evidences which revelation bears in itself, but also from the natural constitution of things, and from the unavoidable inferences of reason concerning the Creator's purpose, as evinced in the existence of mind and matter.

1st. Human immortality may be inferred, because a mind that is constituted to look forward to futurity with religious hope, and for the satisfaction of rational desire, cannot have answered the purpose for which it was created without the fulfilment of that hope and that desire. He who satisfies the desire of every living thing has not yet satisfied this desire. This argument, however, can have no weight but with those who experience the expressed state of mind. Those who are in the pitiable condition of being without this hope and this desire must be living without any consciousness of divine existence, and they need to be roused into spiritual vitality and vigilance before they can listen to arguments for eternal life. This is the work of God, and he is engaged in it by constraining men. to reason from their experience, and their hopes, and their fears; for even doubt is an argument for immortality, since it implies the question of a mind that cannot rest in the expectation of nothingness, but believes only in an ever-coming to-morrow.

2d. If there be no future or continued existence, then the Maker of man has made him capable and desirous of learning more of his wisdom from his works, and yet has left him without any code of laws to govern his moral being, or any instruction sufficient to guide his inquiries concerning his future destiny; for moral laws are not binding on creatures destined to perish,

and that doctrine is only deceptive which points to the light of heaven, and then leaves the soul to be quenched in everlasting darkness.

3d. If God has not left man without revelation, then man is immortal, because the only intelligence which he has received with any indication of its being revealed from God, is that which informs him of eternal safety as a reward, and eternal damage as a punishment, as the necessary consequence from the essential order of moral government.

4th. As what we learn concerning our Maker, from his works and his word, begets in all devout minds a happy reliance upon him and an adoring love, because of the cumulative proofs thus afforded of his benevolence and wisdom, and as this reliance and this love are in relation to a being who cannot cease to be adorable, there would be an incongruity of God's own making between the power to adore and the object of adoration, if man were not constituted, when actuated by indwelling truth, with a ceaseless capacity of worshipping and loving his Creator. But to suppose incongruity in God is to deny him.

5th. Without immortality, man would be a total contradiction to every idea of Deity; and all earthly mental existence would be useless, because, although it seems to serve the purpose of manifesting God, it only serves, in fact, to excite hopes to end in disappointment, and to afford a taste of life which yet conveys to the spirit only death. The insect at the fountain may sip and sustain its powers, to fulfil the purposes of its little being; but man must drink destruction at the source and streams of life, since his eagerness for

intelligence and enjoyment leads only to his being lost amid the flood that flows from beneath the throne of God, unless he be immortal.

These arguments are mutually resolvable, the one into the other, and, after all, merely express an intuitive conviction that, because we are what we are, we must be something greater hereafter, and that we must continue to exist, since we cannot suppose our present state to be other than as a stage in our progress towards the full purpose of our existence.

If we do not believe in our future being, we must believe in something still more difficult to apprehend, for to expect continued life is according to our habit and our sense of probability; but not to believe this, we must believe in annihilation; but this we cannot, because we find no ground on which to proceed to such a conclusion, since there is no instance of such an event in all our knowledge, and therefore there can be no possibility of our supposing the Omnipotent engaged in blotting out his own work. The preceding are the reasons which determine my own convictions, and they appear to me most consonant with the doctrines of the Bible and with man's moral consciousness. In short, I believe the soul is immortal, merely because it is a soul; but without revelation there could not be a sufficient reason for a man's believing in immortality, since without that he would not have known enough of himself. What the heathen philosophers wanted in order to satisfy them, or at least to impart to them a hope full of immortality, was a true knowledge of God and of man. A mythology without an omnipotent Deity is a system without a sun-there is

no cause of light or life in it—there is no being as the source and centre of existence, no mind interested in all other minds, no unity in intelligence, no bond of reason, no parent of spirits to whom they might come to dissipate their doubts. What was needed was a Logos to demonstrate that the Divinity was not a multitude of conflicting attributes, which men had imagined and adored as distinct deities, but that God was one, who, reconciling all things to himself, came forth to show himself as the Father of our spirits. When God was seen as love manifest in humanity, man was visibly immortal. It is in vain to reason of life everlasting without a demonstration of its cause, and that was never seen, except in as far as the Almighty made himself known as the immediate Friend of man. In the book of God we thus behold him.

There is much said by religious writers concerning the difference between a natural or necessary immortality and a derived immortality. Let us understand our own words. What God wills, that is nature; what he does, that is necessary; and he does what he wills. If, then, he wills that man should be immortal, man's immortality is natural and necessary. All that the creature possesses is, of course, by gift. God has immortality, but he has it to bestow: "the gift of God is eternal life by Jesus Christ."

"But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."-1 TIMOTHY i.

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”—1 CORINTHIANS XV.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

R. H. DANA.

O, LISTEN, man!

A voice within us speaks the startling word,
Man, thou shalt never die!" Celestial voices
Hymn it around our souls; according harps,
By angel fingers touched when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality;
Thick-clustering orbs, and this our fair domain,
The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas,
Join in this solemn, universal song.

O, listen ye, our spirits; drink it in

From all the air. 'Tis in the gentle moonlight;
'Tis floating in day's setting glories; night,
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears;
Night and the dawn, bright day and thoughtful eve,
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,
As one vast, mystic instrument, are touched
By an unseen, living hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee :

The dying hear it, and, as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.