conflicts, we can but quote the beautiful rhetorical delineation from Shakspeare's Henry V, as follows:

"heaven doth divide

The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavor in continual motion,
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey bees-
Creatures that by a rule in Nature teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, arméd in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their Emperor,

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing mason building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy, yawning drone. I this infer,
That many things, having full reference

To one consent, may work contrariously;

As many arrows, looséd several ways,

Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;

As many lines close in the dial's center;

So may a thousand actions, once a-foot,

End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat."

The Divine Spirit in All Things.

Please

LXXXII. QUESTION: "In a recent sermon against modern infidelity, you were frequently referred to as a 'Pantheist.' inform me, if not inconsistent with your convictions of propriety, whether the accusation be a truth."

ANSWER: Our reply will convey the truth so far as we are self-conscious. We are self-conscious of being a believer in the Pauline doctrine that "God is all in all."

Is

this Pantheism? When not in harmony with the stupendous totality of Nature, and when unmindful of the omnipresent good (or God) in everything, we then find it easy to sympathize with those who adore an abstract personal intelligence. In short, when our mind is pervaded by little conceptions of men and the universe, we are inclined to Monotheism in the orthodox sense. We fear that we are neither good enough nor large enough to be a Pantheist. But our watchword is "Progress," and therefore expect to become pure enough to discern the Divine Spirit in all things.

Is Pantheism a Natural Belief?

LXXXIII. QUESTION: "Do you regard 'Pantheism' as a natural belief? that is to say: If our children were left to themselves, would they become Pantheists ? "

ANSWER: On the start let this fact be remembered: that the human mind is constitutionally progressive. It grows from plane to plane with a sure and permanent growth. It increases in knowledge not only, but also in quantity, and in its quality as well. Let the principle be established, therefore, that Man's soul grows and unfolds year by year just as the flower in the garden unrolls its inner life day by day; that human life follows the divine law of progressive growth with respect to its essential attributes, in its sensations also, and in all departments of its intelligence.

With this basis, as a point of departure, we proceed to answer our friend's question. It would be neither natural nor possible for the young mind to receive and believe the Idea of a universal wholeness. The infantile and adolescent spirit is plus ignorance and minus capacity; it cannot entertain comprehensive conceptions. All Truth is a Oneness-which is the fundamental proposition of Pantheism-a conception impossible to the limited mind. The harmony

and the perfection of all things is a truth not yet made manifest to our highest Christian scholars; they almost all, twisted and dwarfed by the magnificent routine of classic ignorance, imagine the creation to be groaning and travailing in pain, under the wrath of an offended Deity.

Children, left to themselves, would begin with the supposition of polytheism. They would imagine the existence of a countless host of wonder-working Deities—a special God over every event and for every natural manifestation. Fetichism and Polytheism, and Dualism, and Monotheism, (with a touch of the supernatural in the conception,) are the progressive forms of Theism; as in the individual, so, also, in the whole human family. They succeed each other naturally, like the growth of a tree, or like the four parts of language-orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody-but the expression of thought by means of words is superior to the grammatical construction of words.

So, too, would a final and comprehensive Theism (a complete conception of God) be superior to all the imperfect forms of faith from which it was elaborated. When the human mind is expanded from within-when its elements assume form and order," and when its attributes become harmonized and reconciled to each other-then a spiritual kind of Pantheism will be natural and only possible to the mind. Such a mind will believe that God is an omnipresent, intelligent, and loving spirit-principle-" All in All" -the beginning and the end-the center and the circumference- One fold and One Shepherd "—that the "Lord God (or One spirit) omnipotent reigneth," &c.-and thus, as you now perceive, the human mind will become more pantheistic as it advances in goodness, and wisdom, and harmony.

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As for ourself, we repeat, we fear that we are neither

large enough nor good enough to see the finger of God (or Good and Wisdom) in everything everywhere. But the poet Bailey, the author of Festus, obtained a glorious glimpse of the ultimate conception, thus

"Time there hath been when only God was All,
And it shall be again. The hour is nam'd
When seraph, cherub, angel, saint, man, fiend,
Made pure, and unbelievably uplift

Above their present state, drawn up to God
Like dew into the air, shall All be heav'n;
All souls shall be in God, and shall be God,
And nothing but God be."

The Bible the Antidote of Atheism.

LXXXIV. QUESTION: "A few days since I heard a preacher say that without the Bible the world would have no knowledge of God, of a future life, or of any duties we owe to ourselves, to each other, or to God. What do you think of this statement?"

ANSWER: We think it is a false statement, showing the preacher's ignorance of human history, and that he is. teaching a dangerous theory, destitute of fact. Bibles are books of recent origin. Printing is a recent invention. On the other hand, the human race is (according to the Chinese record) almost forty thousand years old. The pyramids and other works of former ages demonstrate the history of mankind to extend far behind the 6,000 years fixed by the Mosaic record. But bibles and books of poetry are not half so old. Hence the time was when men received impressions concerning God, the Future, and Duty, independently of books and religious teachers. Mankind have from the earliest ages believed in and worshiped God. Atheism was not much known until popular theology began to be promulgated in oriental lands, some two thousand years ago. The doctrine of a future life is thousands of years older than anybody's religious book. Souls are inspired to day as they were before books were known; and

the Eternal Spirit spoke to the consciousness of men as much before bibles as since. The Bible is no more necessary to a true knowledge of God, than Homer is necessary to a true knowledge of poetry. Do you believe that the existence of some standard book on Physiology is necessary to digestion, assimilation, and growth? Was it necessary that some Agriculturist should write a standard book on farming before mankind could plow, harrow, sow, reap, and enjoy the abundance of the fields?

Atheism is a recent development. It is the re-active phase of existing theological doctrines. Infidels were not known until "pious frauds" were mixed up with true spiritual revelations.

The Church is a down-right materialist, because, in affirming that the Bible is necessary to man's knowledge of God, &c., it denies to man the possession of spiritual receptive faculties. Now phrenology proves that man is endowed richly with intellectual, moral, and spiritual attributes. What is the office of such attributes? What is the office of the eye? To see. Of the ear? To hear. Of the tongue? To speak. What, then, is the office of moral and spiritual organs in man's mind? By parity of reasoning you would naturally answer: To discern moral and spiritual truths. The moral organs percieve duties, and the spiritual organs give intuitive glimpses of a future life. The intellectual organs, perceiving the harmonious adaptations and fixed proportions of Nature, educate the whole man to believe in a God.

The plan of man's organization has not changed. It is the same to-day that it was when the first men walked out from the lower kingdoms. Therefore men have always been possessed of intellectual, moral, and spiritual faculties, as much as they have had eyes, ears, tongues, and feet.