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mortality only an intellectual quality; or, shall I say it, only an energy, there being no passive? He has it, and he alone, who gives life to all names, persons, things, where he comes. No religion, not the wildest mythology, dies for him. He vivifies what he touches. Future state is an illusion for the ever-present state. It is not length of life, but depth of life. It is not duration, but a taking of the soul out of time, as all high action of the mind does. . . . Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it; and he who would be a great soul in the future, must be a great soul now."

We fail to see that the assumed universal longing for immortality is any sure proof that it will be gratified. How many of our most earnest longings are forever unrealized! All men long and pray for comfort, health, and length of days; but to how many are apportioned want, disease, and early death their longings unsatisfied, their prayers unanswered. And again, this longing for immortality-in any sense in which we can understand the word-is far enough from being universal among mankind. To the five hundred millions of Buddhists Nirvana is the supreme object of longing and endeavor. As we understand it, the Buddhist idea of Nirvana is by no means fitly represented by our word "annihilation." We understand it to be a state of future being devoid of everything which enters into the conception of personality: individual thought, will, and consciousness being absorbed into the infinite of the Supreme Being, as a snow-flake, without being annihilated, is swallowed up and absorbed in the ocean into which it falls-"a moment white, then lost forever: a state of existence when, in the strictest and most absolute sense," God shall be all and in all," as he was from the beginning.

Emerson scouts the idea that the immortality of the human soul was revealed by Jesus. He says: "It is strange that Jesus is esteemed by mankind the bringer of the doctrine of immortality. He is never once weak or sentimental; he is very abstemious of explanation; he never preaches the personal immortality; whilst

Plato and Cicero had both allowed themselves to overstep the stern limits of the spirit and gratify the people with that picture." We think that Mr. Emerson is here in error. We hold that Jesus did "preach the personal immortality," as emphatically as man could preach it. But quite apart from what we believe to be the teaching of Jesus, we believe most undoubtedly in the personal immortality of every human being. We believe it intuitively, and without any proof drawn from Nature-using the word as Emerson defines it, as "all that is separate from us, all which philosophy designates as the Not Me: all other men, and my own body." We should doubtless have believed it, had Plato or Cicero never taught it, and had no direct revelation of it been vouchsafed to us. What we accept as Divine Revelation only confirms and strengthens our belief in our own immortality, just as it confirms and strengthens our belief in the existence of the one Supreme Being, eternal, immortal, and invisible, all-powerful, all-wise, and all good. We call in question not the truth of the doctrine of immortality, but only the validity of Emerson's argument in its favor; and most especially the vague and unsatisfactory conclusion to which it leads him.-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher and Poet.

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GUICCIARDINI, FRANCESCO, an Italian statesman and historian, born at Florence, March 6, 1483; died near there in May, 1540. He was educated in the Universities of Ferrara and Padua; and before he was twenty-three years old he was appointed a professor of law, by the Signoria of Florence, and in 1512 was sent on an embassy to Ferdinand of Aragon, the success of which assured his reputation for diplomatic ability. Soon afterward he was sent to Cortona, to meet Leo X., who immediately made him Governor of Reggio and Modena, and later of Parma. Clement VII. added to his honors the vice-regency of Romagna, the rank of Lieutenant-General in the Papal Army, and the governorship of Bologna. On the accession of Paul III., in 1534, he resigned his dignities, and returned to Florence. In 1537 he espoused the cause of Cosimo de' Medici, but received so slight a recognition of his services that he withdrew to his villa at Arcetri, where he occupied his last years in the composition of his Istoria d'Italia, describing the course of events in Italy from 1494 to 1532. The impartial accuracy of the author, and the patience with which he traces the labyrinth of Italian politics, render his work highly valuable. He died before its completion. The first sixteen books were published in 1561, and four additional books three years

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From the fresco in the cell where he was imprisoned.

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