forests beautiful as the olives and cedars that shaded Lebanon. God did not speak his first word to Moses in the Old Testament; nor pronounce his last to John on Patmos. The aspirations of true men cannot be held in slavish subjection to the letter of past revelations. Souls must have living bread. They must bathe in living streams, branching from the "River of Life." They must be free as God's winds-free as the loves of the angels. Inspirations can never know a finality, being manifest in all forms of life; in the progressive movements of the ages; in religion, art and science; in the moral heroism of reformers; in the tender affections of woman; in the ministry of spirits; in the sincere devotions of the prayerful, and in the sweet trust of a pure and holy life. CHAPTER XXXI. BEAUTY OF FAITH. "The soul's vague longing— The aching void which nothing earthly fills- The acceptance of the sciences is based more upon the investigations of others than personal research. Christendom, rejecting the inspirations and spiritual manifestations of the present, rests its bony head upon the old grayed monuments of antiquity, and strives to fill its leanness upon histories and doubtful facts connected with ancient Jewish feasts. It piously prefers dipping from the "Dead Sea," than drinking from America's gushing fountains. This is an abuse of faith. Spiritualists understand the import of these teachings-"Give us this day our daily bread”—“ a well of water within you springing up into everlasting life"-"Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world! Faith is perpetual. When its "substance of things hoped for" is swallowed up in fruition, like the bud blossoming into the flower, it unfolds a yet higher life-ever higherpreluding immortal progress. Faith often used in a subjective sense for personal belief, is elemental in the human soul, and may be defined an assent of the mind to propositions based upon the testimony of others, or an acceptance of such truths as seem legitimately deducible from the investigations of physical and moral science. Faith, differing essentially from mere belief, is graded upward from the more external to the divine, corresponding relationally to the outer and inner consciousness. The latter is closely allied to intuition. It is a glimmering from the star of destiny. Faith is essential to successful communication with ministering spirits. The adjustment of the spirit batteries, under this law, is most delicate and beautiful. The spirit has to employ our magnetic sphere -enters into rapport with us sympathetically-and if we are any ways deceptive and tricky, gloomy and unbelieving, our very mental and moral condition defeats the object; for then a pure and truthful spirit, who would communicate, finds it very difficult to reach our sphere, it being so magnetically repellant. Honest doubt does not imply un-faith; in fact, it is faith in embryo. The candid inquirer always gets light; for such a sphere attracts the angel who comes to bless "the poor in spirit." Faith, then, is rooted in innocency. "Thy faith hath made thee whole." How beautiful it is under the effulgence of this spiritual light! When our purpose is sincere, Faith-angels come, administering "good tidings of good" to those who "seek immortality-eternal life!" Louis Napoleon landed upon the French coast with a few adherents, shouting "Long live Napoleon." The thoughtless called him a madman; but to-day he guides the destinies of an empire. Garibaldi put his foot down firmly in Sicily, raised the cry of revolution, drove out a ruling tyrant, and offered a kingdom to Victor Emanuel-a kingdom that shall yet call Rome its capital, and send sunshine into every Italian heart. Joan D'Arc, fired with enthusiasm and inspired by avenging angels, led the French army against the English to victory-a sample of faith and will-force. Columbus, dreamy and visionary, conceived of continents and islands in the West. We see him drafting his course; now a weary pilgrim at the king's gate, and now at royal courts pleading for ships. At length, the wish attained, the sails are hoisted and the prows turned; he puts out into the great deep, under the loftiest inspiration of faith. The needle trembling, turned from its accustomed position; strange sea-birds whirled by; storms danced their demon-dances in the rigging; but a divine current, seemingly, swept them on, till a new world gladdened their vision. Such a faith is the fountain-head, the mighty, propelling force we see manifest in the field, the shop, the academy, the commercial mart, the studio of the artist, the observatory of the astronomer, and the literary altitudes attained in American and English universities. Beautiful, truly, is a calm, abiding faith-faith in the measureless possibilities of humanity-faith in the governing guidance of the spiritual heavens-faith in the unchangeability of the divine laws, and faith in the ceaseless, outflowing love of the Infinite. This kind of faith has more to do with the moral nature than the intellect. Science, if touching the intellect only, is cold and chilling, though clear as crystal. And philosophy alone, without the warming religious influences of love and sympathy, faith and trust, is comparable to a glistening iceberg, hugging the human soul into a resurrectionless death. How sweet and perfect the little child's faith in the parent; and how firm should be ours, in the innate goodness of every human being! Under the ice the water runs; above the clouds the sun shines; upon the moldering piles of India and the marbled ruins of Greece, mosses are green; and wild vines, clinging, climb sunward. So, nestling under the roughest exterior, and growing out from every conscious soul, there is something fair and heavenly. Aye, an angel iş hidden there, awaiting the better, higher conditions to produce the Eden-blooms of good works. In every fainting, struggling Magdalen are all the divine elements of a Virgin Mary; and in every denying, weeping Peter are all the soulprophecies of angelic life-a structural pillar in to be hewn, polished and fitted into the livi humanity. Cherishing this deep faith in the divinity the good, the beautiful and the true, S resent of in cultivate the tenderest charities, encourage the widest sympathies, and, despising none, despairing of none, should strive everywhere to bring out and build up the pure and the holy. "Where'er we go in weal or woe, whatever fate befall, In sunny glade or forest shade, a Heaven is over all.” Thinkers, ignoring the forms of faith and theologic dogmas of churchmen, consider the creeds fashioned in the last century hardly fitted for spittoons in the present. Asserting a true manhood, they stamp them under their feet, and clasping the hands of the immortalized, walk up daily on to some mount of ascension, to commune with nature and talk with the gods. But faith in man and woman, in law and God, and faith in an endless progressive existence, involving its demonstration ever approximating the divine perfections, are necessities of the soul and beautiful as holy. "Thither our weak and weary steps are tending ; ; Loved angel friends! with each frail child abide! Guide us towards Home, where, all our wanderings ending, |