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will coincides with God's-he obeys from the heart. This is the doctrine of Christianity. Therefore it is that love relates equally to God and man, and it is impossible for a man truly and religiously to venerate and adore the Creator for his goodness without manifesting kindness to his fellow creatures. "If ye love not your brother whom ye have seen, how can ye love God whom ye have not seen?" But oh, the jesuitry of the human soul! Men hunt each other to bloody and burning death in the name of Charity, while knowing nothing of him who died for all of them. If God were not good, it would be unreasonable to worship Him; and none can worship him without good-will to man, for benevolence is the glory in which God reveals himself.

Human knowledge is the progressive perception of Omniscience and Omnipotence, the reception indeed, so to say, of an atom at a time of the meaning of the Infinite Mind. Every production of that Mind bears in it the evidences of all its attributes, and successive revelation is but the development of a single truth. Thus, if we could detach a single point from the universe of matter, and look at it in the light of pure reason, we should see the force of the Almighty there, imbuing it with properties and affinities, fitting it for its place in the harmonious whole. The will of God gives it inherent faculty of existence, in relation to his own purpose. Infinite power and infinite wisdom are there, and if these exist to the apprehension of our minds, must not our minds exist in relation to that power and wisdom?

But if beings like ourselves are conscious of Infinite Wisdom and Power, how can this be but in connection with Infinite Love? What purpose can there be in the revelation of the Deity to His creatures but to express a reason why they should confide in Him?

Thus we are constantly obliged to revert to the

standing truth-" God is love." The doctrine of utility is the doctrine of love. Now there is a use in

every thing, and in every atom of every thing. But what is a use? It is an order or purpose in the creation of whatever exists-an inherent quality or property in the constitution of a thing which renders it subservient to the benefit of some conscious agent. Thus all creation in its minutest parts becomes an evidence to thinking persons of the Divine intention toward themselves, as beings feeling and acknowledging the Divine goodness; for every act of Omnipotence is consistent with all other of His acts, and is directed to an end, which must be the eternal, infinite good of every mind that depends on the wisdom and benevolence of Almightiness.

The use of any thing is, then, resolved into the proper employment and enjoyment of the means which are provided for the formation of ideas and the rectification of desires. Right desires are all provided for. All that we can know concerning the use of any thing is therefore summed up in the word submission, for it teaches only this-Let your intellect and then your will, yield to the instruction and to the law of God, and you will find yourself satisfied at the source of love, power, beauty, and thought. In every instance that we discern the use of any object or any idea, we discern a benevolent adaptation, and it is an appeal to our understandings, an appeal of our Maker to our souls as an evidence of His interest in our own existence. He has made us capable of perceiving His perfection, as far as created things, thought, and inspiration reveal it, that we might love, and obey, and be blessed; for salvation is not an appendage to Jehovah's plan in creation, but an essential part to every being that needs it, and beholds God as love, and cleaves to Him for sustentation, for will, for ability, for intellect, for all. Thus the confiding spirit wor

ships and glorifies The Father, and rejoices in His fullness for ever, and that not blindly, but from a sympathizing relationship, and therefore with the actual enjoyment of an everlasting heritage in His providence and graciousness.

CHAPTER V.

MENTAL MANIFESTATION.

THE living organism is the medium between objects and the soul. In this respect it is divisible into two principal parts-the sensitive and the active; the sensitive being subservient to sensation and perceptionthe active, enabling the soul to seek objects and to evince its feelings. We will to move the foot, for instance, and it obeys us in the 1,200,000,000th of a second, and impression from without becomes ours at the same rate. Such is the velocity and inscrutable nature of spiritual action, even through the medium of matter. The motive power of the soul in its action on the limbs, and also the sensitive faculty associated with this motive power, are demonstrated by the physiologist to reside in the brain and spinal cord, as the centers of the nervous system; and therefore the ability of the human spirit to perceive and to act through the body must mainly depend upon the integrity with which these nervous centers fulfill their office. It is manifest that disorder of sensation and of muscular action must result from disease in the nerves, because will and perception are never exercised in this world but in connection with nerves. lesson we learn from this liability to morbid manifestation is mutual charity. We ought always to regard each other with every allowance for bodily constitution; as the state of the soul is mainly dependent on the accommodation thus afforded for the operation of the mind.

The

Disease, whether personal or relative, is the most prevalent test of our affections and our faith; and through it the spirit of man when rightly established

in truth, grows mighty in endurance, and triumphant over fear and death. We are required to look compassionately upon the faults of others, considering that we also are in the body; and while throwing the light of a loving heart over peculiarities that may not please us, do our utmost to ameliorate the physical condition of those whose minds are diverted from their right objects by discomfort. Let us teach, at least by example, that it is only in the right use of the body that mental integrity is proved-and, although temptation and torment may assail us through the nerves, let us show that a soul fortified by faith in God finds the victory in the condition of its will, and comes forth more than heroic in the conquest of evil by the might of good.

The soul operates with nerve-matter; the will causing currents of energy to be excited in different portions of that matter, according to the purpose of the mind in attending and acting, so as to induce a state of muscle and nerve in keeping with the state of feeling; and of course, therefore, disorder in the materials of mental manifestation disorders the manifestation itself. We are indebted to physicians for this knowledge; but reason, without the help of physiology, teaches us with sufficient clearness that the personality of a human being does not consist of nerves and muscles subject to physical derangement, but that there is something superadded to this organism which through it perceives other things and expresses itself. This something is, as we have shown, the true man, the soul or self, and every influence, either from without the body or within it, affects him as a personal being related by creation to other beings; and, therefore, the most comprehensive method of studying the endowments and destiny of the soul is to investigate its personal relationships, and their influence upon individual character and experience.

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