. . . . He laughed at human perfectibility. He declared, that loyalty to the prince, and pecuniary reverence to the church, were his only hope of salvation.

We, therefore, ignore human governments, creeds, and institutions; we deny the right of any man to dictate laws for our regulation, or duties for our performance; and declare our allegiance only to Universal Love, the all-embracing Justice.

In addition to this statement of his thought the second speaker asked, Why does a man need an outward law? Simply because the law of love has been hidden. Men, are they not bankers and capitalists, whose Bank and Capital is God? Why should they borrow of men? Why should the all-wealthy seek the substitutes of riches? If we assert our manhood, what do we need of learning, precedent, or government? Let the impoverished seek for notes of hand; let the timid and lawless ask protection of the arm of power. Let the foolish still dream, that the vanity of book-miners will be their wisdom for us, we claim wealth, love, and wisdom, as essential informations of the Divinity. Besides, human institutions bear no fruit. If you plant them, they will yield nothing. Prohibitions and commands stand for nothing. "Thou shalt not kill," which is a history recording to sense what the divine law of purity suggests in every unperverted heart, is held binding by none. What shall I not kill? asks the butcher, the poulterer, the fishmonger, and he answers, All things in which I do not trade. And what shall the soldier not kill? All men, except his enemies. These exceptions make the law nugatory. The command is universal only for the pure soul, that neither stabs nor strangles. The laws of men inculcate and command slaughter. Nor will they exculpate rebellion on the ground, that holiness has rendered obedience impossible. But we must ignore laws which ignore holiness. Our trust is in purity, not in vengeance.

A third person had written down his thought as follows.

III. FORMATION.

"Behold I make all things new."

That in order to attain the highest excellence of which man is capable, not only is a searching Reform necessary in the existing order of men and things, but the Generation of a new race of persons is demanded, who shall project institutions and initiate conditions altogether original, and commensurate with the being and wants of humanity.

That the germs of this new generation are even now dis

coverable in human beings, but have been hitherto either choked by ungenial circumstances, or, having borne fruit prematurely or imperfectly, have attained no abiding growth.

That the elements for a superior germination consist in an innocent fertile mind, and a chaste healthful body, built up from the purest and most volatile productions of the uncontaminated earth; thus removing all hinderances to the immediate influx of Deity into the spiritual faculties and corporeal organs. Hence the true Generator's attention will be drawn to whatsoever pertains to the following constituents of Man and of Society :

Primarily, Marriage and the Family Life, including of course, the Breeding and Education of Children.

Secondly, Housewifery and Husbandry.

Thirdly, The relations of the Neighborhood.
Fourthly, Man's relation to the Creator.

It is obvious, that society, as at present constituted, invades all and every one of these relations; and it is, therefore, proposed to select a spot whereon the new Eden may be planted, and man may, untempted by evil, dwell in harmony with his Creator, with himself, his fellows, and with all external natures.

On a survey of the present civilized world, Providence seems to have ordained the United States of America, more especially New England, as the field wherein this idea is to be realized in actual experience; and, trusting in the faith which inspires, the hope which ensures, and the power which enacts, a few persons, both in the new country and the old, are uniting their efforts to secure, at the earliest possible moment, and by the simplest possible means, a consummation so sublime, so humane, so divine.

After reading this paper, he added words to this effect. Reformation belongs not to us, it is but a chimera. We propose not to make new combinations of old substances, the elements themselves shall be new. The great enigma, to solve which man has ever labored, is answered in the one fact, Birth. The disciplines, the loves, the wishes, the sorrows, the joys, the travail of many years, are crowded into conception, gestation, and Birth. If you ask where evil commences, the answer is, in Birth. If you ask what is the unpardonable sin, the answer is an unholy birth. The most sacred, the most profane, the most solemn, the most irreverent, the most godlike, yet possibly the most brutal of acts. This one stands as a centre to all extremes, it is the point on which God and Devil wage most irreconcilable warfare. Let Birth be surrendered to the spirit, and the results shall be blessed.

Together with pure beings will come pure habits. A better body shall be built up from the orchard and the garden. The outward frame shall beam with soul; it shall be a vital fact in which is typically unfolded the whole of perfectness. As he who seizes on civil liberty with the hand of violence would act the tyrant, if power were entrusted to him, so he whose food is obtained by force or fraud would accomplish other purposes by similarly ignoble means. Tyranny and domination must be overcome, when they first take root in the lust of unhallowed things. From the fountain we will slake our thirst, and our appetite shall find supply in the delicious abundance that Pomona offers. Flesh and blood we will reject as "the accursed thing." A pure mind has no faith in them.

An unvitiated generation and more genial habits shall restore the Eden on Earth, and men shall again find that paradise is not merely a fable of the poets.

Such was the current of our thought; and most of those who were present felt delight in the conversations that followed. Said I not well, that it was a happy day? For though talk is never more than a portraiture of a fact, it may be, and ours was, the delineation of a fact based in the being of God.

JAMES PIERREPONT GREAVES.

NOTE.

[Whilst the foregoing article was preparing for the press, the following biographical notice of the great man, to whose name and character we had just called the attention of our readers, was sent us from England. Timely and welcome! The Memoir comes from a dear friend of Mr. Greaves, who had long lived under the same roof, and who strictly sympathized with his thoughts and aspirations. There is a certain grandeur about the traits of this distinguished person, which we hardly know where to parallel in recent biography. At the same time we are struck with his singular felicity in finding such an observer and reporter of his life. We rely on our honored correspondent to send us, with the least possible delay, the papers alluded to in the close of the Memoir. EDITOR OF THE DIAL.]

PROPHECY is a Nature in Man. It is not merely an action either in or on the mind, but an ever present element. Neither is it a peculiar gift, unknown to all save the few.

For it is by reason of its presence in one, that it is comprehended as a possibility in another. It is rather the universal revelation, varying endlessly in power, in development, in consciousness. In degrees so endlessly varying, that the less receiver is apt to venerate the larger receiver, as a heavenfavored existence. Such largeness of reception belonged to the late James Pierrepont Greaves. Of those who enjoyed the advantage of numbering him amongst their human acquaintances, few will forget the vivacity, the force, the constancy, with which he was enabled to bring before the mind a vivid representation of the eternal power at work within him. Or rather, should it not be said, that the fervor in and from him was so strong, as to effect a kindling within the bosom of every auditor of that fuel, which till then had never been ignited. Somewhat of this result occurred to all with whom he was brought into contact. Either in anger or love, for animosity or friendship, deep, sincere, unqualified, was he distinguished in the category of every one with whom he was held in any moral relationship whatever. There was no coolness, no indifference; for the pungent power, the capacity for touching another soul in the very point of its being, was so strong and so universally exercised, that the result at the moment was sure to be either the vivifying of hopes to an extent never before experienced, or the stirring up of gloomy elements which renew the war within. The happy consequences fell, we need scarcely remark, mostly to the young, the pure, and such as were free of sectarian holdings; the unhappy ones to the fixed and stiffened doctrinal mind, the sectarian, the selfish.

In himself was remarked a youthful spirit, which physical age could not conceal, even from the common observer. The formality in expression, the framework of antiquated terminology, the imposition of precedent literature, which so frequently and so dreadfully stamp the signet of bald age upon the youthful brow, never weighed down the juvenile vigor in him. The spirit so living, so loving, and so potent, acted freely in all modes, like an elastic human body in flexile garments. Authors, as well as speakers, found, in reflections from him, a value put upon their words far greater than they intended, or of which they considered them susceptible. He thus deepened every thinker to a

moral sensibility beyond the ground of mere thought or contemplation, whence moral improvement has so long been viewed, but on which it never can be actualized.

To discover a critic, not himself an author, yet far more authorized than any author; to encounter a friend, not involved in individual sympathy, yet greatly more loving than the nearest kin; are incidents so uncommon to the writer, and to the soul, that they are marked as white days in the mind's calendar. These are moments, æsthetic moments, afterwards ever present; for they are not alone pencilled on the memory by pleasure, but engraven in the heart by love.

A being favorably organized mentally for this work of approved education, and of manners and external aspect more than "passing fair," who shall, either spontaneously or in some unpremeditated circumstances, be induced to throw himself inward in the prophetic nature to the antecedent power which breeds and develops it, becomes a real blessing, or at least a most blissful circumstance to his progressive fellow beings. With a strong tendency from these advantages to an indigenous exposition of this moral nature, Mr. Greaves appears to have been detained in little above a refinement of old notions, until circumstances favorable to the elimination of the higher were brought about. There was doubtless always a readiness to flow forth in this direction; but the nature must be strong indeed which can burst through every impediment which education, and institutions, and living society carefully pile around it; and in Mr. Greaves it did not resplendently shine forth, until events took place, usually called adverse, but which in his case, having been followed by results the most happy for himself and beneficial for his fellow man, may truly be termed fortunate, or providential.

Mr. Greaves was born at Merton, in the county of Surrey, a few miles from the great metropolis, on the night of the first of February, 1777. His parents, who moved in a thoughtful sphere, had several other children. Two of the sons were brought into the Church; but both have subsequently, in a better understanding of that which is to be revered, ceased to place the term "Reverend" before their names; and in other particulars have shown that the manifestations, for which James was remarkable, were not