X.

But where is HE, whose genius planned-
Whose high emprise each danger sought?
Where the bold leader of the band

That in the van of battle fought?

XI.

Brave Wood returns, not from the fray,
To greet the view of comrades dear;

No more to lead the bold array-
No more the spangled flag to rear.

XII.

On battle-plain his spirit sped,

And joined the host of Heroes brave;
Who erst on Fame's proud fields have bled,
Their Country's dearest rights to save.

XIII.

Long shall that Country mourn his doom-
Long Freedom drop her sorrowing tear;
And weeping Glory oft shall roam,
To scatter laurels on his bier.

METAPHYSICAL FRAGMENTS.

NUMBER ONE.

MATTER, THE MEDIUM OF THE REVELATION OF MIND TO MIND.

THERE is a feverish sensibility in the public mind-a timid and apprehensive shrinking from metaphysical inquiry. The dark umbra of superstition still rests upon us; and he who attempts to draw aside the veil of nature; look into her arcana; hold converse with occult causes, and the relations of things, is greeted with the harsh sound of the dire priestess' "procul oh! procul este profani!"

Is inquiry wrong? Are we afraid of discovering the Great First Cause in works of darkness? Is it wrong, even in the strong and figurative language of poetry, to approach the shrine of God, and converse with the priestess of nature? Wrong! It cannot be ! Inquiry is the very nature of the spirit-development its duty-and communion with God its end. But we should inquire with reverence. The spirit, as it enters the temple of nature, should bow with awe, and worship. At every step, it should pause to adore the Eternal One, whose power laid the foundations of the earth-whose Spirit garnished the heavens.

The influence of this feverish sensibility has been decidedly injurious. It has been the occasion, if not the cause, of divorcing science from Christianity; and arraying the communications of God, through matter, against the revelations He has made to us by his Spirit.

It has confounded a naturalist with an infidel, and every attempt to interrogate nature and discover the reason of things, with the madness, presumption, and folly of those who "mutter and peep."* Yea, more.

It has fettered free thought, and doomed the spirit to ignorance of many subjects that are adapted to elevate the soul above the objects and influence of sense; to shed a halo of peace about the head of the aged; to reveal goodness and wisdom in the dissolution of the body, and the silence that rests upon the house of the dead.

These remarks are applicable to the subject of our present inquiry. Matter has relations to mind-to mind, finite and infinite. These relations are not the result of chance, but of wisdom-not the fetters of arbitrary sovereignty, but the chords of goodness, binding spirit to matter, in order to enlarge the sphere of thought, to diversify and increase enjoyment. They are bonds of union, woven by love, in the councils of infinite wisdom. Yea, we shall find them to be the result of divine deliberation, designed and formed as the best, as the only wise and glorious relations in which a being could be placed, to whom God could come from the inaccessible light in which He dwells, and reveal the thoughts of His mind and the feelings of His heart.

How different from this is the prevailing notion to which we have alluded. If we go to the house of the sick-if we stand by the couch of the dying-what murmurings against the frail tabernacle of flesh! Matter is an evil. It is the prison of the spirit. Even the christian looks contemptuously on his body, and sighs to be free. Does he forget the teachings of inspiration?

"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

"For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked."

Here is one of the most beautiful, touching, and sublime scenes, ever opened for the contemplation of the spirit of man. It is Paul, filled with inspiration-beholding his divorcement from matter-existence in a disembodied state and re-union to matter again. What sorrow and joy! What lingering and exulting to depart!

"For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life."

He would lay aside the sinful, that he might put on the sinless-the natural, that he might be "clothed upon" with the spiritual. He loved his union with matter.

And who would be free from this feeling? Go, and think. Retire within yourself. Let ideal forms arise. Let the founts of spiritual feeling be broken up. Its forms are fairer than those of matter; its feelings are deeper and purer than those that arise in view of the objects of sense. What sweetness in pity! what pleasure in love! Thus beholding and thus feeling, the body is a prison; and matter is a barrier to the beautiful and sublime in thought-the pure and constant in affection. Spirit sighs to commune, directly, with spirit; and, instead of expressing its love through the embrace of flesh and the touch of

* 2 Cor. v. 1-4.

lips, it longs to live in a oneness of feeling-in direct communion of soul with soul.

Go, and think! Let twilight exclude the world and invite to abstraction. Fly on imagination. When thought has traversed beyond the sphere of the mightiest telescope, what are your feelings, when fancy has borne the spirit beyond the flight of the eagle's wing? Do you not sigh to be free? Is not the body a prison, and matter an obstacle to the free and lofty excursions of thought?

This feeling is not confined to the superstitious and ignorant. Philosophers have received it as truth:-ay, and metaphysicians too, who have reasoned till they have exhausted the founts of feeling, and presented nothing but intellect, drier than their metaphysical subtleties. They dream of a pure spirit and a spiritual world. They wish to live in abstractions. Their paradise is a succession of intellectual states.

Can there be a pure, spiritual world? If there could, is it desirable? What would take the plaee of the cerulean vault of heaven-the varied carpeting of colors that covers the earth-the richness of music and of words-the countenance, lighted with love-the eye, beaming with thought-and the movements of the body, full of the objective spirit!

These remarks prepare the way for entering directly upon our inquiry. We pass by obvious phenomena. We ask not, is matter a substance-does it exist? Is there mind? Have they any relations? Our aim is higher. For who is not a historian of nature? We interrogate relations. We ask causation and consciousness. We seek the reason of things. We ascend along the line of second causes, till we come to the first. We ask the Creator, what is the relation of matter to mind. Are we presumptuous? It is the nature that God has given us developing itself. Are we profane? We approach with unsandalled foot. We draw near in faith, and, like children, interrogate the Father of our spirits.

Our inquiry is twofold. What is the relation of matter to the eternal mind? Is it the medium by which God reveals himself to his creatures? What is the relation of matter to the finite mind? Is it the medium by which finite mind converses with finite, and contemplates the revelations of the infinite?

Wis

Our reasoning must be retrospective. Imagine some thousand years annihilated; the morning stars are silent-creation's hymn unsung. Chaos exists. Interrogate its deep hum. There is no answer. dom has not yet stretched her line upon it. Goodness is not yet revealed. There is no mark of design; and, as we vainly endeavor to gaze on amorphous matter, we feel that there is nothing in it to teach us knowledge.

Again: there is a step in creation. Rude animals appear in the waters, and marine plants cluster around the projecting rocks. Creation advances. Order arises from disorder, and beauty is spread over the face of nature. The amorphous mass which gave no response to our interrogation, has found organs in the adaptation of part to part, and utterance in the impress of design. As we see it change into the vernal freshness of the grass-the whiteness of the lily-the germ of seedsthe pinion of the eagle-the eye of man, full of intellect and bright with emotion, we feel that there is a power above and beyond matter. As we watch the progressive work, our nature prompts us to remove the sensible, and look for the unseen power of creation. Matter appears as a

material, and its formations the embodied conceptions of the First Cause, coming forth from a subjective into an objective existence.

Let us be a little more definite. Every formation has its end, and laws, as principles impressed which guide the development of its nature to the attainment of this end. We see a great variety of parts. These are fitted and arranged in such relations as to form a perfect being; part adapted to part, and the being constituted to affect and be affected by the external world. Here is matter. But there is more than matter. It is matter formed into organs-into an animated being. It is matter assuming certain relations. It is matter moulded, for the sake of these relations, as they exist in the being and its connexion with the external world. But these relations are not matter, nor any qualities of matter. It exists for them. It is moulded to give them an objective existence. As such they are the embodied conceptions of the eternal mind.

But we see every creature happy in the development of its naturefrom the ephemeral fly to the soaring eagle. The eye is pleased with colors, the ear with sounds, and the palate with tastes. Now delight is not implied in design, nor pleasure in the mode of attaining an end. Hence we have in the existence of delight something different from mere embodied intellectual conceptions-we have these conceptions, and benevolence moving and directing them.

What then is our conclusion? What is the relation of matter to God? We answer, that it is the medium of his revelations-the occasion of his objective existence as a revealed being. It is the material by which He becomes the objective of created spirits. It is the wax, and its various formations are the impressions of the seal of the infinite mind. So that we can, intelligently and adoringly, in view of design, as exhibited in those formations of matter, where we behold the adaptation of part to part in an organized being, and of benevolence, as seen in the delight of sentient creatures, exclaim: behold the revealed-the embodied mind and heart of God.

This language may be startling to some. It savors of pantheism. Alas! How philosophical is superstition! How wise is ignorance! How discriminating and metaphysical are sensuous thinkers! Instead of savoring of pantheism, it is the only view of the relation of matter to the infinite mind, that unmasks it, and gives to science and religion truth-the reality of things-truth in that simplicity and majesty that pleases the mind-truth in that freshness and beauty that delights the heart.

Let us illustrate. What is a word but an embodied idea—a state of mind-the mind itself revealing its thoughts and feelings, so as to become the object of the thoughts and feelings of other minds. Wrapt in its own seclusion, what but the Eternal Spirit could read its states and discover its existence! But it is constituted to affect and to be affected. The external passes over and leaves its impress upon the internal. The internal, being excited, passes out and impresses the external. It reveals itself in words and actions. Are words the mind-the subjective mind? Are they not the objective mind, as it exists in its revelations ? It is so with God and matter.

Again; let any one draw a number of lines and angles on a black board. Let them be without order and design. What do we see?

Lines and angles, but no mind. Let them be drawn now so as to form the diagram of the forty-seventh proposition of the first book of Euclid. What do we now behold? The cwpnμa, that the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of the other two sides.

We see the subjective states that constituted that Ocwpnpa existing objectively. We see mind revealing itself and becoming the object of mind. But who is so stupid as to say, that these lines and angles are the mind itself? It is so with the eternal mind, as seen in the formations of matter.

Discrimination is necessary. Amorphous matter in itself proves nothing-reveals nothing. Its formation alone cannot teach us knowledge. Now, when we say that we behold in the formations of matter the conceptions of the infinite mind, we do not mean to say that these are its conceptions. It is in relation only that we behold them, namely, the relation of part to part-of the being to the external world-of its constitution to an end. Matter exists and is moulded on account of relations, for relations are the states of mind. So, when we speak of the beautiful conception of an artist, we do not place it on the colors or canvass, for they are only the means by which it becomes objective.

A still nicer discrimination is necessary. We see in the formations of matter, relations that are not only the objective mind of God- His conceptions or intellectual states embodied; but relations, however strange the term may sound, that are the objective heart of God - His feelings embodied. The former is seen in the relation of part to partof the being to the external world - of its constitution to the end of its being; and the latter, in the moral designs of these designs, the being will have delight in affecting and being affected.

This view of the relation of matter to the infinite mind, is full of interest. Every particle assumes an importance it never had before. The farina that is wafted by the breeze - the dust that floats in the sun

beam, are particles of matter; and matter is the material by which God reveals himself and holds converse with his intelligent creatures. I gaze upon the insect, I catch the odor of the rose, and admire the beauty of colors; I trace the lines of benevolent design, and my heart glows with love.

The minutest particle of matter assumes a sacredness in my eyes. Associations clothe it with beauty. Nature is a great temple. Its walls, its floors, its canopy, are covered with the hieroglyphics of the Eternal - they breathe the mind and heart of God.

We may confirm this view of the relation of matter to the infinite mind, from another point of observation. Let us ascend the stream of time and enter the ocean of the past eternity.* God exists, happy in the contemplation of himself. Worlds exist in the conceptions of possible things. From the possible worlds he selects our world, and, determining to bring it into existence, it exists as a conception of the actual. Our world exists; but exists in the mind of God-exists as a conception. The everlasting hills the frame of the earth - the seas - the

-

"From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."-Ps. xc. 2.

From the eternity of the past, through the narrow connecting stream of time, to the

eternity of the future, thou art God.