God is the Life, or Intelligence, that preserves the individuality of men and animals. What availeth it to investigate material life, that ends, even as it began, in nameless nothingness? We gain the only true sense of being, and its continuance, when we awake from this material dream.
How profoundly true are the words of Blanco White in his sonnet on night: —
| Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew |
| Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, |
| Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, |
| This glorious canopy of light and blue? |
| Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, |
| Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, |
| Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came; |
| And lo, Creation widened in man's view! |
| Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed |
| Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find, |
| Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, |
| That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? |
| Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? |
| If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life? |
Error of thought is reflected in error of action. The constant contemplation of material life hides spiritual Life, and trails our standard in the dust. If Life has any starting-point the great I Am is a myth. If, as the Scriptures declare, Life is God, an egg would be a narrow enclosure for Deity.
Embryology supplies no instance of one species producing its opposite. A serpent never begets a bird, nor does a lion bring forth a lamb. Amalgamation is deemed monstrous, and is seldom fruitful; but it is not as hideous or absurd as the supposition that Spirit — the
