of a grain of wheat from its first germinating to its perfect maturing, and while the insight of reason will detect a thought diffused through the organism of the plant, yet has not the subjective thinking put the idea into the plant, nor has the subjective will supplemented the thinking, and forced the component elements to their outward expression of the hidden idea which the seed originally contained. Here, then, are three different processes of thought, and all have the complete comprehension of their manifold parts in one, and are each thus a true knowing. The first has no other energy than the subjective thinking, and is pure thought only. The second has the energy of the subjective thinking; but another subjective energy than thinking, even an executive willing, must overcome the resisting energy already in the elements, and arrange them according to the thought, and the product is an artificial thing. The third has the ideal thought as seen already in the object, and which has been put there by a power in nature itself that has built up the outer object by the inner working of its own forces, and is thus a natural thing. But while all these have true science, whether of thought or thing, inasmuch as all have the many comprehended in a single, yet can these objects be known as created only in a qualified sense, except in the last case, which is a true creation. The pure thought is a creation only as we say a creation of the imagination, or the creation of genius; the artificial thing is a creation only as a construction from created materials; but the natural thing, though in its generations a propagated thing, is truly a created thing, and all its energies of elemental material, and organizing instinct according to original type, are product of absolute thought and will first springing into being from the one All-creating source.Creator and Creation. HICKS, ELIAS, minister of the Society of Friends, was born in Hempstead, N. Y., March 19, 1748; died in Jericho, N. Y., February 27, 1830. It was not until he was twenty years of age that he gave any serious attention to the principles of this Society, of which his parents were members. He then became interested in and began studying them, and at twenty-seven years of age he entered upon the ministry, and was soon recognized as an able leader of the Society. He continued to preach for over fifty years, travelling throughout nearly every part of the United States and in Canada, and preaching "without money and without price." He was one of the first to recognize the injustice of slavery, and combated it with voice and with pen, and it was through his efforts and that of a few other reformers, that the act abolishing slavery in the State of New York was passed July 4, 1827. During the latter part of his ministry his denial of the divinity of Christ and a vicarious atonement created great dissatisfaction in the Society, and finally led to a separation of it into what is known as the orthodox and Hicksite Quakers or Friends. Mr. Hicks published Observations on Slavery (1811); Sermons (1828); Elias Hicks's Journal of his Life and Labors (1828); The Letters of Elias Hicks (1834). A PROFITABLE MEETING. A solemn, and, I trust, a profitable meeting to-day. in which the Gospel was preached freely in the demonstration of truth, and a precious covering was felt to be spread over the assembly; and sweet peace clothed my mind at the conclusion. Surely the Lord is a bountiful and rich rewarder of all His faithful servants, who serve Him, not for reward, but for the sake of that love wherewith He loveth them, and which He so abundantly sheddeth abroad in their hearts, that they are thereby drawn to love Him above all; and in and under the influence of this precious love, they are led and constrained to serve and worship Him freely for His own sake, because he is worthy, and not for any reward to themselves, because they are altogether unworthy; and because that precious love wherewith He 'hath loved them, and with which He hath filled their hearts, hath banished and dispelled therefrom every germ of self-love, and all kinds of selfishness. Nevertheless, of His own rich bounty and free will, without any real merit on our part, He abundantly and plenteously bestoweth His blessings upon all His faithful servants and children, whereby their love to Him is continually increased, until He becomes their all in all, their alpha and omega, and they are brought into the possession of that perfect love that casteth out fear; and in which they are enabled continually to worship and adore Him who liveth forever. Soon after I took my seat in our meeting to-day, my mind was opened into a view of the great need man stands in of a Saviour, and that nothing can give him so full and lively a sense thereof as a true sight and sense of his own real condition; by which he is not only brought to see the real want of a Saviour, but is also shown thereby, what kind of a Saviour he needs. For it must not only be one, who is continually present, but who is possessed of a prescience sufficient to see, at all times, all man's enemies, and every temptation that may or can await him; and have power sufficient to defend him from all, and at all times.Journal of Elias Hicks. |