since it utterly fails to make the motives of a spiritual world touch visibly on the affairs of this, but it fails as a motive power in calling a living literature into existence. All the great productions of genius have been evolved and nurtured under a very different regimen. No Iliad, that brings down the living divinities, and makes them mingle in human affairs, -no Divina Comœdia, nor Jerusalem Recovered, nor Paradise Lost,not even those creations which the Drama calls forth under her potent witchery to unveil human nature to itself,-could ever have had existence under the inspiration of such a supernal world. As soon as the imagination crosses over the frontier, its wings drop frozen, and it falls into the limbo and dies. What is imagination, or what is faith, where all imagery is prohibited, and what image can start out of the vast abyss, where there is no form nor body in which it may appear? Body is denied to substance, and then substance straightway dwindles to a "point" and disappears, and we are in an unfathomable deathrealm, where black night takes the color from things,* and not even a poet can find a myth for his machinery. Not an angel must show his face, or rustle with his wing, for these attach to bodies; and our philosophers will have it — and must, if

*"Rebus nox abstulit atra colorem."

consistent that angels are without bodies too, they also being "pure simplicities." All those great works of the human intellect which have been utterances out of the heart of humanity, and gone to its heart again, are so many protests against these notions of the supernatural, — notions that do not even allow a spectre to come up, for not a spectre can rise and gibber unless you allow him to be bodied forth. And as for those hopes and comforts which are the Christian's solace at the final hour, these metaphysicians have the privilege, when their game at words is over, of lying down to the great agony and being turned into nobody. All the consolations of their system go with them! But has the Gospel which brought life and immortality to light become reduced at last to this shrunken and shrivelled scroll?

CHAPTER IV.

THE THEORY OF NATURALISM.

As we rise towards something more affirmative and tangible, we meet the theory of the resurrection of natural bodies which are to be made the future organisms of spirits. The resurrection is not to take place till the end of time, and the scene of it is to be the churchyard or the charnel-house, or whatever place may hold in deposit our earthly corporeity. But during the long period that is to interspace our death and resuscitation, what sort of a foothold are we to have in the universe? Three answers to this question may be distinguished.

The first is, that we are to have none at all. Our existence goes out altogether. We suffer a temporary annihilation. We are not only reduced to a point, but to nothing, until our bodies are revived again. This was Priestley's doctrine, who in holding it was a consistent materialist.

The second is, that we are to be altogether "dis

embodied," or by the reasonings of the last chapter be a "pure simplicity" only till such time as the sepulchres yield up their deposits. This is something gained. It is some comfort to reflect that we shall not be in vacuo for ever, though we must be pushed off into it to remain some thousands of years.

The third answer is, that during this long intervening sleep of the natural body we shall not be deprived altogether of corporeity. But our bodies will be so attenuated and intangible that we shall look forward with longings for the resuscitation of those which we have lost. Our bliss will be incomplete till we get them again, our heaven imperfect until consummated at the resurrection, when we shall come back to the earth, and get once more a secure foothold upon it, and in our recovered bodies enjoy a millennium amid the fauna and flora of renovated nature. The earth will be destroyed and re-created in order to become the abode of the risen saints.

Or, if our final condition is to be an unhappy one, we shall nevertheless suffer only a partial and incomplete retribution during the ante-resurrection period. Brought back into our lost bodies, their senses will be made more living than ever, but will only be open avenues for suffering to enter the soul and consummate its misery.

Meanwhile, in our attenuated corporeity, whith

er shall we betake ourselves to spend the anteresurrection period? As it is only a more rarefied matter that we shall wear, we must be somewhere in space, and subject to natural law. Speculations on this point are various. The author of "The Physical Theory of Another Life " thinks we may possibly live in the sun, though he says he holds the hypothesis "cheap." A recent writer, whose book is open before us,* and which is recommended by sound authority, conjectures that hell may be in the craters of the moon, or possibly Uranus may serve as a Botany Bay to the bad spirits of our planetary system; while he thinks he discovers the possible locality of heaven in an unusually brilliant spot among the fixed stars. He thinks it not impossible that communication may some time be established between it and the earth, and that comets may serve as vehicles for that purpose. It was an ancient opinion that the wicked would be put inside of the earth, and kept in subterranean discomfort and darkness, and Bishop Horsely is said to have adopted it. Dr. Scott gives us the privilege of ascending into the air; and, as our bodies will be exceedingly rarefied, the ascent will be easy.

But wherever our locality may be, one thing is agreed upon, that at the resurrection, and

*The Heavenly Home, by Rev. H. Harbaugh.