation are 
 to be overthrown by individual growth from within. 
 
 The spiritual principle recognizes germs of immor- 
 tal excellence in the lowest, meanest, and most depraved. 
 Every man on earth is your compeer. The recognition 
 of this fraternal truth not only gives dignity to your 
 character, but leads your Brother to lay aside all nar- 
 row prejudices and passions toward you and others. 
 No man or woman, educated to realize all the noble 
 capacities of the human spirit, can consent to pass a 
 life unworthy of innate powers and endowments. When 
 every man comes before you as a compeer, in his inner- 
 most, you will not be unfaithful to the spirit of universal 
 love. Popular religion does not fraternally recognize 
 any who differ from a prescribed standard. How dif- 
 ferent the influence of the doctrine that all human , 
 beings are to meet in the Summer-Land ! 
 
 Strive by will-power and inward growth to live less 
 in bondage to circumstances.' No matter what or who 
 may be your prison-keeper, put him or. it under your 
 feet. Accept the higher convictions, and you will expe- 
 rience a beautiful interior resurrection. Then you will 
 also become a minister of love and wisdom to those 
 about you ! Internal growth is the only real growth. 
 Start from the center, grow from within, and expand 
 fraternally and lovingly day by day. 
 
 Truths cannot be engrafted. You cannot argue a 
 belief in immortality into the skeptic's mind. Some 
 change may gradually or suddenly come over him — an 
 
252 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 accident, an impulse might awaken and quicken his 
 interior consciousness — and he may rise into fellowship 
 with principles and " feel his immortality," without an 
 argument. A man who can be educated to a belief in 
 immortality, can be also educated out of it. The under- 
 standing takes its bias from outward circumstances and 
 education. 
 
 Soon as you see tiiat malformations of character 
 come from internal and external conditions, you rise up 
 into a new and more charitable estimate of mankind. 
 You enter the temple of Brotherhood. As you grow 
 from within, so are you liberated. You may not be 
 able to escape physically from the prison of your cir- 
 cumstances, but you can with these truths rise from 
 within, and thus grow as naturally as a tree blossoms. 
 One such emancipated individual is a Redeemer to the 
 world. When all are thus emancipated, all will be 
 redeemed. When all are redemed from ignorance, the 
 j whole world will live in accord with Deity. 
 
THE EQUALITIES AND INEQUALITIES OF 
 HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 u Why, when all is bright and happy, should a gloom 
 Be spread around us ? Oh, blind and thoughtless soul ! 
 'Tis the same Power that reigns, and the same Love 
 Is traced alike, in sunshine and in shade." 
 
 This morning I feel impressed with this subject : 
 The application of the law of Love — i. e., the God- 
 code — to the equalities and the inequalities of human 
 nature. 
 
 Since the advent of the harmonial dispensation, thou- 
 sands of minds have become familiar with the idea that 
 God is essentially present in the compounds of the phy- 
 sical world, as well as in the finest and most sublimated 
 substances in the spiritual realm. This idea does not 
 affirm that there is as much of Infinite love-essence in 
 the organism of a bird as there is in the constitution of 
 a globe ; but so far as the life of the bird is concerned, 
 it is just as truly and essentially God as is the life of 
 the globe. Drops contain the properties and principles 
 of their fountain. The heart is the companion of the 
 brain ; the lungs co-operate fraternally with the heart ; 
 the stomach receives, digests, works, and imparts for 
 the whole body. It should be remembered, however, 
 that the brain receives from the heart just what the 
 
254 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 lungs are empowered to communicate to it ; that the 
 lungs receive just what the stomach is permitted to 
 afford; and that the stomach does its best (I suppose 
 you think that is bad enough) with the unsuitable mate- 
 rial which ) r ou thoughtlessly cram into it, often when 
 the body does not call for anything. The clock says 
 " Dinner is ready," and the bell rings, and you eat, 
 whether hungry or not. Many of you know that you 
 eat " to the damnation of your body ;" meaning the 
 destruction of your physiological harmony, which is about 
 as much damnation as most people can bear. And yet a 
 man may continue to damn himself all the way across 
 this terrestrial life, but must stop when he sees the 
 Summer-Land. Public opinion there, and the divine 
 codes of government as exemplified there, array and 
 combine themselves against him. And yet man's power 
 to think and to act remains. He may double and treble 
 and quadruple the intensity of his troubles. He may 
 become infatuated with the idea that, through voluntary 
 discords and consequent sufferings, he is working out 
 God's secret design. He is, however, altogether and 
 unhappily mistaken ; and yet there is another side to 
 this conviction, as I shall partly show in this morning's 
 discourse. 
 
 The stomach, you will recollect, does its best with 
 the materials furnished and consigned to it. Give rose 
 leaves, however beautiful, to the silk-worm, and do you 
 suppose it would spin you any silk ? Not a fiber could 
 it centrifugate. It must have its own food — the mul- 
 ticaulis; although it may feed on other leaves besides 
 those of the mulberry. Give the noiseless worm its 
 appropriate aliment, and beautifully it will wind off 
 
EQUALITIES AND INEQUALITIES OF HUMAN NATURE. 255 
 
 for human use the fibers of its silken vitality. Such is the 
 God-code outside of man. 
 
 Now let us apply this law to ourselves. Suppose 
 we feed the human body with inappropriate aliment. 
 Under such management can the lungs receive from the 
 stomach what the heart most needs ? Do you suppose 
 that the heart, which depends on the lungs for its 
 blood, can bestow upon the brain*those blessings which 
 are its just rewards and requirements? The brain is 
 the source of which the heart is but the regulating, 
 center — the point of government and administration 
 through which all the blood flows — the viaduct, the 
 governing organ; and the lungs are the channel of the 
 river which flows into and feeds the heart ; and the 
 stomach is the originator of the stream that flows into 
 and feeds the lungs ; and the substances you eat and the 
 fluids you drink are the sources out of which the 
 streams, the rivers, the lakes, the seas, and the oceans 
 of motion, life, sensation, and intelligence, are made. 
 
 By too well-remembered experience you know that 
 " the troubled sea casts up mire and dirt." That is the 
 reason why so many people get angry and swear - % anger 
 is the "mire" and the profanity is the "dirt," which is 
 thrown up from incompatible foods and drinks, or from 
 your discordant relation to the outer world and its 
 inhabitants. 
 
 God is just as truly exhibited in the operation of the 
 stomach as in the operation of the brain. Discord is 
 opposed to the Spirit of God ; Harmony is an expo- 
 nent of the Divine code, and is infinitely expressive of the 
 Divine heart. The revelation of spiritual principles, in 
 the present age, has brought to human comprehension 
 
256 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 this wondrous gradation of the degrees of deific power 
 and love and wisdom, showing that the social subordi- 
 nates, or what are called low-natures in the human 
 scale, are indispensable to the existence and reciproca- 
 tions of the highest. The principle of music runs, rip- 
 ples, vibrates, throbs, and sings through all degrees of 
 life ; the principle of God everywhere present, over All 
 and in All. 
 
 What is God ? Let us not stop to answer, because 
 , every mind in the universe is organized to furnish for 
 itself the answer, which Vill be * appropriate to the 
 necessities of its state and phase of moral development. 
 You may behold God as a person, or as a trinity, or as 
 filling a whole pantheon, if you be so educated ; or, if 
 your education has emancipated you from personalities, 
 trinities, pagodas and pantheons, then yon may be at 
 liberty to assume that " God is a Principle." Said the 
 Platonists, " God is love." But love is a principle ; 
 therefore must you not say that God is a principle ? 
 But you thus dispossess him of personality, which is 
 " atheism" in the opinion of all Christians who cling to 
 creeds. Love is a fountain ! It comes not as a person ; 
 not as a man or woman. For love is a principle by 
 which all things are filled with vitality, animated, 
 expanded, and made beautiful for the temples of eter- 
 nity. This fountain of love is God, if the Bible defini- 
 tion be accepted. If love is God, and if God is love, 
 then God is a principle ; so that, according to the rules 
 of reason, the Divine personality is dissolved in the 
 immensity — of the conception. 
 
 " Fair truth ! for thee alone we seek," is saying, 
 " God, for thee alone we seek." This statement is true, 
 
EQUALITIES AND INEQUALITIES OP HUMAN NATUEE. 257 
 
 whether you say it with your will or not. Why are 
 you drawn onward from day to day arid from year to 
 year ? Why is the insensate particle that floa4& in the 
 sun-beam drawn toward its proper place in the physical 
 world ? The particle moves onward not because it 
 knows its proper sphere and destiny, but because there 
 is a subtile principle of mysterious attraction [love] 
 which fills the particle, to which it resistlessly responds, 
 and on the bosom of which it harmoniously floats to its 
 place in the universe. 
 
 So onward are you moving, in the will of the God- 
 code. In the golden beams of an eternal Sun, floating 
 in the baptismal fount of infinite love, [attraction,] 
 mankind are moving onward to what is beyond ; leaving 
 the past to take care of itself, to bury its dead — pressing 
 strenuously toward the great surrounding immensity — 
 ever expanding and ever reaching into the beautiful 
 future. Not because we will it, but because we cannot 
 but obey the attraction of God. The essence of the 
 divine love is within all — just as truly in the warrior as 
 in " the man of peace ;'• just as truly in the cannon that 
 projects its message of iron as in the beautiful plants 
 that load the air with fragrance. The laws of mechanics 
 are supremely beautiful. Angles prophesy ovals ; octa- 
 gons indicate the coming of circles ; spirals foreshadow 
 onward moving principles. Rocks in the globe presup- 
 pose the ultimate pulverization of them into tillable 
 earth. From crude rocks come the beautiful soils on 
 which flowers and harvest grains grow, feeding the 
 lower animals first, then the higher, and finally the 
 highest ; thus preparing the fine atoms of earth for the 
 
258 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 formation of a Summer-Land, in a higher and more 
 glorious realm. 
 
 And the equalities and inequalities of human nature 
 are ail comprehended by and reconciled with the grand 
 scheme. To those who do not see the comprehending 
 plan and principle, the inequalities and iniquities of 
 humanity are regarded as the manifestations of the 
 devil and of original sin. But to those who do see the plan 
 and the principle, mankind's involuntary missteps are 
 deemed the incidental manifestations of the progressive 
 development of the Divine Spirit through the human 
 family. Men will act toward their fellows in accord- 
 ance with their estimates of human nature in general. 
 If, for example, you consider that the asteroids, which 
 occupy the space between the planets, were once one 
 globe, but thrown asunder in consequence of the exceed- 
 ing moral depravity of the people who once inhabited 
 that globe, as one Rev. Dr. Cummings holds and pro- 
 claims, then you will very likely also believe the same 
 with respect to the discords of men's homes and habits, 
 and you will be inclined to act -in accordance with such 
 conviction, rendering you a very morose neighbor and 
 a bad citizen. But, on the other hand, suppose you 
 conceive and receive the glorious gospel, that " God is 
 present in all things, 75 that, as David said, if you should 
 descend to " the belly of hell/' or to the uttermost parts 
 of the earth, yet you would find the spirit and laws of 
 Jehovah there ; do you not think that your belief in 
 intrinsic evil would depart, and that a flood of love and 
 worshipful gratitude would pour from your soul toward 
 the whole humanity? 
 
 The equalities and inequalities of human nature are 
 
EQUALITIES AND INEQUALITIES OF HUMAN NATURE. 259 
 
 from the infinite fountain of progress, just as drops of 
 water contain the properties and principles of the ocean 
 whence they came. Individual qualities contain the 
 properties of the Father and Mother. You remember 
 Pope's couplet : 
 
 " All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose spirit Nature is, and God the soul." 
 
 If Pope will permit this emendation, his lines will 
 meet the discoveries of later times. The qualities of 
 human nature partake of the properties and principles 
 of the Infinite Spirit. Equalities and Inequalities are 
 incidental to these qualities. These manifest themselves 
 first, in affection. The little child clings lovingly to 
 its mother; the little bird that is born does the same. 
 The progeny of the different animals do not learn to 
 love their mothers. The lesson of love is born with the 
 heart. Every living soul returns to the fountain for 
 sustenance of affection — for the loving magnetic em- 
 brace, and finally for all the fertilizing influences which 
 eventually emancipate the little one from its immediate 
 dependence upon the fountain. Such love is deeper than 
 the intellect ; it comes from the essences of God and 
 Nature. 
 
 The inequalities of human nature, when particularly 
 traced and analyzed, arise not from the Fountain of Love, 
 but from the sphere of relations, adjustments, and mani- 
 festations. The Fountain is always the same, and the 
 streams are like their source, but in the sphere of mat- 
 ter and of its organs, inequalities are manifested. 
 Spiritually unfolded . minds regard inequalities as 
 imperfections incident to the ascending flight of pro- 
 gressive principles. Think how differently mankind 
 
260 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 are put up in their physiological and phrenological 
 organs ! One person is sensitive and impressible ; ano- 
 ther is clad, as it were, with impenetrable iron. One 
 is alive to the impulses and requirements of love; 
 another treats affection as though it were a piece of 
 merchandise. One mind has the faculty of analyzing 
 propositions ; another has not the slightest conception 
 of such a faculty. These special inequalities are equali- 
 ties in the grand system. One person is incased in 
 powerful organic armor, adapted to the most Roman 
 and heroic work among the world's solid unresponsive 
 substances ; another is so constitutionally built as to 
 tremble and shiver, like an aspen leaf, in the slightest 
 breath from society, or from an antagonistic emotion 
 in other natures ; there are yet others, who, positive to 
 earth, are easily moved by the fine celestial currents 
 that flow through the encompassing atmosphere from 
 higher spheres. How differently organized, how une- 
 qual, are those persons! Suppose society should acci- 
 dentally jostle them into the marriage relation ! The 
 iron-clad character legally bound to the sensitive. Pro- 
 geny come, but they are discordant. One child is born 
 with little brain and much body ; the next, perhaps, 
 all brain and no body. One dies from an excess of 
 physical vigor, producing fevers in early childhood — 
 croup, obstructions, and inflammations ; another dies 
 from an excess of cerebral nervousness, not because the 
 brain is too large, but because the body is too small. 
 In these cases it is possibly well that they do not live. 
 The great God, both Father and Mother, careth for all 
 ■ — " taketh knowledge of the falling sparrow, and 
 lights a world with glory ;" just as attentive to the 
 
EQUALITIES AND INEQUALITIES OF HUMAN NATURE. 261 
 
 lilies of the valley as to "the highest seraph that 
 adores" in the infinite temple of truth. 
 
 I am sorry for every mind that cannot, from a lofty 
 eminence of interior growth, contemplate the empire of 
 inequalities as a part of the plan. When one has tasted 
 of the Pierian spring of immortal truths, and drank 
 deeply thereof, and descended to the terrestrial valleys 
 of discordant experience, then regret and sorrow for 
 others blossom in the troubled and sympathizing heart. 
 Those who have never been on the Alpine summits of 
 ideas, know nothing of the high countries and magnifi- 
 cent scenes above their heads. 
 
 The gentle Nazarene was filled with concern for 
 people who had no concern for themselves. He under- 
 stood their conditions, and appreciated wants and needs 
 which they had not arisen either to express or compre- 
 hend. What mean these pulpit sayings that some 
 people ought to be condemned for not taking as much 
 interest in themselves as a high-minded, benevolent, 
 spiritual person may feel for them ? Is not such preach- 
 ing illogical, and philosophically absurd ? A child takes 
 ^as much interest in itself as it is qualified and educated 
 to take. The Nazarene wept in deep sorrow, -and would 
 have philanthropically gathered the chosen people 
 together " as a hen gathers her chickens." But do you 
 think that the " chickens" deserve to be consigned to 
 hell because they did not feel in their own behalf what 
 " the hen" felt for them ? 
 
 Inequalities in human nature are equalities wher 
 viewed from the center of the system. They are nor 
 necessarily imperfections. Some men are by nature 
 inclined to work in iron and stone, to delve and dig, to 
 
262 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 scrub and cook, to eat and to sleep ; other men are 
 qualified to do many exactly opposite things, and to 
 turn the labors of the other party into channels which 
 widen as they approach the world's wants. These ine- 
 qualities are imperfections tending to correct them- 
 selves through humanity's growth. There must be 
 different notes and ascending scales in music — octaves 
 one above the other — and whole notes must be divided 
 and fractionalized*. Feet and hands, stomach and bowels, 
 liver and pancreas, and kidneys, are as necessary to 
 society as individual man. What would society do 
 . without governing organs — without lungs, and heart, 
 and brain ? And there are individuals who, by organi- 
 zation, seem qualified to perform these various functions 
 in the social body. 
 
 I come now to make the application. The God-code 
 develops the inequalities as well as the equalities of 
 human nature. Men who hold that benevolence is an 
 intellectual abstraction, consider themselves, on account 
 of their large mental capacities, authorized to use people 
 who are weak enough to allow themselves to be used. 
 But persons who have a high feeling, which, like amber, 
 pours over the intellectual faculties and gives a divine 
 color to all their decisions with reference to those 
 beneath them, are certain to make the laborers feel that 
 they are not useless, or menial, or subordinate, but as 
 essential in the great plan of the Infinite as are those 
 whom they may be serving. And this is the practical 
 lesson of this discourse. No mind under the influence 
 of the Divine principle, will ever intentionally cause an 
 inferior to feel his inferiority. In the true order of 
 humanity no souls will ever realize that they are hands 
 
EQUALITIES AND INEQUALITIES OF HUMAN NATURE. 263 
 
 and feet, or inferior parts and indifferent organs, in the 
 social economy of the rudimental sphere. 
 
 Such is the divine government in the Land of per- 
 petual Summer beyond the stars. Can the head say to 
 the hand, " I have no use of you V* No wise head ever 
 thinks such language. The feet and the hands are deli- 
 cately cared for and preserved by wise brains, even with 
 love's refinement ; for the hands and the feet are 
 regarded as both spiritual and beautiful. " All are but 
 parts of one harmonious whole." Look at the feet and 
 hands of society in the South, whose skins are dark, who 
 are down at the very basis of human concern and interest. 
 The Divine principles of love and justice teach you to 
 consider them as essential to the great workings and 
 ends of the infinite plan as you are. 
 
 There are two kinds of ambition : one causes you to 
 desire the elevation of the world ; the other to seek to 
 elevate yourself. If you would be truly elevated, aspire 
 to lift those about you ; you will rise with the tide of the 
 divine power which you freely pour out upon others. 
 The ocean which ceaselessly throbs, and is so remorse- 
 less to thousands, is not possessed with the silly ambi- 
 tion to be raised in the estimation of the world. The 
 ocean contents itself with being truly and faithfully an 
 ocean. It is unselfish, and is therefore Godlike. It 
 buoys up innumerable vessels, freighted with countless 
 human beings, each the center of diversified interests. 
 They float confidingly on its bosom, flying the flag of the 
 government that authorized their sailing. 
 
 Thus you have embarked for the voyage of immor- 
 tality. The ocean is the God-code of the universe, the 
 love-ocean of principles, filled with countless personal 
 
264 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 loves and individualized minds. This ocean floats us 
 all upon its bosom, together with inconceivable myriads 
 who have gone before us in the voyage of eternity. 
 Now if this divine love-ocean was concerned with 
 and for itself — was exceedingly anxious that somebody 
 should get on the shore, and prayerfully tell the uni- 
 verse of its " greatness" and " wisdom" and " love/' it 
 would be a very selfish and treacherous ocean for you 
 to trust your barks upon. But unlike the Atlantic, the 
 divine ocean sympathizes and throbs harmoniously with 
 the vessels which it lovingly floats ; and in this way, 
 (for no other way is possible,) it is lifted and made 
 unutterably happy by the accumulated happinesses which 
 it has bestowed unselfishly upon others. 
 
 Inequalities are as natural as equalities. All efforts 
 to fix human beings upon a social level of life and 
 government, are illogical and impracticable. We are 
 qualified to breathe air alike, to see alike, to hear alike ; 
 for the principles of life are the same ; but some can 
 hear no music in the songs of birds ; and take no high 
 happiness in the joys of others beneath them. Men and 
 women cannot become alike in any of these great spheres 
 of action; and yet the divine principle of Love gives to 
 each an equality of existence to the extent of his or her 
 capacity. It is always " more blessed to give than to 
 receive." Self-elevation is based in selfishness ; it is 
 the wrong road to happiness and self-improvement. 
 Forget how you personally look when working in a 
 good cause ; keep away from the looking-glass of public 
 opinion ; be natural, thoroughly honest, and full of 
 integrity ; then virtue's influence will always flow out 
 
EQUALITIES AND INEQUALITIES OF HUMAN NATURE. 265 
 
 from you, healing the spirits of those who are crushed 
 by misfortune and sorrow. 
 
 We read that miracles were performed in the olden 
 time. What were they ? Christ raised " the dead." 
 Can you not go and do likewise ? How often you might 
 be a Christ to people about you ! How many minds and 
 hearts are dead and in their graves — the graves of 
 unemployed faculties. Spirits who have come to you 
 may have raised the dead in you. Can you not also do 
 something for the dead in others ? Intellectual and 
 Spiritual faculties, in many minds about you, are yet in 
 their dark tombs. They await the heavenly summons ! 
 Can you not be the one to sound the trumpet of resur- 
 rection ? Can you not knock at the door of the sepul- 
 cher ? Can you not speak the magic word that will 
 awaken the sleeper and bring forth life from the silent 
 tomb ? Many faculties in those about you are perishing 
 for lack of air and exercise. Do you not feel sad for 
 such ? Do you not often feel more sad for many people 
 than they do for themselves ? 
 
 If you would perform miracles, if you would -raise 
 the dead, if you would bring the kingdom of heaven on 
 earth, apply the God-code, which is impartial love and 
 progressive wisdom, to all who come within the circle of 
 your consciousness. 
 12 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAM). 
 
 "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye 
 believe if I tell you of heavenly things ?" 
 
 It appears to me that the foregoing words are 
 peculiarly applicable to the subject-matter of this dis- 
 course. 
 
 The third chapter of John opens one of the richest 
 mines of Platonic Philosophy. You remember that the 
 doctrine of the " new birth/ 5 or what is theologically 
 called " regeneration," is there introduced in behalf of 
 persons who were imperfectly generated and badly. 
 born to start with — minds only half or two-thirds made 
 up, " sent into this breathing world" full of physiologic- 
 al mistakes and psychological errors ; which must be 
 either voluntarily outgrown, or else involuntarily ago- 
 nized through to a successful issue — " regeneration" 
 being theologically prescribed as the true medicine, the 
 only Divine plan, projecting over immense sins, short- 
 ening the road to Abraham's bosom, economizing or 
 transcending the methods of justice, and saving the sin- 
 ner from the pit of eternal and well-merited punish- 
 ments. But I believe that all who voluntarily leave the 
 world, the flesh, alcohol, tobacco, and the other devils, 
 practically set their spirits and their bodies sailing 
 toward the immortal Future. Such pay the genuine 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 267 
 
 coin at the ticket-office of repentance ; they comply with 
 the conditions, and are guaranteed a safe and happy 
 voyage to the heavenly kingdom. 
 
 But look at the Church plan. From the many pro- 
 bations that are granted and accepted, and judging 
 from the many false steps and moral mistakes made by 
 the converts, it is probable that multitudes run off the 
 track. Notwithstanding the fact that they voluntarily 
 enlisted in the spiritual army, purchased tickets in the 
 pew-department, and started with all the best sympa- 
 thies of the brothers and sisters in Jesus, with the com- 
 bined prayers of a mighty congregation to keep their 
 souls steady toward the goal ; still great numbers 
 switch off and run for years in the world's popular 
 tracks. 
 
 Nicodemus could not properly understand the mys- 
 terious simplicity of a spiritual birth. I never saw a 
 Nicodemus that could. A materialist, a man who 
 believes only in the obvious, in weights and measures, 
 who acquires his knowledge through the external, is a 
 man whose thoughts extend only to the question which 
 was put by Nicodemus. One of the most beautiful Sons 
 of the Infinite Father replied to him in astonishment : 
 " Art thou a master in Israel" — that is, art thou a 
 learned lawyer, a doctor of divinity, a responsible pub- 
 lic man, a governor over many people — " and knowest 
 not these things ?" Think of a leader of the people, 
 standing up in authority- before multitudes, influencing 
 their feelings and conduct, and yet knowing not that 
 "that which is flesh, is flesh, and that which is spirit, is 
 spirit." 
 
 To be born of " water" as well as of " the spirit/ 5 is 
 
268 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 too much like the hydropathic system of cure to be con- 
 genial to most persons. It is supposed to be more 
 pleasant and less laborious to be " born of the spirit" — 
 of sentiment, of good endeavor, and t)f the conscious 
 possession of high motives. But it is quite too practi- 
 cal to be also born of a clean body, which means 
 " water." I am rejoiced and grateful that some such 
 man as John the Baptist — the " forerunner" — perceived 
 the beautiful emblematic induction, and made the 
 demonstration that the physical temple is the basis on 
 which the intellectual and spiritual superstructure must- 
 be erected — that a true " new birth" begins in the body 
 department. 
 
 " If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe 
 not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly 
 things V 9 That is to say, if a person, when testifying 
 of common earthly things, is known to be as truthful 
 and unimpeachable as others who believe a very differ- 
 ent creed — known to be as reliable in his speech and in 
 character as his orthodox neighbors — why can you not 
 as readily believe the same person when he soberly 
 speaks of elevated things, which exist out of and beyond 
 the sensuous sphere? The question is very simple. 
 Nicodemus, not being acquainted with the science of 
 electricity and meteorology, could not understand what 
 caused the wind to rush from one place and blow into 
 another. Inasmuch as he could not comprehend the 
 law of the blowing tempests, nor the wafting of the 
 gentle evening zephyrs, how could he understand the 
 simple mystery of the " birth of the spirit" ? The pro- 
 gressive growth of the spirit in truth and right is more 
 mysterious than the coming and going of terrestrial 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. '269 
 
 winds. Inasmuch, therefore, as most men are yet igno- 
 rant of the common phenomena of the physical world, 
 is it not presumptuous in them to stand up in the midst 
 of this temple of God and proclaim their superficial 
 skepticisms concerning profounder, deeper, vaster, 
 more elevated things ? Hundreds pompously denounce 
 spiritual things while they iinow little or nothing of the 
 underlying laws and refined conditions by which these 
 marvelous visions and rich experiences are obtained. 
 Such minds arrogantly presume to sit in final judgment 
 upon the spiritual experience of others. The Naza- 
 rene when answering Nicodemus, was compelled to raise 
 the question of personal veracity. " If," he said sub- 
 stantially, " I am worthy of being believed when telling 
 you of ordinary things — if I am entitled to be trusted 
 in earthly things — why should not my testimony be 
 accepted when I speak of things elevated, supersensu- 
 ous, celestial, and heavenly V 
 
 Every mind intuitively recognizes the eternal value 
 of pure purposes. The converse of the proposition is as 
 self-evident — i. e., the eternal disadvantage of immoral 
 purposes, nesting and breeding in the centers of indi- 
 vidual life. We should urge this statement of the 
 question, were it not true that the divine constitution 
 of the material and spiritual universe so works, that out 
 of darkness light is born — out of evil, good — out of 
 lowest imperfections the flowers of purity bloom on the 
 high summits of all things, principalities, and princi- 
 ples. Were this progressive redemptiveness no* true, 
 it would then be true to say — as do the orthodox, who 
 see only absolute and irreconcilable opposites in the 
 structure and method of the Divine government — that, 
 
270 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 inasmuch as eternal value is stamped upon the soul with 
 pure motives, so is there " eternal condemnation" writ- 
 ten upon the soul that is moved with immoral motives. 
 In all statements, you perceive, there are some items of 
 truth. 
 
 The material point of the present discourse is now 
 reached — viz., the influence^which immoral motives and 
 impure purposes exert upon man's interior — upon the 
 centers of his life, character, endowments, and faculties 
 of his inmost, deathless spirit. High purposes invaria- 
 bly expand and exalt the best powers of the immortal 
 mind — giving harmonial roundness, symmetrical beauty, 
 and celestial completeness of inward growth. Pure 
 motives go before the individual like a divine magnet — 
 drawing the impressible spirit pleasurably onward, over 
 all surrounding evils and prevailing embarrassments. 
 There can be no defeat in that spirit which is actuated 
 every day and in all moments by the largest, highest, 
 purest purposes of which it can conceive. It has* been 
 clearly shown that the rich and powerful Jews, who 
 persecuted and finally killed the body of the poor divine 
 friend of humanity, supposing themselves Successful the 
 while, were really and totally defeated — bankrupt and 
 overthrown in every exalted sense ; but the Man, who 
 passed so completely through the terrific ordeal, was 
 victorious every instant of time — outriding the tempta- 
 tions of passion, quelling the storms of the ages, and 
 stilling the tempest of cupidity and selfishness. The 
 Jews, successful in worldly matters, were in all other 
 respects utterly defeated. Behold the effect of that 
 martyrdom upon the world. It is teeming with beauti- 
 ful sentiments of love and charity — with glorious civil 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 271 
 
 and educational institutions, that have cropped out and 
 blossomed from the fertile influence of that one example 
 of a good Man dying that his truths might live. 
 
 High purposes alone presided. If the Infinite Father 
 was so moved from the interior — this is the orthodox 
 proposition — as to prepare and send to earth his only 
 begotten, then the Father jvas actuated by the highest, 
 deepest, and most heavenly purpose. He intended good 
 to all and harm to none. Orthodoxy makes a sad theory 
 of it. But the spiritual thought, within the crude doc- 
 trine, is not destitute of truth. The theory of the flow- 
 ering out and incarnation of the Divine Spirit in a 
 human being, exhibits love infinitely higher than force, 
 and broader than intellect, and more influential — sub- 
 duing enmities, overcoming evils, and banishing from 
 the earth, passion and strife and war. This is the 
 spiritual picture within the theoretical incarnation. In 
 this light the incarnation has been a success. Practi- 
 cally and philosophically, he alone is truly successful 
 who is capable of embosoming and exemplifying those 
 high motives which Mary's Son felt, inculcated, and 
 manifested in the far distant past. 
 
 The infallible history of each person is written in 
 the Summer-Land. A man who lives for himself, loses 
 himself. If he wishes to gain the world, he as certainly 
 loses it. The death-dealing immoralities of his purposes 
 demoralize all parts of him, curtail his beautiful powers, 
 paralyze his natural energies, and defeat him every step 
 of the way, from the cradle to the coffin. 
 
 But a consolation is at hand. Death is a chemical 
 screen — a strainer, a finely-woven sieve — through 
 which, by the perpetual flow of the laws of Mother 
 
272 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Nature, individuals are passed on to their true stations 
 in the Summer-Land. The squares in the death-sieve 
 are so exceedingly fine, that only finest particles and 
 certain powers and principles can go through ; while on 
 the earth-side is peeled off and cast.down a lifeless mass 
 of bones and fleshly corruption. 
 
 A process of refinement is this wondrous chemico- 
 sieve death-experience. The spirit with the encasing 
 soul, hidden centers of life, all the characteristics that 
 have distinguished, and all the motives that have influ- 
 enced the person — all these easily pass through the 
 death-strainer, the screen or sieve ; while the physical 
 body and its particles, which cannot pass through, are 
 dropped : and what is more gratifying, with the physical 
 body are left behind many of those hereditary predis- 
 positions and abnormal conditions which gave rise to 
 discordant passions and false appetites, called demons 
 and unclean spirits. The causes of these demons and 
 unclean spirits remain on the earth-side of the death- 
 strainer, while the effects, which those causes exerted on 
 the soul, being so fine and so mixed with the soul- 
 substance, pass through, and remain with the individual 
 long after he has attained to his social center in the 
 Summer-Land. 
 
 Persons, or, rather, individualities, are not therefore 
 destroyed by death. Nothing is changed save the dense 
 physical form and the low material world in which they 
 live. This chemical screenage, this extraordinary refining 
 process and preparation, is one which all have to sub- 
 mit to at the end of the present life. The effect there is 
 like the birth of each into the present world. Much is 
 elevated to the world into which we come at birth ; 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 27b 
 
 while, at the same moment, and by the same process, 
 much is left behind in the reproductive sphere. 
 
 In the temperaments and characteristics of the indi- 
 vidual are laid the foundations of the different " Social 
 Centers" that exist in the different mansions of the 
 Father's house that was not built with hands. Those 
 mansions, or, to continue the figure, the different rooms, 
 are inhabited by classes of persons who have taken with 
 them, through the death-strainer, different intellectual, 
 spiritual, and social characteristics — integral attributes 
 and temperamental individualities of character — ruling 
 affections, and the effects of propensities that have been 
 generated and strengthened by long-continued practices 
 in this world before death. 
 
 Regeneration is a spiritualizing process, the same 
 after death as it sometimes is before. If the person 
 starts from earth interiorly cleansed, he will arrive at 
 the next sphere in a corresponding condition. If the 
 persons start from their death-screener with the earth, 
 the flesh, and the demoniac influences impressed upon 
 their souls, they will arrive at and sojourn in appropri- 
 ate " Social Centers/ 3 with the accumulated effects still 
 influencing the inner life and the manifestations of the 
 affections. Thus radical differences in men and women 
 cause different societies in the next sphere. Are there 
 not many persons about you, perhaps dwelling every 
 day in your homes, who have " no part or lot" in your 
 cherished sentiments and happiest experiences ? You 
 sit at the dining-table, you look into the eyes of a per- 
 son on the opposite -side, and lo ; you are strangers by 
 leagues,- perhaps you are whole ages asunder. Different 
 sentiments, different attractions, and different social 
 12* 
 
274 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 habits, give rise to different societies. Perhaps husband 
 and wife, or brother and sister, though living in this 
 world in the same house, eating at the same table, will 
 become members of spiritual societies as far apart as the 
 poles asunder. Society would be everywhere monoton- 
 ous, both on earth and in the succeeding sphere, if indi- 
 viduals were all alike, all cast with the same combination 
 of temperaments. 
 
 You begin plainly to comprehend, I think, that if 
 these things are true on earth — about you and in you — ■ 
 death not destroying you, there must be great " diversi- 
 ties" among the inhabitants in the* Summer-Land. 
 These various super-mundane societies are predicated 
 upon the continuation of the radical distinguishing cha- 
 racteristics of men and women. There are, conse- 
 quently, societies embodying many of the effects of the 
 immoral motives and degrading purposes by which 
 women and men have been actuated and made miserable 
 in this world. 
 
 This is an important and momentous truth. The 
 Summer-Land is a natural state of human existence — 
 growing out of the universal system of causes and effects, 
 laws and ultimates, just as logically and scientifically 
 as to-day grew out of yesterday. Are you not to-day, 
 in all parts of your being, the legitimate result of what 
 the laws, conditions, and experiences of yesterday made 
 you ? You are dead to yesterday. Your life is here 
 and now. All you know of yesterday is remembrance. 
 No man or woman can live in any past hour, except in 
 the chambers of intangible memory. You live now, 
 and thus it will be innumerable ages hence. N The uni- 
 versal verdict of reason will be this ever-present con- 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 275 
 
 sciousness of existence — the Past a ghost of the memory; 
 the Future an unfinished picture, illuminated by the 
 inextinguishable lights of eternal hope. Throughout 
 innumerable ages, the Past will appear like a dream; 
 while the Future will be a subject of curiosity, of sur- 
 prise and attractiveness, in the succeeding ages of eter- 
 nal life. To-morrow is new and attractive to those who 
 live truly in the Present. None can tell with absolute 
 certainty what will happen to-morrow. There is, never- 
 theless, an universal confidence in its coming, because 
 of the immutable and perpetual flow of Nature's laws, 
 causing the revolution of the planets and the rising and 
 setting of suns — thus all men believe that to-morrow 
 will surely come. 
 
 Now I will put a question : If your common reason 
 tells you so clearly of earthly things, why can you not 
 believe your wiser intuitions and their superior logic 
 when they tell you of heavenly things ? If ye believe 
 that the progression of months and years will surely 
 bring you up to the chemical screen called Death, why 
 can ye not also believe that the shining river which 
 flows skyward, in harmony with the noiseless rotation 
 of this planet, will float you through that screen to a 
 Social Center in the Summer-Land ? All men go for- 
 ward with their thoughts and anticipations — believing, 
 with the simplicity of very young children, that to-morrow 
 will come. This, I say, is the uprising voice and irre- 
 pressible logic of Intuition, aided and confirmed by 
 experience, and made practical by the constant, habitual 
 exercise of the reasoning faculties. All men naturally 
 expect to live over the present, into To-morrow. Thus 
 mankind buy lands, and hire carpenters, and build 
 
276 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 beautiful houses, and nicely furnish their new-made 
 homes, as though everything, including personal exist- 
 ence, was vouchsafed to last forever on earth. But this 
 is the usual experience : After all is completed and fully 
 prepared — the house garnished and swept, and every- 
 thing put in order for a long, luxurious physical life on 
 earth — then the death-screen drops, the interior person 
 passes through " in the twinkling of an eye/ 5 and the 
 rich, lawful heirs are left to weep, to put away in the 
 ground what the screen refused, and to live as long 
 and comfortably as they can upon " the property of the 
 deceased." 
 
 It is easy for the human mind to fix its imagination 
 upon a long life in this world. So common was this 
 inverted testimony of the fancy, that the ancient Jews 
 supposed " the kingdom of heaven" was certainly coming 
 "on the earth." Mankind, they thought, were not to 
 ascend a progressive Jacob's ladder. The heavenly 
 kingdom was to be drawn down out of the supernatural 
 realm and made literally manifest here — a fancy in reli- 
 gion to which Adventists are strongly attached — so that 
 great wildernesses would blossom, animals internally 
 opposed to each other would -become harmonious, and 
 lions and lambs would, in peace and friendship, lie down 
 together. Christians, with more Ideality, put a spiritual 
 interpretation upon the literalness of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures, and thus made tolerable common sense of what 
 thousands of Jews believed to be true from a very differ- 
 ent standpoint. In the Lord's Prayer, which contains 
 many Jewish thoughts and expressions, we find this 
 double-meaning allusion to the kingdom of heaven. 
 Now what, think you, was intended by that prayer? 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 277 
 
 This answer seems correct : It was designed to float 
 the mind out of materialism into spiritual thought and 
 holy aspiration. " The kingdom of heaven/ 5 to the soul 
 that uttered the prayer, was a condition of intellectual, 
 social, and spiritual harmony ; in which mental condi- 
 tion pure truth would reign triumphant, even as it pre- 
 vails in every beautiful and harmonious family in the 
 Summer-Land, with whom dwell harmony, peace, and 
 eternal happiness. The Lord's Prayer is a conception 
 which, interiorly viewed, does fully harmonize with the 
 deductions of philosophy ; but it was as legitimate a 
 development from the Jewish basis of literalism as flow- 
 ers are natural growths from the germs which precede, 
 them. The prayer was constructed with a literal 
 " kingdom of heaven" in it, so that the Jewish mind 
 could grasp it, and adopt it in its rituals, and thus pray 
 for the down-coming and universal expansion of the 
 spirit's beautiful truths. 
 
 Now this is my testimony : The Summer-Land, as 
 to the origin of the social centers, is made of persons 
 from all parts of this inhabitable globe not only, but 
 populations also from far-distant planets that are con- 
 stituted like this earth — each globe producing an infinite 
 v variety of radical personal characteristics and tempera- 
 mental differences. All these individuals carry upon 
 the life within their faces, as well as in the secret 
 chambers of their affections, the effects of life on the 
 globe that produced them. If the person has been 
 moved and governed by high and beautiful motives, 
 he naturally and instinctively seeks association with 
 those who have been similarly actuated and developed. 
 If, on the other hand, the person has been led by low 
 
278 y MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 and demoralizing motives, he as naturally seeks those, 
 who, before death, had been correspondingly influenced. 
 There a man can elect his friends and gravitate to his 
 own congenial Social Center — in fact, he can tell before 
 he goes, by looking through the death-screen, or strainer, 
 with what manner of minds he will probably live ; at 
 least until the redemptive evangel of " regeneration" 
 through repentance and progression reaches his affec- 
 tions, until perfectly pure purposes are born in him ; 
 the same in effect whether he starts from a Methodist 
 prayer-meeting in New York City, or from the center 
 of some spiritual society in the fragrant groves of the 
 Summer-Land. Progression out of imperfection is a 
 purely spiritual transaction, growing out of the same 
 general causes and resulting in the same internal effects 
 upon character. Societies, in general terms, are natural 
 exponents of the interior realities of the societies of men 
 and women on different planets. . 
 
 There is tfchere a society or province called " Alto- 
 lissa." Persons have returned from it and testified that 
 they were, while dwellers of earth, almost wholly influ- 
 enced by the idea of gaining money, position, power 
 among men. And it would seem, that these invisible 
 characters are influential still among those who are 
 similarly organized and influenced in this world. When 
 persons are actuated by the selfish motives to accumulate 
 wealth, power, position, and influence, they become 
 mediums to some extent. As the violet absorbs all but 
 the blue ray, or as a red flower absorbs all but the red 
 color, so is the mind of man in its impressibilities and 
 mediumship. He will take on all that for which he has 
 affinity. . He will absorb from each society in the Sum- 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER- LAND. 279 
 
 mer-land precisely such influences as are in accordance 
 with his magnetic powers, and he will exclude all other 
 influences, from whatever source. 
 
 Now if the death-strainer, or screen, was not per- 
 fect — if, when passing through the chemical change, we 
 do not leave the causes of appetites and passions behind 
 us — then, in truth, men in this world would really be 
 injured and degraded by contact with the unseen popu- 
 lations. But men are benefited, and not injured, by 
 such contact. Now and then men are stimulated some- 
 what in their course ; but they are not degraded, are 
 not made worse by the contact ; only patted on the 
 back, flattered by unwise spirits, and sometimes approved, 
 as a too fond mother approbates her pet child even in 
 its errors. So men, moving in very low and demoralizing 
 circles in this world, will sometimes experience a sort 
 of self-satisfaction and contentment. They do not have 
 those " fine compunctions" of conscience, which so many 
 pious people imagine they must necessarily have ; these 
 feelings are for a time laid aside, not by the use of 
 tobacco, alcohol, and opium, but by sympathetic con- 
 tact with those spirits who are not wise and grown in 
 purity. 
 
 Such characters on earth absorb the rays of spirit- 
 life that are congenial to them, and exclude all the 
 others. Thus you see men moving as earnestly against 
 the truth as for it. It is a matter of astonishment to 
 many Northmen how the Southerners can have their 
 religious meetings and political gatherings, appoint " a 
 day" for sincere " prayers" to be sent to the kingdom of 
 heaven, and do all things just like the fii loyal" and 
 " religious" people of the North. Do you suppose that 
 
280 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 men who have gone from the ranks of Rebeldom, and 
 who have passed through the screen of death, suddenly 
 lost all religious and political notions on the death-bed ? 
 No. The rule works both ways. They have a political 
 scheme and a religious experience, and both were to 
 them genuine. These return to their brethren in the 
 South. When earnestly engaged in devotion and prayer, 
 the Southerner feels as heaven-approved as the 
 Northerner. You know that the discordant man, who 
 walks Broadway with murder in his heart, can see the 
 sun as clearly as can the man of peace. A morally bad 
 character can physiologically eat and drink and sleep 
 just as good as can the best. The laws that operate 
 in your physical being operate the same in his. He 
 goes round with the planet, experiences the flow and 
 recession of emotions ; but he can only absorb those influ- 
 ences from society with which he has affinity, and he knows 
 nothing of what others experience. Suppose,for example, 
 that I should " exchange pulpits" with the evangelical 
 Brother who lectures every Sunday in Grace Church. 
 The ladies and gentlemen there would absorb from me 
 only those thoughts and sentiments for which they have 
 an educational sympathy. They would reject every- 
 thing else. There would be between us no sympathy, 
 no fellowship ; yet they are constituted just like our- 
 selves, and in ten years from this they may come to feel 
 as we do ; but it is not at all likely that we shall ever 
 feel as they do, because souls cannot go back. 
 
 Hence those who go to the Summer-Land cannot 
 return just as bad as they were before they started. 
 Going through death cleansed them largely of causes, 
 conditions, and temptations, leaving with them the 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 281 
 
 results treasured up in their affections, in their sympa- 
 thies, in their antipathies, inclinations, disinclinations, 
 loves, hates, attractions, and repulsions. Of course they 
 have sympathy only for congenial associations in that 
 better life ; but such associations are, necessarily, on a 
 higher plane than though they were of earth. The 
 " higher plane," however, is so little removed, so slightly 
 shaded off from that in which they lived while here, 
 that it requires but little change to feel themselves " at 
 home. 55 
 
 True, contradictory characters often go to the Sum- 
 mer-Land. Sometimes imagination gets the start of 
 conscience. The youth feels, thinks, hopes beyond his 
 powers to grasp or attain ; but as the years roll through 
 the spirit, he grows gradually solid, and strong, and 
 practical. Conscience is not fully born in some souls 
 until after death ; that is, the idea of right and wrong is 
 to them " a theory." I have seen persons, who, having 
 a very large sense of right and wrong, wondered how 
 their most intimate acquaintances could do things dia- 
 metrically antagonistic to such sense without being sur- 
 prised or astonished, and still live among folks just as 
 though nothing had happened. It is because the con- 
 scientious part of the spirit had not yet been fully born. 
 The person might have been born on three or five sides 
 of his character, and yet there remain other parts not 
 born from error and wrong, and hence the defective- 
 ness ; hence, also, the monstrosity which the character • 
 and conduct of such a person presents — deceiving, mur- 
 dering, robbing — yet thinking nothing more of the 
 self-condemnation of his crimes than most men do of 
 transacting their ordinary business. It is because these 
 
282 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 men have not &s much light in principles as you ; they 
 do not yet perceive the white ray of pure justice ; they 
 cannot take it in, any more than a red plant could take 
 ' in the red ray. So a man who cannot absorb the princi- 
 ple of justice is a man who cannot comprehend its 
 requirements. 
 
 Society is constructed so as to require regeneration 
 and progression. The Christian system prays for the 
 better time. Nicodemus asked how a man could be 
 taken out of his .defects — brought out of the flesh and 
 made as pure as spirit. Jesus did not answer him in 
 common words, but told him that as he could not under- 
 stand the ordinary phenomena of Nature — the blowing 
 of the wind, for example — he certainly could not under- 
 stand that which was interior and far more extraor- 
 dinary, like the birth of the spirit. 
 
 It has been ascertained by multitudes of witnesses, 
 by experiments, and by conversations with those who 
 have returned from the Summer-Land, that those who 
 have demoralizing motives in this life have the greatest 
 density on their arrival. In Altolissa, the section where 
 many persons go, who, in this' world, lived wholly under 
 the influence of selfishness, the population seems about 
 as comfortable as general society on earth. Jews still 
 believe in the doctrine of their fathers — Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob : the Roman Catholics hold the same views 
 they did before death ; and there are other sects in 
 Altolissa who think and believe in the same things and 
 forms of faith they learned on earth. The sects will 
 long continue in their various sympathies and educa- 
 tional associations. Of course, progressively and quite 
 imperceptibly, this world will grow better and more 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 283 
 
 harmonious. Men will intuitively differ less and less 
 upon fundamental principles. But in the " details" — 
 in the ramifications of thought — this endless variety of 
 convictions and affinities will prevail. The foundations 
 for countless and various societies in the Summer-Land 
 are thus laid and established. Death is largely a cleans- 
 ing process, and is the hope of the world, not its point 
 of darkness. So beautiful are its siftings, strainings, 
 and other processes, that the active causes of passions 
 and appetites are dropped and left on earth with the 
 gross materiality. So beautiful is the law of Progress, 
 that even the active effects that accompany the individual 
 cannot be perpetuated (as evils and discords) through- 
 out eternity. Why ? Because in the center of the 
 universe a positive power reigns, breathing its spirit 
 throughout the illimitable spaces; and, and by the slow 
 workings of its progressive laws, it cleanses all person- 
 alities of their transient imperfections. Only eternal 
 GOOD can eternally exist. There is a universal gathering 
 of all spirits and angels — not in one place, under the 
 blaze of one heavenly central sun, but under the influ- 
 ence of musical distributions, of harmonious varieties, 
 each adding completeness and happiness to the other. 
 Many persons are harmonized in this world when they 
 are " born again, 55 and thus lifted out of their low 
 motives and consequent imperfections. Hundreds and 
 thousands of " things 55 that annoy, vex, and wear the 
 spirit, before it is thus born, cease to exert any bad 
 effect. Such minds grow sweet, and gentle, and loving, 
 under the new life ; before, the same persons were hate- 
 ful, discordant, and full of consuming passions. The 
 evil woman, who had < ; seven devils" cast out of her, is 
 
284 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 an instance of what good can be accomplished t)y 
 exchanging bad motives for good ones. How many 
 hateful propensities, how many demonic habits, and 
 how many unladylike characteristics were cast out of 
 her by the psychological power, is left to every one's 
 imagination. 
 
 The Catholics believe that each purified soul has 
 " died" to the influences of this world. The Shakers 
 hold a similar white banner over the redeemed — 
 " Come in and dwell with us, put on the plain garb, 
 renounce the world's evil habits and cruel customs, 
 among other things the evils of marriage and marriage 
 itself, and you will be saved ; for thus you die to the 
 world." Nuns enter convents under the psychological 
 impression that before death they can leave the world 
 and its sins, become spiritually sweet and beautiful, and 
 acceptable brides for the only Son. There is a 
 poetic sublimity in the thought. 
 
 Now there are persons yet in the world who know 
 that they can put their crushing heel on the serpent's 
 head. They have learned that they can resist striking 
 a brother, in passion ; and, what is far better, they can 
 resist the passion which would suggest the blow. Strong, 
 vigorous, full-blooded men, have conquered the demon 
 of passion. Such conquering heroes would not go 
 among the Heenans who live in sections of the Summer- 
 Land, except as Moral Policemen, as philanthropists, 
 but never in the capacity of associates. And yet you 
 know that there are men, and women, too, who " hugely 
 enjoy" the Heenan style of life ; they like the very 
 thought of it, the exciting manifestations of it, and the 
 large, beautiful, abandoned animality which it displays 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 285 
 
 and indorses. If they enjoy it, how do "they enjoy it? 
 Do they by means of their physiological or phrenologic- 
 al organs ? They enjoy it by means of those talents 
 and faculties which live within physical organs, and 
 which the screenage of death does not refine away and 
 crush out of the person. 
 
 Therefore there is a great individual work here to 
 be done. The ounce of prevention is wanted which 
 will make the tons of cure unnecessary. Each person 
 can start on the right track before death ; this is the 
 best place to get under full sail for a happier harbor. 
 To-day is better than to-morrow. The sooner you 
 begin, the farther you will find yourself in the path of 
 harmonious life. 
 
 This is the doctrine which we are impressed to 
 teach. I think all should commence at once to see 
 what can be done toward preparing for a better, 
 sweeter screenage at death, and to insure a beautiful 
 entrance into superior societies. No one can hurt the 
 Infinite Father nor the Infinite Mother — you can per- 
 manently injure only yourself. This being the truth, 
 we have but to proclaim, " Repent ye, for the kingdom 
 of heaven is" — next door, just beyond, on the other 
 side of the death-screen, through which each must 
 sooner or later pass. How many persons will feel, 
 after attaining the elevation of self-control, that they 
 have begun anew ! But how many cross, sour counte- 
 nances, there will be while going through the trial of 
 trying to be good. If Nicodemus could have under- 
 stood that to be " born of water" was a natural and 
 indispensable forerunner of being " born of the spirit/' 
 he would have first given attention to the correction 
 
286 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of his personal habits and physical appetites. Thus he 
 would have had more harmonious, more sweet, and 
 more beautiful bodily sensations. He would have 
 become a better neighbor and a truer Governor in 
 Israel, a more agreeable companion ; and there would 
 have been a cheerful, buoyant, juvenile flow of light, 
 joy, and peace, within his lifted spirit ; in short, he 
 would have soon experienced the difference between a 
 son of God and a son of Belial. 
 
 I know it is a hard doctrine to preach, that now is 
 " the accepted time." But this death-screen, which 
 hangs before us, is as certain to fix upon each the 
 effects of habits and mental conditions as that to-morrow 
 will be the natural result of the causes and conditions 
 of to-day. Each person can in this world select his 
 associations after death. It is, therefore, important 
 to get a passport to harmonious central societies in the 
 Summer-Land. You should feel no enmity toward any 
 human being, however much you have been injured. 
 The lion and the lamb lie down together only within 
 the purified human spirit. The hidden, cave-like cere- 
 bellum, the back-brain, is a den full of untamed animals. 
 Spiritual Truth is the only conqueror that can enter 
 and still the passions, tame them to peace, and hold 
 them in abeyance until the outward disturbance is gone. 
 Motives, when high, lift up the soul, which is thus pre- 
 pared to be a better neighbor and more successful in 
 all the genuine enterprises of present life. 
 
 All true progress brings an immediate and glorious 
 satisfaction. We discourse upon " life arid immor- 
 tality," not because it is a spiritual fact, but because it 
 is the foundation and inspiration of immediate personal 
 
SOCIAL CENTERS IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 287 
 
 improvements. It stimulates us to beautiful effort, and 
 causes us to teach practical reforms. We can bring 
 innumerable tests and mathematical evidences that these 
 things, which we relate with respect to the other 
 sphere, are true ; but time will supply you with all 
 necessary testimonies ; many of them you have already 
 heard, many of them you know by heart, and ask for 
 nothing more. Now, therefore, the time has come for 
 each to step upon the solid rock of Truth — of eternal 
 principles — which will surely stand, while the spirit 
 makes substantial progress toward higher and more 
 beautiful societies which blossom beyond the stars. 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES, 
 
 " All is the gift of industry ; whate'er 
 Exalts, embellishes, and renders life 
 Delightful." " More precious 
 Than gold are the treasures 
 And rewards of wisdom." 
 
 The outward body exerts an imperious mastery over 
 the will, affections, and inclinations. In consequence 
 of this imperious dictation, growing out of the physio- 
 logical and phrenological organization, the mind finds 
 itself electing motives in the place of ideals, and pursuing 
 the object of such motives with all the instruments at 
 its command. Persons therefore, as a result of their 
 organization, adopt and foster habits which they would 
 not, if the congress of all the faculties were consulted. 
 When there is lobbying behind the ears, caucus meetings 
 on the sides of the head, political legerdemain, wire- 
 pulling, log-rolling around the basilar faculties of the 
 mind, then the person is carried with the wild impul- 
 sive energy of youth, to consummate an object not 
 worthy the whole character. It was an election of only 
 a portion of the congress of the faculties ; a minority 
 report. The majority report is not heeded, scarcely 
 received, until the person has arrived at a point far 
 beyond the meridian of human life. The traveler sits 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 289 
 
 down and thinks over the misfortunes and successes of 
 this journey. Then, possibly, some religious question 
 is broached by the spirit to itself. Or, he takes up a 
 newspaper and reads that the celebrated revivalist from 
 England will preach to sinners at Hail this even- 
 ing. The traveler goes there, having no object but 
 pastime and curiosity, and he listens. He finds that 
 the preacher is addressing a class of faculties which 
 have for years regularly whispered "religion" to him 
 through the interstices and crevices, meditations and 
 intuitions of his experience. The speaker's descriptive 
 appeal is so entirely suitable to his own private and 
 never-before expressed convictions and emotions and 
 impulses, that he takes all the rest for granted. It 
 matters not what the preacher's creed may be ; the 
 listener does not stop to consider. He feels for the first 
 time in his life that " religion is the chief concern of 
 mortals here below," and instantly yields. Down he 
 goes into the valley of humiliation, on knees unaccus- 
 tomed to bending before any religious idol, and bows 
 his head in veneration to his God. After the conversion 
 is perfected, he rises in class-meeting and reports a 
 long series of sins ; tells what the good Lord has 
 done for him ; that he has at last taken a position 
 through the grace of the Lamb of God ; that all his past 
 life has been a mistake and a sham, and that henceforth 
 all his life shall become new. He thinks nothing about 
 the theology of his religion. A convert seldom knows 
 anything about the creed of his church. No convert has 
 had any real conception of the goblin doctrines taught 
 by the preacher who just converted him. The experi- 
 ence of conversion is a serious internal experience, a 
 13 
 
290 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 report from the superior faculties that the inferior facul- 
 ties have been log-rolling and wire-pulling and having 
 their own evil way for years. A variety of unworthy 
 objects have been pursued, and the person has employed 
 unworthy instruments for the accomplishment of those 
 objects. The conversion was brought on by the psycho- 
 logy of the pulpit, which impressed the sincere convic- 
 tion upon the listening mind that its life was an insult 
 to the firmament of the superior faculties. Such a mind 
 gains his soul, perhaps, while he loses the whole world. 
 
 The ambitious person does not want money, but 
 rather power, though money subserves his object. The 
 vain person does not want either money or power, but 
 admiration, and money and power only so far as they 
 contribute to securing the largest amount of admiration. 
 Only the passionate acquisitive mind seeks money for 
 money's sake. The mind possesses its object by the 
 automatic elections of the lower faculties. They clamor 
 and shout through the galleries of the interior legisla- 
 ture. They drown the voices of the respected, venera- 
 ble powers ; the most wise are the deepest, and the last 
 to speak the words of protest. Those most cultured in 
 spirit wait until the noise and tumult of inferior powers 
 are allayed ; then they rise in their seats in the sanc- 
 tuary of the soul and announce the claims of justice and 
 liberty and truth and virtue. St. Augustine, Fenelon, 
 Jesus and others, who have spoken and written from 
 their higher faculties, echo just what has been uttered 
 from the inner chambers of the temple of every true 
 mind. 
 
 The conviction in the religious world is, that great 
 riches are identical with great wickedness. Such is the 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 291 
 
 accepted theory, and yet the religious world is walking 
 in the footsteps of Mammon. You know that Mammon 
 sits in the gates of the temples of commerce and dictates 
 the maxims of trade, saying " Get all thou canst, and 
 give as little as possible ; so that thy neighbor may fail 
 and thou be successful upon his ruin. 5 ' Talk about 
 " practical Christianity" in this state of society ! Talk 
 about bringing the kingdom of heaven on earth by 
 prayer, or precept, or example ! Men are moved not 
 by their higher inclinations and inspirations, but by the 
 imperious automatic election of their most sensitive 
 faculties. They are full of the force and fierceness of 
 wild animals ; to them the locomotive is a savage grati- 
 fication, and the terrible earthquake a thrilling delight. 
 No wonder that Dante, Milton, and Pollock, find read- 
 ers throughout the world. Their most thrilling descrip- 
 tions of infernal spheres are gratifying to the basilar 
 faculties. The back of the head swells and the neck 
 throbs. Power meets and welcomes power with luxu- 
 rious embrace. It is like the nuptial meeting of mighty 
 forces in the physical world. Thus electricity and mag- 
 netism meet in their own appointed way — each rushing 
 into the other's embrace, with terrible earnestness and 
 increasing frequency, bringing forth new elements, new 
 powers and new principles, developing new centers of 
 energy for new forms and manifestations of matter. So 
 man's faculties draw into themselves their own proper 
 foods and drinks. In the lower states of civilization 
 their appetite is rapacious and fierce — blood, the fires 
 of passion, and savage sports are its bread and wine. 
 
 Agar in his prayer, said, " Give me neither poverty 
 nor riches." What is the golden mean of virtue ? If 
 
292 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 I have riches and great abundance, I shall be over-fed 
 and too well clothed. I shall feel indolent, proud, and 
 luxurious. I shall lean back in my easy chair and say, 
 " Who can tell me what truth is ? The Lord — who is 
 he?" I shall be too comfortable and superficially inde- 
 pendent. let me not travel so far into the forest of 
 evil and despair. He says, " Give me not riches." 
 Well, then, why not give him poverty? Because he 
 may thereby lose his self-respect, steal from his neigh- 
 bor, and take in vain the name of all holy and beautiful 
 things. Agar's prayer suggests the glorious independ- 
 ence that is found midway between extreme poverty and 
 exceeding riches. There is no evil in having riches, but 
 in fostering a love for it in blinding excess. Neither is 
 there evil in having poverty, in being decently and 
 honorably poor ; but evil consists in the excesses of 
 squalor in which many spend their lives. Balance is 
 the basis of harmony. It is like the golden belt between 
 the equator and the polar regions, where the greatest 
 fertility and industry are possible and practicable — a 
 band of land and water between the two extremes — so 
 is the pleasant, independent, comfortable place between 
 excessive poverty and extravagant riches. 
 
 This is the gospel of all beautiful relations. Dis- 
 ease, one extreme, is not attractive. No one's venera- 
 tion is excited by bodily discord. Sympathy and pity 
 (which hold always a little of the element of contempt) 
 are excited by disease. You may have rich pity and 
 beautiful sympathy for the afflicted. If your sympathies 
 for the suffering flow from a large love-fountain, and if 
 at the same moment your magnetic powers are fully 
 awakened and active, then you are to the afflicted one a 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 293 
 
 \ 
 
 perfect magnetic savior. To such an one you can say, 
 " I will, be thou healed/" And the condition of cure 
 is established. Because your will is not merely an 
 intention in such a case; it is the uprising of the healing 
 virtue from the life-fountain, the springing of divine 
 energy from the heart of the spirit; which, showering 
 down and refreshing the soul-aura of the sick one, fills 
 the exhausted nerves, refreshes the impoverished blood, 
 and balances forces long since spent or over- worn ; and 
 so a sweet rejuvenation and the conditions of pure 
 health come to you from the one whom you should name 
 a " Savior." 
 
 But suppose a person treats your case by the exer- 
 cise of mere will, and by magnetism coming from the 
 psychological power of ordinary intention, then all 
 you will receive is metallic or animal heat. It is nothing 
 but the breathings of Satan. (Of course, I use this hate- 
 ful word in a symbolic sense.) Whatever is simply 
 galvanic or willful, coming from the decomposition of 
 metals or from the clash and clank of the animal brain, 
 is degrading to the spiritual sensibilities. Everything 
 which intends forcibly to assail the private rights and 
 intentions of another person, is freighted with a subtile 
 poison. It defrauds you of personality, and to that 
 extent it is your enemy. The best friend is he who 
 gives you to yourself. A true friend does not throw 
 any power over you, to circumscribe or limit the natural 
 expression and perfect expansion of the elements and 
 attributes of your being, although he may caution, 
 counsel, and develop the beauty and the might ot Truth 
 before you. 
 
 Disease, I repeat, is not attractive. Neither is 
 
294 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 poverty. It is said that the poor shall always be with 
 us. I do not wonder that the ancients thought so. 
 Anything which flows far down in the channels of expe- 
 rience, which is in the earth beneath your feet, which 
 compels you to live down where crude forces move, is 
 an attack upon the selfish dictates of your self-esteem 
 and pride. The position itself is poverty. The lesson 
 is, that machinery, not human hands, must go down and 
 do the dirty work of the world. In this manner all 
 true needs will be supplied, and all true desires pro- 
 vided with their fullest gratification. 
 
 Riches, on the other hand, are attractive to all 
 men. There is no disputing this obvious fact. The 
 human mind goes toward riches as inevitably and gladly 
 as the birds spring from earth into the blue space in 
 which they are at home. It is the power and privileges 
 of wealth which the mind craves. It is similar to what 
 Hannibal longed for when he was crossing the mount- 
 ains; something that would soften and melt the solid 
 substances which opposed his march and his purposes. 
 Every man is a Hannibal on the question of riches. 
 Man has by inheritance the aggressive elements of the 
 great Napoleon. He wants to be pecuniarily independ- 
 ent, and he will be monarch over the domain of poverty; 
 he must be emperor in the field of ownership, or he 
 makes war upon his neighbors. This super-power — this 
 magnificent feeling of personal monarchy — is what each 
 soul wants. Autocracy is the perfect and entire eman- 
 cipation of the individual. The autocrat is a self- 
 centered governor. Every person wants to be a 
 self-regulated and rich autocrat. America, in political 
 organization, is not yet up to this conception ; and the 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 295 
 
 church is even a greater stumbling-block than the politi- 
 cal combinations. It says, "Thus far and no farther. 
 You shall not become independent of restrictions ; you 
 shall obey the laws of these religious organizations.'' 
 Order implies organization, and organization necessi- 
 tates discipline, and the authority of discipline must not 
 be questioned. How can you induce bigots of this stripe 
 to investigate a new truth? You even shrink from 
 asking them to look at your positive facts. 
 
 Autocracy is the rich and comfortable democracy of 
 the human mind. This view of riches is creeping into 
 and through all parts of the human imagination.. 
 Money brings anxiety, pride, and power ; and these 
 bring admiration for a time. Mammon is more wor- 
 shiped to-day than are the Father and Mother of the 
 everlasting universe. Mammon is not worshiped with 
 genuine spiritual veneration ; yet he is followed and 
 obeyed as is no other leader in the round world. He 
 dictates all measures to the ministers of both Church 
 and State. He is in the path of every nation. Golden 
 hammers have arisen over the firmament of the Ameri- 
 can people ; and it seems as though great authorities 
 are to be subverted and large capitalists crushed in the 
 twinkling of an eye. It is a great trial that the world 
 is passing through. During the years of these national 
 travails and trials, new ideas of Progress will take root 
 deeply, will grow up vast and mighty, and will spread 
 out their thickly-woven branches through and over all 
 the institutions of both Church and State. Legislators 
 in the capitalsand ministers in the pulpits, and men who 
 are masters of the press, and those who stand upon the 
 rostrum, will rise up as so many redeemed angels of 
 
296 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 light, and there will be a unity of thought and a unity 
 of purpose more complete and spontaneous than was 
 ever before seen. Like a spiritual Aurora Borealis, it 
 will give to mankind a world of light and joy, and a 
 roseate and a golden opulence to the whole horizon 
 and firmament of human history. 
 
 As men do not love disease, so they do not love 
 poverty. Health is richly attractive; even so are 
 riches. No man can say that he hates just and whole- 
 some wealth. He may hate the misapplication of riches. 
 He hates acquisitiveness, penuriousness and miserly 
 covetousness. He hates the evils of wealth ; he does 
 not hate the riches. 
 
 It is the destiny of all men to become rich. Man- 
 kind have no business to be everlastingly sick and ever- 
 lastingly poor. All men will become ashamed of it, 
 for every one has the power to help himself out of both 
 disease and poverty. This shame will come with a 
 larger inward growth. The time is coming when men 
 will see that their interests are co-ordinate and co- 
 operative. Men who have only muscle are brothers to 
 those who have only brain. Skill, however, is in the 
 ascendant. One true Idea in one master mind sets a 
 thousand men at work, because there are thousands of 
 men who have millions of muscles, but scarcely one 
 clear idea. 
 
 Why is it that our Yankee girls, as they are called, 
 cannot be found at work in basements ? They labor in our 
 factories only just long enough to get a couple of beautiful 
 rooms filled with more beautiful furniture, a wardrobe 
 abundantly supplied, and two hundred dollars laid away 
 in the Savings Bank. They very soon get married, 
 
POVERTY 1ND RICHES. 2P7 
 
 leave the factories, and settle down in happy homes. 
 Then only the Yankee husbands go to the factories ; 
 the young women, their wives, remain in the homes 
 their own industry has purchased. The American female 
 mind will not long dwell in the presence of wheels and 
 pulleys and spindles. It will not stoop many times to 
 scrub your floors; it will not garnish up and put your 
 house in order; for it is independent, artistic, and in- 
 ventive, and cannot be repressed nor subjected. 
 
 Anglo Saxon blood is nearly buried; but the 
 " American blood" is fast coming into active life. The 
 old branches of the Saxon family will, one of these days, 
 come in embattled^onflict with the new-born flood of 
 America. When that time comes, the empires of Europe 
 will crumble and tumble forever, and political freedom 
 will prevail. The American blood is the best channel 
 for the introduction and widest distribution of advan- 
 tages, opportunities, and national wealth. Where does 
 the world get its gold in the greatest abundance ? From 
 the valley of the Nile? From the Libyan mountains 
 west of the valley, or the Arabians to the east, or from 
 the Orkney hills of Scotland ? Does it come from the 
 great mountains of the far South ? No. The Eldora- 
 dos, and Colorados, the shining placers and auriferous 
 leads, the sparkling channels and gorges, full of mag- 
 netic particles, which draw muscle and not skill, are 
 found in the bosom of America. Skill remains in the 
 cities: it works through the machinery of commerce; 
 it sinks the deep shafts, sends down great buckets into 
 golden wells, and draws up millions of the precious 
 metal. Vast territories on the Pacific side of the con- 
 tinent are destined to furnish the world with the metal 
 13* 
 
298 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 which, like all other kinds of material riches, will take 
 unto itself wings and fly out of sight and out of mind. 
 In after years it will fly back and come down heavier 
 than lead, and become worthless except for useful tools 
 and personal ornaments. Gold exists in great abund- 
 ance. Every little child can have a gold watch and a 
 gold breast-pin and a gold finger-ring. The metal will 
 become popular and correspondingly cheap. Let com- 
 merce and the mercantile power bow to the god, Mam- 
 mon, who grimly sits in the gates of trade and holds 
 the scepter, and is the exactor of this tribute of adora- 
 tion — a sacrifice for which all men will in the future be 
 unutterably ashamed. I have take^j great precautions 
 not to invest largely in metals. I have made invest- 
 ments in health — a form of riches far above the metals, 
 and one unsearchable and unattainable to those who 
 have not obeyed the laws of their existence. Miners 
 and merchants and ministers are bowing and searching 
 down in the bowels of the earth. They look down- 
 wards for the means of attaining their miserable ter- 
 restrial objects. What is it all for? Do you not 
 suppose the time will come when the silver and golden 
 metals will take a very inferior position in your mind ? 
 Suppose between this'and next Sunday one of you should 
 depart for the Summer-Land. Of what value would be 
 all this fret and foam about the metals of the mineral 
 world? Metals are not riches. They do not even 
 represent riches ; they only represent the materiality 
 and dross-mindedness of the world of commerce. 
 
 Labor and skill alone bring riches. Skill is in the 
 ascendant, and first exhibits itself through science. 
 What is science ? It is a true knowledge of facts and 
 
FOVERTY AND RICHES. 299 
 
 forces, of ponderable substances and the visible organs. 
 The next manifestation of skill, is art — a true knowledge 
 of how to control forces, organs, and substances. Art 
 is the control of those powers of which science gives 
 you a true knowledge. Skill, therefore, is the master. 
 The man of mere muscle cannot contend with the man 
 of mind. The ignorant giant might as well give up 
 before he begins the battle. The conflict in the world 
 to-day between the poor and the rich, is, when ana- 
 lyzed, a battle between skill and muscle, or bones and 
 brains. The poor man's salvation is alone possible 
 through his mind. 
 
 The American blood is already making these demands 
 and these manifestations. The poor man is kept down 
 because of two things : first, he has not the money by 
 which he can " take advantage" of conditions and cir- 
 cumstances about him ; second, and first of all, he has 
 not, as a general rule, the skill by which, if he had suf- 
 ficient money, he might make himself " master of the 
 situation." Mechanics and other working men, not 
 American, are generally, of this stamp. In the old 
 countries poor men and women seldom get property. 
 American poor men and women, on the other hand, fre- 
 quently become rich and masters of their position. I 
 begin to see glimmerings of an industrial pathway by 
 which all the poor of the country are to become pos- 
 sessed of homes and acres of their own, so that they 
 shall grow neither rich nor poor, but even more inde- 
 pendent. But this prospect does not open for those 
 whose blood is not legitimately progressive. Muscle and 
 breast and digestion and brains and the automatic ener- 
 gies will obey the skill and ideas of those who have the 
 
300 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 inspiration and positive intelligence. Myriads in the 
 old countries are to be benefited by the exaltation of 
 minds that are skilled and rich in divine ideas. The 
 churches do not see any such prospect. A man standing 
 in his pulpit, seeing in one of the front pews a person 
 whose business is that of wine-selling, or who gets all 
 his money by " taking advantage'' of the rise of the 
 markets in flour and in necessary staples, upon which 
 " the poor" must pay the combined profits and the largest 
 percentage, does not dare say to that man that he is not 
 as righteous as the hypocritical righteousness of the 
 Scribes and Pharisees. Because that rich wine-dealer 
 and stock-jobber and popular swindler holds communion 
 with the one god which the minister is compelled to 
 acknowledge and worship, Mammon ! Tinseled rheto- 
 ric is subject to the command of metal. If the minister, 
 in a moment of moral bravery, should denounce the sins 
 of the pew-holders, he is very soon visited by a com- 
 mittee, who inform him that he is " void of ideality ; 
 that. he is not poetical enough; that the congregation 
 wants a preacher who is more refined and impersonal 
 in his conversation, more ecstatic in his style of sermon- 
 izing, and not so direct and vulgar in his references to 
 supporters of God's holy word," &c. And the com- 
 mittee very soon hear that there is a minister for sale. 
 Such a preacher is sent for. He puts his ear to the 
 mouth of Mammon, and the metallic god whispers " a 
 high calling ;" and he listens all over ; he accepts the 
 congregation in obedience to the "call," and you 
 know that hymns, and prayers, and sermons always go 
 just where the minister goes ; and the minister goes just 
 where the implacable metal-and-greenback gods bid 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 301 
 
 him, even in spite of himself. Then do you suppose that 
 the speculator and the stock-gambler, who lives and 
 fattens upon others' misfortunes, will be talked to from 
 the pulpit? Will he be told that his apparent right- 
 eousness is nothing ? Dare the minister tell him that 
 without sacrifices, and without integral virtues, he can- 
 not enter into the kingdom of harmony? Never ! And 
 the speculators' wives will be delighted. They will 
 say, " What a delightful change ! Why, the minister 
 we had last year was such a coarse and vulgar person ! 
 He would talk his notions 6 right out/ and preach all 
 sorts of reforms. He spoke his mind on every-day 
 6 religion/ and talked ' polities' right out in meeting. 
 Now, how delightful ! We have a gentleman in the 
 pulpit who is cultivated and poetical ; he has ideas, 
 and never interferes with every-day matters." 
 
 It is the misdirection of the love of wealth which 
 we are called upon to denounce. All men should and 
 shall desire to have homes and property and position. 
 It is sad to behold a person so far down in the deep 
 valley of disappointment, that he does not put forth 
 adequate exertions to make for himself a home, if it be 
 but twenty feet square and one story high, with only a 
 place overhead for boxes and trunks. Uncultivated 
 land all over this country is calling for men and women. 
 The unworked fields of America put forth thickly- 
 matted vegetation, saying, " See what I could do, it" you 
 would only bring to me your hoes, your plows, your 
 implements of industry. I will bring you great harvests. 
 Open me deeply, let me breathe, then give me the germs. 
 You have but to sft in the door afterward, and under 
 your own vine and fig-tree, and behold the blossoming 
 
302 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of the material abundance with which I will bless you." 
 Behold the prairies of the West ! Gardens are they 
 that could support the entire population of the globe, 
 if we but give to them our skill and our working- 
 muscles. 
 
 Riches are inevitable. Mankind will not remain 
 poor. If they do, they are sinners. America is remarka- 
 ble for her tendency and her power to equalize wealth 
 and distribute knowledge. Here fierce blasts topple 
 down steeples that are too lofty. A farmer may stack 
 and store large quantities of grain for the market. 
 Some great tornado may destroy his property in a single 
 afternoon. That is what the country prophesies as pos- 
 sible and certain in all great accumulations of wealth. 
 John Jacob Astor's property will very soon melt out of 
 his possession. Let the owning and watching mind 
 depart, and forthwith the decomposing process com- 
 mences. Here is no primogeniture. The property of 
 the family does not descend to the eldest son. Some- 
 times, instead, the greatest financial misfortunes descend 
 to the first child. Here is disintegration and diffusion. 
 Why, the climate itself is full of democracy. Property 
 concentration in America is possible only for three- 
 quarters of a century. Some few New England fami- 
 lies are opulent, and have been ever since the country 
 star-ted. But the young men and the war are now 
 making those properties fly to the four winds. The 
 sons of once rich parents are looking about for business, 
 to prevent their entire impoverishment. They descend 
 from families once aristocratic in wealth, but in mind and 
 spirit they were very poor and valueless to the world. 
 
 Now, mind is taking a lofty position that money can 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 303 
 
 never reach. Skill, in the ascendant, indicates mind. 
 The superior faculties are declaring their aristocracy. 
 This declaration will show itself in the growing inde- 
 pendence of our working men and women. They will 
 accumulate property. They cannot help it. Spiritual 
 riches, however, will soonest save all from poverty both 
 in matter and in mind. Such riches develop the supe- 
 rior powers, by which man puts down diseases and all 
 forms of poverty in his spirit. Ideas, at last, will be 
 the Saviors of the world. But " ideas" are considered 
 vague. Are they ? Look at their incarnations. What 
 is a locomotive, a factory, the invention of the sewing 
 machine, or a watch, but the incarnation of ideas ? Ideas 
 antedate all literature, art and science. Ideas will 
 change and revolutionize the world. Poverty, in the 
 physical body and in the world's circumstances, will be 
 overcome and destroyed. Spiritual riches are imper- 
 sonal ideas. Present physical life is a struggle for 
 bread — a battle of selfishness from which very few 
 persons come off with clean hands and a pure heart. 
 Society is full of worn and weary workers for the daily 
 wants of their bodies and families. 
 
 It is not always to be so. The moment a man gets 
 a true education with an Idea, in itself clear and capa- 
 ble of being transmitted to a fellow, that moment he 
 takes precedence in the field, work-shop, or factory. He 
 is foreman, an assistant on the side of government ; his 
 wages are increased, and he is thereby put on the way 
 to something better. For it is the American's ambition 
 to acquire, not money, but mind ; ideas, instead of gold 
 medals and personal luxury. I would rather have my 
 invisible brain with its boney- casket than the wealth of 
 
304 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the wealthiest man. Who would not ? If a man has a 
 true education, and a brain-power adequate to the 
 wheeling of circumstances into line with his intentions, 
 the wealth of the rich and idle man, who possibly has 
 no brain-power, will melt into his hands. Truly edu- 
 cated men will become rich through the country ; and 
 thus every poor man, through his ideas and his ceaseless 
 industry, will have a home and a garden. The world 
 is on its way to vast accumulations of spiritual riches, 
 not from any special individual intention, but from the 
 direct election and development of its innate constitu- 
 tional powers. 
 
 Let no one, however, expect that people will catch 
 an idea to-day and act upon it to-morrow. To-morrow 
 people will manifest their characteristics and disposi- 
 tions according to their circumstances. They will act 
 from their long-accustomed habits and ruling inclina- 
 tions. Mankind do not rapidly change. They will not 
 be quickiy impressed and swayed by great ideas. The 
 most powerful principles will give but a momentary 
 inspiration and direction to the general mind. The 
 dominating characteristics of the people will be those 
 which spring from their organic conformation, modified 
 by passing inclinations and swayed by fleeting circum- 
 stances, and all more or less independent of the indi- 
 vidual wish or will. 
 
 Suppose your superior faculties should come down 
 out of their heavens and touch your internal being, 
 awaken your divinest and sweetest sensations, and bid 
 your spiritual nature to yield to holier emotions. What 
 would then occur ? " A voice from heaven" means a 
 voice from the interior of spirit. It is a divine feeling, 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 305 
 
 also, which the inhabitants of the Summer-Land will in 
 your heart increase with aerial music and songs of joy 
 and anthems of deathless gratitude. The upper and 
 higher faculties speak in silvery tones to that which 
 is ordinary, earthly, and external in you, saying, 
 " Rise ! Live worthier ! Be thou whole, healthy, rich, 
 happy!" 
 
 Mankind are on the straight road to ultimate suc- 
 cess. The harmonfal era is coming through this 
 beautiful nuptial relation, which will, at the right hour 
 in history, be formed between the upper faculties in 
 men's minds and their ordinary powers and propensities 
 of externalism and selfishness, which to-day are highest 
 in authoritative power, dictating the movements and 
 constructing the mechanism of Church and State. The 
 superior nature in man, the kingdom of heaven, is gain- 
 ing the ascendency. Its methods and its resources will 
 be mankind's true Saviors. 
 
 There is always greater "joy in heaven" over one 
 person so lifted and converted than over a thousand 
 who have walked along sweetly and noiselessly through 
 life. Moderate saints are moderate sinners. They are 
 neither rich nor poor, neither benevolent nor penurious, 
 but live unobtrusively and indifferently in an even 
 way — letting their " moderation be known unto all 
 men" — exciting neither joy nor sympathy among the 
 philanthropic in the Summer-Land. But one of those 
 hard-headed, hard-hearted, thick-skinned sinners, who 
 has been induced to listen to and obey the voice of the 
 higher powers, who has substantially resolved to live 
 henceforth in the sanctuary of his immortal spirit, who 
 has given evidence that he will be a better, a wiser, a 
 
306 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 larger, and a more truly rich man — such an one, when 
 freed from his bad habits and earthliness, kindles grand 
 joy in the heavens. 
 
 The era of harmony, which is to come, will consist 
 in the coming together of the powers between the lower 
 and the highest in man's nature. Such a race will come 
 out of America's blood. They will conquer the soil, 
 will subdue the climate, will destroy disease, will rise 
 above the metals, will overthrow all known standards 
 of wealth, and will arrange themselves in harmonial 
 brotherhoods, and will live as they live who inhabit the 
 higher mansions in the Father's house.- 
 
 The soil of the globe is in a very undeveloped and 
 low state.* Its inexhaustible resources have not yet 
 declared themselves to the eyes and skill of the wisest 
 men. Science has not yet probed the recesses of visible 
 matter. Religion has done nothing more than to say, 
 "The coming of the kingdom of heaven is a subject of 
 prayer." We affirm that it will become a fact when 
 mankind pray hard enough in deeds. Religion has 
 soothed you in your struggles. It has essayed to make 
 you feel satisfied with bereavements. It attends your 
 death-beds. It goes with you to your grave-yards. 
 And it has made light with faith the dark and dreary 
 walks of the world. Religion, stripped of its theology, 
 has had in it much for mankind in all these things. But 
 it has not lifted you to the heart of Mother Nature. It 
 has not turned you out into the fields of progressive 
 truth. It has not shown you "the unsearchable riches'' 
 of the physical world, which came out from the unsearcha- 
 ble opulence of the spiritual. But true religion will be 
 the El Dorado of the new world. It will be a Colorado 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 307 
 
 far more spacious and grand than the golden mountains 
 of the world. Those who iove most and wisest, will 
 have the largest and richest investments. Such riches 
 never fly away. 
 
 " Ideas" will preside over this conjugal blending of 
 the superior with the inferior in the mind. Wealth is 
 natural and accessible to all. Economies and simplici- 
 ties in dress and in foods will be consequences of the 
 new birth. Simplicity of habits at the table will increase 
 your health income. You will be astonished, when you 
 attain to the life-hights of the new birth, how inde- 
 pendent you are by nature of these external things 
 which give you such anxiety and such selfish distress, 
 and for the possession of which you must think and 
 sweat and labor from Monday morning till Saturday 
 night. Misled and miseducated, by the false habits 
 and customs of the world, ladies will search through 
 New York to find a certain ribbon, for which they will 
 freely spend the entire day ; but the same ladies would 
 not be induced to do one hour's needle-work for the 
 amelioration of some suffering person in poverty. Mis- 
 educated ladies are not the intentional defrauders of 
 other people's right and riches, but are the victims and 
 exponents of a false social start in the world. 
 
 . The only substantial riches are spiritual ; all out- 
 ward wealth is convenient and transient. It is not 
 necessary to bedeck the walls of an artist who lives in 
 ideas. Who thinks, when in the presence of angels, that 
 his floor is not carpeted ? I used to think that a stu- 
 dio for high contemplations must be beautifully 
 decorated and visibly attractive; that my elegant 
 writing-desk must have a beautiful blue silk velvet 
 
308 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 cover on which I might write these spiritual thoughts ; 
 and that the pictures on the wall must be high-toned 
 and very suggestive. I then thought that many beauti- 
 ful things in my room were indispensably necessary to 
 induce a state of mind appropriate to these inward 
 truths and more beautiful revealments. But one day I 
 suddenly awoke to the conception that these externals 
 were parts of my enthralled feelings. When I entered 
 into the interior for association with higher things, 
 when in communion with principles and ideas, or with 
 the beauties and glories and blissfulness of the Summer- 
 Land, when contemplating the beatitudes of the state 
 future to man, I never thought of or felt these outward 
 things. My room at such times was never seen; nor 
 was my body necessary to me ; neither did I realize 
 my circumstances. I was in communication with the 
 spheres of real life, and they with me; we had formed a 
 true nuptial relation. When out of that condition, the 
 mastery of place and objects was perfect over my exter- 
 nal ; indeed I could scarcely write my investigations 
 unless I was snugly seated in my beautiful furnished 
 room. At length I said, " This slavery will not do ! A 
 man with ideas must be free as are the sons of God." 
 I resolved upon a completer and higher education. I 
 lived at the time in Hartford. I went through a silent 
 street to the store of a periodical dealer. In the back 
 room of this establishment I found barrels and casks 
 and bundles of dirty paper, and repulsive piles of 
 yellow-covered novels, and all sorts of things in dire 
 confusion, dirt and disorder being in extravagant 
 abundance. I seated myself and deliberately made up 
 my mind that I would go into " the presence of divine 
 
POVERTY AND RICHES. 309 
 
 ideas" then and there ; for I had awakened to the fact 
 that I was dependent upon pictures and furniture and 
 carpets for my harmony and tranquillity. I worked 
 every day for three full weeks, and in that dirty place 
 every day I entered into the presence of riches that 
 are unsearchable and permanent. I did it in the rear 
 of a store frequently filled with people, hearing the 
 voices of purchasers, talking and bartering. Customers 
 every day receded until they ceased out of my thoughts, 
 and the store also vanished, and with it all the world's 
 externals. Then carpets of imperishable texture and 
 pictures of immortal beauty were mine — in a word, I 
 passed from poverty into the possession of eternal 
 riches. 
 
THE OBJECT OF LIFE, 
 
 "Let each man think himself an act of God, 
 His mind a thought, his life a breath of God ; 
 And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds, 
 To show the most of heaven he hath in him." 
 
 The other day a friend who has listened to this course 
 of lectures, remarked to me, " It seems to me that you 
 always leave off in the middle of your subject. There 
 is a great deal of introduction, but no completion of the 
 subject at the end of your lecture." Yes, I proceed as 
 a tree grows — step by step, from its first beginnings 
 deliberately onward to fruitage ; and I leave off just 
 when you first get a glimpse of the fruit, and begin to 
 be hungry for some of it. 
 
 The gentleman who made that remark will discover 
 that he will resign his physical organization, at the end 
 of this section of his external life, in a manner some- 
 what as I cease in my discourse— just at the place where 
 thoughts and ideas begin to be interesting and valuable. 
 Men usually die when life begins to be full of sweet- 
 ness, magnitude, and significance. When, through many 
 accidents and sorrows, you have learned the beginnings 
 of a rational way to live, then there sounds a signal 
 bell telling you that "your work on earth is over." 
 Thus I speak on the subject before me — begin and 
 
THE OBJECT OF LIFE. ' 311 
 
 end, not with the end of a subject, but rather with the 
 first sentence in an introductiou. Every theme is sus- 
 ceptible of being amplified and lived through ages yet 
 to come. You cannot sound to the lowest deep of any 
 principle that is infinite, nor reach to its highest pinna- 
 cle, though you think and speak upon it every hour 
 between the cradle and the coffin. 
 
 The object of life ? The careless skeptic thinks and 
 says, " This existence is the result of a fortuitous con- 
 course of accidents." Aristotle said, " the fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms." The accidental meeting and con- 
 fluence of atoms, congregated, making a whole, the 
 universe, and having inherent vital powers and conse- 
 quential galvanic energies that work everlastingly or 
 until they wear out, is the sum of the skeptic's careless 
 creed. What does such a skeptic think and say of 
 humanity ? He says, men are here by accident. We 
 have stumbled out of matter into a temporary organiza- 
 tion, into breathing, conscious life, and we shall in like 
 manner stumble back again and drop into the chemistry 
 of utter extinction. What then ? What is the sad 
 conclusion? Why, that the "object of life" is to eat, 
 drink, propagate, be merry, and die. 
 
 I am acquainted with refined ladies and talented 
 gentlemen who are, or have recentl) T been, in this state 
 of mind ; they particularly think and say, « Let us eat, 
 drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." They 
 reject the fine Gospel of Epicurus, and, instead, adopt 
 the purely sensual interpretation of his grand sentence, 
 that " True happiness consists in bodily ease and mental 
 tranquillity." Epicurus was not one who debauched 
 his appetites and defiled the organs of his body. Pure 
 
312 . MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 and simple was bis style of life. Music in flavors, music 
 in odors, harmony in compounds prepared for the 
 stomach, purity in the fluids for drinking, and perfect 
 health in all parts of the body, which is the basis of 
 tranquillity of mind and repose in the spirit. 
 
 There is another interpretation of the object of life. 
 The Assembly's Shorter Catechism gives the dogmatic 
 answer to this grand question. I suppose it is natural 
 and right that the catechisms and dogmatisms of the 
 world should be kept securely in the same cage of creeds. 
 They always give the same hideous howl to the soul's 
 freest questionings, "What is the chief end of man?" 
 You remember the answer — " To glorify God." The 
 chief end of untold millions already gone, and of innu- 
 merable millions yet to go into the higher spheres, is 
 simply to serve and glorify God, a supposed personality, 
 and enjoy his presence forever. What does the dic- 
 tionary say about " glory" ? The word " glory" has 
 two or thee definitions ; one is anything that is bright. 
 A bright day is a glorious day. Anything that is 
 resplendent and beautiful, is glorious. Thus the object 
 or "end" of all these countless myriads of human 
 hearts and heads will be one — what ? " To glorify 
 God ;" that is to bedazzle his existence, to brighten him 
 up, to make him shine — that is the first work, the mid- 
 dle work, and the work eternal ! What next ? " To 
 enjoy his presence forever." This is the chief object of our 
 creation and immortality according to the catechism. 
 Who will stand or sit in the front ranks ? Will everybody 
 have an equal amount of enjoyment ? If the Christians 
 are countless, how can they be all stationed for this 
 "glorious" work in one place ? Will there not be some 
 
THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 313 
 
 vanguards and some rearguards, some safeguards and 
 unsafe guards in the midst of the pent-up kingdom ? 
 Those who are nearest the throne, would naturally have 
 a better chance ;; to enjoy his presence" than those who 
 are from the necessity of space farther back. Or, do 
 they take turns in coming to the front to see and 
 "glorify" and enjoy the Trinity? Is such a life to be 
 the basis of your employment throughout eternity? 
 Made, as each human soul is, with twelve loving, ener- 
 getic, intelligent, immortal attributes — fitted for cease- 
 less and variable industry, for art and for science, and 
 demanding for their full gratification not less than the 
 circle of the whole universe — and yet through the end- 
 less ages to live and think and work and sing only to 
 brighten up God, and " to enjoy" the radiant smiles 
 and gratified approbation of the Trinity! Outrageous, 
 imbecile theology ! An insult to the mind of every 
 reasonable man ! Our children, thank heaven ! are not 
 taught these heathenish doctrines. To rational minds 
 the Catechism is like a controversy on the Trinity ; 
 nothing but " an oblong blur," a spot on the sun of 
 progress in the development of religious ideas. 
 
 Again, suppose we take the definition that to " glo- 
 rify God," means to worship and to praise him. Does 
 that help it any? Think of a deity whose bump of 
 approbation and other selfish organs must be constantly 
 stimulated by the speeches and songs of his children, so 
 that he may be comfortable and in a happy " frame of 
 mind." Glorify God ! Why, a noble human being is su-< 
 perior to requiring that service from either his children 
 or peers. A true* man is above acclamation or adula- 
 tion. He stands upon the sublime inherent indorsement 
 14 
 
314 
 
 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of eternal right and truth! What other definition can 
 sectarians give to the words, " To glorify God" ? Any 
 theological definition will be an insult to your common 
 sense, and an outrage upon a true idea of the eternal 
 Father-Spirit, who, like the sun, warms and lights all 
 with love and wisdom to the ends of the universe. 
 
 There are^spiritually-minded men and women, truly 
 religious people, ardent lovers of justice and humanity, 
 who feel that there* is nothing better for the sustenance 
 and elevation of the soul than the truth of Deity. These 
 minds are many times tempted to ask each other, « What 
 is the object of life 1" They would " do good,' 5 but the 
 " way" does not open with the " will," and they flounder 
 in uncertainties. I know a person who persists in 
 thinking that woman's highest and only mission consists 
 in keeping house, multiplying the race, and obeying her 
 husband in all things; and that man's strongest and 
 most enduring interest in woman, under the laws of 
 nature, is wholly of "the earth, earthy," and so he 
 scouts the modern notions of woman's equality and inde- 
 pendence. And this man, both a husband and father, 
 began life with high hopes and sublime anticipations, 
 believing that something heavenly and grand would 
 grow out of the reformer's ideal of the holy mission and 
 beautiful progress of .woman. Of course, such a man 
 was too weak to withstand a few of life's disappoint- 
 ments. Others suppose that the best way to answer the 
 designs of life is to accumulate riches and to enjoy the 
 power and commanding position which wealth gives. 
 The Rothchilds and the Asto-rs can give no other reply 
 out of their practices and experiences. But the upshot 
 of all is disappointment and oppressive cares, with 
 
THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 315 
 
 nothing but a place to sleep, something to eat, comforta- 
 ble clothing, and only such assistance and attentions as 
 you receive from those to whom you pay the wages due 
 to labor. A few fine souls think Art is the object of life. 
 Some say that whatever they feel themselves intel- 
 lectually, morally, or passionally drawn toward, is the 
 true indication of the object of their existence. I could 
 name many other theories and definitions, but you can 
 trace them out and analyze them for«yourself. 
 
 Now since, from the mind's constitution, it is certain 
 that each nature will act logically from its own tem- 
 peraments, it becomes of the utmost importance that its 
 convictions of life's object be of the firmest and truest 
 character, well founded in science, in thought, in love, 
 and in wisdom. Let us, therefore, proceed to ask and 
 answer this question from our own standpoint : 
 
 First, Look at the lessons spread out in Nature's 
 fields. What do you feel and see and hear ? Do you 
 not both feel and see that there is ap/an, and a unitary 
 flow and effort, marked out and imaged forth in all 
 visible things ? The true inductive philosopher traces 
 " design" backward through the apparent to its central 
 source. The earnest effort of each true investigator is 
 to trace, through the different series of material organi- 
 zations, the thought of God inwardly to the center, 
 which is the heart of the eternal and infinite. When 
 he finds the central Cause, he shouts, " Eureka, Eureka !" 
 More wonderful than Aladdin's lamp is the magical 
 power of this truth. It kindles up all the central fires 
 of creation, fills individual life full of unutterable beauty, 
 and clothes all forms of matter and animation with an 
 undying significance. The moral world, a subterranean 
 
316 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 sphere to which we seldom go, is divided and subdivided 
 into beautiful series of groups or compounds. It would 
 be useful to describe to you the divine wonders of that 
 dark and mysterious chemical world. You would 
 become delighted and gloriously at home among the 
 elements and their combinations. You should learn 
 how beautifully, how entirely in accordance with the 
 great principle of harmony, the elements and their com- 
 pounds are arranged in the laboratories of matter. 
 Series give rise to groups, groups develop combinations 
 expressing wholeness, and that "wholeness" constituting 
 the entire mineral kingdom. All this arrangement of 
 matter means something. The materialist asks, " Cui 
 bono V 9 Wants to know " what for and what good V 9 
 He asks this wondrous world beneath the soil, and it 
 points him in silence to the revelations of the wonderful 
 worlds above. 
 
 Come to the vegetable and floral worlds. Ask our 
 horticulturists, and our pomologists, and our botanists ; 
 ask those who daily and yearly associate with the varie- 
 ties of beautiful plants and trees and flowers, who 
 cultivate berries — ask them, for they are always enthu- 
 siastic and glad to be questioned concerning their pets. 
 You never knew a man, a woman, or a child that had 
 come in pure and full contact with the spirit of Deity 
 in the flower-kingdom, but would speak of it with enkin- 
 dling enthusiasm, (which means, " God in the heart,") 
 speaking to and warming the loving and beloved flower, 
 the two kissing and embracing, as life meets life in the 
 angel world. But when the hard materialist looks upon 
 all this beautiful kingdom spread out in the world, he 
 asks, "Cui bono ?" " what good?" Every intelligent 
 
THE OBJECT OP LIFE. 317 
 
 human being should ask this question about the glori- 
 ous physical world, but not without a profound and 
 reverent desire to obtain the true answer. 
 
 Next we come to the organic world ; out of the 
 simple into the compound, and animated. Look at the 
 finely shaded gradations in this beautiful animal world. 
 Look at the fishes and reptiles, the families of birds, the 
 varieties of marsupials, the many branches of the mam- 
 malia, the different tribes of quadrumana, the strange 
 half-human form and features of bi-raana, and lastly 
 the different races of man. What does all this mean ? 
 It means that Jacob's ladder had an origin long before 
 the advent of human organization. Its lowest round 
 began way down in the rude fish-world, on which the 
 angels of progress both descended and ascended through 
 all the higher forms of matter. I do not wonder that 
 true philosophers are enthusiasts. I wonder not that 
 Professor Youmans, and Agassiz of Cambridge, and 
 such men as Liebig, look as though they had roses 
 blossoming in their cheeks when they tell the people 
 about these beautiful manifestations of the Divine. 
 Professor Mitchell, who has attained a higher observa- 
 tory than when he lived in Cincinnati, who laid down 
 his body while working for the grand old flag in South 
 Carolina, can now look out into the pure blue and con- 
 template the stars. He now sees farther, deeper, and 
 with infinitely more intellectual and spiritual satisfac- 
 tion. And what does he see ? What do the astrono- 
 mers, Galilleo, Newton, Humboldt, and all such who 
 have eternal homes in the Summer-Land, see? They 
 see unutterably more than mankind can find in the 
 mineral and vegetable and animal. They enjoy the 
 
 \ 
 
318 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 life of the mathematical, geometrical, organizational 
 and harmonious. Look at the planets. They are sown 
 in space, and they seem to grow broadcast over the 
 sky. The series are not sharply defined and definite. 
 The varieties of planets are not perfectly visible, nor 
 do they seem to be entirely mathematical in their 
 arrangement. But the higher astronomers see better. 
 The planets are capable of divergence. They have 
 deliberations and aberrations. The series are, neverthe- 
 less, perfectly geometrical and mathematical. Ascend 
 to the sublime palace of the upper universe, in which 
 blazing planets, night and day, more "glorify God" 
 than can all the prayers of innumerable millions. They 
 are rigidly and immutably mathematical, geometrical, 
 and perfect in the arrangement of groups and series, 
 which in the combination constitutes a planetary sys- 
 tem. This perfect system never varies from its vitalic 
 laws. It never has a tangential development; there is 
 never an accident in it : atoms never get up a fortuitous 
 manifestation ; all roll and unfold together in a glorious 
 harmony, and in strictest accordance with the divine 
 heart of the indestructible universe. Do you ask the 
 question, " Cui buno?" What good ? and what for ? 
 
 Now comes the personal importance of the question. 
 Here we are, in this world, standing before ourselves. 
 What does it mean? It means that man is still man's 
 unsolved problem. I think I need not assure you that I 
 have with as much self-forgetful devotion as ever Hindoo 
 bowed to his idol, with as much sincerity as an ortho- 
 dox minister addresses the throne of the three deities, 
 turned my faculties day after day, and year after year, 
 to the answer of the question, "Why do I exist?" 
 
THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 319 
 
 Why, and for what object or end, does my brother and 
 my sister, live ? 
 
 Daily I see about me the phenomena of marriage and 
 the phenomena of prolification. Here are the facts of 
 marriage and parentage, and the facts of bodily disease 
 and death and disappearance. These phenomena are 
 conspicuous and come before the world every day. Now 
 do you not want to know what lies behind and under- 
 neath all these phenomena ? Then trace the stream of 
 divine thought back to its fountain. Let us go through 
 the fields of thought and traverse mountains of mystery 
 to their very summits. As fearless explorers work 
 among the bleak and snowy hights of the physical 
 planet, making paths for others to tread, so let us walk 
 upon the beautiful and fertile hights of these mount- 
 ains of contemplation. Let us scale them. Sleep out 
 every night in your doubts if you choose, or journey 
 forward with the bare-skin of skepticism, exposed to 
 truth's sun, but in the midst of it all hold fast to the 
 healthy idea of the largest integrity and magnanimity 
 in your motives. To know, and then to put his best 
 knowledge into harness and to make it draw, is the 
 grand coronation which accompanies and succeeds the 
 good man's search after truth. With a full-hearted and 
 holy devotion, I have pursued this question, and I shall 
 this morning give you what, to me, is the briefest and 
 largest answer. If I ever see more with reference to 
 it, and can then speak to you as I now do, I shall be 
 ready to tell it ; but if I do not yield a better answer, 
 I know that each of you will ; for what is possible to 
 me now, is a prophecy of realization for every other 
 one in the progress of life. 
 
320 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Leaving the kingdoms of the earth and the mighty 
 questions which they suggest, and retiring from the 
 starry firmaments and from all the holy questions which 
 they awaken, I ask your attention to yourself, because 
 in yourself alone you will find the explanation of " Why 
 do you exist?" Analyzing the individual externally, 
 you find a beginning and an end to the career of being. 
 With the planet it is just the same. All things and 
 bodies begin with the round 0, what is called "zero" 
 in numerals. Man begun thus — no intellect, no indus- 
 try, no science, no art; innocence equaled, only by 
 ignorance, which, under the highest moral standard, is 
 no excellence at all. It is the absence of both vice and 
 virtue; a condition equally exposed and assailable. We 
 began with the negation, 0. But the moment the intel- 
 lect awakened out of the impulses, (for everything has 
 love-roots,) that moment an effort was made to expel 
 and exclude ignorance, to widen the boundary of know- 
 ledge. All the first steps of the race were full of 
 stumblings. But through each " fall" mankind arrived 
 at much more than they knew before the mistake. Con- 
 sider now that the race was thus started and educated. 
 What are the results? Make one straight mark at the 
 left of the 0, and you will have added 10 to the sum of 
 benefits. Everything valuable that men do, adds ano- 
 ther mark to the left of the 0. The race has added 
 many figures to the left, while the idiot " makes his 
 marks" at the right of the 0. What does the ignorant 
 one get? Nothing, because his marks to the right of 
 the cypher kills its value. Such is the idiotic plan of 
 old theology. The progressive plan, on the contrary, 
 makes its reports at the left of the zero. We are getting 
 
THE OBJECT OP LIFE. 321 
 
 used to great figures in the finances of this country. 
 These great responsibilities will help to develop the 
 better character of the people. Once people would open 
 their eyes to see a man worth two millions. Now it 
 will do to talk about no less than $3,000,000. Persons 
 who plod along through trade and arithmetic, who 
 look daily up and down their ledgers, can see nothing 
 higher than that which is before them. They say, 
 " figures won't lie." So say I. Figures will teach 
 mankind everything. They will bring men's characters 
 up to their standard, because they will not " lie." There 
 is that in marks made to the left of zero which enlarges 
 and expands and makes men magnanimous, even when 
 the " sum" drives them into driveling and shriveling 
 bankruptcy. People never before knew what it was 
 that enabled them to rise above great obstacles and 
 outswim the Gulf Stream of adversity. 
 
 Figures, in the progressive history of the race, are 
 made at the left side of the round 0. What does it 
 mean ? It means that mankind have been multiplying 
 and enhancing the inherent value of their relations to a 
 diviner life. This has been done for you and for me 
 It has come out of numbers and out of the teeming cen- 
 turies. What is man's organization ? He has a body, 
 with a sphere of soul-life between the outmost and the 
 spirit, which is deepest within. The greatest external 
 success occurs in the middle region ; as between the two 
 extremes on the planet is the greatest fertility, the 
 greatest industry, and the greatest development of 
 wealth. The soul, which is not as high as spirit in 
 refinement and function, is in contact with this 
 world. It is the source and the play-ground of 
 14* 
 
322 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 passions and appetites. It is the fulcrum on which all 
 passion and force-levers are placed ; the bridge over 
 which all animal emotions, impulses and energies travel 
 between the body (outmost) and the spirit (inmost). 
 Only now and then do we perceive glimmerings of 
 pure spirit in man. 
 
 Men and women sing about being angels in this 
 world. It is difficult to become angels in the cellar- 
 kitchen of life ; but it is possible. You can live a 
 sweetly ordered life, and can use your will-power to 
 regulate your thoughts and keep discord away. Genuine 
 angels know nothing about being " tempted'' to do any- 
 thing that is wrong. If you can be tempted, you are not 
 yet above the conditions from which temptation ema- 
 nates. Pure spirit is above the reach of temptation. 
 Moral strength to overcome or to resist evil, is the 
 promise of the future angel. It is, in fact, the basis on 
 which the angel-character is finally erected; yet if you 
 are tempted at all, you have not ascended above the 
 soul-plane. You do not yet live in the Spirit. You 
 will, therefore, be tempted to do various things — little 
 things, great things, bad things, indifferent things — 
 sometimes, perhaps, good things may be done unwisely, 
 or overdone, or done to excess. I know persons who 
 do some good things until they get in everybody's way — 
 until a very excellent thing in itself becomes a stum- 
 bling-block ; like the expression of divine music, con- 
 tinued for hours instead of moments, becomes tedious, 
 because too exquisite, and ultimately the best strains 
 would be irksome to the highest master of the holy art. 
 
 I said that pure spirit is seldom manifested in this 
 world. Why ? Because eighty per cent, of life here is 
 
THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 323 
 
 body and soul. Hence men say, " Well, there are only 
 two parts of us; one is inside, soul; the other outside, 
 body." Some insist that there is nothing but matter 
 about and within man. Col. Colt, the man who invented 
 the pistol bearing his name, a great, splendid looking 
 man, once said, " Mr. Davis, I don't understand your 
 doctrine. You sav that I have an immortal soul. If 
 you will trot it out, so I can see it, I will give you five 
 hundred dollars." Wanted me to " trot out" the evi- 
 dence that he would live after death. A soul ! he did 
 not believe in it as an eternal verity. Said he, " Here 
 I am, so much bone and muscle and blood and brain — is 
 there anything else? I am perfectly willing/' he 
 continued, " to help with money to support a good thing. 
 I go to the Catholic Church, and to other meetings 
 where I can hear fine singing and eloquent speaking, 
 no matter where or who, and I am willing to pay for 
 it; but I would give most to know that I shall always 
 continue." He expressed the skepticism of vast numbers. 
 Body and soul, not spirit, are most manifested dur- 
 ing this life. Body is uppermost sixty-five per cent, of 
 the time, and only the rest of the hours is given to soul, 
 which includes passion, appetite, impulse, and indifferent 
 emotions. All the energies that make soul are dis- 
 played in the heat of the blood, the electricity of the 
 nerves, the will-forces of the brain — all enter into the 
 composition of the soul. Now, this fact in life means 
 something. I know that men in the churches say, " It 
 is because individual man is fallen ; this is why men 
 have more body than spirit. The life of your heart is 
 blackened by the Adamic curse ; so you are working 
 along and struggling through materiality." 
 
324 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 But look deeper and see if there be not a beautiful 
 meaning in it all. We are not authorized to contend 
 with facts ; we are here rather to comprehend and make 
 use of them. The age of flagellation, of sacrificial offer- 
 ings, of self-excoriation, of unworthy and imbecile 
 adoration, is past. The cosmotheosis is begun. Those 
 who linger in the rear of the vanguard will continue to 
 fall in the ashes, and to roll and crawl like worms in 
 the miserable muck of ignorance and theological super- 
 stition. Well, why is materiality uppermost ? 
 
 The meaning of it all is, the body is a factory. 
 
 Suppose an Indian should enter a factory at Lowell, 
 Mass. Suppose the factory is not at work ; that it is 
 being repaired, as he enters for the first observation. 
 Suppose the wheels are still, the shafts down on the 
 floor and piled up in confusion, the belts lying here 
 and there, fire out of the furnace, and that no machinery 
 is in action anywhere. He departs without any definite 
 impression of its utility. In a few weeks he is again 
 shown into that factory ; he looks at the buzzing cog- 
 wheels, at the swift spindles, he sees the tremendous 
 shafts in the act of revolution, the large leather belts 
 running with still power, and he looks upon it with the 
 same consternation, or with the same stupid expression, 
 as many people look upon the object of their existence 
 in this world. The foreman asks the Indian, " What 
 do you suppose is the object of these wheels and shafts 
 and belts?" " Me don't know." He shakes his head; 
 he is almost dumb. The master-machinist then says, 
 "Red man, let me tell you. The wheels and all the 
 machinery that you see here, are but parts of one design, 
 and one result will come out of it all."* The savage, just 
 
THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 325 
 
 like a skeptic, knowing nothing of the end, is confounded. 
 Now, what is that one result ? Do you see that cloth 
 piled upon those shelves? What! it is all designed to 
 make cloth ? How is it made ? and from what ? The 
 savage is now taken do.wn into the lower stories where 
 the stock is received. There he sees coarse and dirty 
 looking stuff — cotton. " Do you tell me," exclaims the 
 Indian to the foreman, " that such stuff is made into that 
 beautiful material I saw on the shelves?" The one 
 perfect result, accomplished through (to him) countless 
 intricacies and most inconsistent parts, was impressed 
 upon his savage mind. 
 
 Now, are we not all savages on this problem of 
 life's central object ? What means this world so filled 
 with confusion? Behold fishes and birds and reptiles 
 and plants and trees and stars scattered and sown about 
 everywhere. Is it all a system of accidents; all a for- 
 tuitous concourse of atoms ? What means all this to 
 man? Are not the brightest intellects confounded by 
 the wonderful complexity of the system? Let us stand 
 on the summits of the mountains, in the presence of this 
 grand machinery of the universe, and learn to compre- 
 hend the magnitude of its meaning. The human body 
 is a factory full of wheels. The stock to be manufac- 
 tured into a beautiful fabric, is taken in between the 
 lips. Look at the miserable stuff that is prepared in 
 the world's kitchens! What does it: mean? It means 
 that one result is to be accomplished by the wheels. 
 What wheels? The heart, the lungs, the pancreas, 
 the liver, the stomach, the gall-ducts, and kidneys* 
 The soul and body, after taking in stock, wants an easy 
 chair. The brain, the seat of government, has closed 
 
326 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 doors for a secret session. The wheels are set in motion, 
 for the engine has received energy from the heated 
 fiber. You know enough of physiology not to need any 
 specifications of the digestive process. Material is being 
 manufactured up into the so-called immaterial. The 
 spiritual meaning of life answers the question of the 
 object of man's existence in this world. The passions 
 and appetites may be put to high and grand uses ; for * 
 all things we eat and drink, and all the elements we 
 breathe, are converted into a garment, which, after 
 death, gives personality and form and immortal beauty 
 to the spirit. You are here just as the silkworm is in 
 the cocoon, winding fine thread into the formation of 
 your spirit's body, so that the essence of the spirit itself 
 can have personality and be protected forever from dif- 
 fusion. At last the soul predominates and becomes the 
 crowning work ; all the rest is subordinate and 
 co-ordinate and auxiliary. Marriage and parentage 
 and homes, and the various arts and sciences, are so 
 many intermediates and accessories and tributaries and 
 streamlets flowing into the one central object of being 
 in this world. 
 
 Whatever we eat and whatever we drink is more 
 or less represented in the article manufactured. Hence 
 you may have a soul prepared for the Summer-Land, 
 streaked with tobacco. Or, it may be very odoriferous 
 after death with alcohol. Of course, the flurd alcohol will 
 be left just where you left your money and your clothes, 
 but the effect of it remains, because you have wrought 
 and sprinkled it into your spirit's body. Suppose a 
 paper-maker says, " It is no matter what I put into the 
 composition before the article is manufactured. I can 
 
THE OBJECT OF LIFE. 327 
 
 put in cotton and old rags, old boots, some beefsteak, 
 some old beans, and I will make paper as good,. and 
 white as any other maker." Do you believe that ? 
 Ask the artist. Can he put any kind and admixture 
 of colors in his piece? No — a beautiful painting 
 requires a careful arrangement of properly mixed 
 colors. So with man's foods and beverages. He is 
 making a spiritual body from all he eats and drinks 
 and breathes, and to accomplish this result, in the best 
 and highest style, is to fulfill the organic object of the 
 present life. 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 
 
 "When from the lips of truth one mighty breath 
 Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze 
 The whole dark pile of human mockeries, 
 Then shall the race of mind commence on earth, 
 And, starting fresh, as from the second birth, 
 Man, in the sunshine of the world's new spring, 
 Shall walk transparent, like some holy thing." 
 
 Innovators and reformers are called iconoclasts, or 
 idol-and-church-destroyers, and so they are ; because 
 most of them have arisen to a plane of comprehensive 
 thought and of holier inspiration, from which it is easy 
 to see that the time will surely come when whatsoever 
 is fleeting and evanescent in the idol-temples, pagodas, 
 and churches of the world — their forms, their ceremo- 
 nies, their rituals, liturgies, and whatever you choose 
 to name that, in them, which causes one sect to differ 
 from and hate its neighbor — is destined to be known 
 only in the historic monuments of the world, having 
 passed utterly out of all human confidence, and thus 
 out of existence. 
 
 We, therefore, have the reputation of being opposed 
 to churches, which many deem equivalent to being 
 opposed to " religion/' I have no acquaintance with 
 any sincere spiritual-minded man or woman who wishes 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 329 
 
 to destroy pure and undefiled religion. Excepting those 
 who make a great mistake in their conceptions of the 
 ordinary meaning of words, I know not one individual 
 in spirituality, who supposes that when he is opposing 
 the mythological theology of the churches, he is neces- 
 sarily thereby opposing religion. Negationists, or the 
 anti-spiritual skeptics, seem to think and write as if 
 anything that bears the impress or label of religion is 
 worthy of their severest invectives and unqualified con- 
 demnation. This is not our mental condition; neither 
 is it the condition of .many skeptics. Sift the actuating 
 motives of these minds — trace their thoughts down to 
 the very germs, and you will discover that they oppose, 
 and desire to oppose, only what they conceive to be 
 "pious frauds,'' and hurtful " errors" in the moral and 
 spiritual sentiments of mankind. They are no more 
 opposed to true spiritual religion, which is immanently 
 fixed in the constitution of the human soul, than they 
 are opposed to the fragrance of flowers. 
 
 The universe, as I have before said, is filled with 
 designs. Reason very simply and logically follows the 
 lead of these designs into very profound depths, and 
 unto far-reaching hights of thought, partly by inductive 
 research, by the hints of its intuitions, and by means 
 of analogy. The existence of light, for illustration, 
 presupposes and guarantees the existence of eyes ; the 
 existence of sound guarantees, presupposes, and fixes as 
 a matter of mathematical necessity, the existence of ears. 
 If the fishes in the Kentucky cave have no eyes, it is 
 presumptive evidence — in fact, it is demonstrative — • 
 that there is therein no light for them. Apply this 
 method of reasoning to the structure of the human 
 
330 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 mind, nearest its moral and spiritual apex or summits. 
 We find there the existence of superior faculties which 
 take hold upon truths, ideas and principles — faculties, 
 with hearts and tongues, which give off unutterable 
 yearnings and utter holiest prayers to know more con- 
 cerning human life beyond the grave. Shall we not 
 say that these faculties presuppose and demonstrate the 
 existence of the truths, ideas, and principles, for which 
 they seek and thirst and hunger ? Not only so, but also 
 that the Summer-Land life to which they aspire, and 
 after which they perpetually inquire, and into which 
 they lovingly plunge and bathe whenever the cloud 
 of doubt is enough removed to admit of an eternal 
 right, is a reality not made with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens. 
 
 These spiritual faculties are dwelling in the summits of 
 the human structure. They, consequently, are the first to 
 catch heaven's light when it streams over the horizon 
 of faithful thought concerning immortality. The supe- 
 rior faculties, being stationed in the superior part of 
 the human structure, are also and necessarily the first 
 to yearn for what is called "religion." They yearn 
 like angelic-children for knowledge of whatsoever is 
 spiritual and celestial, pertaining to eternal life, its 
 beatitudes and its happiness. These faculties do not 
 grow under insincerity and persecution. They are in 
 themselves wise. They are also filled with love. Prom 
 the center they grow and put forth the purest and most 
 enthusiastic aspirations. These ^aspirations spring out 
 of divine warmth, which multiplies and fertilizes them : 
 and gives them fruitage and happiness. The perceptivo 
 part of mind apprehends, applies checks and modifica- 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 331 
 
 tions, gives symmetry of manifestation, and perfection 
 of expression. Persons who are wise in their religious 
 emotions, are symmetrical in their manifestations. Those 
 who have only love in their spiritual faculties, and not 
 wisdom, are full of idolatry and impulsiveness — are 
 given to extremes, excesses, infatuations, and fanaticisms 
 — which you can read in the private and earliest history 
 of every religion. Now, it is not what these spiritual 
 faculties love that we oppose ; /but the forms which they 
 have gathered about them, and through which they have 
 necessitated the world to express itself. If the kingdom 
 of heaven should " come on the earth" week after next, 
 do you suppose it would indorse the different evangeli- 
 cal forms of expressing religion ? Do you suppose that 
 an approval would come from the courts of infinitude, 
 adopting as essential the various exercises and conse- 
 quent antagonisms which have grown up full of thorns 
 in these churches? Subdue and paint them as much as 
 you choose, you will still find that the antagonism of 
 the creeds is anti-kingdom-of-heaven ; it is, rather, 
 propandemonium, human in origin, and is marked for 
 an early consignment to the pit of oblivion. 
 
 We reformers come, therefore, to announce and to 
 work for the extinction of these differences. -Not that 
 all men will or can think alike, but that they can and 
 will raise above creedal differences and reject mytholo- 
 gical interpretations of interior truths. On the mere 
 controversy as to what is meant in the Bible by the 
 word " baptism," millions of bigots and thousands of 
 dollars have been added to churches throughout the 
 country. That controversy, by making different forms 
 of faith, has. built church after church ; one to gratify 
 
332 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the Calvinistic faith, another to gratify the Free Will 
 Baptists, and a third to gratify the Close Communion 
 Baptists. Do you suppose that, in the good time coming, 
 alias the kingdom of heaven, these shallow-brained 
 interpretations will be perpetuated ? We do not oppose 
 " religion," nor what is true spirituality in the human 
 soul ; but we oppose the misapprehension and creeds 
 which have clustered about it in the development of the 
 religious faculties. The controversy as to whether the 
 grace of God was, from the foundation of the world, 
 prepared for and meted out to all persons before their 
 birth, and thus would foreordain and govern their indi- 
 vidual destinies through the eternal ages, or whether 
 the grace of God was a free gift to all who would accept, 
 has built all these immense piles of property called the 
 "Houses of God," or churches and tabernacles. They 
 loom up before you in magnificent stupidity. These 
 buildings are confessedly coronating the diabolical con- 
 troversies that have grown from the foolish interpreta- 
 tions of a few unimportant words which somebody, in a 
 religious state of mind, uttered twenty centuries ago. 
 Do you suppose the kingdom of heaven, alias " the good 
 time coming," will approve of such a condition of 
 things? If you do, pray for the advent of that king- 
 dom ; then, (oh, fearful thought!) you really pray for 
 just such reformers and for such iconoclasts and for such 
 opponents of the creeds that built the churches, as exist 
 and speak and write and work for progress in the nine- 
 teenth century! 
 
 The spiritual faculties^ on the summit of the mind, 
 exist because there are ideas, principles, truths, and 
 eternal Summer-Lands answering to them. These facul- 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 333 
 
 ties yearn for these realities in the universe as naturally 
 as one's appetite yearns for food, or the thirsting mouth 
 for drink. Thirst presupposes the existence of water, 
 and hunger indicates the existence of food. You have 
 yearnings to know what is beyond, to appreciate, to 
 realize and to enjoy what is ideal and beautiful and 
 sweet; and these inborn yearnings are infallible demon- 
 strations of the positive existence of all that for which 
 they hunger and thirst, and to promote which they 
 devote property, yield great industry, and pledge so 
 much of time, friendship, love, and worship. 
 
 Can you wonder that the soul delights to sit and 
 dream in this beautiful mellow light of the Infinite 
 Spirit ? The Lazzaroni of Italy, so poor and so infirm 
 that they cannot obtain wood to keep their bodies warm 
 in the winter, can go out on the southern side of the 
 rocks and cliffs and groves, and absorb the warm sunny 
 influences that emanate from the physical orb in the 
 blue heavens, a beautiful substitute for the heat of the 
 wood that would keep them comfortable. It is thus 
 with every human soul at times. You may be a spiritual 
 mendicant. You may go about asking heart-charities 
 and wisdom-alms of your spiritual brothers or sisters. 
 All persons in the churches on Sunday are really asking 
 alms of heaven through the pulpit, even when the minis- 
 ter himself is miserably " poor in spirit." But almost 
 every soul enters the " interior" at times. This deep- 
 ening of the mind may come from the reading of ideas, 
 or through contemplation of holy principles, or from a 
 sacred enthusiasm, or it may be awakened by some exter- 
 nal cause like the whisperings of an angel. At such a 
 moment the soul will come into a new relation to the 
 
334 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 infinite sun. It instantly warms and fertilizes the 
 affections, gives unity and joy and beautiful happiness 
 /or the moment, and the spirit is lifted beyond utter- 
 ance. It is a thrill that goes like lightning throughout 
 the spirit, awakening its gratitude and filling its loves 
 with inward songs of celestial harmony. Such expe- 
 riences invariably come through the inward faculties, 
 which, for the moment, are lilted and gratified by con- 
 tact with the wise and loving life of the Infinite Father 
 and Mother. 
 
 But start with an error, make a radical mistake, 
 through want of wisdom in opening your account in the 
 day-book and the ledger of theology, and it will run 
 throughout all your growth in " religion." From the 
 moment it enters into the compilation, your whole record 
 is vitiated. Sometimes, in our large banks and in our 
 commercial institutions, an error creeps stealthily into 
 the ledger. At first, perhaps, it is but a vulgar frac- 
 tion. In a few months it increases rapidly; in a few 
 years it is large and important. In a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, when the great day of settlement has come, when 
 the stockholders apply to know definitely all their 
 resources and liabilities, then comes an investigation, 
 and a ponderous and expensive error is found running 
 through all the books of the institution. Then they 
 send for the best known accountant to review and ana- 
 lyze the books. Days and weeks, and perhaps months, 
 are given to the tedious labor of ferreting out the error 
 and expelling it from the books of the institution. It 
 requires a good deal of money to compensate the inves- 
 tigator, and a great deal of fine insight is expended in 
 seeing exactly how that little blunder originated. How 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 335 
 
 enormously it grew in twenty-five years ! sweeping 
 away much capital and the reputation of honest clerks, 
 and how anxious all stockholders were to get the wrong 
 righted, the error expelled, and the reform estab- 
 lished. 
 
 Now suppose you apply this to the errors of religion. 
 But just here let us remember it is not claimed that the 
 business of the mercantile, banking, or commercial insti- 
 tution was in itself spurious, but that there was a vicious, 
 and expensive, and demoralizing error introduced ; but 
 not necessarily by any evil intent on the part of the 
 persons who opened the account. Of religious error we 
 say the same. The word "religion" I now use to 
 express the spirit of truth in the human soul, which 
 includes goodness and virtue and all the higher attri- 
 butes and beauties of the Infinite. Truth, and a love 
 for truth, seems to be the finest embodiment and exem- 
 plification of what is called " God." The faculties 
 group themselves in worshipful love about that concep- 
 tion. That conception is, in itself, a treasure of infinite 
 value to the spirit. It gives joy and holy peace. But 
 in gratifying these faculties, which see truth, and enter- 
 tain the love of truth, mankind frequently commit mis- 
 takes and originate expensive errors. The greatest and 
 heaviest error is what men call " theology." We dis- 
 criminate with great tenacity, and forever insist upon 
 our definition, between the "religion" and "theology" 
 which has crept into religion. The error of the theology 
 runs throughout the world, and is threatening the 
 so-styled civilized, portion of mankind with political as 
 well as religious bankruptcy. To-day it is necessary 
 that our best spiritual accountants should enter into an 
 
336 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 investigation, and ferret out the error, and leave the 
 pure spirit of religion an opportunity to flourish as the 
 white rose of heaven. 
 
 Reformers, intellectually, socially, and spiritually, are, 
 like other men and women, more or less imperfect; some 
 are very good, but very peculiar ; some talk and write 
 and work with a great deal of discord; some are 
 exceedingly antagonistic and disagreeable to encounter; 
 but with all their eccentricities and sledge-hammer 
 roughness, with all their excoriating adjectives and 
 unrestrained expletives, they are the necessary agents 
 of Justice, the vicegerents of eternal truth, working in 
 the midst of idols and forms and ceremonies, and relieving 
 the world.of expensive errors in its theologies. Theology 
 is the systematic form in which the spirit of religion is 
 clothed. Theology I do not at all believe in ; while I 
 believe profoundly in religion. That is, I believe in 
 whatsoever my spirit sees and feels is spiritual and inte- 
 rior and eternal. No deep nature can have faith in 
 that which is evanescent, fleeting, formal, ceremonial, 
 and suited only to gratify, for the time, those persons 
 who suppose that " theology" should give shape and 
 expression to pure and undefiled religion. Pure and 
 undefiled truth is simple and easily comprehended. 
 Every one has faith in it from the source of intuition. 
 Did* you ever hear any one speak of old theology — 
 the legitimate child of an ignorant priesthood — as 
 being " pure and undefiled" ? 
 
 Polytheism, the doctrine of a great many Gods; or 
 Pantheism, in which all being is God ; Dualism — mean- 
 ing a God and a Devil; or Deism, which is Unitarian- 
 ism, teaching the one God — these aii enter into the 
 catalogue of the world's theologies. Anthropomorph- 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 337 
 
 ism, that is, attributing to God the form and charac- 
 ter of man, is sacred to many civilized people. They 
 will receive no revelations or inspirations which tend 
 to dissipate the notion that God is a great man. If it 
 be affirmed that " God is a spirit," and that spirit is 
 diffused throughout the universe, the statement is label- 
 ed " pantheism.'' And yet this rs the doctrine of the 
 New Testament. (See John, chapter iv., 24th verse.) 
 In the Old Testament, on the other hand, you will find 
 the doctrine of anthropomorphism, the man-God, or 
 deism — Jehovah, the concentration of almightiness, the 
 focalization of all stout convictions concerning the attri- 
 bute of omnipotence — Jehovah, the Jewish God of infi- 
 nite, desperate, and destructive attributes, with nothing 
 for the heart, and generally repulsive to everything 
 human. 
 
 When the heart grows warmer and larger, it sees, 
 or thinks it sees, a Father in the maker, and calls him 
 by that endearing name. Such hearts pray to the 
 " Father" instead of to Jehovah, whose omnipotence 
 and implacable-justice overwhelm the mind. The human 
 soul is filled with conceptions of pure tenderness, which 
 call for tender eternal relations. These spiritual facul- 
 ties require tender relations in every stage of their 
 development. Hence the Father was revealed, prayed 
 to, besought, invoked, and teased too much by the child- 
 hood stage of the race. It makes children fretful, 
 peevish, and small-minded to cry all their wants and 
 troubles and sorrows into the ears of the Infinite Spirit. 
 But this absurdity is a part of theology, and here is an 
 error, and yet it is a spontaneous, though unwise, 
 expression of the spirit of love and worship by the reli- 
 15 
 
338 MORNING LECTURES. ~ 
 
 gious faculties. Many souls affect to be severely shocked, 
 and their children in Sunday-schools are really shocked, 
 because their theology says the all-beautiful, all- loving, 
 all-embracing Father is particeps criminis to the eternal 
 damnation of nine persons in every ten ! There are 
 civilized ministers in the city of New York to-day, who 
 are (I trust) ashamed to the very heart for ever having 
 believed and taught any such error in religion. And 
 yet there are some persons who affect to believe this 
 stupid error with all their heart — of course that organ 
 cannot be very spacious; and there are ministers who 
 yet preach it with all their heads — the capacity whereof 
 does not excite anybody's astonishment. But, unhappily, 
 they have the power to make mothers believe, and the 
 innocent children whom such mothers send to the Sun- 
 day-schools also believe, that God is a great Baptist, 
 instead of a Presbyterian sprinkler, or that God is a 
 red-hot Methodist instead of an easy-going Quaker, or 
 polite Unitarian. These are the errors that creep into 
 religion. Whether God be a Quaker, or a Sprinkler, 
 or a Plunger, it is of little consequence in the great 
 future of true religion. God is infinite, a spirit, a man, 
 or a tyrant — just what you choose to make him in your 
 seven-by-nine creeds and dogmas. If the whole isle of 
 New York was soft, malleable, and golden clay — if you 
 could move it and shape it into anything that suited 
 your fancy by your hand, you would doubtless under- 
 take to do it, and all the children would follow your 
 example, and thus you and they would begin to make 
 various forms of thought and countless toys out of the 
 universal plastic substance. Your conception of the 
 spirit of God is like that clay. You make all kinds of 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 339 
 
 idols, creeds, and theologies out of the universal plastic 
 substance. The spirit of God, however, being the same 
 everywhere and at all times, is not thrown from its 
 equilibrium by these childish forms and toys made by 
 learned theologians. The tangible and intangible Gods 
 and Jesuses, which are made by the cartload out of 
 theology, do not disturb the Infinite heart, Mother, 
 neither the Infinite mind, Father. In this light, there- 
 fore, theology is' an innocent error. And yet the men 
 of the city of New York have spent money enough, to 
 gratify these foolish idolatries, to give ninety-seven 
 thousand families a comfortable home worth five thou- 
 sand dollars each ! 
 
 The early Jews, who were in many respects, by far 
 the most intelligent people, maintained a distant alle- 
 giance to common sense. They believed in a Jehovah; in 
 one God, in no devil, and in a new Jerusalem. They 
 did not exactly know whether the new Jerusalem would 
 be in this world or in the next. And generally there 
 was a difference of opinion upon these points. The Rab- 
 bis differed widely on many religious questions, but they 
 never concocted any of the monstrous errors of theology 
 which have built modern churches. They had their syna- 
 gogues. Their temples of religion were devoted to the 
 gathering together of the people, so that they might 
 sing and give full expression to their convictions of 
 supernaturalism. They had their shekinahs, their image 
 temples, and their decorated tabernacles ; but their 
 forms were all symbolic and brim-full of spiritual mean- 
 ings. They enjoyed their festivals and glorifications ; 
 it was a pleasant way to pass the time. The same old 
 forms are observed by Jews at this late age of the world. 
 
340 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 The tinsel and paraphernalia of the New York syna- 
 gogues would suit thirty-five hundred years ago. The 
 plan was at first a simple organization of persons, 
 believers in theocracy, for the enjoyment of religion, 
 and not to teach a mythical theology. The first con- 
 ception that formed the basic error in theology, was that 
 man, by an incomprehensible fall, had lost all connection 
 with the Infinite Spirit. Theologians have never tried 
 to reconcile this doctrine with common sense, because it 
 is never necessary in theology to have things reconciled. 
 It is a proud peculiarity of the system to be superna- 
 tural, which is the name for what is absurd and impos- 
 sible. 
 
 Theology began with the assumption that the human 
 race was out of joint with God's will. God is repre- 
 sented as being just as anxious as man was to get out 
 of this state of eternal difference and conflict. It was 
 necessary to turn a fable inside out, and wrong side 
 foremost, in order to fix an explanation of the great 
 quarrel between God and his only two children, which 
 happened in a very small place called Eden. They had 
 willfully diverged from the Infinite Love! Theologians 
 say that God could not help it ! He must be excused 
 for the straying of his two children! He was all 
 benevolence and all wise. He concocted the atonement 
 long before the sin was committed, knowing from the 
 first that Adam and Eve would cut up just the caper 
 they did in the fable. Preparations were accordingly 
 made from the foundations of the world. The remedy 
 was ready to be administered to all who would shut 
 their eyes, open their mouths, ask no questions, and 
 swallow. This is what theologians call the atonement. 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 341 
 
 That is a desperate and most expensive error. It is 
 based on the doctrine that you are totally sinful, or that 
 you are sufficiently sinful to deserve an eternal existence 
 in cheap Brimstone. To recover you from that dilemma, 
 the atonement was prepared. By its provisions you are 
 to be accepted in the kingdom of heaven, and esteemed 
 worthy of that state of existence, on the merits of 
 an innocent man who was made to suffer for sinners. 
 
 Such is the machinery of error in theology. There 
 is nothing of the kingdom of God in it ; there is no reli- 
 gion in it. Many excellent persons suppose that their 
 hope of happiness in the future is annihilated with the 
 overthrow of the atonement. Thousands cling to a 
 shallow error, and suppose that by faith in it, they will 
 be prepared after death to enter upon the joys of the 
 kingdom of peace. But thousands come back from the 
 other life to tell us a very different story. What is 
 necessary to make this atonement universally accepted 
 and efficacious ? There is but one-third of the popula- 
 tion of this globe that has any confidence in or any 
 knowledge whatever of such a supernatural institution 
 as the death of Jesus. Only one person in three of the 
 earth's population— about 370,000,000 out of 1000,- 
 000,000 — know anything about this error of theology. 
 Some have heard it ; some see it in the newspapers. 
 Away off in China the missionaries preach this absurdity 
 of superstition. They do what Bishop Colenso did, 
 teach the theories of theology ; religion, pure and unde- 
 nted, they do not often explain to the heathen. What, 
 we again ask, would make this atonement universal and 
 efficacious ? Reason will have nothing to do with such 
 a theory. " Faith !" Here is the third error which 
 
342 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 follows of necessity the first, which is the " fall," and 
 the second, which is the " atonement. 55 Look at these 
 churches, and look at their ministers. They are, doubt- 
 less, just as earnest in their labors and just as faithful 
 to their convictions as are they who work in a better 
 cause. I am satisfied that, for earnestness and honesty, 
 there is nothing to choose between a Catholic, a Pro- 
 testant, my brother Beecher, or my brother Tyng. They 
 are as honest in their calling, and' as faithful to their 
 internal convictions as are less or more civilized minds. 
 Toward the individuals of the different forms of faith 
 I do not feel any uncharitableness. I do not believe 
 that they are hypocrites and deceivers. Disreputable 
 as the fact may be to their intelligence, they do believe 
 earnestly in the errors of " theology" as well as in the 
 truths of "religion. 55 But theology, and not religion, is 
 the origin of their churches. Their religious hatreds and 
 creedal antagonisms arise from theology. Hence we are 
 " in duty bound 5 ' to oppose the diversal systems of 
 theology as the first step toward the development of 
 true religion. 
 
 Christians, impelled by their theology, and moved 
 by their benevolence and charity, which are the best 
 elements of religion, send off millions of money and 
 hundreds of missionaries to carry a knowledge of 
 " faith" as well as of "sin, 5 ' and of the " atonement, 55 to 
 the heathen. As the person of African descent said : 
 "It is an ill wind that blows nowhar." So this mis- 
 sionary movement: By necessity it carries some items 
 of useful education, somewhat of the impulses of civili- 
 zation, more advanced habits of social life, a few notions 
 about cultivating the soil, new patterns for garments, 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 343 
 
 and several plans for building houses and churches. It 
 carries " glory" and " grog" to the heathen. The mis- 
 sionary work is, therefore, associated, for the most part, 
 with what is good. For these reasons men willingly 
 subscribe their dollars to help the solemn-hearted mis- 
 sionary on his perilous way. Although his theology is 
 of no consequence, you think that possibly there may 
 be something connected with the minister's family which 
 may be useful and ennobling to the savages. But it 
 will not do to say a great deal in that direction. We 
 do not get encouraging reports from travelers. The 
 flattering reports of great works among the heathen 
 come through the religious papers, written by the mis- 
 sionaries themselves. Of course, they give a ministerial 
 report of the missionary work in which they are involved, 
 and to which they have, with great self-sacrifice, con- 
 secrated themselves to carry the " efficacious" errors in 
 religion to the savages of the forest wild. 
 
 What follows faith ? " Regeneration." This is the 
 climax of the theological structure. Look about you in 
 society and see the original characters who have been 
 born nearly two thousand years after this saving (?) 
 theology was started. Who are your chief men at 
 Washington ? Who are they who occupy your highest 
 places to-day? Are they Spiritualists, Reformers, Pro- 
 gressionists—persons who are wholly and unqualifiedly, 
 publicly and privately, opposed to the absurdities of 
 old theology — who have no faith in creeds and cere- 
 monies? No. They are men who are known to be 
 publicly allied to the sectarian churches and to the fol- 
 lies of theology ; but they are not as fully known to be 
 allied to pure and undefiled religion. These public 
 
 r 
 
344 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 men at Washington are, many of them, much advanced 
 in years. Some of them are dead — have you not read 
 their obituaries in the papers-? — in trespasses and sins. 
 The Republicans and Democrats to-day correspond to 
 the publicans and sinners of the olden time. The 
 American government is engineered by persons who 
 openly and shamelessly profess to have adopted all the 
 four errors of theology: "sin," the "atonement," 
 "faith," and " regeneration. " Somebody has been 
 unkind enough to say that I am opposed to " religion." 
 Does it necessarily follow, because a person is opposed 
 to the forms of error in theology, that he is therefore 
 opposed to pure spirituality, and opposed to what is 
 good and true in religion ? Let us discriminate care- 
 fully, lest we be stranded upon this rock of illogical 
 reasoning and wicked prejudice. It is like the passage 
 between Scylla and Charybdis — ignorance on one side, 
 theology on the other. Man must steer his bark, his 
 reason, his intuition, and his character between these 
 ♦dangerous obstructions on either side of the channel, or 
 he will be dashed to pieces. 
 
 Religion, without wisdom, is fanatical. It is a cru- 
 sade of the sepulcher — it worships and fights for a little 
 piece of ground; it sacrifices everything to an idol. 
 The simple-minded and loving-hearted nature loves to 
 appeal to the Infinite Spirit. No person thinks of any 
 form of faith while under the experience of devotional 
 prayer. The spirit enjoys the luxury of contact, as the 
 sense of smell enjoys the special fragrance of a beloved 
 flower. There is little difference between the rapport 
 and the spiritual gratification. When you truly approach 
 the Infinite, you sensibly become part of it. The theory 
 
EXPEN8IVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 345 
 
 of the contact is theology ; the experience of the con- 
 tact is religion. Theology stands off and builds up 
 a system. But when your spirit comes in contact with 
 the spirit of truth, which is the spirit of fraternity and 
 unity, you then know nothing of theological notions. A. 
 grand joy and a loving happiness thrills and fills the 
 whole temple of your spirit. Then you are divinely 
 warm and tender; you feel kindly and sweetly 
 toward all members of the human family. You were 
 vindictive, but you are now forgiving ; you were angu- 
 lar, but you have become harmonious. That is the 
 blessing of God; the fragrance of the Infinite Flower. 
 You now feel that there is nothing in the world as 
 important as pure spirituality. One more step and you 
 become fanatical. You believe devoutly that religion 
 is the chief concern of mortals here below. From this 
 abnormal state it will take but a very slight alteration 
 in your mind to make a religious twaddler or fanatic. 
 
 Because man's spiritual faculties are not the whole, 
 but only a part of his mental structure. Look at these 
 faculties throughout the other parts and windows of the 
 temple. Examine them with your reason. They mean 
 something, do they not? They have a high work to 
 do, else why are they such a superior power? Go into 
 these upper chambers of your spirit, and dwell there for 
 a time. Nothing is more important than the just and 
 complete gratification of the desires of your spiritual 
 faculties. But a religious " revival" is mostly abnor- 
 mal. Methodists frequently experience the fascination 
 and fanaticism thereof. The new convert is too happy 
 to sleep quietly ; she gets out of bed, kneels, and prays ; 
 but she cannot attend to getting the next*morning's 
 )5* 
 
346 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 meal. John, who is not converted, wants to go out 
 early on his farm to work ; but Jane, his wife, has just 
 " got religion," and cannot attend tfl such labors. Of 
 course the potatoes in the pan are burned, and generally 
 things have grown "irreligious" in the house. But 
 John goes out to his work, and Jane goes into her bed. 
 She prays long and devoutly ; then lies down with great 
 exhaustion, and sleeps. Presently she awakes and turns 
 # over the leaves of her Bible. She remembers the min- 
 ister's last text. It is the first sentence that meets her 
 eye ! It seems as though God himself had spoken it to 
 her. It goes right to her heart. Then she remembers 
 the last song that made her heart so joyous, and imme- 
 diately she sets up to sing the heavenly hymn. By this 
 time her excited feelings have made her very weary. 
 John has just come home for supper, and there is the 
 same difficulty. This folly continues about ten days. 
 Thus some families get religion very bad. Now and 
 then these "revivals" are attended with violent symp- 
 toms which subside into imbecility. There is a vast 
 space between pure religion and religious excitement. 
 
 We come now to consider the expensiveness of error in 
 religion. We will confine our remarks to this city, say- 
 ing nothing about the other great cities of superstitious 
 Christendom. In the city of New York alone theolo- 
 gical error has erected 33 Baptist churches, 4 Con- 
 gregational, 22 Dutch Reformed, 18 Jewish Synagogues, 
 7 Lutheran, 35 Methodist Episcopal churches, 5 Afri- 
 can Episcopal churches, 1 Methodist Protestant, 46 
 Presbyterian, 6 United Presbyterians, 56 Protestant 
 Episcopal churches, (the latter being the genteelest of 
 all), 31 Roman Catholic — mother and daughter you see 
 
EXPENSIVENESS OF ERROR IN RELIGION. 347 
 
 close together — miscellaneous additional 20, and among 
 the whole of them we find but three Quaker meet- 
 ing-houses, two Unitarian, and four Universalist 
 churches. 
 
 Therefore we find 284 temples consecrated to error 
 in religion, in New York alone ; net counting any of 
 the churches just over in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and 
 Jersey City. These expensive buildings indicate what 
 theology, or religious error, has erected on the island 
 of Manhattan ! These temples and pagodas must have 
 talented and expensive ministers, and in •addition they 
 have sextons, and they must, (thank heaven !) they must 
 also have choirs. By calculation you will find that the 
 cost of the gas per annum — and there is a great deal of 
 this article used — together with the heat, and sexton's 
 hire, and the excellent music for the churches, amounts 
 yearly to about §500 ; the average amount of all 
 expenses, in all the churches for ministers, &c. is a little 
 over $2000, for each church per year. Now suppose 
 we add up the original cost of all these churches, and 
 combine the interest on this sum with the annual 
 expenses, for thirty years, or a generation. Salaries, 
 gas, fire, sexton, and music, with interest on the first 
 cost, amounts to not less than one million of dollars 
 per annum ; making the aggregate expense of religious 
 error for thirty years in the city of New York more 
 than thirty millions ! Now ask Dr. Spring, or any 
 orthodox gentleman, how many souls have been pro- 
 bably saved in the city of New York during thirty 
 years, and he will shudder. For his theology says 
 that only one soul in ten ever gets within sight of the 
 kingdom of heaven ! 
 
348 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 If homes at the rate of $5000 a piece were* pur- 
 chased for the poor of this continent, and given to them 
 out and out, they would amount to just what New 
 York sectarianism costs once in every thirty years. 
 Thousands of worthy fathers and mothers with their 
 families might thus become proprietors of homes worth 
 each $5000, and virtue and happiness would increase in 
 proportion to such benevolence. Various excesses, 
 intemperance, despair, recklessness, and the thousands 
 of influences that go to make up the vagrants and the 
 criminals of the world, would be utterly prevented by 
 the increase of the benevolence of pure and undefiled 
 religion — leading to physical, spiritual, moral, and 
 intellectual education, and to universal democracy and 
 enrichment. Crime diminishes in proportion as people 
 are lifted above the oppressive forms of poverty. 
 Churches absorb immense amounts of money merely to 
 give shape and form to religious errors, which the 
 believers worship as truths. You know that under 
 such perversities and misappropriations, crime must 
 stalk through New York society, and your police sys- 
 tem must be doubled and trebled as the population 
 increases. 
 
 Mankind must be brought to see that theology is 
 error, and that Religion is " pure and undefiled" and 
 inexpensive ; and that to be more, and to profess less, is 
 fulfilling life's grand objects, and taking a diviner posi- 
 tion in the universe. 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " Open thy soul to God, Man, and talk 
 Through thine unfolded faculties with Him 
 Who never, save through faculties of mind, 
 Spake to the Fathers." 
 
 Portions of the New Testament are opulent with 
 hints of eternal truths. They are parts of the unspeaka- 
 ble harmonies of God and Nature. In the writings of 
 John (chap, xix., v. 2,) there is a beautiful, social, 
 spiritual affirmation, which begins, "In my Father's 
 house. 55 Like a child he speaks of his father's posses- 
 sions in a pleasant and grateful spirit. "In my Father's 
 house there is one immense room — no separate chambers 
 and no compartments — adapted to only one family of 
 one mind and one faith. 55 Does it read so ? No ; but 
 it would suit the orthodox sectarians if the verse were so 
 written. The passage reads thus : " In my Father's 
 house there are many mansions ; if it were not so, I 
 would have told you. 5 ' 
 
 Yes, if there were not "many mansions' 5 in the 
 house of God, the intuitive Nazarene would have known 
 the fact. Multitudinous human hopes and tender aspi- 
 rations have sailed over the river on that beautiful 
 barge — on that mystic affirmation — which, floatiug on 
 
350 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the flowing sea of the olden time, comes very near to 
 our hearts to-day, not valuable because it is laden with 
 priestly authority, but because it comes indorsed by 
 the spiritual discoveries and positive facts of the last 
 fifteen years. 
 
 " In my Father's house there are many mansions ; if 
 it were not so, I would have told you." How tender 
 and beautiful, how simple and true, how childlike and 
 sublime ! The earth is the Land of Winter, of storms 
 and sorrows; but the second sphere is the Summer- 
 Land of repose and infinite blossoming. Many apart- 
 ments in the Summer-Land for different peoples and 
 races of men. Various localities and spheres for dif- 
 ferent inclinations. Provision is made for the com- 
 plete gratification of the diversities of spiritual desires 
 in human character, so that all races and all states of 
 mind will be " at home" in the Father's house which is 
 eternal in the heavens — friendly brotherhoods all, 
 though billions, trillions of leagues apart ! 
 
 Whose heart does not beat in melodious harmony 
 with that beautiful sentiment from the Intuitions of long 
 ago — with that ever dear and lovingly sweet affirmation 
 from the source of positive revelation? It comes clad 
 with the majestic authority in which all truth travels to 
 mankind. It stamps the spirit with an inward con- 
 viction of " eternal reality." 
 
 On this globe there are high mountains yet utter 
 strangers to human footsteps. Those grand old monu- 
 ments of matter, with their tops perpetually cloud- 
 vailed, have been for centuries innumerable unknown to 
 human intelligence and contemplation. Storms are 
 beneath their lofty summits. No man's foot has pressed 
 
WINTER-LA.ND AND ? SUMMER-LAND. 351 
 
 their dizzy hights. The tempests are lower down. So 
 our mariners report of storms on the vast oceans. But 
 down deep in the waters all is still ; high enough in the 
 air, all is calm. The middle ground is where the fierce 
 battles of the elements are fought. The conflicting 
 powers meet and pass each other, never to meet again. 
 Sometimes they meet and fight with such terrible energy 
 as, for the moment, to shake the neighboring earth and 
 cause the bending heavens to tremble as though they 
 were to be rolled together as a scroll. And yet deep 
 enough in the inanimate apartments of the physical 
 world all is still and peaceful ; high enough in the ethe- 
 real space all is equally silent and without commotion. 
 Indeed, so perfectly still is the air above at a certain 
 bight, that the stroke of a hammer on a log's end could 
 be heard from New York to California. The slightest 
 accent of the human voice "could be there heard for 
 hundreds of miles. Persons might converse with the 
 Atlantic between them, in a voice not louder than is 
 usual, if they were high enough up in this ethereal 
 realm. The sun that shines with such glory and splendor, 
 distributing warmth and fertilization over the earth's 
 bosom, playing so sweetly and tenderly with the flow- 
 ers and laughing with the rivers that come flowing 
 down from the mountains, exerts no influence upon this 
 upper sky-region. Go up fifteen to twenty miles, and 
 you find utter night, notwithstanding the noontide glory 
 and blaze of the sun's rays on the face of the earth. 
 The effect of the sun's rays is altogether terrestrial, not 
 atmospherical; that is, the manifestation of its light 
 and warmth is attributable more to mundane than to 
 solar causes. 
 
352 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 The wonders of the physical atmosphere, within the 
 fifty miles, would be a tax upon any one's faith. And 
 yet I ask you to ascend in your thoughts millions and 
 billions of miles beyond our earth's atmosphere. In the 
 physical world you find works and wonders inexpressi- 
 ble. How expressive of the spiritual grandeur and 
 omnipotence of the Infinite Soul ! How can you but be 
 filled with adoration and most glorious contemplations 
 when the celestial truth is brought to your mind, that 
 '• in the Father's house are many mansions." If it were 
 not so, the seers and mediums would have told you. 
 
 Let us think of the physical aspect of the Summer- 
 Land. Many persons have understood me to have said 
 that it is a globe. I do not mean to be so understood. 
 The beautiful Land, as I have frequently seen it, and as 
 many have testified concerning it, is a solid belt of land, 
 or zone, round in form like the tire of a wheel, but it is 
 not a globe — is not spherical nor inhabitable in all 
 directions. Imagine a belt extending above the earth 
 two-thirds of the distance from the sun, and say seventy 
 millions of miles wide. Imagine that belt to be immea- 
 surably larger than the sun's path around Alcyone in 
 the deep of immensity. Suppose this belt to be open at 
 the sides, and filled with worlds and crowned with stars 
 and suns, and overhead and all around a firmament just 
 like these heavens above the earth. Look in that 
 direction and you will see just what you see on earth, 
 only everything further unfolded and more perfect. 
 There is exhibited the perfections of the plans of the 
 infinite temple which here is only fractional and frag- 
 mentaiy. Thus you may somewhat imagine the appear- 
 ance and shape of the Summer-Land. 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 353 
 
 What is called the " Milky Way" is really a belt of 
 suns, and planets, and satellites. There seems also to 
 be branch-fields of stars, setting off sidewise from the 
 body of the belt. Then when the telescope is pointed 
 in certain directions, where the unaided human eye can 
 see nothing, there are developed, first nebulas-cloudy 
 regions ; next, if the telescope be strong enough, like 
 Lord Ross's, it reveals the fact that what were sup- 
 posed to be only star-clouds, are immense fields of stars, 
 suns, and lesser bodies. Those star-fields open here 
 and there and make a vista, and, looking through, there 
 is revealed a black space which no telescope has yet 
 been able to dissolve ; but clairvoyance has made the 
 promise that when the telescopic power is adequate, 
 what now appear to be only empty portions of immensity 
 will v turn out to be as full of those orbs as the great 
 meadow is full of spears of grass. There are large 
 islands of atmosphere between the planets. These air- 
 islands serve as silken cushions (so to say) to keep the 
 rolling planets supplied with electricity and also to pre- 
 vent the friction which would exist were all the spaces 
 occupied with worlds. So that there are really "atmo- 
 spheric islands" (as I am impressed to term them) as well 
 as immeasurable star-systems, in the far-off immensity. 
 
 Now the Summer-Land is in harmony with this 
 physical circle of planets called the " Milky Way." It 
 is a belt, a zone, or girdle, of real, substantial matter. It 
 is beyond the Milky Way only in the sense of its being 
 far-off according to our habits of using language. When 
 liberated at death, we do not move on toward the sun, 
 nor drop downwards into some dreary depth of dark- 
 ness ; we embark on a sidewise voyage, directly above 
 
354 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the southern extremity of our planet, and thence onward 
 until we reach the Summer-Land ! What shore do we 
 gain ? We gain the shore of a land just like this earth, 
 if this earth were a stratified belt composed of the finest 
 possible particles that you can imagine thrown from all 
 the orbs composing the Milky Way. Pulverize and 
 attenuate the finest particles of matter on this earth ; 
 then bring them together in chemical relations ; make 
 them coalesce and form into an immeasurable golden 
 belt with all the visible suns and stars, and you have 
 the Second Sphere in its substance, position, and forma- 
 tion. 
 
 Do you not comprehend that that Land is as sub- 
 stantial to those who* live there as this earth is to its 
 inhabitants ? The proportions and the adaptations are 
 the same. The Summer-Land, so far as the surrounding 
 immensity is concerned, is bounded on all sides by aerial 
 seas. Suppose you should go down to any of those high 
 points of land along the coast, and look off on the 
 watery expanse of the Atlantic ocean. What would you 
 see ? No islands are visible; only an atmosphere over- 
 head ; clouds are floating in the blue sky, and all the 
 rest is water. Now suppose you had never seen, or read, 
 or heard of such a spectacle. What would be your 
 first impression? Your first sensuous impression would 
 be that all the immensity beyond was water, as all 
 above is sky, and that, if you should sail off on that 
 dreary waste, you would be lost utterly to land and to 
 human society. Such, I say, would be your impression 
 or apprehension on the supposition that you had no pre- 
 vious knowledge of any such spectacle in Nature. 
 
 Now imagine yourself standing on one of those 
 
WIXTER-LAXD AND SUMMER-LAND. 355 
 
 shining shores on the margin of the Summer-Land. 
 Looking toward the Earth, and Sun, and Mercury, and 
 Venus, what would you see ? If you were not a far- 
 seeing clairvoyant, but was contemplating with the first 
 opening of your spiritual eyes, you would see an illi- 
 mitable ocean of twinkling stars overhead and zones of 
 golden suns shining, and you would realize a holy, 
 celestial atmosphere, bounding your existence on all 
 sides, and from your feet the departure of an ocean 
 without shore or island, without form, and void of all 
 relations. If, however, your clairvoyant sight was 
 opened — if your spiritual eyes had the light of far- 
 penetrating clairvoyance in them — you would instantly 
 perceive that the aerial ocean, which flows out into 
 infinity from your feet, ripples off and divides into beau- 
 tiful ethereal rivers, and that those rapidly flowing 
 rivers lead away to the planets, even to this Earth, 
 whence you departed, while another river flows onward 
 to Mars, another to Jupiter, another to Saturn, and. 
 other celestial streams to other more distant planets 
 belonging to other systems of suns : and so on, and on, 
 throughout the star-paved regions of the firmament, you 
 would behold, in every imaginable direction, streams 
 running musically down these gentle atmospheric 
 declivities, just as tangibly as the rivers that run down 
 the mountains and flow through the spaces in the 
 rough landscapes of this more material world. 
 
 I wish ! oh how I wish ! that I could picture to you 
 the reality of these musical rivers of the heavenly spaces. 
 They are musical to the ear that can hear them flowing 
 between the constellations. Pythagoras and his school 
 believed in the deathless fi music of the spheres." Did 
 
356 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 not the students of Pythagoras listen to catch that 
 compound symphony ? And was it not this very star- 
 melody which caused them to be such enthusiasts in 
 Music ? Did not some of them in the far-off olden 
 time have clairaudience enough to hear through the 
 physical, and also clairvoyance sufficient to see that "in 
 the Father's house there are many mansions" — many 
 happy and beautiful places — many apartments or spheres 
 of human life— and that these different apartments in 
 the celestial temple were so many local scenes and land- 
 scapes, belonging to the Summer-Land, which breathe 
 eternal harmony throughout infinitude — "the music of 
 the spheres" ? 
 
 Now suppose you were this moment standing on the 
 shining shore of the Summer-Land and looking this way, 
 the out-flowing sea would appear about the same to your 
 sight, without the light of clairvoyance, as would the 
 Atlantic Ocean to the natural eye from the promonto- 
 ries of Nahant. It would, perhaps, at first, be no more 
 of a startling spectacle of incomprehensible sublimity. 
 Very many persons depart every day from this Land of 
 Winter for the Summer-Land. When they are led 
 through the celestial gardens and down by the shining 
 shores, and when they begin to hear the lapping of 
 musical waves as they ripple in.„.from the very remote 
 planets, bringing upon their throbbing, undulating 
 bosoms, new persons who had but just died (left their 
 gross bodies) on those planets— the scene operates upon 
 them (because yet uninitiated) just as though you were 
 to see spirits with beautiful forms suddenly coming from 
 off the water by the seaside, or persons walking and 
 riding upon the surface of the waters at Nahant, or down 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 357 
 
 here on the ocean near the rocky shores of Long Island. 
 I say the first exhibition astonishes them as much as 
 such a novel scene would surprise you of this world. 
 
 I will now relate a true story : A little girl, who 
 had lost her darling playmate, dreamed about the 
 Summer-Land. This sweet little weeping dreamer lived 
 in Boston. I knew her well. Death had taken her 
 beautiful mate away. The funeral procession went by 
 the door of her father's house. Her mother owned a 
 cushioned seat in a fashionable church, and of course 
 the little daughter had a fashionable, religious direction 
 given to her thoughts. What were her thoughts on 
 death ? She thought all of her little mate was put 
 " into the ground" — laid low in the cold, loveless earth ; 
 and that when the insensate gravel, stones, and chilly 
 soil, were thrown from the spades upon the coffin, they 
 covered all that there was of her, and all there would 
 be of her, until that mysterious " trump" would sound 
 in the " resurrection morn/' when Jehovah would call 
 those long-sleeping "jewels" that were particularly his 
 own, to himself. 
 
 Well, little Mattie stood weeping by the front- 
 window as the pageantry went solemnly through the 
 street toward the green retreats of Mount Auburn. She 
 asked her mother wha,t it all meant. Over and over 
 again the mother answered that they were going to bury 
 the little girl " in the ground" ! This seemed to strike 
 Mattie, for the first time, as something horrible to think 
 of. She had, perhaps, never thought seriously of it 
 before; the dread reality of this false view of death 
 never touched her affections till now. She had seen 
 funeral processions ; but this particular funeral went 
 
3'jS morning lectures. 
 
 out of her saddened heart to the silent cemetery. Her 
 mother said that God always did so; it was his own 
 mysterious way. When people die they are put into 
 the ground, then the ground is thrown over them, and 
 the grass and the ages grow over them ; when the time 
 comes, they arise from their long sleep and hasten to 
 God, if they are called; if not — you know the rest of 
 the story. 
 
 Mattie sadly swallowed all this religious error, and 
 shuddered. She was a beautiful girl then — a young 
 lady now. 
 
 Two weeks after that funeral there was a fashiona- 
 ble party in Boston. Mattie received an invitation. 
 Her parents were very rich, and she had gold rings and 
 chains, and many beautiful dresses ; but she now wanted 
 another and a more attractive ring, which she had acci- 
 dentally seen down in Washington street. It was a 
 splendid ornament. She wanted it in time for the 
 party. Her parents shook their heads and opposed 
 her wishes. They said she had so many ornaments, was 
 always so beautifully dressed, and so elegantly and 
 expensively arranged in her person, she ought not to 
 ask for anything more. It was difficult for parental 
 love to deny her, an only child ; but they did, neverthe- 
 less, refuse to purchase the ring.„ 
 
 Disappointed and- grieved, Mattie hastened to her 
 room and thought it over ; and on the second day in the 
 afternoon, as her mother chanced to be looking out of 
 the rear window into the garden, she saw the child 
 working away with a little flower-spade, digging a 
 small, deep hole in the ground. The mother watched 
 for a while, and then went down to her and said, 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 359 
 
 " Mattie, my child, what are you doing ?" Mattie 
 blushed. Already she had deposited in the ground a 
 letter, and was throwing the fresh dirt upon it. She 
 was embarrassed at her mother's question. She feared 
 that she could not quite explain herself. In explanation 
 she at length confessed that she wanted that " letter to 
 go to God." She had secretly written, praying and 
 entreating her heavenly Father to influence her father 
 and mother so that they would consent to buy that 
 beautiful ring for her. Her plan was, to send a letter 
 " through the grave to God." 
 
 Now Mattie got the splendid ring ; but I think she 
 was never quite certain whether it came in consequence 
 of having "buried" the letter or not. She did not then see 
 why a letter could not go to God through the earth. But 
 in the course of the same year little Mattie had impressed 
 upon her mind a beautiful dream. She told it next 
 morning with a full rose in her cheeks and a new light 
 in her eyes. She saw her playmate! She was in a 
 beautiful place, standing by the side of a great silvery 
 sea. The water was shining and twinkling in every 
 part like a lake of white light. She said it seemed that 
 the sun was sending a golden shimmer through the vast 
 space of glittering waters. Mattie described the scene 
 very finely, and said that her playmate was standing up 
 there and sending kisses to her way down that silvery 
 river. She declared that she felt every kiss as it fell 
 upon her lips ! And then she added, " She told me that 
 I need not bury anything to go up there, and that I 
 would myself come there and play with her in that 
 beautiful place." 
 
 Now this little girl knew nothing whatever of the 
 
360 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Summer-Land. I was at that time a great many leagues 
 away ; and her mother, whom I knew, was very cautious 
 to never so much as "whisper" the slightest word 
 favorable to truths of the Harmonial dispensation. 
 
 Visions like Mattie's have been duplicated and tri- 
 plicated over and over throughout this new country. 
 Of course they have been modified and varied in a large 
 variety of ways, but the testimony from different minds 
 is invariably the same — viz.: that there are up there 
 lands, rivers, mansions in the Father's house, temples 
 of beauty in the home of the living God ; that countless 
 people live there as naturally as they do here — with the 
 difference that up there are not the earthly customs, nor 
 this routine of daily fret and fight for physical necessi- 
 ties, neither a continuation of the vexations consequent 
 upon men's spurious desires and appetites. Yes, kisses 
 have been sent down the shining rivers to the lips of 
 many human hearts. 
 
 A little girl in Bridgeport, in 1853 was moved to 
 utter words of wisdom which only an archangel could 
 authorize. She spoke under a celestial afflatus from the 
 Summer-Land. " Fools confound the wise, 55 when the 
 former are under the inspiration of heavenly minds. 
 Thus, sometimes, the most ignorant grow wise in ten 
 brief minutes. All such mediums and spontaneous 
 " sensitives' 5 describe rivers of light ! This is supposed 
 by materialists to be poetry. They are right. It is 
 poetry. In essence all poetry is immutable truth, and 
 essentially false imagination is a philosophical impossi- 
 bility. Take the crudest and most grotesque supersti- 
 tions of the past, and at their deepest heart you will 
 find, if your own ability to discern is deep enough, reve- 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 361 
 
 lations " pure and undefiled" of the realities and inhabit- 
 ants of the Beyond. 
 
 I have frequently called your attention to the 
 naturalness of the Summer-Land. Its reality is among 
 the philosophical discoveries of the present out-folding 
 century. The most ancient Spiritualists, in the very 
 earliest centuries, be it ever remembered, gave inspired 
 sentences, and made intuitive statements, and wrote fine 
 revelations of these same celestial wonders and post- 
 mundane verities. 
 
 Let us now contemplate some of the " Scenes" in the 
 Beautiful Land. Approaching the shining shore upon 
 one of these silvery rivers, that sets out from the southern 
 extremity of this globe, you behold thousands of " Pira- 
 dela," or grottoes and natural temples of clustering 
 foliage, vines, and flowers, closely resembling lace- 
 worked chapels. In these peculiar pagodas, or family 
 prayer-grottoes, you behold persons who still believe in 
 Amraon Ra, the original Egyptian name and conception 
 of the Supreme Being. I have already mentioned that 
 the Egyptians had chosen a star," Guptarion," and that 
 they have long seasons of worship, of joy and festivity, 
 equal to an hundred years of restful Sabbaths, or as 
 long as the star of their choice, Guptarion, shines over 
 that particular portion of the Summer-Land. When 
 the great star (sun) of their destiny sinks out of their 
 Bight, they cease their worshipings and festivities and 
 return to other and less religious interests. They are 
 about the same people they were while living in the 
 valley of the Nile ; only they are now in a higher 
 Egypt, clothed in spiritual bodies. Many of them con- 
 16 
 
362 MORNING LECTURES. i 
 
 tinue their old-time worship just as though they would 
 always remain Egyptians. 
 
 It is marvelous how immobile and persistent are 
 some of the human temperaments! In some races they 
 yield almost nothing in the course of a thousand years. 
 The prevalence of other opinions, other thoughts, and 
 other conceptions, exert no remodeling effect in some 
 minds. 
 
 Now many persons think this statement is unreal. 
 Well, look at the Jews of this generation. Are they 
 not still the Jews that they were eighteen hundred years 
 ago ? The variations and improvements are very slight. 
 The Rabbinites and the Talmudians are the same. Look 
 at their physiognomy, too, and look at the combinations 
 of their characteristics, their inclinations in religion and 
 in trade, and you will find them the same unaltered 
 people. Or, look at the Roman Catholics. You may 
 think that they are greatly modified. No, they arje not. 
 There has scarcely been an alteration in them from the 
 first days of their faith. Those who come to this coun- 
 try, are occasionally modified by Protestant influences. 
 But the great Catholic establishment is characterized 
 by a constitutional immobility. It is based in the fixed 
 temperaments of those peculiar minds who belong to it. 
 Protestants still revert to the Catholic Church. Such 
 minds belong to the sphere of authority. They believe 
 in religious system, and they seek and find it in the 
 original establishment. They believe that Protestant- 
 ism is all afloat; that there must be some " ty'ing-up 
 place," or there will come chaos and destruction in 
 morals and religion. Such persons need some place of 
 discipline and worship where they can " hire their 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAM). 363 
 
 thinking done for them," according to-authority extend- 
 ing backward over centuries to holy Saints and holy 
 Fathers whom no Protestant ever undertakes to impeach. 
 In this way this state of mind becomes fixed and im- 
 mobile. 
 
 Now suppose such a person should die: what is the 
 next step ? Are such minds instantly changed ? Are 
 they ever suddenly re-molded from within ? True, they 
 are changed from a natural body into a spiritual body 
 in " the twinkling of an eye." But are tfrey not the 
 same persons, with the same education, and influenced 
 by their long-accustomed thoughts ? Many such after 
 death still believe that somewhere, beyond the bright 
 fields of beauty, and even beyond the trials of purgatory, 
 they will find the burning pit. They frequently think 
 that if they should walk off but a few hundred leagues, 
 they would find something worse than purgatory. They 
 naturally enough understand that they are in purga- 
 tory, and thus the fact dawns slowly upon them, that 
 they are in their appropriate private places, and are 
 receiving the just discipline of Progress in the moral 
 government of God. 
 
 So these ancient Egyptians, born in the valley of 
 the Nile — strange children of a strange, sandy, symbolic 
 country — erect countless little " pyrainidalia," or tem- 
 ples of festivity and worship, dedicated to their long- 
 chosen planet Sirius — sometimes called the dog-star ; 
 but up there they name it " Guptarion" — a large sun in 
 the distant heavens, which our astronomers call a "star 
 of the first magnitude." It rises and sets in the firma- 
 ment over the Summer-Land once in twenty-seven of 
 our centuries ! Suppose a bright orb about one-tenth 
 
364 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 of the apparent size of our sun, rising and shedding its 
 rays over a particular portion of the Beautiful World, 
 and you get a conception of the star of destiny in the 
 Egyptian Brotherhood. The pyramidalia are natural 
 vine-draped grottoes grouped along the shore of a deep 
 river that branches from the one which flows thither 
 from our globe. 
 
 You will keep in memory how this earth of ours 
 sends off its main celestial river which flows off south- 
 wardly in the upper air, and which, being a magnetic 
 combination of imponderable elements, ascends very 
 gracefully in the channel of its flight, terminating and 
 mingling with the silvery sea that bounds the Summer- 
 Land. The planet-rivers flow through the vast expanse 
 of sea as the Gulf Stream flows through the Atlantic 
 Ocean. Thus through this vast celestial sea of mag- 
 netic atmosphere the planetary streams flow directly to 
 the shining shores of the Summer-Land ; but nearest to 
 that shore which is nearest the earth, and along the 
 inland lake called " Mornia," which is filled with 
 attractive islands, you will find these embowered chap- 
 els and prayer-grottoes of the Egyptians. 
 
 In 1853 I was enabled for the first time to see 
 them. I continued to investigate and to make inquiries 
 until I got at the motive for the cultivation and con- 
 tinuation of these pyramidalia. They said that those 
 fragrant floral structures are little statuettes, or minia- 
 ture pyramids, dedicated to the celebrated dog-star, 
 Sirius, or " Guptarion," being the accredited home of 
 Ammon Ra. 
 
 I seem to be impressed with the desire to urge upon 
 your understanding the entire naturalness of the next 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 365 
 
 state of human existence. It seems desirable that you 
 should see that the inhabitants there live in harmonious 
 accord with each other, because of the omniscient sys- 
 tem which is adapted to the infinite varieties of human 
 character and consequent diversities of destiny. When 
 you arrive there — and you may embark thither before 
 the end of this year — you will not be a stranger, for 
 you will have cultivated some prescience of the " house" 
 constructed with different " mansions." 
 
 Have you not had fore-gleams and intuitions of what 
 I now relate ? Have you never had thoughts or impres- 
 sions — in your dreams and visions of the night — of 
 floating or flying through the air ? If the thousands of 
 seeresses and clairvoyants and true dreamers could rise 
 up to-day and relate their " experiences," I should have 
 unimpeachable accumulative testimony, sufficient to over- 
 whelm all the skeptical clergymen and logical lawyers 
 in the wide world. 
 
 You occasionally read the New Testament, do you 
 not? I suppose that you believe somewhat in the 
 Pentecostal experience which is therein recorded. It 
 seemed that, in that joyful day, they all arose from their 
 seats — and then what ? They spoke in " unknown 
 tongues" ! Of course unknown tongues were»tongues not 
 understood. The manifestation must have been gib- 
 berish and fanatical to those who witnessed and 
 recorded the circumstances. 
 
 Suppose that in these days there should be a public 
 repetition of that ancient spiritual " experience." In- 
 stantly some mediums would begin to discourse in Per- 
 sian, others in Indian, others in Chinese, others in 
 Japanese, others in Latin, others in Greek — would it 
 
366 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 not be " all Greek" to the most of us, and more espe- 
 cially to spectators and non-sympathizing minds ? What 
 would we say ? And what would the people say ? This: 
 "Give us something that we can all understand." Yes, 
 that would be the popular demand. But just step back 
 into the New Testament and read the statement over 
 again. In Pentecostal times or seasons there was "a 
 general uprising or condescension of the celestial spirit.* 
 " The spirit of the Lord" was poured out without stint. 
 Of course you know {hat every sweet or powerful influ- 
 ence from the firmament was called the " spirit of the 
 Lord." Influences from the concentrated minds of 
 millions in the Summer-Land could cause the largest 
 human audience to rise to their feet in an instant. Then 
 would occur manifestations according to individual gifts. 
 Some would exercise the magnetic power and make 
 passes over the sick ; others would hasten off on sweet 
 missions of mercy ; some would declaim in unknown 
 tongues ; while others would fall prostrate and swoon 
 into a trance, and physicians would say, " Oh, that is 
 only excitement and hysteria." And all this would be 
 analogous — identical — with what you so reverently read 
 in your Testament. Now if this Bible statement be 
 true, it is interesting and applicable to us only just so 
 far as it is known and corroborated by spiritual expe- 
 rience in the manifestations of these days. 
 
 If modern minds were consulted, many would say, 
 " we have seen something of what you relate." " In the 
 visions of the night, when deep sleep cometh upon men," 
 many a sensitive soul would say, "I have seen beauti- 
 ful landscapes." These visions come and depart sud- 
 denly. Sometimes, indeed, they are nothing but the 
 
winter-land and summer-land. 367 
 
 play of a fertile ideality ; but in most instances they are 
 real glimpses of scenes in the Summer-Land. True, you 
 might imagine a tree to be where there is no tree : but 
 your ideality obtained its first lesson from seeing a tree 
 which was real. One man may be able to imagine in 
 his dreams just what another man cannot imagine with- 
 out first seeing. So that the one man would have an 
 actual objective experience, and the other only an ideal 
 subjective experience. And it is philosophical that 
 there should first be an object outside to impress the 
 surfaces of the mind with a correct notion of its exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Certain constituted minds go into the " superior 
 state" in the natural slumber of the night, and never 
 during their ordinary and waking condition. Never, 
 during the day, can such minds be quiet enough. But 
 at night, when all is very still, then the sensitive mind 
 and soul for the first time have an opportunity to realize 
 a sort of independence of material surroundings, then 
 the person's spirit rises up from beneath and attains to 
 a finer state of thought and feeling. This higher con- 
 ception of spirit-life comes through a vision. But when 
 morning comes, and the business of the world is' 
 resumed, the dream may not remain to cheer the weary 
 heart. But if the same person should enter a corre- 
 sponding state, even if it be after the lapse of weeks or 
 months, the mind will instantly revert to and go on with 
 the corresponding previous experience. The long time 
 which may have elapsed between the two experiences, 
 does not break the chain. To the spirit, years seem 
 like fleeting moments; for spirit, you will remember, 
 
 " Lives in deeds, not years ; 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial." 
 
368 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 The spirit realizes no time between an experience of ten 
 years ago and a corresponding experience of last night 
 or to-day. 
 
 Once I stood, while in the clairvoyant state, by the 
 overwhelmed brain of a large man in an apoplectic fit. I 
 examined him both physically and spiritually. I watched 
 by his bedside until he recovered from the apoplexy. 
 Being in clairvoyance, I saw the working of his spirit, 
 and could easily understand the state of his mind. He 
 had, in the midst of his sufferings, a clear and truthful 
 vision of the Summer-Land ! When he recovered from 
 the fit and came out of " the state," he knew nothing of 
 what had happened. And I too, at that time, when I 
 came out of the magnetic state, did not recollect what 
 I had seen. (I remember everything now.) In the 
 clairvoyant state, subsequently, I examined him a second 
 time. He was then in a deep coma. I plainly saw 
 what he was seeing, and might have felt what he was 
 feeling. His mind was connecting the experience of 
 six months previous with his present vision. He saw 
 his heart's own happy companion — the loved wife who 
 had gone before him — coming to welcome his spirit up 
 the shining way. He saw the beauty of her coming, 
 and I saw the beauty of her coming. The doctor put 
 his ear down to the sick man's mouth to catch his 
 whisperings. A joyful thought tried to gain utterance 
 through his paralyzed physical organs. He wanted to 
 tell his vision. But in a few moments he passed into 
 the Summer-Land. Before he went he did not realize 
 the six months which had intervened between his first 
 and second vision of the silvery rivers and the scenes of 
 immortal beauty. 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 369 
 
 A traveler may suddenly turn a corner in a new 
 road and see a house and bridge before him, a few 
 trees, a stream pouring through the grassy meadow,, and 
 some farm-houses in the distance, and, though the road 
 and the country are really new to him, somehow the 
 whole scene is familiar to his eyes. He knows that he 
 never saw it with his physical eyes before, and yet he 
 is not surprised. He is surprised only when he realizes 
 that he was never in that region before. Now I find 
 that the picture of that scene was perfectly transferred 
 to the sensitive canvas of his faculties while his body 
 was in a deep sleep in the night-time. While in your 
 " superior state," your spirit takes on its impressions of 
 distant objects and scenery. This experience has misled 
 many into the hypothesis of pre-existence. 
 
 So the life of the spirit is natural. Your spirit does 
 not realize any difference in feeling, whether you are 
 dreaming or in a state of wakefulness. You travel 
 about in the sleep-state just the same as though you 
 were awake and in open day. You visit people, you go 
 into houses, you cross rivers, or take a long voyage, 
 just as satisfactorily as though you had your physical 
 body around you. Now this experience arises from a 
 projection of your consciousness into the open world 
 about you. This will explain the wondrous phenomena 
 of the whole interior life. It 'may not explain the pri- 
 vate double-consciousness of some persons. One mind 
 may see a real tree, another mind may imagine a tree 
 to be where no tree is ; but the latter is a subject of 
 impression in which a tree is involved. 
 
 Some peculiarly organized minds have the most hor- 
 rible dreams. Such dreams are reflections from the 
 
370 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 structure and state of their minds. And there are per- 
 sons who live rightly and abstemiously, who also have 
 horrible dreams. Why is this ? Because they have not 
 yet outgrown or overcome the influences from the tem- 
 peraments of their ancestors. They are representatives 
 of branches of temperamental roots, which go far back 
 and down in the ancestral soil. They still vibrate and 
 pulsate in the living generations. This fully accounts 
 for the " night thoughts" of many who are pure and 
 beautiful, and who think beautiful thoughts during the 
 daytime. These same persons sometimes dream the 
 most repulsive dreams. Ancestors predominate in their 
 personal consciousness, and they have not will-power 
 sufficient to keep down the rising hereditary impressions, 
 especially during the less guarded hours of slumber. 
 
 -Already I have said something concerning the 
 " battle between the spirit and its circumstances," 
 showing how all may acquire the power of conquering 
 the unpleasant inheritance from their ancestors. I have 
 somewhat conquered the discordant temperaments of 
 my ancestors. (I do not know who they remotely 
 were, and I am not anxious to know.) I have a fair- 
 minded, honorable father yet in this world, and I know 
 that I had a true, and sweet, and beautiful, and saintly 
 mother, who now resides in a celestial community. But 
 there were certain hereditary influences and predispo- 
 sitions which I found absolutely in my spirit's way. 
 Those inheritances stood sternly up in my presence some- 
 times when I wished most to be utterly quiet. When 
 I would gather spiritual strength and restore my 
 exhausted physical powers, then up would come some 
 hereditary " imp of darkness," who would propose to 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 371 
 
 carry me into discordant thoughts and scenes. At such 
 times I would dream that I was where strange, mur- 
 derous-looking people were secreting themselves in 
 dark passages, or some other equally unpleasant dream- 
 ing. It has been so with some of you. You need not 
 claim that you have always had harmonious, splendid, 
 and attractive dreams. Human nature is organized on 
 identical principles. And the action of the human 
 faculties, under a given set of circumstances, is the 
 same, and the experiences arising from such action is 
 the same in all structures of mind. 
 
 Some men think there is essential truth in astrology. 
 Well, I once visited an astrologer, with a desire to test 
 the possibilities of destiny. A distinguished professor 
 described to me the influences of the several stars. He 
 drew my horoscope, according to the day and hour of 
 my birth, and then went on to tell when I was sick, or 
 when I should have been ; that- certain planets were my 
 ruling stars, both for weal and for woe ; and that when 
 certain planets came into conjunction with the body of 
 Mars, <fec, that certain things would be likely to happen 
 to me— whereupon I concluded that I would not be 
 steered in my individual career by the stars, and I have 
 not been. The very star that was astrologically fixed to 
 rule my private destiny I forthwith put out of my house. 
 I would not have a star intercepting the orbit of my 
 individuality. Therefore the events that astrologically 
 were to happen to me, have not occurred in the slightest 
 degree. 
 
 Thus I teach you self-possession, although I believe 
 that every great soul will best succeed by steering and 
 steadying himself by the stars. Keep down the disa- 
 
372 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 greeable which you have received from your ancestors. 
 Prune away among your roots and branches. Expei 
 old discords from your minds, and you will then have 
 the satisfaction of knowing that your dreams are at 
 least your own. And from this starting-point you can 
 go right onward 4;o solid facts in your mental opera- 
 tions. 
 
 What is important to the speedy accomplishment -of 
 this result ? First of all, physiology : correct habits of 
 eating, drinking, working, and resting. If you eat 
 this, that, and the other thing, it will, to some extent, 
 appear in your nervous force. Wrong conditions in 
 your nervo-vital energies will, induce your faculties to 
 produce unpleasant dreams. As soon as you know what 
 is obstructional, you can and ought to remove it. My 
 investigations are all between six o'clock in the morn- 
 ing and twelve o'clock of the day. At night I do not 
 dream. I sleep then. If there are any persons present, 
 who, as witnesses, heard the lectures given in " Nature's 
 Divine Revelations," they will remember that though 
 three or four days might have intervened between two 
 discourses, yet sometimes the first words would finish a 
 sentence which perhaps was left incomplete at the end 
 of the previous lecture, and the thought would be thus 
 fully expressed — showing that the spirit keeps no 
 account of time, but takes cognizance only of events, 
 feelings, thoughts, ideas, and principles. 
 
 Many have seen the places and the scenes which I 
 have been describing. I hear mediums mention spiritual 
 things and describe scenery, and I recognize them as 
 things and scenes which I have seen. If a man tells 
 you that he saw Central Park, and that he entered at a 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 373 
 
 certain gate, which he truthfully describes, then you 
 say, " That is true, for I have seen it myself." In like 
 manner I have had convincing testimony that others 
 have seen the Summer-Land. 
 
 Auloania is the name of the island which was ages 
 ago dedicated to those Greeks who steadfastly believe 
 in many Gods — the polytheists. Auloania is still devoted 
 to poetry, rhetoric, history, the ode, and to music. The 
 winding, dancing, silvery river, which flows around this 
 island, is named Sil-Miral, meaning a hymn, or an 
 anthem. It sings songs like pine trees. In certain 
 seasons, or under the influence of certain breezes, it 
 gives off hymnal melody — rich, varied harmonies, and 
 asolian. mournful symphonies. Myriads of song-birds 
 live and sing in that region, as the birds live and sing 
 on earth when the warm days of spring come o'er 
 mountain and plain. The birds, of highest beauty, by 
 thousands enter into the aeolian symphonies and mourn- 
 ful melodies of the beautiful Sil-Miral. 
 
 Vivium is the name of a golden, fountainous spring, 
 on the island of Auloania. I have seen it many times. 
 You will see it in some of your spiritual dreams. Put 
 down the errors in the temperaments inherited from 
 your ancestors. Become natural, and substantial, and 
 wholly yourself. You cannot enter the " superior 
 state 5 ' by any way less straight. Become healthy in 
 your inmost; then you will see the Summer-Land in 
 visions of the night. You read in your religious book 
 about " the Dayspring from on high," and you think it 
 <4s a beautiful figure of speech. But I find that there is 
 something corresponding tt) it in the fields and islands 
 surrounding the house with many mansions. Suppose 
 
374 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 I should say that " Innocence is represented by a lamb." 
 Now you read about the " Lamb of God;" but is there 
 not also an animal known as a lamb? And in like 
 manner may not the fountainous Vivium-r— the dayspring 
 on high — be something more than a mere figure of 
 speech ? Has not every figurative expression a cor- 
 responding literal side? 
 
 The scenes of the Second Sphere are reflected upon 
 the human mind whenever it is accessible and impressi- 
 ble. It is accomplished either by our own clairvoyant 
 powers to rise into sight and sympathy with them, or 
 else by the artistic pencilings upon our faculties by 
 those who are our invisible guardians. They either do 
 it for us, or else they kindly clear the celestial way, so 
 that our own impressibility may invite and secure the 
 picture. 
 
 I would now like to tell you about the Elgario, as 
 they call the plant of sorrow. In the Summer-Land 
 there are melancholy characters, who seem disposed to 
 remember and dwell upon the exceedingly hard times 
 they experienced on the earth. They look like very 
 badly abused people ; were not appreciated before 
 death, and are not happy. They are downcast and sad 
 for a while, being indulgent of feelings of melancholy, 
 like certain unfortunates in our lunatic asylums. But 
 this wondrous celestial plant, which the botanists of 
 that region call JElgario, is their sweet medicine and 
 perfect antidote. The sad ones are led to it. They 
 soon begin to inhale its fragrance. They breathe its 
 atmosphere. They chew it a little every day. They 
 soon know this flower is for t&e healing of God's heart- 
 stricken children. They carry its petals and are 
 
WINTER-LAND AND SUMMER-LAND. 375 
 
 influenced by them. The plant exerts a mystic charm. 
 They make bouquets of it, and it relieves them of their 
 earthborn mishaps and long-cherished sorrows. 
 
 Is not this revelation also natural, beautiful, and 
 simple? Your gifted guardian will bring the Elgario 
 to you and say : " Take this, my beloved; smell of its 
 holy breath ; its odor will quickly relieve your aching 
 heart." Why, a homeopathic physician, when treating 
 a patient for a disease in the throat or lungs, may, 
 perhaps, wish to administer phosphorus. He knows 
 that the odor of phosphorus will sometimes relieve a 
 severe stricture. Thus the higher physicians hand 
 forth this beautiful plant to spirits depressed with 
 earth-born errors and misfortune. They give it to 
 their patients, and lo ! its odor heals and translates 
 them into a healthy, happy, and comparatively superior 
 state. 
 
 Thus sometimes beautiful " births" take place — 
 births out of states of confirmed despondency. A 
 mother, for example, in order to feed and clothe her 
 children, has been overworked. She has literally 
 worked herself to death for the sake of her dependent 
 family. She at last died from excessive bodily fatigue 
 and heart-broken weariness. She is borne away on 
 the silvery river to the Summer-Land ; but she is still 
 weary ! This beautiful plant is brought to her, or she 
 is conducted to the garden that is filled with it. 
 Gradually it lifts her into her " superior state." After 
 a time she realizes somewhat of heavenly co'infort, sweet 
 and pure ; and in the flow of the ensuing seasons, she 
 begins to believe that 
 
376 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 " There is a land of pure delight, 
 Where saints immortal reign ; 
 Eternal day excludes the night, 
 And pleasures banish pain." 
 
 From her refreshened memory she says, " I used to 
 sing that song, when I was a girl, in the Methodist 
 Sunday-school, and in our Bible-class meetings. Then 
 it was only words; now it is all so real. 55 She looks 
 about and sees her old neighborhood acquaintances and 
 loved friends. She finds them in the " Father's house,' 5 
 where there are " many mansions. 55 If it were not so, 
 the seers would have told you. 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER- 
 LAND. 
 
 " Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like 
 A new-born star, that drops into its place, 
 And which once circling in its placid round, 
 Not all the tumult of the earth can shake/' 
 
 The several languages called " dead" in this world, 
 have certain roots which push themselves vigorously up 
 through the memory-soils of the human mind and con- 
 tinue to bear fruit after death. Thus the Hebrews, 
 Arabians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Grecians, 
 Komans, Celts, even the Scots and Picts, and various 
 other smaller tribes and semi-nations, continue for a 
 long time to to speak the educational language of their 
 earth-life, and to cherish thoughts that flow through 
 such verbiage ; and often when such spirits have sought 
 to communicate with impressible or congenial persons 
 on the earth, they have succeeded in controlling medi- 
 ums, so that the communication would be imparted in 
 their native tongue. The celebrated Professor Buchanan, 
 of Cincinnati, testifies that he heard in the City of 
 Cleveland, ten years ago, an uneducated American 
 lady discourse finely in French. And it was reported 
 that Mr. Selden J. Finney, in the same city, and, I 
 
378 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 believe, on the same occasion, uttered a glorious poem 
 in the Indian language, which, it was said, was per- 
 fectly well understood by an Indian who chanced to be 
 present. 
 
 I know how most people feel and think with refer- 
 ence to these trans-terrestrial questions — that after 
 death" all is different with the individual." There 
 never was a greater mistake. You might as well 
 suppose that Mother-nature, and God-nature, and Man- 
 nature undergo radical transmigrations and recon- 
 structions. Quite otherwise. There are no essential 
 changes in the plan of ultimates. The final type of 
 organization, remember, is the spiritual interior of Man 
 and Woman. Both reason and intuition sustain the 
 doctrine of no central change after death/ The Bible 
 says : " As a tree falleth, so it lieth." That is, an oak 
 tree does not become a peach, a birch, or a mahogany, 
 the moment it falls. It is an oak tree still. Even so 
 if man's body falls, in sympathy with the chemistry and 
 gravitation of the physical word, the spiritual man does 
 not fall with it. Only the external casing is peeled off 
 and rejected, while the personal-inmost, who thought 
 and spoke and acted before, goes onward, unchanged 
 and individualized, to the Summer-Land. 
 
 It is the lesson of the naturalness of the After-life, 
 which the mind must fully conceive in order to realize 
 that the other world is really a " home in the heavens." 
 Earthlings will not be orphans or strangers there. I 
 must know and recognize my acquaintances, and they 
 must know and recognize me, a hundred, a thousand, a 
 million years from this, yea, an eternity hence, or immor- 
 tality is nothing. The cessation of leading personal 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 379 
 
 peculiarities and the reconstruction or abolishment of 
 the essential traits of the individual organization — the 
 mergement of the person at death from substantiality 
 into a vapory, gauzy, ghostly inhabitant of the kingdom 
 of heaven, there to dwell and sing and adore forever 
 in the presence of the wifeless Trinity — is a supposition 
 too absurd to occupy intelligent minds, being a concep- 
 tion eminently suited to the brainless cranium of old- 
 time orthodoxy. And yet there are ministers who seem 
 to pride themselves upon their profound ignorance on 
 this subject, saying : « It is an unlawful mystery ; it is 
 supernatural." In other things those same pulpitarians 
 are just as sensible as fellow-sinners in general. But 
 come to this subject, and forthwith, with a slam, the 
 gate of investigation is shut, and you are driven to the 
 authoritarian's " faith," which they invariably present 
 as the best antidote for heart-bereavements and spiritual 
 prostrations. 
 
 Now the after-existence opens before us as a con- 
 tinuation of individual progression. Instead of being a 
 " discrete degree," as Swedenborg describes it, it is 
 seen to be another mansion, another story, in the same 
 house " eternal in the heavens." The heavens are not 
 remote. The earth itself is situated and rolling noise- 
 lessly "in the heavens." Do you not know that it 
 travels from January to July about ninety-seven millions 
 of miles, and directly through " the heavens" ? Else 
 how could the earth move in its path around the sun ? 
 You see, therefore, that the earth itself is " in the 
 heavens" ; and, reversely, that " the heavens" are about 
 the earth. We float at the rate of sixty-four thousand 
 miles an hour round the sun, which is not more really 
 
380 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 in " the heavens. 55 Now, I affirm that the Summer- 
 Land is no more " in the heavens 55 than is our sun or 
 this earth on which we at present reside. 
 
 The mind of man is stationed over his visceral 
 organs, which are immersed in darkness within the 
 physical body. But there is a constant communication 
 kept up between all parts of his body and his sensorium. 
 Consequently the mental person who resides in the 
 upper parts of the brain is omnipresent through the 
 physical organs and sensations. In like manner*, the 
 Second Sphere is so situated with reference to this earth, 
 that we, its . inhabitants, float under the constant 
 inspection of its population. This earth is analogous to 
 a ponderous organ in the perfect and symmetrical 
 anatomy of the stars. I think you will agree that this 
 planet of ours may be, in general analogy, an " organ 55 
 in the physiology of the sidereal system ; and that the 
 celestial brain, which is the Summer-Land, caps and 
 coronates all these different planets, just as the mind 
 of man covers and crowns the different organs within 
 the trunk. 
 
 Earthly languages, perfected, carried out to their 
 ultimates, and simplified to a fine, beautiful orthogra- 
 phy, become the language of the other Sphere. But . 
 education still sways the mind and thoughts. Suppose 
 your affections are wrapped up with expressions peculiar 
 to the German language, then, on reaching the higher 
 Land, your memory (which is a spiritual organ,) holds 
 not the English language, nor have you attachments for 
 any other save that in which you were primarily edu- 
 cated. So true is this, that persons who had been in 
 the habit of using " profane language, 55 as it is called. 
 
1 
 
 LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 381 
 
 find themselves over-accustomed to expressing their 
 thoughts and emotions through those worthless viaducts 
 and conveyances; and such habits become serious impedi- 
 ments and obstructions to progress, jus.t as in this world, 
 when the coarse, vulgar-word speakers would enter 
 refined society, they meet embarrassment because they 
 cannot use profane language with their customary free- 
 dom. If they use it constantly among ignorant men, 
 they find themselves, when among educated persons, in a 
 state of nervous trepidation lest the next moment they 
 may stumble into the use of an oath. When thrown a 
 little off their balance, they will involuntarily show that 
 they are accustomed to very improper and very disa- 
 greeable words. This you know is true in this world. 
 
 Now look into k the Summer-Land, and you will find 
 that the memory of many is checked when they come 
 into the presence of finer and more educated organiza- 
 tions. There is a tendency, even after death, to indulge 
 in those mental habits in which the individual has been 
 most strongly educated. Thus, the first form of speech 
 is that which the person most used on earth. A friend, 
 who recently died in the Union Army, took the first 
 opportunity to make himself manifest, and expressed his 
 thoughts in the peculiar language which he had been 
 accustomed to use all the years before he went. 
 Although he was situated in finer circumstances, and 
 influenced by the example of finer associates, still his 
 thoughts flowed along in their accustomed channels 
 of conversation. His thoughts were finer and higher ; 
 but they came down through the old verbiage. 
 
 The second language used in the higher world is the 
 language of Music. The spirit of this language is sepa- 
 
382 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 rated from the educational tendencies of the different 
 races. The language of Music is employed in the teach- 
 ing of what we call " Science." The truths of science, 
 the beauties of science, and very high and glorious les- 
 sons in celestial principles, are communicated by means 
 of symphonies, melodies, songs, hymns, anthems, and 
 chants. Hence the impression that heaven is a place of 
 eternal song! This wondrous music fills the whole 
 heavens and awakens echoes among the distant planets; 
 so that, when the stars are touched and summoned to 
 enter the orchestra and make the magnificent chorus 
 full, then the very earth itself seems to vibrate respon- 
 sively to that grand harmonious beat, which converts 
 the universe into a harp of infinite perfection ! 
 
 The third language used in the higher world is 
 what we here call " the language of the Heart." It is, 
 more properly speaking, the language of emanation. 
 Every private affection throws out an atmosphere. 
 Whatever your predominating love may be, it emits an 
 atmosphere which winds itself about your person. And 
 when the temperament is fine, sensitive, and susceptible, 
 the odor and influence will correspond. If the indi- 
 vidual is the victim of an inverted love — a iove turned 
 out of its pure, native channel — he throws out upon you 
 a coarse, vicious atmosphere, which in these days is 
 called a " magnetic influence." Mediums, sensitives, and 
 clairvoyants see it, and many persons not so gifted, /eeZ 
 it, and they know not whence or why. " That person 
 gives off a peculiar influence," you say ; " I feel it." It 
 depresses you ; or, it makes you angry. Another per- 
 son makes you feel "cheerful" and "happy" and "joy- 
 ous;"' and you are physically quieted or spiritually 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 383 
 
 aroused by mere contact with these more exalted cha- 
 racters. 
 
 In the Summer-Land this " language of the heart" 
 is carried to an inconceivable degree qt perfection. For 
 instance, suppose you and your brother, or you and 
 your sister, should meet — you who have not met for 
 long, lonely years. If you have outgrown the necessity 
 of external speech, and if you have been taught through 
 the mysterious suggestiveness of pure Music, you then 
 deepen into the language of impersonal and perfect 
 Love ! In the higher Spheres such language is alone the 
 medium of communication. It is the language of abso- 
 lute contact of personal love-atmospheres; by which is 
 meant that two persons, meeting face to face, meet also 
 heart to heart, and are forever friends. On earth it is 
 but the hands, or eyes, or lips, that touch and speak. 
 There, it is the indescribably sweet and perfect meeting 
 of soul with soul. They thus inhale and thoroughly 
 understand each other. For the first time there sweeps 
 through the gladdened heart the eminent satisfaction 
 of receiving perfect appreciation through the deathless 
 wisdom of a brother, a sister, or a companion. Your 
 most secret history is wordlessly told and forever 
 known ; the details of your earth-life appreciated, and 
 with all their innumerable bearings upon the shape of 
 your character; and so, too, are comprehended all the 
 steps that have brought you to that position in the upper 
 existence ; so that the " communion" which takes place 
 at that time extends through all the years, days, hours, 
 events, and moments of your terrestrial pilgrimage. 
 The delightfulness of this conjunction constitutes the 
 beautiful, glorious happiness which diversifies, gladdens, 
 and exalts the inhabitants of the Spheres. 
 
384 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 This interior, unspeakable language, is sometimes 
 called ;; the language of Communion" — the unutterable 
 speech of the immortals — which poets try in vain to 
 reach and express ; which Music, with its unsearchable 
 attributes and great powers, very nearly approaches. 
 When your love is warmest and deepest, when you meet 
 it in another, or when it meets you, then you catch the 
 rudiments of this infinitely finer, this inexpressibly 
 beautiful, this trans-mundane, this celestial, this heart- 
 emanational conversation, which is so divinely-blissful, 
 so spiritually-refreshing, and so exalting to all who 
 dwell under its blessings in thq Summer-Land. Let it 
 be once more affirmed that words are not the most elo- 
 quent expressions of the Soul. There is no joy so intense 
 as that which sparkles in the eye and crimsons the 
 cheek, yet refuses the aid of the voice ; there is also 
 " no grief like that which does^iot speak." Where the 
 heart has a tale to tell, how poor are the utterances of 
 the lips ! Need we these ever to tell us that we are 
 loved ? Is there not something in arbitrary signs that 
 breaks the spell of our sweetest feelings ? There is a 
 mental electricity more mysterious far than the subtile 
 fluid that thrills through material substances. Its con- 
 ductors are the soft light of the human eye, the smile 
 of the human lip, the tone of a subdued and earnest 
 voice. Pleasant, indeed, is the solitude that is broken 
 only by this silent speech. 
 
 Concerning Traveling in the Summer-Land. Travel- 
 ing there is, at first, just what it is here. Arrived, we 
 use our legs and feet ; we see with our eyes ; hear with 
 our ears ; and we also touch, and smell, and taste 
 things, just as the very young child does on being intro- 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 385 
 
 duced into this world. The mind of every one is 
 interested at first in what is most external, and yet, 
 what is called "external" there, is here even too deep 
 for mankind's comprehension at the present time. When 
 arrived there, you find yourself in possession of higher 
 senses, in every respect similar to these, and with the 
 same attributes and faculties, only more susceptible, and 
 with the essential habits and inclinations of your cha- 
 racter even more active. These all begin to call for their 
 complete gratification. They lead you along the vernal 
 margins of musical waters, or you traverse different beau- 
 tiful fields, or away you go on attractive excursions — all 
 in accordance with the most powerful necessities of the 
 ever-active, never-dying, always youthful spirit. Now 
 and then you meet persons who are still laboring with 
 the effects of an earthly sadness. These undeveloped 
 souls remain with organizations, or become members of 
 Brotherhoods who have not yet arisen out of the 
 depressions of terrestrial mishaps and imperfections. 
 Every one goes to appropriate and congenial places. 
 
 Let your mind be duly impressed with the fact that 
 w great minds," so called while on earth, often lose 
 what was considered the properties of their great 
 "reputation." It is instantly stripped off from some 
 of them, and they are not known, named, nor bowed to 
 as " distinguished persons." Great men, so styled on 
 earth, are of no consequence in the Summer-Land; 
 neither king nor queen, nor prince nor princess, are 
 known as such; for all go there clad in their true 
 peri-spherical garments, and not in the costly habili- 
 ments you procure at Stewart's. When arrived, you 
 will appear dressed and adorned, plainly or otherwise, 
 17 
 
386 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 in rigid accordance with your internal nature and 
 status. Thus Henry Clay, when he reported himself in 
 the city of New York more than ten years ago, said 
 that his " great earthly (political) attainments had not 
 availed him much/' This distinguished American gave 
 a message to a number of personal friends. His com- 
 munication, which was perfectly verified at the time, 
 shows the mental condition in which the statesman 
 found himself soon after his arrival. 
 
 HENRY CLAY'S MESSAGE TO A NUMBER OF FRIENDS. 
 
 In July, 1852, the following, with much more of 
 high significance, was delivered: "My worldly wisdom 
 availed me not when my new life commenced. It is 
 very beautiful to become a little child again ; and now 
 I understand the meaning of the words: fc Ye must be 
 born again;' and in true sincerity and gratefulness I 
 feel that 1 am born again — in a life where the vanities 
 of earth have faded from my view, and the bright glo- 
 ries of heaven are opening upon my soul. 
 
 " soul made pure, be thankful for thy high estate, 
 and adore thy God who hath endowed thine eyes with 
 light, and thy soul with the ability to enjoy the pure 
 beauties which crowd upon thy new existence ! And yet 
 how 1 am overwhelmed with the foreshadowing of the 
 glory which is yet in wait for me ! But now a form of 
 brightness appears, and saith unto me: ' As thy day -is, 
 so shall thy strength increase ; and thou shalt grow and 
 wax stronger in the stature of wisdom and the might 
 of love. 5 
 
 "I am surrounded by those who are, like myself, 
 exploring the wonders of this heavenly land. The 
 realities become more and more transcendently sublime 
 as we proceed. And the beauties of knowledge are 
 increasingly unfolded; more vast and commanding 
 becomes the wide-spread plain of glory, as we travel 
 on in our heavenly path, guided by wisdom supreme 
 and love unbounded." 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 387 
 
 The mind is " overwhelmed,'" as Henry Clay- 
 expresses it, with the unexpected naturalness of the 
 post-mortem existence. Persons who read this, I think, 
 will not be as much astonished as was the "Sage of 
 Ashland," who ascended from the Old Kentucky State. 
 He was not " astonished" in the Halls of Congress at 
 Washington— he could easily grasp the great rising 
 propositions before the Government of his country — but 
 when he entered another mansion in the Father's house 
 " not made with hands," then he became as " a little 
 child, guided by wisdom and love." 
 
 Persons sometimes change their views rapidly, and 
 they hasten to return, saying that they have experienced 
 a " change" in their convictions. Dr. Emmons, who 
 was a preacher of the old-school doctrine of eternal 
 punishment, comes back after having thoroughly investi- 
 gated the geography and government of the Summer- 
 Land, saying that there is no place hot enough to suit 
 his sermons. 
 
 A MESSAGE FROM DR. EMMONS, IN BOSTON, 1851. 
 " Yoa of the earth may pretend and think you 
 believe ever so strongly in eternal punishment; but 
 when you bring it home to your own hearts, and those 
 you love, the strongest terms you dare to use are : ; We 
 leave them in God's hands. He doeth all things well!' 
 Yea, verily, I respond to that with all my spirit 
 powers — 4 God doeth all things well! 5 Amen and 
 amen forever ! saith the spirit of Dr. Emmons. Does 
 not that very remark imply a doubt in the minds of 
 those that thus speak ? You could not better express 
 your doubts, if you would;' your firmest, strongest 
 believer in eternal punishment, dare not say of the one 
 he loved : He or she hath gone to hell ! In plain words 
 let us speak ; for you that believe it may not shrink* 
 
388 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 from speaking it. I was one of the old-school, a strong, 
 • bold preacher of the doctrine of eternal punishment ; 
 would that those sermons were buried in oblivion ! 
 They are a curse to the world, a dishonor to the memory 
 of him who could believe or utter such sentiments, a 
 libel on the character of a just and holy God. And 
 yet, as my spirit returns to the friends and scenes of 
 my earthly days, often do I hear the words I uttered in 
 life brought forth as the faith of a good old man ; and 
 by those, too, who cherish my name and memory with 
 almost holy reverence. I long to make my voice heard 
 in tones of thunder, that they may know the truth, and 
 not grope in darkness longer." 
 
 Again, the celebrated American author, J. Fenni- 
 more Cooper, in the year 1850, gained access to an 
 elderly gentleman in Western New York, and reported 
 in brief as follows : 
 
 " I little thought, when, a few months ago, 1 was 
 
 investigating the developments that were interesting 
 
 some of my acquaintances, that I should so soon be 
 
 seeking an opportunity to make my identity manifest. 
 
 I was astonished at what I then witnessed, and was 
 
 afraid to investigate, lest I should find true what others 
 
 said, and what had been so marvelous to me, because I 
 
 dreaded the scorn of those whose good opinion I valued. 
 
 Hence, you see, I was not well prepared for a high 
 
 mansion in the spirit-life ; for I felt ashamed to seek 
 
 the truth wherever it might be found, and such cowards 
 
 are not fitted for high enjoyments in the Spirit-World. 
 
 Yet I was introduced into a state far better than I 
 
 deserved, for which I feel thankful ; and that feeling 
 
 of gratitude, as it is cultivated, I feel advances me. 55 
 
 • 
 Some spirits report themselves as they were, or as 
 
 they appeared just before death, in order to satisfy their 
 
 •remaining relatives that they are still in existence, and 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 389 
 
 that death was not the extinguishment-of their person- 
 ality. A remarkable case is reported by Professor 
 Brittan, eleven years ago, showing how entirely simple, 
 yet terribly impressive, is the method which some 
 departed ones adopt, to cause their identity to be fully 
 known to acquaintances who yet live in the body. 
 
 CASE OF IDENTIFICATION. 
 Mr. S. B. Brittan, in the year 1852, put on record 
 the following: 
 
 "Last winter, while spending a few days at the 
 house of Mr. Rufus Elmer, Springfield, Mass., I became 
 
 acquainted with Mr. H. , a medium. One evening 
 
 H . Mr. and Mrs. Elmer, and myself, were engaged 
 
 in general conversation, when — in a moment and most 
 
 unexpectedly to us all — H was deeply entranced. 
 
 A momentary silence ensued, when the medium said : 
 
 'Hannah B is here. 3 I was surprised at the 
 
 announcement; for I had not even thought of the per- 
 son indicated for many days, perhaps weeks or months, 
 and we parted for all time when I was but a little 
 child. I remained silent ; but mentally inquired how 
 I might be assured of the actual presence. Immediately 
 the medium began to exhibit signs of the deepest anguish. 
 Rising from his seat, he walked to and fro in the apart- 
 ment, wringing his hands, and exhibiting a wild and 
 frantic manner and expression. He groaned in spirit, 
 and audibly, and often smote his forehead and uttered 
 incoherent words of prayer. He addressed men in 
 terms of tenderness, and sighed,* and uttered bitter 
 lamentations. Ever and anon he gave utterance to 
 expressions like the following : 
 
 " < Oh, how dark ! What dismal clouds ! What a 
 frightful chasm ! Deep — down — far down — ] see the 
 fiery flood ! Hold ! Stay !. — Save them from the pit! 
 I'm in a terrible labyrinth! I see no way out! 
 There's no light! How wild! — gloomy ! The clouds 
 
390 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 roll in upon me ! The darkness deepens ! My head is 
 whirling ! Where am I V 
 
 " During this exciting scene, which lasted perhaps 
 half an hour, I remained a silent spectator, the medium 
 was unconscious, and the whole was inexplicable to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Elmer. The circumstances occurred some twelve 
 years before the birth of the medium. No person in all 
 that region knew aught of the history of Hannah 
 
 B , or that such a person ever existed. But to me 
 
 the scene was one of peculiar and painful significance. 
 The person referred to was highly gifted by Nature, 
 and endowed with the tenderest sensibilities. She 
 became insane from believing in the doctrine of endless 
 punishment, and when I last saw her, the terrible 
 reality, so graphically depicted in the scene I have 
 attempted to describe, was present, in all its mournful 
 details before me.*' 
 
 Now, the testimony of Professor Brittan would 
 probably be taken as unquestionable and trustworthy 
 on any other subject, and perhaps at this late day his 
 word will also be accepted in this direction. In the 
 whole realm of psychology, or of sympathy of mind with 
 mind, there is no known law that will explain the 
 effects he delineates. But those who have held commu- 
 nication with the Summer-Land, find that those who 
 still earnestly desire to communicate, take the first 
 opportunities to stamp the impression which would pro- 
 duce the strongest conviction of personal identity upon 
 the remaining relative or friend. I suppose there are 
 two thousand instances, all of them substantiated so far 
 as human testimony can go, showing that spirit-com- 
 munications are "literal facts'' recorded in history 
 beyond the possibility of refutation. 
 
 Some minds who on earth were intellectually inter- 
 
LANGUlGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 39 1 
 
 ested in " Ideas," on entering the Second Sphere, begin 
 to communicate, as soon as possible, to impressible per- 
 sons remaining, the fact that, in their cogitations, they 
 had conceived of something like what they now behold, 
 and that they are so glad to find that the realities of 
 the higher life are even more gratifying than they had 
 dared to expect. To illustrate this point, I refer you 
 to the testimony of Margaret Fuller, given in 1852 — a 
 year remarkable for the outpouring of this peculiar 
 description of communications : 
 
 TESTIMONY OF MARGARET FULLER, OTHERWISE 
 COUNTESS OSSOLI, DEC. 5, 1852. 
 
 " My sojourn on earth seems now as an indistinct 
 dream, in comparison with the real life which I now 
 enjoy. And I regard the raging of the elements which 
 freed my dearest kindred and myself from our earthly 
 bodies, as the means of opening to us the portals of 
 immortality. And we behold that we were born 
 again — born out of the flesh into the spirit. How sur- 
 prised and overjoyed was I when I saw my new condi- 
 tion ! The change was so sudden — so glorious — from 
 mortality to* immortality — that at first I was unable to 
 comprehend it. From the dark waves of the ocean — 
 cold, and overcome with fatigue and terror — I emerged 
 into a sphere of beauty and loveliness. How differently 
 everything appeared! What an air of calmness and 
 repose surrounded me ! How transparent and pure 
 seemed the sky of living blue ! And how delightfully 
 I inhaled the pure, life-giving atmosphere ! A dim- 
 ming mist seemed to have fallen from my eyes — so calm 
 and so beautiful in their perfection were all things 
 which met my view. And then kind and loving friends • 
 . approached me, with gentle words and sweet affection; 
 and oh, I said within my soul, surely heaven is more 
 truly the reality of loveliness than it was ever conceived 
 to be by the most loving hearts! Already are my 
 
392 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 highest earthly impressions of beauty and happiness 
 more than realized" 
 
 Here you remark a vivid contrast between this 
 communication of Margaret Ossoli's and that reported 
 by Professor Brittan. In Margaret you see a mind 
 retaining its characteristics in the transcendentally ideal. 
 She reports the intense gratification which came over 
 her idealizing faculties immediately on her introduction 
 to the Better Land. But the other lady came back pur- 
 posely to impress upon Mr. Brittan's thoughts and feel- 
 ings the fact of her presence— not through ideality, but 
 through the frightful gesticulations and paroxysms of a 
 painfully-remembered insanity. 
 
 Traveling in the post-mortem Sphere is at first just 
 like pilgrimizing on earth. But the higher inhabitants 
 have acquired what we shall never be able perfectly to 
 imitate in this world. They have the power, without 
 wings, to rise up and put themselves in harmony with 
 the currents that sweep through the atmospheric spaces. 
 With the spread of light they ride .on those currents 
 millions and trillions of miles. It is accomplished by 
 the marvelous power of inherent Will. The ability of 
 the will to check the pulse is a promise of ultimate 
 achievements. It is possible to develop and educate this 
 inherent power of Will. By it, in this world, we lift 
 our heavy bodies from beds or chairs, and cause them 
 to move on the ground through low space. It is a men- 
 tal power holding insensate muscles to its rule. This 
 executive energy of the arisen human spirit, instead of 
 wings, is the secret of its lightning (light. I do not say • 
 that spirits travel by a continuous exertion of the will. 
 They seek the upper currents by yill, somewhat like 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 393 
 
 the balloon excursion which occurred some few years 
 since between St. Louis and the northern part of this 
 State. Professor Wise speaks positively of the exist- 
 ence of an unvariable current, and thinks that if the 
 venturesome aeronaut could strike it. he would be rapidly 
 and safely carried from west to east. His first experi- 
 ment was a failure, as &\\ first experiments usually are; 
 but it sufficiently illustrates what is the universal method 
 of traveling in the Summer-Land, when they depart on 
 their far-away excursions. They gain that particular 
 current which sweeps away through the spaces between 
 the orbits of the planets, and which takes them " with 
 the celerity of thought" to the destination which they 
 desire to reach, however remote it may be from their 
 point of departure. 
 
 We shall not obtain that method in this life, save by 
 uncertain balloons. We see the lesson and the example 
 in birds. But that is done by a direct exertion of the 
 will, and by sympathetic contact of their swift-moving 
 wings with the electricity of the air — part float devel- 
 oped by friction, and part momentum developed by Will. 
 Just as a message of intelligence can be sent through 
 space by vibrating the telegraphic current over thou- 
 sands of miles, so the spirit-body and Will can, by the 
 vibration of the celestial rivers which flow between the 
 Summer-Land and the different planets, mount and float 
 and ri'de upon them with inconceivable speed, and gain 
 any desired destination. Traveling there is social. 
 
 In the New Testament you read with wonderment 
 and with longing the report of the Pentecostal expe- 
 riences. How could such things be unless there were 
 spirits invisible, who gathered as in convention, and, 
 17* 
 
394 MORNING LECTUREST 
 
 by one united effort, baptized with sublime zeal whole 
 congregations of Spiritualists in Syria, in Palestine, in 
 Rome, or wherever the upper Pentecostalians happened 
 to be in contact with the lower assemblages of sympa- 
 thizing and impressible minds. The spiritualistic con- 
 gregations of the old time were supposed to be baptized 
 by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit from the great 
 Jehovah himself. That was the shortest explanation 
 furnished by the converted Pharisees. They always 
 furnished the most literal explanation of spiritual phe- 
 nomena. Thus Moses imagined that he never could 
 be visited by any power less exalted than the great 
 Creator himself. That- was the Hebrew mistake. Many 
 of them have not yet unlearned the error in this world; 
 and some in the Summer-Land have not changed their 
 sentiments. But the truth is, that a combination of 
 minds, just like ourselves, coming in contact with earthly 
 congregations, pour out the spirit of real love, uplifting, 
 elevating, giving inward gladness and unity of feeling 
 " in the bonds of peace." 
 
 By permanent magnets I sometimes illustrate the 
 law that spirits impart communications with whom they 
 can enter into direct contact, and with none others. 
 Hence some have passed all the way through life with- 
 out receiving a single evidence that any such thing as 
 a spirit exists; while others have felt it and known it 
 from their earliest recollections. I well know that there 
 are minds who have not felt the blissful influence of 
 such spiritual contact, and of course, have no evidence 
 \vhatever of the truth of these things. And yet such 
 persons are many times helped and saved by proxies. 
 Guardians cannot reach them, save through the agency 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 395 
 
 of other parties — a succession of intermediates — the way 
 
 a great variety of special providences come to pass. As 
 
 an example, I give the case of an African woman, to 
 
 show that the benevolent in the beautiful Brotherhoods 
 
 of heaven still watch over the lowly and unhappy of 
 
 earth : 
 
 HOW A FAMISHING AFRICAN WOMAN AND CHILD 
 WERE SAVED BY THEIR GUARDIANS. 
 
 The case is cited from the Moral Instructor of 1850. 
 It exhibits interposition, sympathy, and calculation, to 
 a remarkable extent : " A lady medium in this city, 
 whose name we are not at liberty to pronounce, while 
 walking in the streets, in her usual physical and mental 
 mood, was approached and'controlled by a spirit, caused 
 to enter a bakery and purchase some victuals, thence led 
 out of the city by a circuitous route into the suburbs, 
 where she met a colored woman sitting by the roadside, 
 weeping, with a small child by her side. She was 
 traveling to find friends, and, destitute and exhausted, 
 she had sunk despondingly down to bewail her condi- 
 tion. Using the organ of the medium, the spirit said 
 to the sufferer : ; Sister, why weepest thou V The reply, 
 in substance, was, that she was away from friends, and 
 had no means of procuring food for her famishing child 
 — making no mention of her own privations. She said 
 she had knocked at the doors of those who appeared 
 abundantly able to bless, but had been refused even the 
 morsels that fell from their tables, and now despaired 
 of succor. The spirit then gave her the bread, telling 
 her that her afflictions were known, and that he was an 
 angel sent to minister to her wants. Overjoyed, the 
 poor woman fell upon her knees, essaying to offer the 
 spirit a prayer of thanksgiving. But he said : ' Thank 
 not me, but God that sent me. ; 
 
 "The medium was then conducted home, having 
 been unconscious during most of the transaction, and 
 retaining only an indistiuct recollection of the bakerv, 
 
396 MORNING .LECTURES. 
 
 one or two points in her road, and the meeting with 
 the woman." 
 
 Many a man has been saved from committing sui- 
 cide, by his guardians, by the intermediate method of 
 approach. Why are not all men saved from their 
 temptations and indiscretions? Because they can be 
 neither directly nor intermediately reached. Of neces- 
 sity all such must walk through great agony to a higher 
 intellectual and moral condition. It is the impulse of 
 their inward being. Guardian angels see that it is 
 better for some children to fall down a whole flight of 
 stairs than to be rescued; for the one sad accident or 
 stumble may save them from the misfortune of forty 
 other worse falls and blunders in the course of their 
 lives. The saving and protecting arms are not thrown 
 around some gentle natures simply because there is no 
 contact. But what a beautiful law and system of 
 providences are sometimes displayed! Here is an 
 example : 
 
 A MAN SAVED FROM SUICIDE BY THE INTERPOSITION 
 OF HIS GUARDIANS. 
 The following authentic case was reported by a 
 New Haven gentleman, in 1852: " Many years ago a 
 couple of gentlemen, who were room-mates, graduated 
 at Yale College, and became ministers of the gospel. 
 At an after period they settled in the ministry in dif- 
 ferent States, and carried on a friendly epistolary cor- 
 respondence during a large portion of their lives. One 
 of them was in the habit of receiving impressions upon 
 his mind of that vivid character which usually con- 
 strained him to comply with the dictate of the moment, 
 or suffer loss touching his wonted peace. And though 
 he was seldom able to divine in advance what the result 
 of his compliance would be, he was always obedient to 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 397 
 
 the dictate, and afterward saw clearly that he had only 
 done what duty or interest would have demanded. 
 
 " Among the many occasions upon which he was 
 called to act in obedience to this higher power, the fol- 
 lowing is singular and instructive, and shows, in the 
 language of Cowper, after he had been foiled twice on 
 the same day in his attempts at self-destruction, that 
 < God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to per- 
 form' — that he accomplishes his purposes by ways and 
 means unthought of by man. A vivid impression came 
 over his mind that he must, without delay, get upon the 
 back of his horse, and with all possible ^peed reach New 
 Haven, a place which he had not seen since he left col- 
 lege, and one that was many miles distant. As had 
 been his custom, he was obedient to the impulse, and 
 reached the place at the midnight hour of a dark night; 
 and finding it greatly altered from what he had ever 
 before seen it, and not descrying any suitable place to 
 stop at, he was induced to ride to the door of a small 
 house, in which he discovered a dim light at the attic 
 window. After knocking and waiting a considerable 
 length of time, he heard footsteps upon the stairway 
 advancing slowly; soon it opened, and a man with a 
 lamp in his hand, and with a stern countenance, and 
 corresponding voice, demanded : 6 What do you want 
 here at this unseasonable hour of the night? 5 The 
 messenger of life, as he proved to be, replied : ' I can 
 scarcely inform you what I came for; I am a stranger 
 here ;' after which a short pause ensued, and the man 
 with the lamp, in low and quivering accents, said: ; I 
 will tell you what you came foe — it was to prevent me 
 from committing the atrocious act of suicide ! When 
 you knocked at this door, I was putting a. rope around 
 my neck to hang myself! Your knock broke the spell, 
 and I have now neither desire nor power to destroy 
 , my life." 5 
 
 Do you not read in the Testament that Saul, mounted 
 on his horse and at the head of a vast army, was bent 
 
398 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 upon persecuting the Spiritualists of that day ? He was 
 determined to ride them down and then exterminate 
 them. When he had very nearly reached the point 
 where the desperate conflict was to occur, the " scales'' 
 began falling from his eyes, and he tumbled from his 
 horse to the ground. He was taken away by some friends, 
 and remained in an unconscious condition for some 
 time. When he came to "himself," he was a convert 
 to Spiritualism. He felt ashamed, and said he had 
 been entirely in .the wrong— a short-sighted old sinner. 
 Now what is the difference between a modern Spiritual 
 case, put in modern language, and this ancifcnt case 
 related in the New Testament? The law is identical. 
 A combination of truth-lovers in the Spirit-Land, who 
 are loyal to the Divine principles that regulate the uni- 
 verse, directly accomplish these results which men call 
 "special providences." The facts of the overthrow and 
 rapid conversion of Paul are no more "mysterious," 
 when analyzed in the light of modern Spiritualism, than 
 was the modern transaction of saving the lone man from 
 suicide. Neither can you say that the New Testament 
 facts are better substantiated by witnesses than are the 
 analogous facts of to-day. Here is another instance of 
 special impression : 
 
 AN ENGINEER IMPRESSED BY HIS GUARDIANS. 
 
 The following statement was published in the Cale- 
 do?iian, January, 1853, and is, therefore, testimony from 
 an editor not committed to Spiritualism: "Mr. Butter- 
 field, who was killed by the late unfortunate accident 
 upon the Passumpsic Railroad, for a week or two before 
 it occurred seemed impressed with the idea of some 
 impending evil. He mentioned his impression to his 
 -friends, appeared downcast, and did not wish to run an 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 399 
 
 engine any more. Indeed, he had gone so far as to say 
 that after that week he should leave the place he occu- 
 pied on the road. He was ready to do anything else 
 but. to act as an engineer. In passing up a i'ew days 
 previous to that on which the accident took place, before 
 it was daylight, he whistled for the train to 'break up,'. 
 insisting that the fireman should go forward and examine 
 the track; for he plainly saw the figure of a man moving 
 slowly along. He also stopped at another, and about 
 the same time, believing there was a man on the track. 
 It turned out in both cases to be an illusion. If Mr. B. 
 had been a timid and nervous man, these impressions 
 would readily be accounted for, perhaps; but he was 
 just the contrary — cheerful, cool, deliberate, and fear- 
 less — so far even as to be remarkable for these quali- 
 ties. His impressions, viewed in connection with his 
 well- known character and melancholy end, are certainly 
 mysterious, and we do not know how they are to be 
 accounted for, unless it be that evil is sometimes por- 
 tended to man by a superior intelligence." 
 
 Spiritualists, instead of rejecting the Bible, find in 
 its pages experiences that are identical with what in 
 these days has become well-nigh universal. In the 
 Apocalypse of John you read marvelous descriptions of 
 events and awful things which would happen if there 
 was a fair chance for such occurrences. Instead, why 
 not take up some of the equally wonderful visions of 
 Judge Edmonds? Why not read them and believe in 
 them with the same unprejudiced eye and heart? If you 
 look believingly back to Daniel or to Ezekiel to find 
 prophecies, and if you next search the New Testament 
 to find their fulfillments, why not also go faithftflly back 
 eight or ten years ago and find whether it be not true 
 that Judge Edmonds had a vision in which the present 
 American Rebellion was predicted and depicted with 
 
400 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 wonderful clearness and exactness ? He gave it out 
 with the conviction that it was simply a picturesque 
 representation of the great battle between Error and 
 Truth. But when it is read in connection with the 
 current political history and experiences of to-day, it 
 will appear as literal a prophecy of what has occurred, 
 and is occurring in this country, as anything prophetic- 
 al within the lids of Testaments : 
 
 THE AMERICAN REBELLION FORETOLD IN A VISION 
 BY JUDGE EDMONDS. 
 
 In the New York Harmonial Advocate, published 
 ten years ago, vol. 1., we find the following: "A 
 vast plain is spread out before me, and far in the dis- 
 tance a crowd of human beings. Above them is a vast 
 banner, outspread all over them. Its groundwork is 
 black, and its letters still blacker— the extract of black- 
 ness itself. The wards inscribed upon it are : 'Super- 
 stition, Slavery, Crime,' 1 forming, as it were, a half- 
 circle. Many of those beings have smaller banners of 
 the same material and device, which they hug closely to 
 their bosoms, as if part of their very life. All have 
 dark shades over their eyes. It is a sad picture — dark 
 and melancholy ! 
 
 " A broad battle-field is being spread. And dark 
 beings, with their black banners, are coming out, arrayed 
 for battle with brighter ones. The contest will be fearful. 
 Those dark ones are confident in their numbers; for 
 they are as a thousand to one. 
 
 " But see ! there comes from that bright mountain a 
 herald of light, and he cries aloud through all the 
 nations, ' Which shall conquer — Truth, Liberty, and 
 Progression, or Superstition, Slavery, and Crime ? His 
 words are heralded in the air. How beautiful are his 
 looks ! He is a spirit of light. His thrilling tones 
 infuse new light into the brighter ones, and they rise 
 with renewed energy, determined at last to conquer. 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 401 
 
 " It is a mighty contest, and is to determine the fate 
 of nations. All the base passions that have degraded 
 humanity are awakening in their might, and rush on in 
 their fury, battling for their very existence. 
 
 " A more briliian.t beam of light shines from the 
 faces of the progressed ones, showing the light and the 
 life that are within them, and that are cheering them to 
 the contest. 
 
 "Now, lo! the view opens beyond the dark mount- 
 ains, and behold there a glorious scene, where Love, 
 Truth, and Wisdom are enthroned. I see the beautiful 
 landscapes, dewy lawns, winding rivers, and rich pas- 
 tures, and an atmosphere so sweet and balmy, that the 
 spirit might dissolve itself in its loveliness. A race of 
 spiritual beings inhabit there. An unearthly radiance 
 flows from the brain of each, and is wafted up by unseen 
 zephyrs to make the glorious light which shines from 
 behind the dark mountains. 
 
 " It is the home of Liberty, Truth, and Progression, 
 and has sent forth its spirits, holding up that glorious 
 banner. It is upheld by their unseen hands, and it is 
 their brilliancy which casts the radiance on the inhabit- 
 ants below. From that beautiful place they send forth 
 spirits that whisper, in voiceless tones, encouragement 
 and hope to those who battle in that strife." 
 
 You will find nothing in the pages of Scripture, I 
 repeat, more exactly descriptive of events which have 
 occurred years after the vision was given to the world. 
 But this is only one of five hundred prophecies, many 
 of which are in my possession, sent for publication from 
 Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois, and from different 
 parts of New England. I know a gentleman who had 
 rejected Spiritualism in toto — over five years ago — in 
 consequence of these extravagant prophecies that there 
 would be " a great war in this country," that " blood 
 would flow," that the people " would have diseases," 
 
402 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 and that the " Government was to be broken," &a, &c. 
 Prophetic communications of this strange character 
 came to him very frequently. But the gentleman could 
 not believe that we were to have « a war," in this 
 peaceful country. He denounced the communications 
 as unprofitable, and he would not further receive them. 
 I met that gentleman not long since in this city, and he 
 said : " I have repented. Those extravagant spiritual 
 communications have all been literally fulfilled. There 
 was no exaggeration in them." 
 
 A MOTHER IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 The gifted poetess, Mrs. Hemans, communicated, 
 December 25, lb52, a picturesque account of scenes in 
 the social life of the angels. The following is a brief 
 extract concerning a mother and her child : " How 
 lovely she seems ! As she glides along, she holds in her 
 arms an innoeent babe. What holy affection and 
 chastened love is expressed in her countenance! She 
 pauses and speaks, and caresses her babe, and says: 
 '0 spirit, I have left my home on earth, and I have met 
 my beloved babe already, and how joyful I am. But 
 will you not send back to earth and tell my dearly 
 loved friends how happy I am, and how useless is all 
 their weeping for me? Oh, tell them I am learning 
 the ways of peace and happiness; that 1 am preparing 
 to receive and instruct them when they shall arrive 
 here; that, although a mother's form has left the earth, 
 a mother's love still shares all their hopes and joys. 
 And oh ! bid them be hopeful and seek to have the love 
 of God shed abroad in their hearts on earth, that I may 
 be able to approach them on their entrance into the 
 Spirit -World.' Happy, happy mother! bearing her 
 babe in her arms, who had been brought to meet and 
 comfort her on her upward journey. But mark how 
 she pauses to send back a word of encouragement and 
 hope to those who are left behind." 
 
LANGUAGE AND LIFE IX THE SUMMER-LAND. 403 
 
 On another point she says : " The spirit, on enter- 
 ing its next state, only becomes more awake — more 
 sensitive to the realities which lie beyond its view; it 
 but steps on another round of the ladder, which leads 
 upward and onward to spheres of eternal love and 
 unfolding wisdom. And by thy life here, man, dost 
 thou make thy heaven fair and lovely, or thy existence 
 dark and gloomy, until thou hast overcome thy errors 
 by earnest labor." 
 
 In conclusion, I wish to call your attention to 
 persons in the Spirit -World who take great interest 
 in exciting the hopes of humanity, and in holding up 
 the banner of Progress and Reform. I have already 
 given accounts of these public-spirited societies. I 
 will give one out of hundreds of instances, of a com- 
 munication to minds on earth, who were at the time 
 somewhat despairing : 
 
 TESTIMONY IN FAVOR OF FREEDOM. 
 
 In November, 1852, Judge Edmonds reported the 
 following from the Summer-Land : 6i This is the day 
 when Freedom shall be known among the sons of 
 humanity. This is the day when the chains shall fall 
 from the oppressed spirit. This is the day when the 
 pulse of humanity shall quicken with an inward life. 
 And now shall the arm of man be made strong. Now 
 shall the stream of truth brighten and deepen in its 
 flow. Now shall the light of heaven grow clearer and 
 brighter amid this glorious dawning. Prepare ye for 
 the resurrection of humanity. Stand ye up in the 
 strength and majesty of spiritual manhood. Let the 
 scenes of earth no longer enthrall your senses and 
 deaden the soul. A voice calls you to a higher des- 
 tinv. It is the voice of Freedom breaking from the 
 skies. Listen! not with your ears only, but with your 
 souls. Listen! And in the deep silence of your inner 
 
404 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 being may ye find its earnest whisperings to lead you 
 up beyond the vale of darkness, beyond the tumults of 
 this lower sphere — to lead you up — up — far up in the 
 pathway of unfolded angels, and give you strength to 
 mount on high, as the eagle soars, to breathe the air 
 of Freedom forever and ever." 
 
MATERIAL WORK FOR SPIRITUAL 
 WORKERS. 
 
 " This world is not a fleeting show, 
 
 For man's illusion given ; 
 He that hath soothed a widow's woe, 
 
 Or wiped an orphan's tear, doth know 
 There's something here of heaven." 
 
 In relation to this subject it is deemed necessary to 
 set forth three propositions : 
 
 First, that the material and spiritual universes are 
 regulated by immutable laws. Law is the external 
 manifestation of principle ; a principle is the external 
 manifestation of an idea ; an idea is the thoughtful, 
 loveful life of Deity. 
 
 Second, that man is 'endowed with a self-conscious 
 power called Reason : Reason is the harmony of all his 
 faculties, including the elements of affection and intui- 
 tion ; by the exercise of this power he discovers the 
 laws by which those universes are kept in unvarying 
 order and irreversible harmony*. 
 
 Third, that he is endowed with abilities and attri- 
 butes to apply his discoveries to all the common condi- 
 tions from which he proceeds, and of which he naturally 
 is the governor and supreme head. 
 
 The Infinite fountain is composed of ideas. Nothing 
 could be more abstruse, more metaphysical and abstract, 
 than the truth which is hidden within this statement. 
 
408 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Most persons use the word "idea" according to the 
 dictionary sense. An idea, in popular definition, is the 
 form or conception or image in the mind of anything 
 which you read about, or which you are thinking, or of 
 something which is being related to you. To catch 
 " an idea" is to get a definition of whatever may be 
 presented for your reflection. That is not the sense in 
 which the term is used in this discourse. The common 
 definition is applicable to u thought." A thought in 
 the mind is derived from a description, or by means of 
 an object, a sound, a flavor, an odor ; in short, whatever 
 may address you, through your senses, will evolve a 
 thought among your faculties, and if that thought is 
 coincident with and exactly representative of that which 
 excited it, the result is a truth, or else a fact. From an 
 accumulation of such facts and truths all positive sciences 
 are developed and established. 
 
 But such truths and such facts are not Ideas. If you 
 have an idea, you have the essential life out of which 
 ail things and thoughts spring. Clairvoyance is the 
 ability to discern things alar off by coming in contact 
 with the life of things, realizing their inherent essences, 
 becoming instantly acquainted with the intelligent 
 principles by which things roll out from unfathomable 
 depths into the phenomenal universe. An idea within 
 vegetation causes all this variety, not only of the form 
 and growth, but also of the distribution of the colors 
 and of the arrangement of the atoms which are insepa- 
 rable from and coincident with those colors, and of the 
 odors also which come with the colors and out of such 
 an atomic arrangement. 
 
 There is in the fields no chaos; nothing is left to 
 
MATERIAL WORK FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS. 407 
 
 chance ; all is system — harmony. Man's function is to 
 learn the principles and ideas contained in the source ; 
 to ascertain the scientific laws by which atoms, visible 
 and indivisible, come into their present arrangements; 
 and thence obtain the secret of the harmonies which 
 pervade all the ways and works of Wisdom. Having 
 made discoveries his next business is to reduce them to 
 what is called " science." Science regulates the perceptive 
 and intellectual parts of his mind — gives system, pro- 
 portion, and regularity of action — by means of which 
 system of thought and precision of procession he makes 
 all his progress and expands his civilization. 
 
 But the restless, progressive mind soon exhausts his 
 discovery. He must go higher in the same direction, 
 make further discoveries, and thence more beautiful 
 expansions in Art, and more complete applications in 
 common things. Having applied his new iacts to things, 
 he exhausts them, or loses interest in them, and thus 
 it becomes necessary that he should sow a new crop of 
 discoveries. So he charges the soil with new fertilizing 
 thoughts, and puts the old land to other uses. His 
 restless, progressive mind, needs it ; for he is endowed 
 with a wondrous variety of powers and functions and 
 attributes, which must be gratified. 
 
 The consequence of such awakening is that his mind 
 is more than ever anxious for advancement. Humboldt 
 could not rest in his study after having investigated the 
 physical facts of a quarter of the globe. His discover- 
 ies were accurate, so far as they went; but they were 
 only doors to greater and grander things. Humboldt's 
 mind is not at rest to-day ; he is still traveling and dis- 
 covering sections in the " house not made with hands." 
 
408 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 His immortal feet press other hills and mountains; his 
 new-lit eyes see other landscapes ; and his large mind 
 is measuring new scenes of imperishable beauty and sig- 
 nificance. Astronomers, too, do not soon rest. Having 
 discovered one planet, they must discover another. The 
 discovery of a hundred planets makes it necessary (for 
 the feeding of such hungry minds) that two hundred 
 shall be discovered. 
 
 The time comes for the application. Then millions 
 invest in one discovery. All men buy and read. alma- 
 nacs, because the discoveries of a few earnest, truthful, 
 scientific men have fixed the facts that regulate the 
 seasons. Suns and moons and stars rise and set so 
 mathematically and unmistakably accurate, that millions 
 of people, without a thought of skepticism, purchase 
 almanacs, regulate their business in-doors and out, and 
 conduct nearly all their agricultural and commercial 
 affairs, by means of the application of the discoveries 
 of a few able, earnest friends of science. 
 
 Men must go forward in their work of progressive 
 civilization; they have the grand example of the 
 expanded universe ever before them. The physical and 
 spiritual universes never fail in any of their functions, 
 because they are regulated by laws that never fail to 
 carry out the designs with which they were freighted 
 from the heart. Principles are the life of laws; ideas 
 are the life of principles ; and God is the life of ideas. 
 No man or woman is spiritually-minded until he or she 
 has arrived at spirit. To be a spiritualist, is to nomi- 
 nate yourself by a mere term ; to be spiritual^ is to 
 possess a great soul-stirring and progressing Idea. A 
 spiritual worker is one who works from the essential 
 
MATERIAL WORK FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS. 409 
 
 center — from Ideas, through the leverage of laws, using 
 principles as the fulcrum over which the lever acts on 
 any solid substance with which it comes in contact. 
 Standing with the long end of the lever (a knowledge 
 of natural law) in their hands, such workers can " move 
 the mountains" which stand between them and the 
 attractions and benefits of the future. Faith and works 
 are inseparable. No soul is wholly destitute of faith in 
 God. Truth and Love and Wisdom and immutable 
 principles — these millions believe in even when they 
 have no conception of a super-personal consciousness, 
 God, or of an inter-personal love-essence called Nature. 
 No man is destitute of faith in principles. Virtue and 
 goodness and philanthropy, and whatever is high and 
 noble, command the reverent love and respect of all 
 mankind. 
 
 Those who possess Ideas are truly spiritual and 
 progressive people. When they work, they work as 
 flowers grow, from centers through their own organiza- 
 tions. Organizations come up here and there around 
 them ; they spring up and bring forth like harvests in 
 the fields. Thousands, yea millions, are this hour 
 waiting for such center-born organizations. The 
 world's busy millions do not get at Ideas ; they need 
 temporary organizations and supporting substances. 
 When a building is in process of construction, a scaffold- 
 ing is a necessary part of the work. The carpenter 
 calculates for a scaffold just as carefully as for the vari- 
 ous materials out of which the building is to be made. 
 When the structure is perfected, the scaffolding is 
 removed. Even so when progressionists elaborate an 
 idea and get it into the world, let them take down the 
 18 
 
410 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 no longer 'needed scaffolding — the organization by 
 which the idea was attained. Let the temple of Truth 
 stand white and immortally beautiful before the eyes of 
 all men. Let it be based upon the solid rock of scien- 
 tific knowledge ; let it be seen and felt by all ; let it be 
 inhabited by every one who feels the essential attraction. 
 Must a man wear the clothes of his youth forever because 
 they fitted him once ? Or, must men always cling to 
 their creeds and doctrines because by means of them 
 they attained newer ideas in religion and a few finer 
 habits in civilization ? Let creeds, doctrines, definitions 
 cease, as, indeed, they finally do with men and women 
 of ideas. Distinctions vanish like the mists of morning 
 in the presence of ideas that burn with such unutterable, 
 glorious effulgence. But before you get to Ideas, such 
 scaffolding as forms definitions, doctrines, thoughts, 
 creeds, theories, systems, are necessary. 
 
 I never stop to battle with the size of the clothes 
 that children must wear. Little patterns are natural ■ 
 to little folks. But I will remonstrate, and pronounce 
 an injunction in the holy authority of Ideas, when I see 
 grown-up persons still trying to keep in the garments 
 of their childhood. Behold sectarians ! See the little 
 garments with which they swathe themselves, in which 
 they are bound and cribbed and cabined and confined, 
 and dare not move — miserable, fashionable mummies, 
 grown up apparently as big feeling as anybody with 
 brains — great, handsome looking ladies, and great, 
 beautiful men, going into the churches and taking on 
 the old garments and sitting in sackcloth without ashes 
 — all of it a part of the machinery of childhood in old- 
 time religion ! It is plainly a demonstration that they 
 
MATERIAL WORK FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS. 411 
 
 have not ideas. They are not free. The children of 
 light are free, because light is truth. Truth gives free- 
 dom, not only to your judgments, but also to your 
 affections — just as true and as free in your externals as 
 in your inmost. Freedom and purity are commensurate 
 and inseparable. Pure freedom comes from pure spirit. 
 License and unrestrained indulgence are the impulsive 
 freebootery of the impassioned soul toward that to 
 which it is directed. You can see lustfulness and 
 licentiousness in their disguises all through the world 
 — in politics, in society, and in the social relations. 
 Democratic notions of freedom are but the uncouth 
 prophecies of what one day will be the common experi- 
 ence of the people, accepted as divine, without any 
 thought of impurity, and incorporated in the unwritten 
 statutes of the universal heart. 
 
 But there are persons who, destitute of ideas, see 
 merely the forms which restrain and circumscribe them. 
 Such externalists think that the world is wrong, and 
 must be brought to their standard of right. That is 
 bigotry. Must I hate my brother because he enters the 
 Calvinistic church, and shun my sister in the Church of 
 Rome, because she does not think as I do? Ideas lift 
 us out of thoughts, above forms, above creeds, above 
 doctrines and systems, and breathe the spirit of 
 unbounded charity and good will. 
 
 Man's power is to discover — not to create. Man 
 can " create" nothing ; he can only discover and apply. 
 Now man is destined to discover the laws by which the 
 Infinite has expressed imperishable harmony throughout 
 the material and spiritual universes — the discovery of 
 the laws by which all eternal harmony is established. 
 
412 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Succeeding this discovery will come the power to apply. 
 This application will bring in new social, political, and 
 religious relations, like that higher harmony which he 
 beholds and worships in the physical universe. Thus 
 man is endowed with a very vast mission of eternal 
 uses to him. If men were destitute of ideas, they would 
 be animals. If men were animals, they would be regu- 
 lated by the harmonious laws of life and instinct which 
 regulate animals. But mankind have ideas; therefore 
 we are what animals can never be — capable of winging 
 our way through the empyrean of light, through the 
 universe of boundless freedom. I do not mean that we 
 are free in any absolute physical sense. No man can 
 fly outside of matter. No man can reverse or violate a 
 principle: no man can mortally offend an idea; no man 
 can disturb God. But man can by discovery bring 
 himself into relation with ideas and principles and laws, 
 and become physically healthy like the material uni- 
 verse, and spiritually healthy like the spiritual universe. 
 Then, like them and with them, he is in harmony. Then 
 he can bestow happiness, goodness, and divine strength 
 on those about him. This seems to me to be as simple 
 as any sum in the rudiments of arithmetic. No crea- 
 tions are made in music. Sounds'exist through all the 
 temple of Nature. Man can merely discover the laws 
 of the Omnipotent by which sounds may be made to 
 harmonize in different combinations. " Music" is the 
 name given to the science thus discovered, and to the 
 application of the science. But there is a central key- 
 note by which all notes and chords are arranged and 
 attuned. 
 
 Man's position with relation to all the kingdoms 
 
MATERIAL WORK FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS. 413 
 
 beneath is the master chord, and the central key-note. 
 If he is not attuned, his discords shiver through all the 
 subordinate kingdoms. If he is in harmony, all the 
 kingdoms of the earth feel, enjoy, participate, recipro- 
 cate, and justice reigns. Reciprocation is an expres- 
 sion of Justice. Distributive justice is seen in the equal 
 expansion of natural reciprocation. From your own 
 system outwardly into society send forth a good and just 
 condition, and you thence and thereby expand into a 
 state by which you can be fed and built up stronger 
 and better. 
 
 It is necessary that many should be together in one 
 place in order that all may be fed and nourished and 
 made to grow by spiritual things. All persons testify 
 against and naturally shrink from isolation, desolation, 
 loneliness. They testify against those conditions 
 because Nature, the Spirit-Mother of all intelligences, 
 has determined that society shall be the form, the men- 
 struum, the universal ocean in which all are molded, 
 fashioned, and dissolved. 
 
 There is a social sovereignty which is just as obliga- 
 tory as individual sovereignty. Some accept the 
 doctrine that " individual sovereignty" covers and 
 comprehends all — that a man is allowed by Nature to 
 practice and carry out his individual preferences and 
 decisions "at his own cost." But this doctrine is but 
 half the story of man's relation to society. It is logical 
 and true ; but true only just so far as the half of any- 
 thing is true. Social sovereignty is larger and grander, 
 more perfect, more binding, and more divine ; just as 
 the ocean is larger, grander, more perfect and more 
 divine, than the spring on the mountain's side or the 
 
414 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 rivulet that starts from the quiet valley. The life of 
 the individual is the stream that flows down through 
 the valley. The ocean is made of all springs and all 
 streams, and all the rivulets that flow down from the 
 millions of hills hasten to seek their common social 
 level. The ocean is the grand symbol of the Infinite 
 Spirit in which all minds dwell, and out of which all 
 things spring into manifestation and animation. 
 Geologists tell you that all things came from the sea. 
 First, the water was universal ; then came the dry 
 land. The first is society. Society is universal ; then 
 came institutions, organizations, dry land, solid places ; 
 but the individual life is inseparable from the universal 
 society of mankind. 
 
 The spiritual worker is one who sees the idea, who 
 catches the spirit within a principle, who works for the 
 harmonious molding of whatever is about him, and not 
 selfishly for personal advancement. For example, look at 
 the question of "intemperance." The Maine liquor law, 
 a matter of so much controversy some years ago, was 
 passed to legislate alcohol out of existence. But the 
 moment you ascend to the presence of an idea, you dis- 
 cover that men are not constituted to be driven into or 
 out of existence. Their appetites and passions cannot 
 be easily destroyed by legislation. It is true that good 
 laws may hamper and destroy, to a great extent, the 
 vices of society. But how do most of our best laws 
 originate? They originate with legislators and gov- 
 ernors who have Ideas. A few good men first pro- 
 claim the principle; then the office-seeking politicians 
 grasp it and say: " There is success in that creed," and 
 they take hold of it, and carry into politics what was 
 
MATERIAL WORK FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS. 415 
 
 at first a glorious effort with a few philanthropic minds. 
 In ten years the good thought, the good idea that was 
 first promulgated, is degraded or obliterated. Then 
 come organizations, scheming, wire-pulling, log-rolling, 
 all these desperate and diabolical plans which selfish 
 men without principle have instituted, in order to carry 
 out what they supposed would be successful. 
 
 Then what is to be done ? Why, the Moral Police, 
 composed of men and women, must continue the work. 
 They must go interior — close to the life of the law — to 
 the Idea! They must stand upon platforms in public and 
 in private places, and utter those divine thoughts which 
 go deeper than the plans and policies of the world. 
 They are commissioned to act just where and in pro- 
 portion as they comprehend the idea of justice. 
 
 The spiritually-minded person is inspired. Justice 
 is not a word ; it is the name of a sacred principle. It 
 does not mean that you must do what I think is right. 
 It means that you must be just ; first of all to and 
 within yourself. Your justice to me will be like your 
 habitual justice to yourself. Suppose you meet a man 
 who has indulged largely in intoxication. It is useless 
 to appeal to him with " What will people say ?" He 
 don't care what they say ; he is, perhaps, lost to that 
 kind of respect ; he does not seek it ; he has been too 
 many times deceived and debauched. The sailor lies 
 down in the hold of his ship, drunken as a beast. And 
 the deserted, abandoned woman cannot be successfully 
 appealed to from the social side of life. There is only 
 one thoroughly practical way to reach those who have 
 got so low in the bed of sorrow. It is by affectionately 
 inspiring the hearts of such persons with the idea that 
 
416 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 they are immortal, and not only so, but that they have 
 in them the resources of sweet happiness, and that 
 those resources can be opened, and that you will faith- 
 fully aid them in such opening and to their consequent 
 happiness. First assure the person that no reliance 
 can be placed upon such help from you, or from God's 
 angels, or from spirits in the flesh or out, until there is 
 basis in the soul's will and aspirations. You reach 
 the heart the moment you ascend to this point of wis- 
 dom. It is bringing justice to the person. The sad 
 soul feels it. " Bathe your body, my friend ; you have 
 a beautiful body. You have feet and can walk ; you 
 have hands and can use your arms ; you have eyes and 
 can see ; you have ears and can hear ; and a tongue 
 with which to speak the words of truth. Do you dis- 
 regard these parts ? Can you carry them day after 
 day and respect them not ?" 
 
 To such teaching the soul will listen. I knew a per- 
 son who at once abandoned the use of tobacco when he 
 discovered that his fine teeth were being spoiled. You 
 might have preached to him the "Sermon on the 
 Mount," or any other sermon, but nothing would reach 
 and reform so soon as the appeal personal. The selfish 
 are touched when you appeal to that which is in har- 
 mony with their mental conditions. Plenty of persons 
 are lifted out of the mud and despair, not by an idea, 
 but by a pair of comfortable shoes. It is so much bet- 
 ter to begin with people where you find them. Show 
 that you are a genuine brother or sister, that your 
 interest is not selfish, but of divine ideas, and the heart. 
 You work from the life of God that is within, from the 
 idea of fraternal affection and resurrection. Preach 
 
MATERIAL WORK FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS. 417 
 
 resurrection to the dead, and tell them that the trump 
 must sound. I believe that the trump is now sound- 
 ing in the ear of every person in this wide world. 
 The gospel of progress is the trump of the resurrection. 
 The dead are all around you, and sometimes within 
 yourself; that is, dead faculties, or thoughts "dead in 
 trespasses and sins." If you are' anywhere inert, you 
 are to the same extent dead, and involved in this ques- 
 tion of the resurrection. What portion of you do you 
 feel to-day to be of no service to yourself or to man- 
 kind? That portion calls for the influence of some 
 resurrecting mind. We should be to each other a thou- 
 sand times more precious than we are ; each should go 
 out of self, and enter upon a broader^and more glorious 
 field of work. Do you wish to promote your own per- 
 sonal development? Then work for the personal 
 development and happiness of others. Only on these 
 terms will you advance. It is like the blacksmith 
 unthinkingly developing his right arm. Does he swing 
 the hammer with the intention of expanding and hard- 
 ening his muscular power ? He stands by his anvil, 
 and you say " What a strong, brawny arm that work- 
 ing man has ! What a deep, large chest ! What great 
 muscles about his shoulders!" "Yes," he replies; "I 
 have continued at my daily work." He is healthily, 
 muscularly, beautifully developed, because he has 
 wrought with the iron for others, and not for the per- 
 sonal purpose of building upon his body. 
 
 Thus, if you work and pray for your own private 
 spiritual development, you will not be developed very 
 soon. If I unfold this lecture in your presence for any 
 personal gratification, of the selfish kind, 1 shall be 
 
418 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 neither gratified nor improved by what is uttered. Do 
 a benevolent act for the express purpose of being pub- 
 licly applauded for your organ of benevolence, and the 
 result will do you no good. The motive would be self- 
 ish, and the action could not bring a blessing. If your 
 existence ne6ds expansion and your mind culture, then 
 promote benevolence and culture in others. Go out of 
 your selfish circles into the society of the poor. Never 
 think that because you go to the bedside of the sick, 
 you will yourself be cured. If you bestow healthful 
 influences upon the sick, without undue exhaustion, you 
 are sure to be personally benefited. Do good from a 
 selfish motive, and you will find a chemical poison at 
 the very heart, which will leave your nature as poor as 
 a miser is with his full coffers. 
 
 The spiritual worker is one who, impressed with the 
 idea of fraternal love, and feeling its holy warmth in 
 the soul, goes right out into society with healing in his 
 wings. Such a person goes and comes as a peace- 
 maker. Natures of this stamp are commissioned from 
 the heaven of heavens to do unto others as they would 
 have others do unto them, and that, too, without a 
 thought of the golden rule. They obey it because they 
 are as good as it. They who so live and so act, are 
 constantly dwelling in that state to which they would 
 elevate all mankind. 
 
 Man is destined to bring about in society the har- 
 ' mony of all the passions which are demons, and of the 
 appetites, too, which are unclean spirits, and the balance 
 of all the various discords of his mind, which are his 
 ever-present satans. Demons and unclean spirits are to 
 be vanquished, but only by the power of spiritual work- 
 
MATERIAL WORK FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS. 4 1 *) 
 
 ers who start from the throne of Ideas. No man can 
 conquer a passion for tobacco, or destroy the force of 
 any appetite, by merely acting upon it from his will. 
 The soul and body are raised by means of an inspira- 
 tion, toward health and purity, which reaches and 
 buoys up the mind until the physical passion subsides 
 and the besetting appetite departs. Some minds attain 
 this state by a sort of change in their physical or chemi- 
 cal growth ; others reach it by means of what they call 
 religious revivalism, or conversion. But the cultured 
 way to it is through the comprehension and application 
 of Ideas. The principal idea which exalts and equali- 
 zes mankind, without filling the individual with ego- 
 tism, is that each is supreme head of all the kingdoms 
 beneath ; that the high function of each is to discover 
 the unchangeable laws which give harmony and per- 
 fection to the universe ; and finally to apply the teach- 
 ings of those laws to all the kingdoms, powers, functions 
 about him not only, but also to all the passions, organs, 
 demons, satans, or appetites and discords within the 
 temple of private being. Mankind are destined to be 
 " lords of creation," both materially and spiritually. 
 What is possible to all, is possible to each, and vice 
 versa. All may become gentle, and useful, and beautiful, 
 loving their neighbors as themselves. None can live and 
 work in this way, save the truly spiritual. I know that 
 such souls are in the churches, at the bottom of all re- 
 ligious organizations. They are the spiritual men 
 who first realized Ideas. John Wesley, John Murray, 
 John Calvin — these, and many who are visible all the 
 way down the steeps of time, wrought from the life of 
 Ideas. 
 
420 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Let us, therefore, concern ourselves not deeply with 
 organizations and instruments of labor ; for, with true 
 Ideas, helpful organizations will inevitably come. 
 Thus every wholesome organization comes up. An idea 
 starts the principle ; the principle divulges the law ; 
 the law dictates the method. An organization, conse- 
 quently, is inevitable. Individual labors for mankind 
 will bear " good fruit" when governed by the inspira- 
 tions of Ideas. Such labors may be distributed and 
 imitated throughout parts of civilization. Great phi- 
 lanthropists slumber here and there waiting for some 
 occasion to resurrect them. Act well the part of a 
 spiritual being; be faithful to what is true and good; 
 the future will take loving care of both itself and you. 
 This is the heavenly rest that comes from true inspira- 
 tion of ideas. Think not of to-morrow, or next year ; 
 work now, living nobly in your day and hour. Be true 
 to the life of truth. The life of truth is God. JBe 
 faithful ever, and true-hearted to all who love you. 
 Years ago men used to say to me, " Well, Mr. Davis, 
 if God is in this work, it will succeed, and if he is not, 
 it will come to naught/" 5 Assuredly ; nothing is more 
 certain. It is the good, wholesome, old-fashioned 
 notion about special providences in man's life. I like 
 it. Yes, God is always in everything, and more espe- 
 cially in the idea of everything. You and your God 
 may walk together. The Divine is not afar off, look- 
 ing with a great eye to see whether you are doing the 
 fair thing or not. An Idea is from God. Work from 
 its inspirations, and you and your God are one. Thus 
 the inheritance of life becomes a perpetual blessing. 
 
ULTIMATES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " There are some qualities— some incorporate things, 
 That have a double life, which thus is made 
 A type of that twin entity which springs 
 From matter and light, evinced in solid and soul." 
 
 By the term Summer-Land is meant a sphere of 
 perpetual youth, where physical disease, which is dis- 
 cord, does not, because it cannot, prevail ; where the 
 effects of moral imperfections and evils continue ; where 
 .the consequences of bodily and mental infirmities are 
 visible, not in the constitution and appearance of that 
 existence, but wholly in the constitution and appearance 
 of those who possess those infirmities when they go 
 from the earth to that land. This lecture is concern- 
 ing the existence and appearance of "ultimates" in the 
 Summer-Land. In a future volume I hope to be ena- 
 bled, by means of new astronomical and picturesque 
 diagrams, to illustrate what I cannot impart through 
 language. There are yet very important lessons to be 
 conveyed in connection with this glorious question of 
 man's immortal existence. Word-painting cannot ade- 
 quately impart to the mind what a few illustrations 
 would beautifully and permanently impress. This 
 question of " ultimates" in the Summer-Land, in con- 
 
422 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 tradistinction to primates and proximates, may be very 
 plainly and briefly stated. In this discourse, however, 
 I can do little more than lay out the work. 
 
 To properly prepare your minds to see the ultimates, 
 it may be necessary first to speak of primates and 
 proximates. Let us endeavor to strike the key-note to 
 which the music of the world is set, so that every ear 
 may hear and every heart understand the glorious 
 truths of eternal existence. We must search the volume 
 of Nature, because in its pages we find the gospel of 
 death and of eternal life. " The firmament," which is 
 overhead in the temple of Nature, " showeth handi- 
 work." The firmament, therefore, is the open scroll of 
 the infinite volume. Its contents are the true " scrip- 
 tures" for mankind "to search." Everything in arti- 
 ficial bibles which corresponds to the teachings of the 
 Scriptures in this expanded universe, is eternal truth. 
 Everything, on the other hand, which conflicts with 
 these natural scriptures, must fall among the tares and 
 errors, and be swept away by the billows of the rolling 
 years, with every other thing erroneous and outgrown 
 by man in his onward march. Men never shrink from 
 errors that are burnt up and gone. They only shrink 
 from the mortification and " the pain" caused at the 
 moment of their destruction. A new truth, like a dentist, 
 puts his iron grasp upon the old-time and loved error, 
 and pulls it out k < by the roots" from its deep socket in 
 the brain. Sometimes, indeed, the root of the error is 
 deeper — in very sincere and delicate affections. Not 
 many pains suffered by human souls can be more intense 
 than the extraction of worshiped and costly errors 
 made sacred by time and important by the pomp of 
 
ULTIMATB8 IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 423 
 
 circumstance and occasion. I know tender souls who 
 shrink from the pain and mortification inseparable from 
 such reformation, somewhat as cowardly men dread the 
 tender caressing of the professional dentist. 
 
 But the trial must come sooner or later. Errors, 
 however beautiful and gold-errameled by time, must 
 be extracted from the human mind by the archangel of 
 eternal truth. Search the scriptures of Nature — the 
 handiwork of the firmament — for in them you will find 
 the holy truths of eternal life. To understand the 
 apocalyptic glories of the universe, study the Genesis of 
 .this God-inspired volume. The Genesis and the Exo- 
 dus of the book are the Primates and the Proximates. 
 The Ultimates you cannot see in this world except logic- 
 ally from the force of philosophical principles. In 
 this lecture I may not speak of the Ultimates as I have 
 seen them, and as you will see them one of these days, 
 because time will not permit, and justice to the ques- 
 tion admonishes me to present only the fundamental 
 lessons for consideration. Humanity is now divided, 
 by scientific men, into distinct races. Whether such 
 division be correct or incorrect, we need not now stop 
 to consider. They commence with their classifications 
 — down or up, as the case may be — first, the Caucasian; 
 second, the Mongolian ; third, the Indian ; fourth, the 
 Malay ; fifth and lastly, the Negro. This order is 
 tracing mankind from what might be termed Ultimates, 
 down to their rudiments, or Primates. Let us commence 
 with the roots — with the Negro — and come up through the 
 Malay, the Indian race, the Mongolian, and halt at the 
 Caucasian, which civilkees have both the honor and 
 the dishonor to represent. We leave this classification 
 for the present, lodged in the mind. 
 
424 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 Scientific men, whether correctly or not, have also 
 classified the organic world into regularly ascending 
 stages. No intelligent mind can long think chaotically. 
 An intelligent mind, to make intellectual progress, must 
 think as Nature compels him to think — from primates, 
 on and up through infinite complications and endlessly 
 successive combinations, to ultimates. Thus he makes 
 progress both by the reflex action of education and by 
 the legitimate and natural exercise of his faculties. 
 Truly scientific men are constrained by Nature to think 
 progressively up from the mollusk to full-blossomed 
 humanity. They arrange the scale musically if they 
 are inclined to music, or arbitrarily, if they are inclined 
 to follow the routine of scholastic learning. They 
 arrange it naturally and deductively if they have 
 spiritual illumination. It is very much like the botany 
 that is taught in the s schools ; there is the natural 
 analysis of plants, and there is also the artificial method. 
 Some commence naturally with the roots and go on 
 upward, following the chronological order of its 
 growth. The artificial analysis commences with the 
 surfaces and works toward the basis. Nature compels 
 man to investigate with system, because all is a perfect 
 system. Whoso questions Nature aright, truly reads 
 the scriptures which teach of God and eternity. 
 
 Nature, by scientific men, is studied and classified 
 in her organic relations progressively. Commence with 
 the lowest form of fish life ; work up through the age 
 of serpents ; come to birds ; study the marsupials : 
 then the mammalia; then the quadrumanals, troglo- 
 dytes, and the gorillas ; then stop at home and investi- 
 gate Man. I think the scientific world has not yet 
 
ULTIMATES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 425 
 
 taken its own position into the account; it has not 
 yet ascertained its own relation and importance to the 
 onward progress of the race. Not having done this, it 
 is overlooking the very key-note to which all the music 
 of the world's intellectual growth is set. I suppose 
 that this blindness is right, because Nature makes 
 science masculine, superficial, proud, exclusive, exact, 
 always on the surface, yet necessary to the world's 
 growth. But there is something more inspiring than 
 science, i. e. — Art. Art is but Nature in her " superior 
 state/ 3 Science is Nature reporting herself with mate- 
 rial eyes and in " a common state" — always positive, 
 never designing to confuse chalk with cheese, never 
 intentionally calling a thing black when it is white. 
 Granite is always granite in the eyes of science. It 
 is natural, therefore, that science should decide that 
 man's life goes out like his breath when he dies. 
 Science very honestly, stoutly, sternly, godlessly says 
 that man does not survive the decay of his organs. The 
 religious world takes up the evidence not seen by 
 science. So far as it goes, however, science is the 
 world's grandest archangel — without wings, without a 
 heart for humanity, with only a front brain, having no 
 affections for theories, creeds, or philosophy. 
 
 But* Art comes to our relief. She comes from the 
 woman side of Nature. Art reports the most interior, 
 and unfolds the ultimates of the life of things. Music 
 can never be separated from art. Poetry and music 
 have pure affections. Painting is but another expression 
 of universal art. Science commences at the right side 
 and works leftward ; art commences in the left side 
 and works rightward ; thus they meet, and interlock, 
 
426 MORNING LECTUREB. 
 
 and silver-chain together in their marchings. Art 
 rises spirally toward heaven, but science continues hori- 
 zontally with the earth ; with its eyes upon the stars 
 it rises not; for it sees only solid bodies reflecting 
 light. Art alone interprets the light of the stars and 
 gives the music to which all bodies are wedded. The 
 magnificent beauty of the physical world is unfolded 
 through art. Science respects art only so far as it will 
 illustrate and develop the exactitudes of science. 
 
 Nature works in this wise and beautiful way. She 
 starts her men, the masculine power, from the right, 
 and her feminine elements from the left, and thence 
 they work in opposite directions. Art moves upward 
 until it reaches a certain elevation," and then it begins 
 to draw its credentials from science. Then it lets down 
 its buckets in the deep wells of exact discoveries, and 
 draws up thence its best and most enduring lessons. 
 
 As spiritualists, as searchers for eternal life, we 
 should become acquainted with both the right and the 
 left hands of Nature. Let us contemplate nature in 
 man and nature in woman ; nature in God, and there- 
 fore God in nature. God commences with the right, 
 and thence works leftward round and round, and circles 
 over and over throughout infinitude. Nature com- 
 mences with the left, and thence works rightward and 
 reaches the ultimate center, and unites with the soul 
 and mind in the fountain of all supreme excellence and 
 glory. The two meet and flow through each other, 
 returning and circling to and fro perpetually, the one 
 being represented by Science and the other by Art. 
 
 The negro may be said to represent the left side of 
 humanity. This statement certainly puts a new com- 
 
ULTIMATES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 427 
 
 plexion on the subject. The negro starts from the left side, 
 the Caucasian from the right, and the opposite races work 
 leftward and rightward in all countries and in all his- 
 tory. The negro is artful and emotional. He repre- 
 sents nature in her senses ; the Caucasian is nature in 
 her brains and organs. The first manifestation of taste 
 in the female nature is surface ornaments, display, 
 colors, gems, eyes, teeth, personal presentation. This 
 is the feminine power in the senses : the first manifesta- 
 tion of the left side attractions. The masculine com- 
 mences with the brain and works into the senses, and 
 scarcely ever gets out of them. If more men were out 
 of their senses — in their superior condition — and had 
 arrived at Art, "the world would be the better for it." 
 Woman commences leftward and works rightward. 
 She begins in the heart of things and expands and 
 reaches to the surface-plane from which man started. 
 
 The middle or neutral ground is occupied by the 
 transition races — say the Malays, the Indians, and the 
 Mongolians. The middle ground, therefore, is occupied 
 by these bridges, which connect the two sides of 
 humanity. These three types in the organic world, I 
 repeat, bridge over between the feminine and the mas- 
 culine in ethnology, and in the interior attributes of 
 opposite races. You have often seen the beautiful con- 
 centric lines of work in the shells on the sea-shore. All 
 sea-shells are made with spiral lines ; they can be con- 
 structed in no other way. What does it mean ? It 
 means that they are illustrations of Art, which com- 
 mences from Nature's left side and works artistically. 
 All the shells in the depths, caves, and grottoes of the 
 sea are adorned with her glorious artistic impress and 
 
428 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 handiwork. But Man's art is not like the art of Nature. 
 His art is science, a thoughtful child of the brain. He 
 studies and works to find out how Nature made her 
 shell, and fish, and birds, and stars. His aim is to 
 imitate such labors. An egg is one of the most simple, 
 wonderful, and beautiful works of Mother Nature. By 
 the fullness and undulations of the large end, and by 
 the spiral crinkles at the small end, an experienced eye 
 can tell which is feminine and which masculine. 
 
 All forces meet and conspire in the human organi- 
 zation. You will find that all powers of mind come out 
 in the highest types of the human race. But in the 
 negro* you find what men call the sentiments and emo- 
 tions. He fully enjoys his senses. Loving simple 
 pleasure, he seeks it on the surface, but readily deepens 
 by education. The Malay is very different. It is the 
 Khodent. It is the class of mind that seeks to live on 
 others. It chooses a dark abode and burrows in the 
 ground. The Indian, whether he be North American 
 or Oriental, is very different. The squirrel and the 
 raccoon, and the animals that live like them in the 
 forests, represent the Indian, and they will live and 
 they will die together. When Nature gets old enough 
 to destroy all of the animals that live on nuts and 
 acorns and berries and fruit's of the field and the forest, 
 and when she also destroys all that live upon the flesh 
 of other animals, then will she be also old enough to 
 seal the destiny of the Oriental as well as the western 
 tribes of the streams and wildernesses. 
 
 But the system works onward. She next gets into 
 the Mongolian. The Mongolian is represented by the 
 quadrumanal. Horses, cows, dogs, wolves, and the 
 
ULTIMATES IN THE SUMMER- LAND. 429 
 
 domestic mammalia, correspond to this branch ot 
 the human family. The Caucasian world is repre- 
 sented by the European and the American. This 
 portion of mankind pursues all parts of nature by 
 science, and lays all existence under heavy tribute. 
 The Caucasian subjects the world to himself. No 
 representative of any other race has such pre- 
 eminence. He eats freely of everything, breathes 
 all atmospheres, enjoys all possible shades of pleasures. 
 He pursues happiness through progression. The negro 
 pursues simple life and pleasure through the senses. 
 The Caucasian aspires after happiness, which includes 
 all pleasure and is the white flower of every kind of 
 obedience. Nature contributes freely from all her 
 departments, and constantly yields to his persistent 
 encroachments and innumerable discoveries. The 
 Caucasian seems to be representative of the higher race 
 to come. He expands into the universal Yankee, which 
 is a newspaper epithet of much significance, because he is 
 destined to become the climacteric development of the 
 antecedent races, to expand by means of his energy and 
 encroachments and infringements, all over the inhabita- 
 ble globe. 
 
 The American does not become Europeanized. The 
 negro does not cause the white man to be Africanized, 
 except so far as imitation and temporary association 
 go, and the upshot of it all is, that the African becomes 
 Caucasianized in his habits, tendencies, and aspirations. 
 The African is a simple child of Nature, filled with the 
 sentimentalities of Art. The Caucasian holds up to 
 him the banners of industry, of science, philosophy, 
 nvestigation — opens his eyes to behold the temples of 
 
430 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 learning and of universal progress. When a man sits 
 down to a table and partakes of* beef, he does not 
 become beef, but beef becomes him. That is true of 
 the Caucasian world. The Negro, the Malayan, the 
 Indian and the Mongolian are walking and working 
 together — as none of them could walk and work singly. 
 The Caucasian shakes hands with them all. Bayard 
 Taylor is cosmopolitan, so also are other travelers who 
 feel the blood of America fully developed in their veins. 
 They go anywhere on the face of this planet, shake 
 hands with the people, and affiliate with them all as 
 brother associates with brother. The Negro cannot do 
 this ; the Malay cannot do it ; no Indian can do it; only 
 the Caucasian goes all over the world and makes it con- 
 tribute its riches to his science. He travels by the map 
 and the compass; he steers by the north star; and he 
 makes friends with science and philosophy. He subjects 
 all things around him in order to make of them so many 
 new instrumentalities of his greater expansion. 
 
 What does all this mean ? It means that the human 
 family ascends, through the gradual development of the 
 races, to the Caucasian world. It does not, however, 
 mean that other races are cast down into the earth's 
 chemistry, and thus lose their immortality at death. It 
 would be as reasonable to teach that the superior facul- 
 ties of the mind liv£ forever, while the social and per- 
 ceptive faculties, which ally him to the interests of 
 creation, do not survive death. Man goes to the Second 
 Sphere, with the ultimates of all his parts, portions, and 
 functions. So the Caucasian race goes into the future, 
 not as the only regal and royal product of the organic 
 world, but as a member of the family of races. The 
 
ULTIMATES IN THE SlfMMER-LAND. 431 
 
 ultimates of every race in the Summer-Land establish a 
 community or a world of their own. So long as the 
 individuality of a race can be extended through its 
 organization, so long will that race continue to project 
 itself into the history and experience of coming ages. 
 The Caucasian man and woman can visit all the brother- 
 hoods and mingle with all classes and families there. 
 
 Principles incorporated in his mind begin to devel- 
 ope themselves, and to link him sympathetically with 
 all other races and brotherhoods. Thus extremes 
 meet. The negro and the white man — that is to say, 
 the African and the Caucasian, as left hand and right — 
 are coming eventually together, and will friendly face 
 like palm to palm. The star of empire goeth westward ; 
 will it not cross the Pacific, and connect itself with that 
 eastern world whence civilization sprung ? If the cir- 
 cuit is made and the connection perfect, it will be like 
 a magnetic circle. 
 
 When civilization crosses from our Western borders 
 and marches to the steppes of Asia, what then will 
 happen ? Europe will follow in the train, leaving the 
 very place whence civilization started, to see where the 
 Yankee is going to ; but the old race never can catch 
 him ! 
 
 When this world is unfolded with a state of civili- 
 zation all around it, it will then represent what is 
 practically known to be the highest source of joy in the 
 Summer-Land. Extremes and ultimates meet in the 
 sphere to which we go at death. The left hand and 
 the right — the male and the female elements of nature 
 — are certain to meet there, if they do not meet before. 
 Here they meet only on the surface ; there they meet 
 
432 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 from the interior. The Negro will never fully under- 
 stand the Caucasian in this world ; because the Cau- 
 casian will never folly understand the Negro ; while the 
 races that come between these extremes will be neither 
 understood nor tolerated. Two races will have in this 
 world a long parallel career — the left and the right, 
 or the Negro and the Caucasian. 
 
 Nature insists upon having both left and right fully 
 balanced in one body. No Indian prospers on this con- 
 tinent, neither does the Malayan, nor the Mongolian. 
 Only the Negro can prosper in copartnership with the 
 Caucasian. I do not mean to teach that the races will 
 become affiliated and amalgamated each with the other. 
 The moment the opposite races touch perfectly, that 
 moment they take separate rooms in the Father's house. 
 They work for each other and through each other 
 without affiliation or loss of individuality. The Indian 
 is nearly related to neither race, and because he does 
 not affiliate with them as closely as others do, he drops 
 outward and goes away from among the races. 
 
 The two opposite races meet again in the Summer- 
 Land. Does not the Bible say that the "least shall be 
 greatest in the kingdom of heaven" ? There are 
 Christians who sincerely believe that the person who 
 is here the most thoroughly "poor in spirit," will be 
 the richest and greatest there. You will find that 
 there is a deep meaning in this sentence. Does it not 
 mean that the left-race will be equal to the race of the 
 right-side ? The greatest here will be the least there. 
 They that superficially exalt themselves, are naturally 
 abased, because the next step they take from a false 
 exaltation, is certain to plant them upon a lower posi- 
 tion. 
 
ULTIMATES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 433 
 
 The Negro, starting from this left side of nature, 
 and the Caucasian from the right, will in the Summer- 
 Land represent two great opposite races. Men do not 
 take their complexions with them. They take only the 
 facts, which are indestructible — the consequences, the 
 ultimates, the realities — not the primates, the fictions 
 and the falsehoods. Ultim^es are fully developed 
 after death, and they are so developed that what here 
 corresponds to Indians, Mongolians, and Malays, are 
 there visible and distinguishable by many radical cha- 
 racteristics. 
 
 Tn the Father's house there are " many mansions," 
 because there are essentially different modifications of 
 the human family. Each wants a comfortable, happy 
 place in the Second Sphere. In the Summer-Land 
 there are localities for all divisions and shades of the 
 human race. There are always wings to great palaces. 
 Middle places too, but grand side-positions invariably. 
 The Caucasian world moves all through one wing, and 
 the African world is free to move all through the 
 opposite wing of the infinite palace. Nature is just as 
 powerful and beautiful and eternal as God. God and 
 nature work together; so Science and Art work 
 together. The male and the female go on through all 
 eteriiity. Intermediates also long continue. The princi- 
 ples that are at work artistically making the tiny shells 
 upon the sea-shore, are eternal principles. They are 
 working as faithfully in the higher spheres as within 
 and upon the earth. They round out globes and make 
 roads throughout the universe. 
 
 On some future occasion it may be shown what has 
 ultimated and blossomed-out in the Second Sphere from 
 19 
 
 / 
 
434 MORNING LECTURES. 
 
 the various kingdoms organized on the faee of the 
 earth. How natural and beautiful is what men call 
 "spirit!" How rational and philosophical is all that, 
 men term "supernatural!" How entirely "at home," 
 and not as strangers* will we all be when each has 
 ascended to the Summer-Land! 
 
 > 
 
/ 
 
 
 &rf .4-