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the voice of their nature. They can love, and, doubtless in the lowest sense of the term, think of those who love and feed them. So quick are they to act that they leap to their deed without the slightest sign of reflection, which is true thought. If they had the capacity of reflection there would be room to hope for their moral and intellectual instruction. But if any animal will serve an immoral or an insane man in the prosecution of an immoral or an insane purpose with the same readiness that it would serve a moral and a wise man in a moral and wise purpose, what reason is there to hope that morality or intellectuality have any ground for existence in their constitution? Their purpose and use seem to exist only in their physical forms. The activity of what may be termed their affections and thoughts tend to their physical existence only. When these forms have served the purpose for which life organized and made them they decay and die, and why not of course cease to exist?

It has been shown that superior substances and forms manifest superior manifestations of the purposes of life. If this be true, the converse also must be true, that is, if we find superior manifestations of life, there must also be superior subjects, substances, and forms, that is, further, if we find superior attributes, we have really found superior subjects. These superior subjects, substances, and forms will prove to be the immortal soul of man. Man of his soul can truly love. Wordsworth in his "Excursion," descriptive of the Wanderer," sings of a brave Scotch lad who had received a fair education, and leaving his native vale to seek his fortune in the wide world, ascended first the high hills, the tops of which revealed to his astonished gaze the boundless sea. He exclaims

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"Oh then, what soul was his when on the tops

Of the high mountains, he beheld the sun

Rise up and bathe the world in light. He looked

Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth

And ocean's liquid mass beneath him lay

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched,
And in their silent faces did he read

Unutterable love."

Whence sprang this admiration-this adoration-this expression of "unutterable love"? What subject or form conceived it? No mere animal, however highly developed, with all its brains and nervous power so much in every respect like those of man, can thus read "unutterable love." It will be easily seen that this power to love is the prime predicate, attribute, property, and prerogative of man, and thus of his human soul. And because man's soul can thus love and read "unutterable love," man alone, of all created organisms, can truly will and think. In this sense he can not only will and think, which is a something doing something, but he can so exercise himself without the slightest bodily or physical effort. Not till he wills it can he let the world know of all his emotions and profound contemplations of the sublime. That which thus loves and thinks holds the body and all its powers within its grasp and command. But when and how he decides to put in play the respondent capabilities of

his body, he does so to suit as far as possible the desires of his inner working self. The body then is not the soul, nor one with it, as life is not one with its subject. The body is made from the soul to be the respondent or rather the correspondent of the soul of man, and in every respect suited for the soul's uses amongst men. Hence the soul, as an organic agent, though not one with the body, is of the form of its living tenement. A subject, a form there must be, to manifest the

activities and attributes that have been described.

Man is born with all the powers and attributes of soul and body. But he has no mind at birth. Mind is formed of the soul by means of the body. It is the work of the soul and its faculties to will and think that form the mind. But the mind, like the soul which develops it, is altogether unlike anything that is physical both in its nature and form. Because man has no mind at birth therefore he is then destitute of all knowledge, even of the knowledge of subsistence. But the power of that love which shall hereafter read "unutterable love" bėgins, after birth, its work, which shall never cease. The struggling infant's intellect awakens at the first light of flame. The grasp at it with its ' tiny hand indicates the ever-powerful love to know. Its little eyes dazzled with every sight betoken the deep yearnings after sublimity. Its whys and wherefores show its inmost longing desire to sound and fathom the deepest depths. Oh, how long will parents look heedless on their offspring and not see the charming plays of mind that spring from their deepest humanity? Education will want no advocates when fathers and mothers see the strugglings of their infants' souls to make the mind of man. Who shall dare to put a limit to the capabilities and acquisitions that arise between childhood and old age? And yet all that shall arise is done step by step in a manner analogous to the subserviency of the kingdoms of nature. Knowledge is the elemental world of the mind. Though man is born without any knowledge, yet he is born with a far more valuable possession, a love to know. And according to the character of this love is also the character of his knowledge. But love to know is the origin of all belief. And if the intellectual capability of man were no greater and higher than this, no being could be more easily imposed

upon.

Belief brings him knowledge, to be the elements of all his intellectual worth. The craving love is to be pitied which is debarred of these elemental acquisitions. As the child advances to youth and manhood, an intellectual love asserts its power. The questions of this love are deeper and more searching than those of the former. The man not only now asks what he is to believe, but what he is to understand. The question is not now simply "what is it?" but "why is it?" Thus by the activity of this higher desire ideas of an intellectual type are formed, and man for the first time begins to look out and see. And all this process is accomplished by life working out an intellectual love, and intellectual love building up ideas out of the knowledge it possesses, Hence are formed man's thoughts, reasons, judgments, inventions, or designs.

But he can use or abuse these mental capabilities and possessions.

He knows this, because from a higher degree of his mind he can look down upon them as from a height within and above himself. He can call to judgment all the intentions and rational convictions of the lower degree of his mind. He can acquire moral, spiritual, and divine knowledge whereby he can form a higher judgment that may sit in judgment upon his previous convictions and acts. And from this higher judgment he can control or restrain all the capabilities and possessions of his lower mind. Nay more, love to know the Source of his being can so rise within him as to possess and control all his inferior loves and purposes. He can, from the incentives of this, his highest love, see his claim to conjunction and co-operation with the Divine. He can see from the light of this love the purpose for which he was made. He sees in this attainment that the true man lives for his mind and its uses, and that thus his mind lives for an ever higher and a closer communion with his God. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever," are the constant thoughts of his great and throbbing heart. What tongue can tell the duty and work that lie spread out under such an intellectual gaze? Are there not attributes here that warrant a belief in a subject, substance, and form, the soul and mind of man, far exceeding any of the attributes of matter, or its most complicated organisms. Here are orderly gradations. We see the mind rise in its loves step above step until it stands in the presence of its Creator God; and there, in profound humility bowed down, implores in the lowliest love of use, " Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth." This is man, his soul, his mind, the physical body being his mere instrument for his uses in the world. And "when shall he die and his name perish?" Well, when he has finished the uses for which he was created, like all other organisms do. But the Lord tells us, "That the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him" (Luke xx. 37; 38). And He says again, "Because I live, ye shall live also" (John xiv. 19). And the apostle says, "Are the angels not all ministering spirits sent forth to them who shall be heirs to salvation?" (Heb. i. 14;) and again, "Know ye not that ye are temples of the living God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Cor. iii. 16.) Is it reasonable to suppose that the purpose of such a being is accomplished when he has simply reached the highest earthly perfection in which he can be useful? If so, the greatest perfection has been attained for little or no purpose, for when the mind is becoming the most perfected, as far as the world is concerned, the physical powers are often fast on the wane. An immortal career is the only proper and rational sequence to such perfection. And Jesus says it is so. Reason and revelation then declare man's immortality. Yes, when man has finished his career, uses, and development below he shall hear the Divine welcome, "Well done, good and faithful servant thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Miscellaneous.

THE MEANING OF LIFE.-A marked feature of modern inquiry is the effort to penetrate the secrets of nature, and to discover in nature the hidden springs of motion. "Life in all its forms, however definable by its phenomena, is confessedly a mystery." Leaving, then, the varied manifestations of life in the worlds of animal and vegetable existence, Professor St. George Mivart devotes two thoughtful papers in the Nineteenth Century for March and April to an inquiry into "The Meaning of Life," as to that of human life in the individual, the nation, and the race. The subject is discussed from the side of Theism, and in the course of his argument the writer introduces many distinctively New Church opinions. Some of these we shall briefly intimate.

The meaning of life is used to denote the true end and real purpose of life. It is one form of the old question as to the summum bonum. To this question "to very many persons that answer will probably suggest itself which they may well have gathered alike from their religious and anti-religious teachers. They will say the true aim of life is 'happiness' in this world or the next, and that this aim is unconsciously pursued by all those who do not consciously and deliberately set it before them as an end." The widespread failure to attain happiness has raised the question, "Is life worth living?" This question gives a painful insight into the unsatisfactory conclusions of the natural reason in the pursuit of the highest truths. In seeking an answer to the question, the writer introduces the subject of the "Will," the discussion of which he closes up with the following New Church sentiment: "The will of each man is seen to be his very self-his individuality par excellence, his personality in excelcis."

The question, then, Is life worth living says the professor, "must depend on our conception of its proper aim and end, and of the possibility of our attaining that end. An inevitable instinct impels us all to seek our own happiness, yet our reason can, even while we are borne along by the pleasureseeking current, ask the question, 'Are

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we rational if we acquiesce in happiness as the supreme and deliberate aim of our life?' The answer of reason to itself must surely be that the rational end of life is that which should be its end-i.e. which ought to be its end, and 'ought' is meaningless without the conception of duty.' If this is so, it seems that not happiness' but duty' is declared by reason to be our supreme end and proper aim. The sense of duty implies motives, and "actions that are done in obedience to conscience are really 'good actions,' even though mistaken and hurtful, and the most beneficent actions are not really good unless done from a good motive in obedience to duty." The conclusion at which the writer arrives is that "the meaning of life for each individual seems to be represented to us by unprejudiced reason as a series of opportunities for exercising the most transcendent power known to us in nature-right volition. The pains and pleasures of existence supply us with abundant and unceasing occasions of choice between a higher and a lower good, and conscience is ever at hand to suggest our adoption of the higher.' To a member of the New Church it will be obvious that conscience, which is a cultured principle, can only be present to the extent that it has been acquired and become active in the formation of character, and the regulation of the life.

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The government of life thus implies culture, self-denial, and discipline. "A good housewife with small means and a large family may be bound in conscience to sacrifice an æsthetic advance in painting or music to her domestic duties. Similarly, her husband may have a strong inclination to intellectual culture, but would seriously deteriorate in virtue if he gratified that inclination by devoting to it time which the needs of his family required him to devote to some breadwinning drudgery." In illustrating the "supreme sacredness" and the "incomprehensible and infinite significance" of human life, the writer very finely says: "From this point of view it is plain how grossly and grievously those err who would urge the destruction of deformed or unhealthy children, and who

would sanction euthanasia and the painless extinction of the aged and hopelessly sick. Those who would do so would pervert the whole aim and object of human life, and would place physical welfare and the cessation of physical suffering above moral good, Simi

larly condemned are those who would advocate or sanction the voluntary limitation of conjugal fecundity. The painful life of struggle which parents of large families may have to go through is not for a moment to be ignored or denied; but apart even from the many consolations which may be fairly expected to attend it, the moral gain of such a selfdenying career is out of comparison with any physical, intellectual, or æsthetic losses which may attend it. So also as regards the children themselves, it is neither to be denied nor ignored that less health and strength, less knowledge and less culture, may be the lot of a large family as compared with a small one; but apart again from the many consolations and supports of fraternal affection, the moral gain of the generous self-denial and mutual sacrifice between the brothers and sisters of a large and painfully struggling but virtuous family is out of all comparison with the lower benefits which may accompany its diminution in numbers."

There are other features of these papers which in this age of negation are of great value, particularly the relation of each man to "a God of whom morality is not the creature but the essence, his religion being necessarily the acme of morality," and the duty of recognising all our powers as His gift, and of discharging all our duties as duties which we owe to Him. The writer is not always in agreement with New Church teaching, but he has made many near approaches to it. His essay is a rebuke of the atheistic tendency of much of our current literature, and must be stimulating and suggestive to many who sorely need the kind of assist ance it offers.

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND THE MODERN SPIRIT.-The relation between theology and science has been for some time confessedly antagonistic. Modern science has sought to eliminate from its teaching all idea of the supernatural or spiritual, and to account for all phenomena including the mental and

moral, on the ground of physical structure and activity. This attitude of scientific teaching has been variously regarded by Christian teachers, and has given rise to innumerable papers in periodicals and other forms of Christian literature. A writer in the current number of the British Quarterly Review has devoted a long article to the discussion of this subject under the title we have here given. The writer thinks that "the signs of the near approach of a great era for the Church of Christ are manifest on all sides; fields of knowledge and service are whitening for the harvest. Like all great eras, it will be ushered in by change and conflict, and it will take its shape and form, as it will receive its impulse, from the immediate and pressing necessities amidst which it is born.' Christianity, which since its establishment in the world has, directly or indirectly, made in its progress the great eras of the world's history, is now apparently menaced by the children it has nurtured. "There has grown

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up," says this writer, "in Christendom and it has attained its full developmeut in the present century-what we may designate the modern spirit. In its essential nature and its best aspects it is the spirit of inquiry, of research, of free thought, of persistent impatience of traditional belief, of supreme devotion to the majesty of fact. In connection with the question with which we are now concerned, it has taken chiefly two directions, . one is that of historical criticism, and the other is that of physical science. Throughout the century, with some considerable impulse from an earlier time, historical criticism and physical science have worked side by side together, have accomplished great tasks, and won memorable conquests." This modern spirit entered theology, and, claiming to be heard in this sacred domain, it confronts and seeks to displace the formulas of our Protestant dogmatism by secular or Christian ethics, by religious or philosophical sentiment.' The action of the modern spirit on Christian communities has led to widespread unsettlement and doubt. Books, pulpits, and the public assemblies of historical Churches give evidence of the alarm and agitation with which they are seized. "Resolutions declaratory or restrictive are passed, showing how deeply uneasiness and

"has

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