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merely says, Acts xiii. 35, "Thou shalt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption," as though the idea was in reference to the body, and as if this expressed the meaning of the whole.

Admitting, however, for the sake of argument,* and in conformity to views entertained by many as to an intermediate state, we stand on equally firm ground; for, as spirit, at least a finite one, can take no cognizance of a material world except through some sort of organization, nor can form any idea of place, or space, as we have shown before, it is evident that if Christ goes, preaches, descends to a "prison" or place of fixed bounds and limits, or a material paradise, it must be in connection with some organization, ethereal it may be in its nature, but still material, or, at least, something very different from the spiritual power controlling it. It would then be necessary that Christ should have this spiritual body by which he would assume the same relations to the dead, which living he had with the living; the spiritual body holding the same control over the mental principle which the organic has during life.

If we knew certainly that such a spiritual frame-work existed we could reason upon it, and should find it working harmoniously under the natural laws laid down: for if such a spiritual existence is within our fleshly bodies, the two in conjunction may have that influence upon the spirit which our theory attributes to the body alone, and which, so far as absolutely known, depends upon the more material one; but the great point of our theory remains firm, viz. that by the fact of dwelling in the human body (and by this including every principle except spirit) the mental essence assumes a character in relation to the natural world which is called its nature, but after death, whatever there may be of a spiritual

In the anaesthetic condition, persons undergoing surgical operations often struggle and make loud outcries as if the body suffered, and yet, on return of consciousness, know nothing of what has occurred, and even express themselves as having had pleasant dreams. The excito-motary nervous system of Hall partly explains this, but is there not action upon a spiritual body or animal soul, distinct from the conscious spirit, and separated therefrom in the anaesthetic state!

body, that permits the mental essence to assume a corresponding nature in reference to the dead. There is nothing at all inconsistent in this view, because if man has such a spiritual adjunct to his body, Christ undoubtedly had the same, and came still under the law appertaining to the human soul.

We have now endeavored in an humble way to examine this subject with the earnestness and candor its importance demands, for it is above all things desirable that we should have a correct idea of all that pertains to our Lord, as upon this depends not only our comfort, but even ability to rationally defend "the faith that is in us." We will ask any one believing in the ordinary view of an hypostatical union, to drop, if only for a few moments, a theory unsanctioned by direct scriptural assertion, and established as merely the opinion of good but fallible men, and then look upon Jesus as very God, with no other soul than what the Apostle declared was there, viz. the manifestation of himself with human limitations; and then examine the emotions which overwhelm the mind. He will find them very unlike those excited by the confused and unphilosophical junction which makes Jesus neither God nor man. We do not worship God when we bow to Christ, if we look upon him according to the scholastic dogma, as a created being; and some have even expressed a doubt whether in his human nature he should be worshiped, notwithstanding his own command. If not God, then he was man simply, however honored of God; and adoration of him is no more that of the Creator than would be that of an image. Were the thoughts of all advocates of the common view of the union of two natures known to their own possessors, and a frank admission made to themselves of their own belief, we should find a shrinking from the acknowledgment of that most astounding act of condescension, whereby the ruler of the universe came to his own, and his own received him not." The act was so wonderful that even now it cannot, and will not be received, but a substitute is introduced which will yet permit God to retain all his glorious attributes, while nominally associated with a new created human being called his human nature, which is not his at all, and in no manner satisfies the

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language of Scripture or the enquiring mind. It is admitted by such believers, that Christ is somehow associated with divinity; but with them, faith is in advance of philosophy.

The view we have endeavored to unfold, presents a theory harmonious in every part, agreeing with Scripture and reason, even in minutiæ. It commands us to look upon our Lord Jesus as the creator of heaven and earth; to love and adore him as our God and king, yet our "equal," (Ps. lv. 13). Wonderful arrangement! still our God and king none the less for all his humiliation; not God in the sense of an unseen, far distant and incomprehensible person, or a sacred, intangible aura around the Son of man; but a "God manifest;" a tangible God, (1 John i. 1); the one Christ, here and personally here alone. It were easy to worship the invisible Creator, a thing often done by Jew and by heathen; but they only who have "learned of the Father" can recognize in the lowly Saviour the present and incarnate God.

ARTICLE V.-THE RIGHTS OF THE NATION, AND THE DUTY OF CONGRESS.

WE have conquered. Our vast armies, at the magic word of a citizen at Washington, melt away, not into nothingness, like those other hosts that vanished before the spear of Ithuriel, but into intelligent and loyal citizens, industrious and enterprising. Hands that grasped the musket in the charge, now handle ledgers and direct pens. Brawny arms that pointed the great gun, now swing the scythe or the hammer. Voices that used to ring the word of command over smoky fields, are now modulated to the whispers of the professional office, or attuned to the ears of listening audiences in silk and broadcloth. Our great iron-clads rest at League Island. Mr. Stanton leaves Washington for the season of rest for which four years of herculean toil have given even him an appetite. In a word, we are at peace; and the flag of the Republic, symbol now of a purer and worthier nationality than when first unfurled, springs from low earthworks to meet every eastern breeze that nears an Atlantic port, and hangs lazily in the perfumed air of the groves of orange and magnolia that border on the Gulf. Dusky forms, clad in blue, examine their passes for lordly Rhetts and Hammonds, or march them to the presence of a Yankee provost marshal. A pale, spare man at Fortress Monroe paces up and down the stone pavement of his casemate, and traces over, in long hours of unbroken meditation, the logical sequence from Calhoun's speeches, to the surrender of Lee and the capture of a half disguised fugitive in the gray dawn of a Georgia morning.

We have conquered, but among thoughtful men there is now the utmost anxiety regarding the future of the Republic. Since those dark hours after the defeat at Chancellorsville, when Lee led his veteran and victorious host across our borders, when other rebels, baser if not as bold, lighted the fires of insurrection in New York; when the Capital was

threatened, and no Northern city with a disloyal mob was safe; when Grant seemed to be wasting our very life-blood in fruitless endeavor at Vicksburg, and when, all along the line, our standards wavered and our stoutest hearts grew faintsince those darkest hours, just before the glorious dawn of Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, perhaps there has not been at any time so deep a feeling of distrust and alarm, as now prevails with all to whom the great contest has been one not of names but ideas. The Union is saved, only to be handed over, men fear, to the charge of those who have been its most deadly enemies. Slaves are emancipated; but whether emancipation shall prove a blessing or a curse, to them and to the nation, depends altogether, it would seem, upon the voluntary conduct of those who have always said it would prove a curse. Slavery is abolished; but peonage, or some other plan of forced labor, hardly less unjust or dangerous to the nation than slavery itself, is the natural result of the present condition of affairs at the South, the only solution to which the mind or inclination of the land-owner turns, and the inevitable consequence of any early withdrawal of military control. Slave labor has ceased; and the masters, whose pride and honor are staked upon the claim that free labor must fail, combine to make it fail. Property in man has ceased; and Avarice no longer restrains Cruelty, Hate, or Passion from deeds of horror that would be incredible if the slave-pen and Andersonville were not fresh in memory. The freedman's bureau and the military power-these alone save the blacks today from a fight of extermination between them and their late oppressors. The military power must cease to protect when the work of reconstruction is complete, and that work is pressed with haste. In not a single state has adequate provision been made for the protection of the blacks by civil courts; in most of them such protection is plainly denied. Mississippi defeats all candidates who advocate negro testimony in courts; Alabama and South Carolina show the same spirit; the loyal legislature of Virginia (so-called) found time to relieve rebels of civil disabilities, but none to grant the slightest protection to loyal blacks; Louisiana, in her free

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