with its immortal luminous body, is organized for the invisible world.

The human soul, so long as this mortal life continues, is exiled into this mechanical body. It attains all its knowledge in time and space, through the medium of its sensible organs; and as it has not rationally, in itself, or in its own nature, any other sources of knowledge, it is impossible for it to judge and conclude otherwise than according to those laws which it gives to the senses, by means of its corporeal organization.

He that will not believe in the God of the Christians, nor in the immortality of the soul, in the face of his own inward conviction, may make himself easy in his unbelief; he needs nothing more. But the soul that hungers after perfection, and after a continual increase of blessedness, needs more than this transitory, sensible world affords. But this additional something it is unable to find in the whole sphere of its knowledge. People may say what they please of the physical proof of the existence of God, yet the result is never the true God, but only a supremely perfect, almighty, omnipresent, all-good and all-wise man, whose whole creation, together with the whole human race, is but a machine, which governs itself by its own concreated powers.

The soul does not know itself, nor is it possible for it to know itself, from its own sensible sources of knowledge. It wishes eternal duration, united with ever increasing perfection and blessedness. The motive to this lies in its own nature, it is created with it; left to itself, it is ignorant of the true means of attaining it: it therefore naturally seeks them in the world in which it exists, that is, in the visible world, but there it finds them not. It hastens from one attainment and from one enjoyment to another, but is never satisfied; till at length it is withdrawn, by death, from the visible world, and those whom it has left behind, know not what is become of it.

Here and there an individual may be found, but scarcely one in a million, who reflects on the matter further. He discovers a track, pursues it, and makes progress. He sees clearly, that the world in which he lives, and that he himself also, must have had an origin; the idea of a deity occurs to him; he draws inferences from his works; and the result is, a most perfect man, who then becomes his god; and he feels also that he must venerate him, and become like him. A law then unfolds itself in his mind, whose formula is, "that which thou wilt not that others should do to thee, do not to them; and what thou wishest others to do to thee, do thou also to them." On further reflection, he at length arrives where reason, in the present age, is arrived by philoso

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phical illumination; that is, at deism, then at fatalism, afterwards at naturalism, and finally at atheism. Enlightened reason left to itself, and not under the guidance of revealed religion must, necessarily, at length arrive at this.

Meanwhile, the innate impulse to perfection and happiness urges the poor imprisoned soul onward from one sensible attainment, and from one sensual enjoyment, to another, yet still it is never satisfied; it feels that it is not in its true element, yet knows no other; and it now makes choice of one of the two roads that stand open to it; it enjoys either as much as it can enjoy, or it struggles with fate, bears every adverse occurring circumstance courageously, and then passes over at death, to the great and unknown future.

There are many that perceive and are well aware, that nothing more irrational or aimless can be conceived than the annihilation of the soul at death. That a being, whose innate impulse is infinite duration, perfection, and enjoyment of the supreme good, should, in a few years, in which it has attained none of its objects, cease to be; what absurdity! An only half-sober reason easily acknowledges this, but as generally nothing more is seen or heard of the soul, after death, except when it it is here and there said, that a dead man has shewn himself, and

is returned again; the mere rational man, or the materialist, knows not a word of the further fate of his soul after death; he dreams and supposes, but always according to his mechanical principles, which he has abstracted from the visible world, and which are, therefore, totally false, with respect to their application to another world, in which spirits with their free-will are at home.

This is the natural path of human reason, which she pursues when left to herself, and when thinking consistently. Now we would suppose that mankind must have necessarily fallen upon this path in the first century of their cultivation, because it is so very natural and agreeable to reason: quite the contrary; if we ask the history of all nations, it gives us quite a different answer. Men were then acquainted with the invisible world; they believed in beings superior to themselves, who in gradation were more and more glorious, and connected at last with God or with divinities, as the Supreme Being, the origin and creator of all things. This view of the subject is the spirit and basis of all the mythologies or divinity-systems of every nation that was in any manner cultivated. Each particular nation then clothed this fundamental principle after its own character and favourite pursuits; in every nation there were, from time to time, persons of great genius, who beautified the picture by their glowing imagination; and then arose, likewise,

great benefactors to mankind and mighty heroes, who were honoured after death as gods. Belief in God and immortality prevailed universally.

I now ask every reader who loves the truth, how was it that mankind arrived so early at this belief in God, in an invisible world, and in immortality? Certainly not by the path of reason; for that leads directly away from all this; perhaps by means of imagination, that ever ready parent of new nonentities. This might easily be supposed; but on closer examination, this supposition vanishes and sinks into nothing; for,

First-Ideas which are real and true, lay at the foundation of every image of the imagination; for how can it figure to itself, or create any thing for which it has no materials? After previously knowing something of a God, and of a world of spirits; after knowing this, it decked out these fundamental principles with images from the invisible world: and,

Secondly-All nations that are in any degree cultivated, possess the fundamental principle of God, of a world of spirits, and of the immortality of the soul. All agree in this pure and abstract idea. But from whence have they derived it? Naturally, by a revelation of God, of the world of spirits, and of apparitions of deceased