As to the next circle of worlds, he is in despair, as he suddenly bethinks him of the unyielding orthodoxy of attraction, and the stale immutabilities of mathematics. His situation is now peculiarly unpleasant. After unheard of exertions, for no one knows how many hundred years, and by the assistance of an ever-working law, he has succeeded in freeing himself from the material grossness which prevented him from rising to a higher place in the scale of progressive spheres. His specific gravity has been constantly lessening as he has ascended, and at this moment (if there is any thing in the doctrine of weights, the sinking of heavy spirits, and the consequent rising of the lighter), his body must be of such rare lightness, that it is impossible for him, unless by some flagrant violation of a natural law, to return upon his steps. He is irrevocably fixed, one would fear, at the loftiest peak of this dreary mountain, with the torturing memory of forsaken happiness at his feet, and the tantalizing and unfulfilled prophecy of inaccessible glories we cannot say above him-nowhere! But he escapes. Messengers, we will suppose, conveyances, clouds catch him up, and finish the transit which a universal law and a strong will and unwearied effort have failed to accomplish. He goes to the incomprehensible third sphere. Including the subjacent plain, this is Layer No. 4. Here he becomes naturalized again, passes through a more refined course of dietetics, repeats the previous scene entire, and in about a thousand years, more or less, steps upon Layer No. 5. And so on to Layer No. 6, and then to Layer No. 7, which is the sixth sphere. This is slow work. Now surely there should be a little rest. Not yet. The pent-up, toil-worn, six times metamorphosed spirit of the man-God is still chained down to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow,* although "the fact of eating is merely to support matter," and of course there can be no longer any pleasure in the partaking of food. How it must pall upon his taste! Swedenborg, to be sure, who was translated by some exclusive short cut," direct from the first sphere to the sixth, without the intermediate wearisome apprenticeship, cannot be expected to feel the same disgust of labor, and impatience of an evershifting and exacting materialism. We accordingly hear him dilating with some enthusiasm upon the superior advantages of this elevated sphere. To illustrate the extreme sublimation to which constant attrition and metamorphosis have at length drawn out the physical man, we are exultingly told that many of these higher "spirits" have no need to eat oftener than once a week! Taking that as the basis of a calculation, we may easily discover the precise ratio of their fineness to the texture of our own mortality. Once a week to three times a day! That would make one bricklayer of Gotham equal, in a fair fight, to about twenty-one spherical farmers, of the very highest capacity. Somebody may be disposed to ask, just at this moment and we should be glad of an answer--how it is that these "progressed spirits," whose specific levity has carried them up to a height "far above the confines of any star or planet of which you (we) have any knowledge," are able to descend at pleasure even to the lowest spheres beneath them, and to revisit this earth, and remain here, and hold continual intercourse with us creatures, low, grovelling, and overcome with gravitation. How do they get down, and how do they keep themselves down, with such an irresistible tendency to fly off again into inconceivable distance?" Oh, insulted shade of Newton, and thou, much-injured spirit of Bacon! be disturbed! Awake! Come up from your awful graves, and dispel with a breath the baseless fabric of this silly dream! But we must not have done without a "fling" at the ethics of the new religion. What course of conduct does it enjoin for our daily life? We have noticed, casually, that forgery and lying are reported as common and unreproved peccadillos among the "spirits." We cannot find that we, in this life, are forbidden to aecept the precedent. There is a case mentioned in this book of one Tom Jones, who had been hanged for murder, under sentence from Judge Edmonds. He visits the "circle," to exchange a word with his whilom judge, through a speaking medium. Upon his knees, and with great emotion, he thanks Judge E. for removing him by the convenient halter, from his "former state of ignorance and blindness into the west sphere, where," says he, "I have become a man.' This miscreant, upon entering the second sphere, had presented him a choice between the companionship "The land is subdivided into communities or neighborhoods, and in them the land is also again laid out in parcels, for each to till for the benefit of all." of black ad evil spirits, and of those slightly reformed and of a paler complexion. He chose the latter, and was at the time of communication, considerably promoted, and in very happy and hopeful humor. He charges his former wickedness (as many unhanged economists would have done for him.) upon the bad construction of society, which drove him into excess and recklessness. We have thus, it would seem, a warrant of impunity for the wosrt of crimes. But let us not come to a hasty and illconsidered decision. There is a punishment for moral delinquency. Dr. Dexter thus defines it. "Every soul that is out of keeping with divine order, must remain in the license of a perverse will, for ever vile, until restored by the regenerating influences of progression upward and onward for ever." Which means, being interpreted (and passing the ambiguity of the word "forever"). The universal law of progression will eventually overcome any perverse efforts of the soul to remain "out of keeping with divine order," and will carry it to perfection in its own despite! Such is the dreadful fate of the wicked! Now we glean from a careful perusal of these revelations, that to be "out of keeping with divine order," is either to refrain from loving God and man, or it is to pursue the gratification of one's low passions in preference to cultivating the society of "spirits," through the rappings (whereby a certain grossness is added to the material nature, which may be entailed upon the new body after death, increasing its weight); or, if it should take place in the next life, it may consist in a refusal to go in when it rains, or to comply with any such requirement of physical necessity. * There is thus an evident mingling and confounding of the moral and the natural, which not only destroys all distinction between them, but makes the former a wholly inferior and supplementary fragment of the latter. We will state the case and leave it. The sum and substance of man's moral duty (to perform which there is the smallest imaginable inducement, since the See previous note. neglect may be easily remedied after death) is to love God and his fellow man, and to believe and accept the "spirit" revelations. He is bound to this moral duty, because he was created under certain natural laws, which require these moral conditions. If he complies with these moral conditions, his physical nature will become refined. If he loves God and the human race, and sits frequently in "circles," and consults "mediums," the result will be such a purification of his material organism, that he may one day aspire to become himself a medium; to witness such ineffable visions as perhaps never gladdened the inspired optics of Mahomet, or visited the enraptured imagination of De Quincey. The hope is ever before him of beholding with his natural eyes, and in no vision, those flitting and ghostly forms of Bacon and Swedenborg, to whose teachings, at second hand, he has delighted to listen.t Moreover, when he drops into the grave his mortal part, there shall be ready for him, or he shall have the privilege of generating for himself, an airy, beautiful, and flexible body, whose color shall be violet, yellow, or blue, and whose lustre shall outvie the brightness of a Drummond light. In this effulgent guise shall he float through space, and alight upon some excellent planet, where he may marry himself to another bright thing-of a delicate vermillion-and, perhaps, teach school. And at last, after gradually wearing out all materiality in successive stages of development, he shall be received up into "bright abodes," where his spirit shall be "manifested tangibly;" and where he shall retain the peculiar attributes ol his nature, so changed by progression, so altered by his upward course," that he shall have become a God;" and as sociated with millions of spirits similarly deified, may spend a blissful eternity-in searching for his own greater part-the Germ the Principle- the Impersonal Entity-the Creator God-the object of his adoration, the source and end of his being! Edmonds is informed by a "spirit," that after a sufficient amount of training he will be able to see kis familiar, and others such, with his mortal eyes. TO LYRA. LYRA, amid the stars around the gleaming Thou lookest on me so benignantly, As if to give me leave to question thee- Where wast thou when the morning stars were singing; Was the Harp then in tune-or only stringing- Such music as we may not hope to hear Till we have soar'd above this tainted atmosphere. And where ?-when first the Spirit brooded over Till seas were gather'd-their wild waves restrain'dAnd "the dry land” appear'd—unerring Truth Has told how forms of beauty grac'd it in its youth. God "spake and it was done "-laid earth's foundation— That things were here of perfect conformation But men of science, by investigation, Have sought to overthrow these way-marks of creation. The theories of those sagacious sages Would almost rob the Omnipotent of might- "God said, let there be light: and there was light." If earth moved then with grave deliberation— What impulse since has chang'd its axis of rotation? Didst thou behold our parents in the garden- Where thorns and thistles in their pathway sprung Hast thou look'd on the state their children grew in Their sad inheritance of pain and woe Their evil passions, ravages, and ruin— With the same radiant smile thou wearest now? If thou hast sympathy for misery here, Thine eye is oft suffus'd with a kind pitying tear. Where is that Eden now ?-Does it "lie darkling" As some conjecture 'neath the Caspian Sea And do those sands which are so bright and sparkling We'll seek that Paradise "a sure abode," Where Life's pure river flows "out of the throne of God." We're told by those who watch while we are sleeping, Why in the dark art thou this treasure keeping? Descried it, unassisted by those powers Which pierce beyond the barriers that limit ours. Those hazy portals with interiors winding Are they blest-spirit paths by which, when flown Those fleecy groups in azure fields reposing Like flocks of lambs, when wearied out with play? As islands, sprinkled o'er a dark blue sea- Those arms which seem from nebulæ extending, Man can but trace them till with ether blending- What are those meteors which come like showers Illumining the darkness of our night? Fire-balls with streamers hurtle through the air, But disappear at morn-and go—we know not where. In what consists the blessing we call light, Which, with velocity that has been reckon'd, At least two hundred thousand miles a second? Little, as yet, we seem to know about it. Except, that we should grope in darkness here without it. Philosophers define it "the vibrations We see no distant object in its place If we ne'er find you when and where you are Do we imagine only that we see a star? Or see you through that medium, when remov'd Far beyond sight ?-your "true time" being pastThe "apparent" only present-this seems prov'd, However strange to us-and shows how vast The acquisitions needful to dispel Those errors of the senses which within us dwell. Wilt thou become our pole star? Will this planet Impenetrable secret!-Who can scan it, But He who built, and launch'd it into space? Ere our cynosura give place to thee Earth's Time, elapsed, may leap into Eternity! Hast thou not seen celestial orbs while burning, Go out, and leave all blank where once they shone ? The "new earth" will be here, and not a dreary void. Was the Cross planted at our world's formation, A type significant of things to be? And hast thou near it kept thy watchful station Couldst thou communicate the history, We should learn wondrous things, still wrapp'd in mystery. Didst thou watch o'er the babe of Bethlehem ? The " man of sorrows trace through scenes of strife? When He for us the powers of hell withstood And quench'd their fiery darts with his own precious blood! A glorious memento now-(inscribed With Mercy, Grace, and Peace)—of Him who hung During those hours of darkness, wrath that wrung— Ere all was "finished "-one dread exclamation Which told how bitter were his pangs of desolation. There we may read, as written with God's finger, Speak to thy heart from these pure glowing letters "IT'S LOVE SUITS AND LAW SUITS. "IT'S hot over there at the court-room, Deacon," said I to the landlord, who was bustling about and putting things to rights in the bar-room. "It's a drefful hot day, Squire," replied the Deacon, taking off his hat and wiping his forehead. "That ere court-house you'll find 's a rael oven. I sot on the jury myself a year ago last summer. Yes, jest two year ago this term, and though I'm tougher'n a biled owl, I thought, for a spell, I should ha' gin out. I raly feared I'd bake and melt." "I think I'll take one of your iced punches before I go over," said I. "I don't believe it 'ud harm ye a hair, Squire," observed the Deacon, leading the way to the bar, "'specially as I hear you're goin' to argy that injunction case afore the judge this mornin', agin Squire Cranston. Sperit." continued the Deacon sententiously, while he cut the lemon sperit is like every thing else, if you use it as it orter to be used it don't harm ye, but ef you aboose it ye hev to suffer. So you do ef you aboose bread, or meat, or vegetables, or cold water even, comin' out o' the lot in sich a hot day like this all sweaty and melted. There's a feller killed over on the mountain only week afore last, jest nothin' else in the world only drinkin' cold water arter he'd been in the barn, on the scaffil, a mowin' away a load o' hay. Ef it 'ud ha ben sperit now that he'd a drank, we'd ha' never heern the last on't; they'd ha' put an account on't in the Cataract, and the korry |