PREFACE. 'In thy Light shall we see light.” "Come my soul, thou must be waking, O'er the earth another day. Come to him who made this splendor; See thou render All thy feeble strength can pay" This hymn was sung in church to-day, and I thought, the day now breaking is a day such as we read of in the Bible; not a day of twenty-four hours, but a day which means the commencement of a certain time, the commencement of a time of new thoughts and advancement of thought, granted to waking souls, or waking minds. And I thought, now is breaking this day for me; and it is breaking o'er all the earth, therefore to Him who made this inward light, and grants this light to every soul. I will render all my feeble strength can pay. I will search for new thoughts on the old truths, and what I think I find I will try to give to others. I looked round this church and saw how many many women were there, how few men— -it was women, then, who were there to pray and to them came the 5012 3739 (RECAP) 02828 answers of the prayers. And with these women I prayed this prayer : " Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspirations of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy Holy Name, through Christ our Lord." And this prayer I hope will be answered in this work of mine. In the light which Christ brought to this world, may I find light, and into my open heart may He send by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit new thoughts by which I may magnify His Name, and understanding the deep thoughts of the Bible, so that I may give them rightly to this world. DIAMONDS IN METEORIC IRON. This journal, as well as nearly every daily and weekly paper in the United States, has had notices of the discovery of diamonds in meteoric iron. Prof. A. E Foote, of Philadelphia, recently read a paper announcing this discovery at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. From this we learn that the diamonds are small but plainly visible. They are the hardest variety known--the black diamonds used for pointing diamond drills. A small white diamond was also found. Why has so much interest been shown in this discovery which has been anticipated for many years? Because, Professor Foote claims, it confirms the theory advanced by Sir William Thompson, twenty years ago, that the first germs of life were brought to this globe by meteors. Diamonds, like coal, are supposed to result from changes occurring in vegetable matter; and if plants existed, then there may have been animal life;-and so we may have approached one step nearer the solution of the question to which the wisest brains have given so much thought for ages. The geological source of diamonds themselves has never been satisfactorily explained. They are scattered all over the world. in unexpected places without any apparent reason. It was suggested by the Washington geologists that they came from decomposed meteors that had been falling on the surface of the earth for unknown centuries, and that even the great deposits at Kimberley were due to enormous masses that had fallen there producing curious sink-holes similar to the "crater" on the side of which Professor Foote found the most of the pieces at Canon Diablo. Professor Foote's complete paper may be found in the American Journal of Science and Arts for November.—Popular Science News for December. I think that the garden of Eden was not on this earth; the fall of man means that evil was banished from Heaven. Christ said to his followers: "I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." Satan, then, was once in heaven. In the above we read : Sir W. Thompson says "that the first germs of life were brought to this globe by meteors." Eden is heaven and those who wrote Genesis could form no better idea of heaven than a garden; they knew by inspiration that evil was in the world, and that the soul within their sinful human body had been banished from happiness, and was a spark from goodness, from light and happiness, and that their souls or spirits were like diamonds in the meteoric iron spoken of by Sir William Thompson. The soul of man, which was only restored to consciousness and life when after years his body had evolved from the lowest animal life then understood when this was so that God existed and that mankind had at some distant time fallen from heaven, which he called Eden. Christ has told us that God is a Spirit; therefore, when we say man was made in the image of God, we should understand man's spirit and not his human body-those who wrote Genesis understood this, as they say God breathed upon man and man became (then) a living soul. Satan means Sin. If Adam and Eve were banished from Heaven (Eden), Satan, or Sin, is within us—that is, in our flesh, which we get from Adam. The image of God can not be our bodies of clay, which die, for nothing of God can die. Jesus took upon him our body of clay, and as He had a double nature, spiritual and material, the temptation was the struggle between these two; the race of Adam banished to this planet, and reduced to mere atoms of life, rose from one stage to another, until they became capable of seeking to return to God. Then Christ came to help them and to show them the way, and to show that the spiritual, God's image within us, or Souls, can by suffering overcome the material of which our bodies are made. Satan, sin, is within us-the same as Christ said the kingdom of Heaven is within us. The seeking of self caused the fall of Adam from Eden-the seeking of self runs all through his race on this earth; be they civilized, or be they barbarians, the seeking of self was the Sin of Satan-other words only for Adam and Eve. Jesus did not “humiliate the Divinity to the devil" by the temptation in the wilderness, for it was in the glorious strength of his Divine nature, in the knowledge of the power to overcome evil, that He met for us the temptation. Sin was driven from Heaven, banished to this earth; hence sin has been always on this earth, and will be on this earth as long as this earth is alive. We who are born on this earth, are born on an earth, or star, or planet, of sin. The prince of this earth is sin or Self. Jesus said: "I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." This He said when the seventy said to Him, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name." "Devils means evils of all sorts. These seventy had healed the sick; the illness, and the evil which caused the illness, they could banish through the name of Jesus. |