shall I have? How shall I be fed and clothed, and what shall be my companionship? Why should human curiosity be satisfied upon one single fact and not upon all others relating to it?

It is not difficult to see that the opening thus of the whole arcana of the spiritual universe might be more injurious than beneficial to man's spiritual interests. If Heaven is what we want-if its loves and pleasures are to be sought for more than any material good, why do we not choose those loves and pleasures now. Goodness is applicable to all places and all times. We have the little present to act in and experiment upon; if we cannot take good care of it why should we wish for greater truths? This haste to know all about the spiritual world evinces anything but a high state of spirituality. The believers in modern Spiritualism tell us that its phenomena have given them a certainty of their immortality that they have sought for in vain from other sources. It would be both foolish and bigoted to discard any evidence of a truth so dear to the human heart, but we have not been able to see that the certainty of which they speak has made them any more spiritually minded. The child's babble, that we so often hear from mediums, respecting the world of spirits, is rather painful than otherwise. It seems evident to us that it was not intended by Him whose order rules in all states of being; who watches over the little sparrow, and numbers all the hairs of our heads; that men dwelling in this world and acting their part in its affairs and in the full vigor of their strength, should act chiefly with reference to another state of being. A man in building his dwelling, where he expects with his family to spend the remainder of his days, builds wholly with reference to time. He seeks for materials that will best resist the wasting power of the elements; he has regard to present convenience. He thinks, in short, only of what appertains to his material interests, and his work and plans only have reference to the present time. So it is in respect to most or all the economical affairs of life. It is manifest that while we dwell in the flesh these temporal cares must engross the larger part of our time and attention. Why should we, while engaged in those avocations, be perpetually gazing into heaven? Perhaps, if it were possible, that while we are employed upon the earth our spiritual vision could

be opened to the beauty and glory of the celestial world, and our ears could catch the sound of those everlasting harmonies, our minds would be too much distracted by the spectacle to permit our performing well the duties of the present. Yet while it is true that we do not, and cannot act in this world mainly with reference to another life, there is a latent faith, which God has implanted in every heart, which continually prompts and inspires us. It is faith in the reality and the supreme worth of the moral and spiritual. We are in the habit of using these two latter words as convertable terms. Strictly speaking, we suppose the word moral relates rather to actions, while the word spiritual relates to being to what a man is rather than what he does.

In all our worldliness and frivolity, we do not quite get away from the fact that justice is better than gain-that righteousness is more blessed than any blessing. It is this spiritual nature within us, it seems to us, that makes us feel our kindred with other worlds and superior beings, when we are quite sure we are conscious that moral excellence cannot be set over against worldly success. Here is something in man that radiates from the peculiar quality of his life, pervading the atmosphere around him, that we have no standard by which to estimate its value. The price cannot be estimated in gold. Nay, if we should set all the artists in the world to produce an imitation of it they could not do it. Subtle and ethereal, it escapes our sense, but is recognized by the spirit. In our better and more thoughtful moments we are sensible that the man that has wealth in himself, who possesses those moral graces which neither tongue nor pen can describe, is really more wealthy than the man whose earthly estate is represented by millions. We are sensible that the man who has been successful in this world and has got wealth, or high social or official position, yet has wholly lost the innocency of his childhood, has not lived wisely or well. This consciousness of the supreme wealth of the moral and spiritual in men, it seems to us, has its root in our immortal nature. It is because we feel that what is good and right takes hold of the eternal Heaven, and will stand after kingdoms and thrones shall have crumbled to dust, and even the stars shall fall from the blue vault, that we cleave to it with the constancy of martyrs, and our better spirits yearn toward it as faithfully as the

needle to the pole. The mariner does not guide his ship across the trackless ocean by other objects like himself afloat, but takes account of the stars in their courses. So men who walk the troubled ways of this present life, who live divinely and bravely, are not content with the conventional right or the commercial good, but draw fresh inspiration from Heaven-become the prophets of future goodgoing before and preparing the way that public men may follow after. Do we not feel that disease or poverty, or that the social disgrace that comes from supporting an unpopular course, is not an evil to be compared with that moral degradation that comes from conscious guilt?

There is no one of us but that would prefer to take the fate of the dyspeptic, with all his habitual depression and sorrow, to that of the libertine with good digestion and a healthy flow of animal spirits. A little more than two years since one of our countrymen died the death of a felon, with the execrations of a large portion of the American people upon his head. The law stamped his offence as a crime worthy of death, yet pure and elevated souls all over the world rise up and call him blessed. Without justifying, perhaps, his particular action, they feel an unspeakable reverence for the loyal soul that could dare so much in the cause of a poor and despised race. We shun to mention to parental or fraternal ears the name of one who has expiated a great crime upon the gallows; but delicacy will not for a like cause fear to speak of this man and his history, to his bereaved widow or the fatherless children. This peculiar reverence which we feel for moral excellence must, it seems to us, have its roots in the fact that what pertains to the moral and spiritual is not ephemeral in its nature but has an interest in a future existence.

It would be difficult to prove, we think, on any other ground than that of immortality, that disease of the moral nature is a greater evil than disease of the body, or that crime is more to be dreaded than poverty. For if present happiness is to be the measure of the worth of different actions it would be difficult to show that those who keep the moral law are in all cases happier than those who break it. Happiness in this world requires a great many conditions besides harmony with the moral laws of the universe. Some are born into the world with hereditary disease upon them

that gives them not a moment's release from pain and suffering from their natal to their mortal hour. Some are doomed to combat all their lives with grim poverty-the slaves of their animal necessities. It would be difficult to prove, taking this world as the sum and utmost limit of human existence, that these have as goodly a heritage as those who have sound health and are better supplied with those things which our state in this world requires. But allowing that all that could be proved that every earthly lot is just according to the moral desert of the individual, what then? If we give to goodness no interest in the eternal years, it follows that it is only a higher form of pleasure; and when we talk about cleaving to good and forsaking evil, we only mean something that is expedient. We can only then choose between moral and temporal good as between a less and a greater. Indeed, the words temporal and spiritual would then be without significance. All would be temporal, for all would bear an equal relation to time. Suppose a moral teacher should arise among us who should adopt this material philosophy as the base of his morals. Imagine him with his pupils around him inculcating the practice of virtue by showing, or trying to show, that on the whole it yields more happiness than sin. He makes no appeal to the moral sense-no appeal from the discords of earth to the harmonies of heaven. In his vocabulary there is no such word as ought. In his philosophy there is no moral necessity; in his precepts, no divine authority. Nature, he tells them, is their father and their mother; from her abundant stores they are to take whatever suits them best. It is better to choose the path of virtue because, on the whole, that yields the most happiness. Imagine an audience of young men and maidens before him, at the time of the blossoming of great hopes and great attempts! How soon would they weary with this bald twaddle about virtue and happiness. With what loathing and indescribable sadness would they turn from this disciple of Machiavelli to the "Sermon on the Mount," and read therein "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted." "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great shall be your reward in heaven."

"The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." Better, far better, the young man would say with a sigh, the lot of those who take this Man of Sorrows for their guide. Better the crown of thorns, with the benediction of God, than all the pleasures that earth can afford. Better the grief and sadness that draws solacement from Heaven than the greatest joy that looks no higher than the earth.

We have spoken of the sense of duty-of our moral repugnance to sin and our instinctive love of right. We hardly think it necessary to argue that these are qualities that belong essentially to human nature. The true ground and sanction of this moral choice must lie in the transcendent worth of the soul, in its relations to God and immortality. Then, too, there is what we call the discipline of life-its labors, pains and griefs-do we not all draw fortitude from the faith that they have some necessary connection with our future welfare? "Affliction," says Eliphaz, "cometh not from the dust, neither doth trouble spring from the ground." The inference drawn by the reverent mind is, that as they do not come from the dust, they have a divine. use, and bear some part in that wise and benefient order that is ever working for the welfare of God's intelligent. children. When we read those triumphant words of Paul where he says, "We glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope," we catch something of that immortal enthusiam that inspired his own soul. The author of these words could not have given expression to them without the consciousness that there was something within him beyond the reach of earthly harm-something that tribulation could only glorify and exalt. All our heroism, our contempt of suffering and death, are the fruit of this latent. consciousness of immortality. There may be a savage bravery in a people who have little or none of this religiousness of mind that comes from a conscious relation to other worlds and superior beings; but there can be no sustained courage, no enduring sacrifice, no moral heroism, where there is not a feeling of the Infinite-where the seeds of religious truth have died out.

No doubt the love of fame and military glory have furnished inspiration for many a brilliant achievement in arms;