1850.] Analogies of Nature. 43 any deadly strife the former perish and the latter remain. And so all the analogies of science teach that, when the body is dissolved, the informing spirit which dwells within it is but as the prisoner let loose when his prison-walls are broken down. The same analogies may be drawn from gravitation, which can cause two pebbles, though a thousand millions of miles apart in empty space, to approach and find each other; from magnetism, whose invisible currents envelop the globe, and which from every point reaches up as it were an unseen finger to steady the needle to the pole;- from this wondrous element of light, falling in floods out of the sky, now with us and yet but a few minutes ago in the sun; from the mysterious forces which lie at the heart of all vegetable life, which are not produced by, but which produce, the organization of the vegetable world; and still more from that principle of animal life which organizes coarse material elements into a living frame, and for years supports its energies and recruits its wasting strength. And here new analogies appear, in the transformations of animated nature. There are cases where the progress from one form or condition of existence to another is made visible to us. It is one of the most interesting studies of natural science, to trace the same living being as it is manifested in different and successive forms. Science describes insects, which, in different stages of being, live in different elements. At first, perhaps, an individual of this class lives in the water, a mere worm, its whole organization adapted to that state, and dying if taken from it. At length it passes through a lethargic state like death, during which this organization is thrown off; it bursts forth in a totally different form, with new organs and new sensations, and emerges from the water to dart, a winged thing, through the air, with powers adapted to its new state of existence. And thus, with the instinctive perceptions of his race and clime, the Greek sculptured the butterfly upon the tomb, as a symbol which nature gave that the dissolution of the body was but a loosening of the soul for higher modes of life. It is an emblem of the change of death, as described by Paul, a progress from the imperfect to the more perfect state. The soul leaves the natural body to man ifest itself in a spiritual one, the corruptible puts on incorruption, and the mortal immortality. 'These cases, and they might be accumulated to any extent, utterly neutralize and throw aside the skeptical idea, that the dissolution of the body destroys the soul; for science shows that the order of nature is that the grosser elements are but the forms and vehicles of the more subtile essences, and that the dissolution of the former, though it may displace, does not destroy, or change, or diminish the latter. They show more, that the grosser elements constitute only the transient forms, while these invisible, impalpable essences are the powers which organize and vivify the visible world. Just as the lifting of the hand shows the presence and determination of the mind, so the revolving seasons, the thunder-storm and falling dew, the springing verdure, the rushing stream, the planets held in their orbits, and the higher forms of animated existence, are but effects, and show the presence and action of invisible forces, like heat, electricity, chemical attraction, gravitation, and the principles of animal and vege table life, these invisible powers on which the visible world reposes, and by which it is organized into its myriad forms of beauty and grandeur and life. And they go farther still. These subtile elements bridge over the space which to our imagination separates the material and spiritual worlds. There is a gradation proceeding on from the grossest forms of matter till we are lost in the realms of spirit. Light and heat, — philosophers contend as to their nature. If matter, they are matter almost divested of its materiality. Gravitation, electricity, magnetism, chemical attraction, who can bring these within any of the common definitions of matter? The principles of vegetable and animal life, which out of water and the clod can organize an oak that throws out its mighty arms in defiance against the storms of a century, or from the elements of death can shape the elastic sinews of the stag, or the vigor of an eagle's wing, what resemblance have these to our common idea of matter? And still more may this be said of that power of mind, which rules the body, which is not chained to the present, which holds in its grasp departed ages, and darts companioned by the light into the remotest realms of 1850.] Science and Revelation. 45 space. Thus science takes us on step by step to the horizon of matter, and even then does not leave us till she has conducted us into the suburbs of the spiritual world. She shows that this material world, which we are so occupied with, and which skepticism would call every thing, is but the crust and screen, the form and vehicle and material to be wrought, of invisible forces whose resistless tides flow through and underlie this shell of matter. She makes us familiar with forces and powers, to which all that we commonly mean by the word matter is but an instrument and medium of manifestation. She shows that these forces are not created by, but, separate or combined, create, the material forms, make them to exist as they are, and do not depend on them for existence. And while doing this, she brings us already into the circle of spiritual agencies. Our purpose in presenting these illustrations is not to prove from the light of nature a future life, but only to show that science is the ally of faith. They are at least sufficient to show that science utterly rejects and repudiates all the common notions of skepticism on this subject; that, to use the most qualified terms, she removes all antecedent improbability from the doctrine of a future state, and thus prepares us to receive, not with a blind assent, but with the profoundest conviction of a reasonable mind, the great doctrine of the soul's immortality. Thus science suggests what revelation affirms, that the fundamental law of nature is progress, from the imperfect to the more perfect, from matter to spirit, from the corruptible to incorruption, from the mortal to immortality. Death is but a stage, a landing-place, in the eternal progress. Dark and fearful it doubtless is, and was intended to be. For there are broken ties of love, and farewells to the familiar scenes of earth, and the pathway into the untried world which must be trod alone, the summing up of the results of life and the righteous awards of heaven; and when such dread events accumulate on a point, well may we stand in awe, as we look into the gates of the tomb. But still it is a part of the everlasting progress. The dead! Where are they? We are pointed down to the earth. There they lie, in ranks of graves which the current of ages has levelled, the hundred generations of the past. We who live are but the survivors of this vast shipwreck of time. Ah! not so! We who live!-there is the mistake. We, just emerging from dust and eternal sleep, - we hardly understand what life is. We have so lately left the shore of death and nothingness that its lethargy still clings to us. We are but awaking. Our feeble affections, our halting aspirations, our faltering gropings after truth and good, are but omens and foreshadowings of what we shall be when these principles are fully awakened, and the soul, the man, lives. Not we, it is the dead who live! The encumbrance of the flesh thrown off, ushered into a higher sphere, with new faculties, with expanded powers, going on from progress to progress, they know what it is to live. While we grope in earth and night, they are companions of angels, and glide through space with the sun. By all the ages that have past since their bodies fell off into dust, they are in advance of us. - This earth and these senses all! The heavens, so science suggests and all but affirms, are thronged with the uncounted myriads that have passed from night and death to immortal life, no longer, as when on the earth, chained and dungeoned in sense, but clothed with an immortal body. There all infirmities are thrown off. The "blind and deaf see and hear. Innocent children, whom their parents mourn, have there put on the wings of angels. The sick and maimed and palsy-struck, and those bent and worn with years and frailties, have drunk of the fountain of immortal youth. There is the open vision. There is the bright side of the cloud of death, so black as we behold it from beneath, while on the other side glows and shines the light of immortality. The dead, who have passed through that black cloud from our sight, have emerged into the regions of immortal day. The dead! they fill this infinite space, empty to us only because we are blind. Truly sings the poet, in sublime strains, which still only feebly embody the suggestions of science and the affirmations of religion: "We know in day-time there are stars about us, Just as at night, although to our gross eyes Invisible. So by faith Although we may not see them, still we know That spirits are about us, and believe That, to a spirit's eye, all heaven may be As full of angels, as a beam of light of motes." And, with all our worldliness, we feel as if there were 1850.] Miracles. 47 starry influences, the presence and power of these beings around and above us. Our memories of the past and thoughts of the future have a different hue because of our faith. Our departed friends are now still more and unchangeably our friends. Good men behold us from their seats in heaven. Myriads of mourning parents look up, and know that their children are awaiting their coming. An atmosphere of heavenly affections broods over the earth, and unawares the souls of men are softened, and their affections made more hallowed and pure. Faith changes the earth itself. It ceases to be a sepulchre. Faith transforms what otherwise were a dark cave, all way of egress blocked up and ending in despair, into the porch and entrance-way to a celestial temple. We have higher objects for which to live, and holy hopes to accompany us when we die; for death shall carry us into the realm of the glorified departed. O that we may be prepared for their society! Voices of the venerable and the good, the pure and the loved, how do they speak to our hearts! Could the dread silence of the senses be broken, how would they pursue our steps with anxious warnings and tender encouragements! shall doubt that they implore Heaven's blessing on dear ones yet walking amidst the temptations of the earth? Ye blessed spirits, God grant that we may not be utterly faithless to your love! God grant that our souls, when the hour of departure comes, may, through the mercy of Heaven, be prepared for the society of the redeemed,— that ours may be the faith and the life that shall give us the victory over death and the grave! E. P. ART. IV. MIRACLES. HUME says that all experience is against miracles, and therefore it is more probable that a miracle is false than that the evidence offered for it is true. He assumes that miracles have never taken place in order to prove that they have never taken place. Still it must be admitted that his succinct antithesis presents in a striking light the |