dead, but of the living. The living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father-I proceeded forth and came from GodI am from above-I am not of this world-As the Father knoweth me, so I know the Father-That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit-I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, who is in heaven: (let it be observed here that it is the Son of man and not the Son of God which is in heaven) what if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit which quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. And in answer to Philip, when even after all this, and much more, which we have not time to quote or reason upon, he desired that the Eternal spirit should be exhibited to his senses: Have I been so long with you, and ye have not yet known me Philip? lievest thou not, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?"

Be

But it is not necessary to repeat all such expressions, which we believe to have been all intended to set forth the spiritualist doctrine, and which may be applied to all spirits, although he uses the word I. There was a beautiful fitness in his saying I, instead of being more general;-because he was addressing materialised men, and he alone of all the adult living, had not assumed upon his nature any thing inconsistent with its spiritual origin. He had alone preserved his heritage. But we must observe that he did not confine such expressions strictly to himself. He always applied them just as broadly to childhood. Whosoever receiveth one of these little ones in my name, receiveth me.-Of such is the kingdom of heaven.— Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.-Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.-Thou hast kept these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes. Whosoever shall offend (or cause to offend) one of these little ones who believe in me; it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the depths of the Sea. Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.-Whosoever shall humble himself as a little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.-Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Now, in what does the doctrine of these two sets of texts differ from that of the spiritualist poet, in the two following extracts from the Ode on Immortality.

"The soul that riseth in us-our life's star

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come,
From God, who is our home;

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!"

"Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul's immensity;

Thou best philosopher! who yet dost keep
Thine heritage; thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, reads the eternal deep,
Haunted forever by the eternal mind,-
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
(In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave,)

Thou over whom thy Immortality

Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave,

A Presence which is not to be put by;

THOU LITTLE CHILD! yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom."

We have thus briefly stated the principle and nature of virtue and the spiritualism which is its basis; and on which all true education, all intelligent self-cultivation, in fine, all salvation, is to be built. How is this to be made practical; that is, can children be made partakers of this creed by the aid of others; and how?

We answer that they can; but not by unspiritualized physical force; not even primarily by reasoning; which is not by any means the first action of their souls, but by a more subtle operation of our spirits on theirs. For there is a principle in our natures called sympathy, of which no one is ignorant, though we cannot explain it any more than we can the instinct of self-preservation; in other words, it is no more true that a human being has a natural regard for his own being, than that he has a natural feeling of the being of others. Neither of these principles, although spiritual, are moral in themselves. But their proportion to each other in action is an important part of the moral character of an individual; "Thou

shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," being the second commandment, and pronounced by Jesus as like unto the first.

The word sympathy has a passive signification by its etymology; though it is used in common parlance in an active sense also. For the active operation of sympathy, our language, however, has a much more adequate and beautiful word-Inspiration. And this is the first principle of education.

The word inspiration* applied to the action of human beings on each other, is perhaps new. But the action itself, for which there is no other just name, is not new. The very reason, perhaps, why it has not been recognized and named as a principle of education, is because it is so universal; just as the principle of attraction escaped the notice of all observers of nature, until the days of the practical Newton, though its phenomena had been exhibited in every motion of the universe since the creation. From the beginning of time, the action of human beings on each other, has been in proportion to the inspiring power of one party, meeting the sympathies and aspirations of the other. Temper and conduct, expressed by tone and manner, convey feelings and sentiments, or rather make them up in the souls to which they are addressed, as truly as words convey ideas, or make them up in the understanding. Common language abounds with idioms which involve this universal fact. Common life abounds with particular facts which prove it. The waiting-woman who was accused of witchcraft because she made the Italian countess do whatever she chose to ask her, replied, in her own justification, that it was only the natural influence which a strong mind has over a weak one. Almost all willing obedience in human society, and even much that is not willing, but seems instinctive, may be referred to the same cause. How few pursue the right merely because they see it! How easy is it to do what those we venerate or love desire us to do! What life does the same proposition receive from the lips of an earnest speaker, that fell cold and powerless from one who repeated it by rote, and did not send it from the intimate convictions of his soul! In fact, human life, in all its relations, is but a varied exhibition of this principle of action. All movement, progress, the spirit of every age, is but the result of it; and it is because the loftier souls of men have the power of waking up a spirit kindred to themselves, which otherwise lies slumbering, unconscious of itself, that they become the prophets of future times. No

* During the interval that this article was laid by, for it was mislaid, the following passages have appeared in another place; we retain them here, however, in order to preserve the unity of the whole.

great era but must have had its prophets, whether they utter ed the prophesy in words or not; for there must have been men to bring it about, who elaborated its spirit in the silence. and depth of their own souls. But we will only make one other remark on this endless subject. The inspirations of men have a various moral character. Our power of inspiring depends on our own and others' original depth of feeling. But the character of our inspirations depends upon the right regulation of our sensibility, and the relative worth of the objects toward which it is directed. If we feel for ourselves rather than for others; or for a few rather than for the many; or for things rather than for beings; and inspire our little ones and others with such a disproportioned and falsely directed spirit, "it were better for us that a millstone were hanged about our necks, and we were cast into the uttermost depths of the sea." It was by inspiration, and a very good one, that Lycurgus induced all the rich people of Sparta to divide their lands and become poor, for the sake of the body politic. And there must also have been inspiration, and not a little, from that mind or those minds, that, having devised the system of the Asiatic religious polity, had the power to make it so universally accepted, that it was established; though it does violence to so many of the feelings of men. It was inspiration, from the mind of Peter the Hermit, which first turned all Europe in a crusade upon Asia. It was inspiration that produced the adoption of the monastic system. So there is much inspiration in domestic life, of a most deleterious character, and many families are moulded by a will which is not moral, though it is too plainly productive of will in others, not to be admitted spiritual. There is, however, a step down from the spiritual world, what may be taken; and this is done in education and legislation, (which latter is but the former applied to adults,) whenever the method of inspiration is abandoned for that of mere physical force. The result of this is imbecility and weakness. It is also the ultimate result of all the spiritual action which is not governed by the moral power. The time came when the generous spirit died out of the institutions of Lycurgus, and then Sparta was a military despotism. The men who devised the religious despotisms of Asia, have long since died, and left institutions and idols that have degraded the race below men. St. Francisco, St. Dominique, Ignatius de Loyala have passed away with their fervent piety, their disdain of bodily privation, their self-sacrificing spirit of martyrdom; and left their well meant rules to crush the spirit of men. And when a

parent loses faith in the power of his own soul to influence, and of his child's soul to receive the influence of his spirit, and puts his ultimate trust in a rod, or a rule, or a formula of doctrine, his child, as far as he is mastered by them, is injured vitally. This may be done ignorantly on the part of a parent, who may not understand the inspiration he is capable of giving. But it is no less fatal in its effects, because of that circumstance; for neither can his child understand it, or guard himself against it. He will become deceptive in self-defence, or utterly imbecile in will, unless he resist it altogether; which latter alternative endangers all that is beautiful and faithful within him. It will be obvious also, that it is of the last importance to have the spiritual power pure and moral. The parent or teacher should make it his first business to know himself; for most surely he will transmit his moral character by inspiration to his child, in just such proportion as circumstances allow him to have any influence, and the child has any sensibility.

The case of the little child, on which we have already bestowed so much attention, was open to this one great principle of education alone. As his understanding was not suffi ciently developed to read his own sensibility, and know his relations to others, he was not morally responsible whatever he did. He was yet in the power of his parents, and they were wholly responsible for the state of his feelings. And by inspiration, something might have been done to arrange his little spirit, or mould his temper and save him future trouble. He might have been directed from the plaything he was loving, by presenting a new object to his senses or fancy. A smile or a tone might have animated or persuaded him away; and even the idea of be still, might have been communicated by gentleness, serenity, and deep love in the mother's manner, and the father might have aided, by beaming life and joy of his own on its sympathetic soul, instead of looking a displeasure, which must have been either ill-temper or artifice. At any rate, if two full grown Christians, with all the aid that nature gives to parents who love one another and love their children, could not command the spirit of a child who could neither talk nor go alone, it must needs be, that their hearts and Christianity were very defective, or that the child was diseased, or was sleepy to a degree that was equivalent to disPerhaps the latter was the case; if it was, there was no more sin in his crying and resistance, than if he had cried or convulsively struggled with any other bodily discomfort. We should not have said so much on a case, which, as has

ease.