persistency of self-consciousness through a life of seventy or eighty years and all manner of physical changes and vicissitudes, the body's growth, the body's slow decay, as a proof of its superiority to death itself; but, surely, you will all agree with me that this persistency suggests with overwhelming force that it is the things that are seen which are transient, the things that are unseen that are permanent.

"The hills are shadows, and they flow

From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands;

Like clouds they shape themselves and go."

But what does not flow from form to form, what does not melt like mist, what does not shape itself and go, is this inexpugnable, ineradicable I, this self-consciousness which no metaphysical analysis can disintegrate or destroy. And we have here, it seems to me, a rejoinder of the most crushing weight to that popular imagination or materialistic theory which finds in things spiritual the impermanent and transitory and in things material such as are relatively fixed and strong.

All these considerations are general; and, as I have said, they do but clear the way for those of a more positive nature, make, as it were, a sky, an atmosphere, on which a positive argument can unfold its wings and trust itself to the illimitable air. So far, I have done little more than show that some of the ordinary presumptions against immortality are wholly invalid, and indeed, when thoroughly examined, yield conclusions quite the opposite of those habitually drawn. But, of those considerations of a more positive nature which science yields, I will name two only; and on these I need not dwell, because I have more than once before now told you how much they mean to me. Here, I believe, are two "natural laws in the spiritual world' which Mr. Henry Drummond did not name; and yet I am persuaded that they are more valid and important than any named by that lamented writer in his fallacious and mis

leading book. One of them is the conservation of energy. It may well be doubted if this, and not natural selection or evolution, is not the great scientific doctrine of the century. It is a natural law of quite immeasurable significance. Is it also a spiritual law? No physical force is ever lost. It is conserved even where it is most widely dissipated, and reappears in other forms. How is it with that energy which we call the soul, which we call Shakspere or Newton or Lincoln, which we call wife or mother, husband or child or friend? What conservation is there of the energy that was in these, in what remains of them to bury in the earth or burn with fire, after the last farewells? The question comes home to us as pointedly from any grave where humblest worth lies buried as from the splendid mausoleum where a grateful nation lavishly enshrines her mighty dead. If the conservation of energy is a law which stops short at the bounds of matter, then there is nothing more to say; but, if it is a law of matter and of spirit, then must we believe that somehow, somewhere, not only the mighty ones of intellect and imagination, but those who had a genius for affection and devotion, will live again, a conscious individual life. And, mind you, those who can find nothing in man but the material are bound, as are no others, to subscribe to this. If the soul is a material commodity, what conservation is there of its energy in the solids, liquids, gases, into which the body is resolved? Can these write immortal poems, save nations from destruction, divinize the most humble life with the supreme significance of love? No, they cannot; and, if the conservation of energy is a natural law in the spiritual world, then have we a suggestion of the utmost dignity and importance that death does not end all.

But there is another natural law in which I find another argument for immortality. It is the law of vital correlation. Let me explain. In the development of animal structures there goes along with the development of special organs, parts, and functions the development of certain others, adapting the animal structures to changed conditions. Now

in the spiritual life of man there goes along with all that is best in his intelligence, noblest in his affections, grandest and sweetest in his moral nature, the development of the hope of an immortal life. Of course, we have our moments when the pulse of life is slack, and we imagine that we should prefer eternal sleep to any wakening. But I am speaking of the normal man, not of the slack-twisted and down-hearted. And here, at the top of our condition, is a correlated growth; and, if the hope which is thus developed correlatively with our noblest living is not a solemn and majestic portent of a sublime reality, then have we a radical contradiction in our nature, every higher thought or nobler act or purer purpose tending to immerse us deeper in a terrible illusion. It is the same Power which organizes in us the purest splendors of our thought and love which organizes in us correlatively the hope of immortality, so that if, in very deed and truth, "it is impossible for God to lie," that hope must mean its realization as surely as the earth's revolution on its axis means alternate night and day.

But I would not make too much of these considerations. Let Science do all that she can-it is much more than I have said - for us, and still our best resource will be a daring hope. If the most and best of science are but little, then the hope is all the more daring, and no worse on that account. Our relations to a conscious individual life hereafter would lose the finest essence of their religious character if the Spiritualist or anybody else could give us a complete scientific demonstration. That finest essence is the precipitation of ourselves upon our hope,- not nourishing that in any deliberate fashion, but simply living our best life, and then, if that life flowers into a great fragrant hope, daring to cherish it, though all the arguments of science seem to press the other way.

We read in Nansen's Farthest North a book that expands our faith in human nature more than our knowledge of the northern seas-that, when the vessel was drifting south or too much west, the men were dispirited and sad;

but, when she was moving onward toward the unknown world, their hearts were always glad. If we are not so impatient of the winds and tides which hold us back from the unknown as were Nansen's men, I would that we might be as fearless as were they of the unknown. And, indeed, I am persuaded that, the further on we go, the more we leave behind us of familiar things, and the stranger the new aspects of the sea and sky, the quieter become our hearts.

"Naked from out that far abyss behind us

We entered here.

No word came with our coming to remind us
What wondrous world was near,-

No hope, no fear.

"Into the silent, starless night before us
Naked we glide.

No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us,

No comrade at our side,

No chart, no guide.

"Yet, fearless, toward that midnight, black and hollow,

Our footsteps fare.

The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow,—

His love alone is there."

And that we dare.