way,

nature of the human soul. Then WISDOM commenced as follows: It is a self evident fact that there can be but one source of life, one being who has life in himself. This proposition is supported by enlightened reason and revelation; for the Lord Jesus says, "I am the the truth, and the life.” “In him was life, and the life was the light of men." “I am the bread of life." "I come that ye may have life, and that ye may have it more abundantly." It must therefore follow that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only source of life, and is “God over all, blessed for ever." It is not possible for him to create an infinite; for this would be one God creating another. He therefore can only create forms receptive of his life; and as his life is divine love and wisdom, the forms that are capable of receiving this life are human. In the human form alone is this life manifested,"and the Word supports this position; for we find that God created man in his own image and likeness.

As however there are a variety of created forms, we had better view them from the lowest to the highest. The lowest forms are found in the mineral kingdom: these grow by accumulation, and are the terminations of the forms of life. The next general forms have more perfection, as is evident in the vegetable kingdom; their construction is of a delicate nature; they have a greater variety of parts and are susceptible of injury. The next order of life is the animal kingdom; this presents to us life in the highest degrees of manifestation: thus we have in this class locomotion, which is denied to the others. This order includes human beings; we must therefore find the termination of the merely animal, and the commencement of the human. The distinction betwixt the actions of a brute and those of a man is vast; for the principle from which a man walks is very different from that which actuates a brute; because the origin from whence the moving power proceeds is superior. A mere animal attains with its physical growth the full perfection of its powers; it then neither ascends nor descends; the summit of its creation is attained, therefore it remains stationary. No training can possibly instil into animals an idea of morality. A dog will attach itself to a thief as soon as to an honest man; and a horse will carry a murderer as briskly as he will a Christian. Animals have no conscience, therefore they are not responsible. Many of the actions

of animals appear to have their base in reason and reflection; but who supposes that the bee thinks and says to herself, I must begin and build a hive in which I may deposit my honey; I must collect it in summer, for in a short time the position of the earth will be changed, and the rays of the sun will fall obliquely upon it, and then winter will ap

proach; it is time, then, for me to be active, for idleness is a degrading vice? Or, who supposes that birds, when they migrate, reason upon the distance of the journey, or make any calculations upon the obstructions that may arise in their progress to unknown shores? It must surely be evident that these things do not take place from any rational plane in the animal, but are from the common influx of the spiritual world into their respective forms. With a man, reason and reflection are the source of all his actions, be they good or bad. When he arrives at the fulness of his physical stature, he still continues advancing in mental perfection or mental degradation. He cannot be a stationary being, because the internal constitution of his nature is receptive of superior degrees of life; and it is this that places him infinitely above the highest order of brutes. The brutes have in their constitution only the lowest faculties of the animal degree; therefore they cannot manifest any other but man has not only all the lowest of the animal degree, but the highest also of that degree! and, added to this, the degrees of spirit: thus, by creation, he has all the degrees of the natural world and all the degrees of the spiritual; they reside in him as in their proper subject: this being the case he manifests those things which a brute cannot.

I will now proceed to shew the nature of the human soul, and prove to this assembly that the soul or spirit of man is an organized substantial form capable of receiving the love and wisdom of the Lord, and thereby existing for ever. The construction of the body of man is wonderful, and of itself proves that it is from a divine hand, a glorious work of the Creator. Look only at the human hand! What a piece of mechanism is there! Its movements can be adapted to every thing; and this is demonstrable evidence that the Being who created the hand is possessed of infinite love and wisdom.

The life of the body depends on two primary organs, namely, the heart and the lungs. These enter into every thing of the body by derivations, and give support to the whole. Now all things of the body correspond to the mind. This is unfolded by the science of correspondence. It is on this account that the parts of the human frame are so often mentioned in the Word of God: thus we read in the Psalms, "Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me;" further, the heart of stone is to be taken away, and a heart of flesh given. Our Lord says, "Out of the heart proceed abominable things." We find the hand and foot are to be cut off if they offend, and the eye to be plucked out. The psalmist also says, that the

In fact, all the organs

Lord "delighteth not in the legs of a man.” of the natural body are spoken of in the Word, because they are representative of the organs of the mind; for matter reflects spirit as a looking glass reflects objects. The life of the mind is communicated to it by two universal mental organs, and these are in correspondence with the two bodily ones. One mental organ is called the will, and is the seat of man's love or life, from whence all his affections and desires proceed this is the moving power of the mind, and performs the same functions to the spirit as the heart does to the body. The other great mental organ is the understanding: this is the seat of thought, reflection, and reason, and performs to the mind the same uses as the lungs do to the body. The mutual action of these great luminaries is that which is called the human soul, and which produces all the varieties of human character; thus all man's desires, affections, and appetites, -all his thoughts, reasonings, and speech, are but so many various modifications of these great powers. All the organs of the body taken in the aggregate, produce the human form; and each organ is productive of its peculiar use: thus the whole of the body is in every part, and every part in the whole. The various organs of the mind are similarly constituted, and each tends to the use of the whole, and the whole to the use of each. These powers, then, eternally distinguish him from brutes; they cause him to walk erect; they give the noble glance of intellect to the eye, and stamp him with the eternal seal of everlasting life, and proclaim, in the voice of eternal truth, that he is the noblest work of God. Heaven re-echoes the sound, the church proclaims it abroad, and its gentle cadences sink with rapture into the inmost recesses of the soul, and there it becomes written, in indelible forms, that God is love.

Unless man had possession of these mental substances he could never be wise. That he does possess them is evident from their manifestation. These forms, then, are human; in fact, humanity arises from these spiritual constituent parts; and though the body of flesh may be dissipated, yet the laws of matter cannot affect these forms, for they are superior and above their operations. We arrive, then, at this position, that man's bodily form is a manifestation of will and understanding, because the body is their subject while in this world. This, then, is what is called the human soul. By these powers a man can look to heaven and blessedness; by these he can soar above time and space, and for ever grow in wisdom and love; but a brute can only look to the earth and to sustenance thence derived, because, wanting these

superior forms, it is incapable of thought, reason, or spiritual affection; and, not having the degrees of spirit in its constitution, it perishes when the material organization is destroyed.

The will and understanding are then the superior degrees of life in man. These receive the influx of life from the Lord, and transmit it to the body; but it does not follow, because man is a recipient of life from the Infinite, that there is anything infinite in his nature. Although he has life communicated to him, together with the appearance that it is self derived, yet he has not anything belonging to infinite commixed with his nature. This may be illustrated by the earth and the rays of heat and light. These rays were the mediums of the creation of the world; for from them atmospheres were created, and by means of atmospheres fluids were brought into existence; these became condensed and the earth was produced: in fact, the laws of creation are, that prior things shall produce posterior; and although the sun is the primary cause of creation in nature, yet not a particle of it is commixed with the earth or its productions. Just so it is with the human soul; not a particle of the Sun of Righteousness is transmuted into it; it remains for ever finite and infinitely distant from the Creator. The manifestation of the spirit of man takes place when he becomes a full inhabitant of the spiritual world, which is when the heart and lungs cease their correspondence; this causes death. The man then still has the human form complete, as is abundantly proved from the Word. Thus when John the Revelator fell down to worship the angel, (and well he might make such a mistake, for angels are glorious images and likenesses of their Creator,) the angel told him not to do it, for he was a fellow-labourer, and had been one of his brethren in the world. The angels that were seen whom no man could number, came from the earth; in fact, all in heaven or hell have once been human beings in the world. Good angels are forms of order, devils of disorder. But our time is expired. WISDOM then concluded, and CURIOSITY arose and proposed that the meeting be adjourned, in order that a variety of subjects concerning the soul might be brought forward and considered. This was agreed to, and the meeting then dispersed until further notice.

O. P.

REMARKS ON THE PAPER OF O. P. IN THE JULY

NUMBER.

To the Editors of the Intellectual Repository.

GENTLEMEN,

I TRUST I may, without giving umbrage to your enlightened correspondent, offer a candid comment on that portion of his "Reflections," which appears to have escaped the censure of Observer, but which to my sense cries most loudly for animadversion. However, let the reader who would judge for himself, consider what O. P. has stated on the subject of language (pp. 246-7-8).

As a fair sample of his manner of treating the subject, I cannot, however, help quoting the following summary dismissal of the dead languages: "The age we live in (observes O. P.) is progressive; mankind are losing all their foolish veneration for ancient usages, and are now beginning to take a common sense view of things: formerly men were considered wise if they were acquainted with the dead languages; but learning does not consist in words, but ideas; and I cannot see any reason why ideas may not be got in one language as well as another. Mankind are aware of this, and the dead languages are now carried onwards in funeral procession, borne by rationality and common sense to the shades of oblivion; for when a thing is dead, its proper course is to be buried. Men are leaving roots of words to those who have no better employment; for we do not so much look after roots as fruits." (Ibid.)

To the assertion that the dead languages are fit only for burial, let it suffice to answer by others, which, although coming in the shape of questions, in effect seem less questionable. Can it be that your correspondent is so blinded by an hypothesis, or so warped by prejudice, as to need being told that never, since Hebrew, Greek, or Latin has ceased to be spoken in its ancient purity, have those languages been more extensively read and studied than in the age we live in? Has it never occurred to O. P. that among the "ancient usages for which mankind are losing their foolish veneration," one of the most remarkable, as an instance in point, is the dry and tedious system of rules, by which the "wisdom of our ancestors," in their non-anxiety for the “diffusion of useful knowledge," have thought fit to guard the way of the tree; to wit, of Greek and Latin more particularly; while of Hebrew, the fast increasing esteem and study of this most ancient lan. guage, indicates a revival, which might almost be termed " a resur