toil had not been in vain. Thus do I meditate, though not with the exultant satisfaction of the sculptor, the unworthy counterpart of Christ which these rude words of mine have fashioned. I know the likeness is sadly inferior to the sublime original; yet such as it is, I implore some token that it is not displeasing to Him whose name is dear to my poor heart, and will be so forever. And if from His holy throne the fire that descended on the apostles when Pentecost was fully come shall rest on you, my reader, irradiating the temple of the soul, and from its altar flash in flame of righteousness, the response I seek will be vouchsafed and my reward will be complete.

SPIRITUALISM.

"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

"The oracles are dumb;

No voice of hideous hum

Luke xvi, 31.

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek, the steep of Delphos leaving.

No nightly trance or breathed spell

Inspires the pale-eyed priests from the prophetic cell."

Milton.

HETHER history or parable, this Scripture inforces a very solemn and salutary lesson. Dives, the representative of Godless affluence, when reaping the fiery whirlwind of his folly, calls on Father Abraham to mitigate his terrible agony, and to send Lazarus, if not to himself, at least to his five surviving brothers, that they may be dissuaded from coming to the place of torment. The sufferer is reminded that they who live on earth have Moses and the prophets for their guidance; or, in other words, enjoy the light of a heavenly revelation, and should give heed to its influence and instruction. But to this suggestion the rich man replies: "If one went unto them from the dead they would repent." He seems to feel that a little special supernaturalism judiciously displayed in the interest of his brethren, a few ghosts effectively materialized and sent from the spirit realm, would arrest attention and would necessarily promote reformation. Spectral appearances, he doubtless thought, would overawe and alarm the indifferent, and a message from their phantom lips

would decide them to embrace religion. In "the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men," had not a spirit passed before the face of Eliphaz, the Temanite, and did not fear come on him, and his bones shake, as the solemn silence was broken by the strange voice inquiring: "Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?" If so, why might not other shadowy messengers be sent to earth with profit, and be equally successful in impressing mortals with the reality of things eternal? Some such line of argument probably occurred to Dives; but instead of its soundness being recognized in Hades, he is answered: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead; " words that express clearly and explicitly the absolute sufficiency of the Inspired Books for life and godliness.

It is, however, to be observed that the Savior in this declaration does not deny the possibility of the dead returning, under certain circumstances, to influence the living; neither does the Bible commit itself to any such denial. Indeed, its stringent laws against invoking their presence, and its wide-sweeping condemnation of all who attempt to bring them back, or who, impelled by idle curiosity, seek intercourse with them, seem to imply that those who have gone before may revisit and minister to friends on earth under conditions determined solely by the Almighty. We know that Moses and Elias were with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, and that, when He arose from the tomb, many of the saints came with Him, and were seen in Jerusalem. Moreover, the apostle Paul, having described the faith of God's heroes, assures the Hebrews that they are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, evidently referring to those of whom he has been writing so eloquently, and who, though dead, are thus represented as feeling an interest in the career of all

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who are following on to know the Lord. Nor is it altogether incredible that such exalted beings, freed from the trammels of earthly life, should sometimes mingle with mortals whom they love, and who are yet exposed to sin and danger. Why may not the mother, through the misty veil that hides the seen from the unseen, find a way to direct the footsteps of her friendless child? Why may not lamented dear ones, whose visible forms have crumbled into dust, still in spirit linger with us here, and, though unrecognized, assist us in our progress to the skies? Of course, much can be said against this view, but much, also, can be said in its favor, though probably not enough on either side to establish a positive conviction. Our Savior, in the parable, gives no information on the subject. He neither affirms nor denies, just as He expresses no opinion at this time on the kindred doctrine of angelic and demoniac influences. On this latter topic, however, on other occasions He speaks clearly; and from the tenor of His ministry, as well as from the testimony of the apostles, we learn that angels and devils stream into our world, and bring to bear on humanity the beneficence of heaven or the maleficence of hell.

Lavater, as cited by Kurtz, declares "that all known material elements enter into the composition of the body, and all discernible spiritual faculties manifest themselves in the constitution of the soul, so that man is thus necessarily related to the visible and the invisible, to all things and all beings, not even excepting God himself." Constellations and galaxies transmit their fires to his thought, and magnetic currents from earth and sky flash along the nerve-wires of his wondrous organism. Suns, planets, and all the elemental material of this restless globe, are held in solution in his blood as it surges on its ministry of life and health. Atmospheres are the exhaustless fountains which slake his thirst, that support him with their might, and

that carry to him on their tireless energies the beneficence of remotest spheres, and waft from him the asphyxial malaria which perpetually threatens his existence. Man is as it were the meeting-place of waters, the bay toward which all tides, physical and spiritual, incline, the recipient and exponent of the universe, the exotery of its esoterics, the crown of its greatness, and the shekinah of its glory. And if, therefore, we may believe with Bulwer-Lytton that,

as

"millions and myriads" of lives "dwell in the rivers of man's blood, and inhabit his frame as he inhabits earth," so "the circumfluent, infinite and boundless impalpable which we call space" must be "filled with its corresponding and appropriate life," "creatures of surpassing wisdom, or of horrible malignity, some of whom are hostile as fiends to men, and others as gentle as messengers between earth and heaven," we cannot deny the possibility of what Swedenborg taught, and what unimpassioned and inexcitable thousands among the devout have credited, "that man may be instructed by spirits and angels, may be in company with them, and converse with them face to face." The possibility of such mysterious intercourse I would not for a moment presume to question. Man being what he is, and the universe being what it is, I think this commerce highly probable, and it may be necessary to explain many things in our personal experience, and in that of others, such as is recorded in Owen's Footfalls on the Boundaries of Other Worlds and Howitt's History of the Supernatural. But our Savior, in the parable which gives character to our present study, does not touch on these marvelous matters; nor does it come within the scope of my proposed inquiry to discuss them. He passes by them as irrelevant and extraneous, His immediate object being to emphasize the practical sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. He teaches clearly and specifically that, having God's Word, the race has everything that it really needs for