rules. Or, he may not stop there, but, while on earth, (only on earth, for as the tree falls so it lies,) he may permit his Father to awake in him a sense of right and a love of his neighbor, and then he will have within him the vital influences of that higher heaven and its happiness; or he may permit Him to fill his affections with His love, and then, in his spirit and through an eternal future, he will dwell near His throne even in the highest Heaven, and amid its light and bliss. And these three are in perfect harmony and constitute one heaven. If we go further down the scale of being, we still find the image of this Trinity in Unity. Thus every individual man has a soul, and he has a body, and would die but for the constant action of the soul within and through the body. Again, he has affection, which produces thought, and through thought action. Indeed, we may say that everything, animate or inanimate, exists for the sake of some end or purpose, and this may be regarded as that which it seeks or loves ; and it has also a form or organization adapted to its purpose, which form corresponds to its design ; and it has an activity or operation by which its character or quality is manifested and its purpose effected. If we bear with us this same truth to the realms of nature, we shall find in the same correspondence, — the animal kingdom, characterized by desire, affection, will; the vegetable kingdom, where there is organization and life but without consciousness or will ; and the mineral kingdom, which only obeys the impulses which it receives. Thus, beginning with God, we find these three degrees, and go where we will through his creation we find them also, for everywhere we find Himself. And this is one of the many senses in which we may say with His Word, “ Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up into heaven thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me.'

I have thus endeavored to exhibit the existence, the origin and nature, of the three degrees of being, because it is by them, through them, and in constant conformity with them, that God created and creates and ever sustains all that is. And therefore, they are so intimately connected with the laws of being, that the knowledge of these degrees must constitute the foundation of all understanding of these laws. Of these laws themselves, the first thing to be said, is, that they are not dead laws, once enacted by sovereign power and written on the opened pages of creation, and there left. They are indeed nothing else than the methods of His divine action in constantly creating; for, with Him, creation was not a work once done, but a work that is always in doing. Time belongs not to His nature, but to ours.

And the laws of existence are but the methods and the order whereby He is perpetually

pouring forth life and being to all things. I again repeat, for it is a central truth, — that existence is but perpetual creation.

It is to be well remembered, that He alone has life in Himself; He alone is life. He alone is the vine; all other things and beings are the branches, the leaves, the blossoms, the fruit. He alone is the Fountain; all other things are but drops of the ever-rolling and unbounded stream of being. He alone is anything by Himself; and all other things are constantly created by him, from Himself.

And how ? Life, one effluent life, yet containing in itself and consisting of the infinite elements of all possible life, flows forth from Him, first, into the heavens nearest to Him. And because it is from Him and is His own life, it forms and moulds them and all who are in them into an image and likeness of himself. But it is Life; it stops not on its way; it still goes on; it passes through these heavens and into the heavens next to these, and forms and moulds them also into a remoter image and likeness of Himself. Still the stream of life goes on ; passing through these, it flows into the lowest heavens and forms them into the same image and likeness, but still on a lower ground and with a more dim resemblance.

Because this life, in its origin and essence, is Infinite; because its constant effect and tendency is perpetual and infinite growth and reproduction, there is none the less in God, although all the life

use.

of creation is always proceeding from Him. And the stream of life flowing into and through the heavens, and into and through men on earth, still abides with all ; for it is one effect of the original divine nature of life, that everything and every being that lives not only loses nothing by imparting, but lives on condition that his strength, his thought, his affection, his life, shall perpetually flow forth in

“ He that would save his life shall lose it," because the command, “Freely ye have received, freely give," is constant and universal.

From the heavens, therefore, life again goes forth. But let us stop, for a moment, to look at its effects and manifestations in the heavens. The Love and Wisdom which fill and constitute them, are in their source and their divine perfection, alike ineffable and inconceivable; but when they reach the highest heavens, and the created human beings who are there, they enter into their wills and understandings, and become their love and their wisdom. And because these angels are near to God, and love Him supremely, the love and wisdom they receive, although limited and defined in them, are so little corrupted or perverted, that they remain almost as inconceivable by us as before. Their thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor their affections as ours; and their blessedness nothing upon earth enables us to conceive. But when the love and wisdom which constitute their affections and thoughts, pass down into the lower heavens, there they become more appreciable by us ; they become what the wills and understandings of the angels of those heavens make of them. They are still the means of indescribable happiness; but they are nearer, and in the lowest heaven much nearer the love and thought which may be experienced or conceived on earth.

Below the heavens are the earths; below the angels are the inhabitants of earth. While we live here, we are not arranged and classified as they who are there, because our life here is but preparatory for and introductory to that; and as a means of discipline for that end all the elements of life are mingled here. It is the constant effort of Provi. dence to develop and vivify in every human being the highest plane or degree of his nature, which is capable of free and voluntary life ; further than this He does not go; for, of all things, He always guards and keeps that freedom which is the essential condition and foundation of all good. All men have in them capacities for the highest gifts which bless the angels. All men have planes and degrees of mind and affection answering to all those of the heavens, from highest to lowest. But those which are not developed here, which do not receive life here, which the man does not by his free, voluntary,

and active coöperation, permit the influent life of the heavens to vivify and fill, these remain forever closed. Hence the life of the heavens, or the divine love and wisdom which constitute the life, the affec