Courage, brother! Martyrs have trodden the paths of peril-saints have paced the cold cells-hearts have ached— souls have hurgered-fires have burned around the forms of the faithful-storms and adversities have pelted the prophets -eyes have wept tears of blood, and brows platted with coronals of persecution, ere the world knew them, or they reaped the harvests of their diligent sowing. Courage, sister, brother, speaker, medium, worker-courage!

A beautiful, guardian angel once said to her mate on earth: "Mind echoes to mind; heart throbs with heart. Together we will read beauties-together sing one melody of lovetogether twine garlands to deck the brow of sorrow-together tread eternal pathways, and bathe in life's fountain of light. Yes, together we will sing the song of life-together and forever. We shall be there together; no partings ever there; the hands once joined at greeting, shall never be unloosed; two buds blossom in one flower. I am ever near thee. Ask me not to come. Shall the rose say, I wait for fragrance? Does it invite sweetness? Thus are we united!"

"I shall know her there! I shall know her there,

By the shining folds of her wavy hair,

By her faultless form with its airy grace
That an angel's pen might fail to trace-

By the holy smile her lips will wear,

When we meet above, I shall know her there!

I shall know her there, and her calm, dark eyes
Will look in mine with glad surprise,
When my bark, wild-tost o'er life's rough main,
The far-off port of heaven shall gain;

Though an angel's robe and a crown she wear,
By the song she sings I shall know her there."

Existence is unitive-eternal. This life is a hotel in which mortals tarry but a little season for rudimental experiences. Earthly furniture is not transferable. Ripening through toil and suffering, the soul emerges from this chrysalis state, through a sweet death-trance, to form new connections and go up one step higher in the graduated ascent of creation.

Not the drooping willow, nor dark cypress; but myrtle, laurel, rose-buds and immortelles are fitting funeral emblems. Mourning apparel belongs to the superstitions of the past. Pleasant words-cheerful music, should be voiced in the calm hour of burial, and cemeteries should be made as beautiful as the groves of tropical climes.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

PRAYER.

"If truth the inmost soul and being share,
The universe becomes a book of prayer."

"Prayer pushes prayer

Up into heaven's sublime air."

"He gathers the prayers as he stands,

And they change into flowers in his hands,

Into garlands of purple and red;

And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the city immortal,
Is wafted the fragrance they shed."

Not pre-arranged words or the utterance of measured phrases, after the custom of the ancient Pharasee and modern hypocrite, but aspiration is prayer, the up-welling of the soul's holiest desires and struggles to attain the moral altitudes of perfection, the language of the innermost panting for the actual, the rising flame, the incense of pure thought, the prophecy of a better life, the chariot of love bearing us into the realm of the divine.

Prayer, uttered or repressed, affects no deific law or principle. Dews freshen the evening; sunlight bathes the morning; fruits fall in the autumn-time; meteors descend to the earth; stars move in nightly battalions over the radiant plains of heaven, all in accordance with infinite causation, reckless of prayers or intercessions.

The immutable and unalterable I Am is in no way affected by the instabilities of men. Neither smiles nor tears-vices nor virtues, nor prayers, change that divine Energy, who is "the same yesterday and forever." Prayer expands the soul that breathes it, and opens to clearer vision the portals of the spirit-world, in which all have the right of citizenship. It intromits the petitioner into closer fellowship with heavenly hosts, and, imparting a holier baptism, raises him above the worthless things of earth. The soul in self-communion feels its immensity, its relation to the universe, and its illimitable future. And through prayer and meditation, the external universe partially reveals its inmost self, and another universe within the subjective-opens in grandeur, seemingly limitless before the spirit vision.

One of our most philosophical writers on Spiritualism, purely appreciating the law of prayer, says:

"When man comes into that department of being where all that is evil and false ceases, when every impure and unjust desire and impulse is banished, and when the soul, in its yearnings after the divine, puts forth all its life and power in humble, submissive prayer-then is such soul elevated to the summit of its being, and there is infilled with the living presence of Divinity, which makes the whole being radiant with spiritual light. Such a degree of elevation is coming into the 'Mount of Transfiguration,' and all who have really been there, have felt its blessedness and desired to establish his tabernacle thereon."

Jesus, speaking from the inner life, said—

"When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogue and at the corners of the streets to be seen of men. * * * But when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

James the apostle, in an inspired moment, asked

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, *** and the prayer of faith shall save the sick."

To plead with God for this or that, "for Christ's sake," is churchal, but not philosophical. Prayer moves us, and all in sympathy with us, as one chord in a musical instrument tones another, bringing us more and more into harmony with heavenly order. It is devoid of all virtue without practice. The sectarist prays God to send rain in the dry season, while the philosopher prays by irrigating his fields and gardens. The bigot prays God to feed the poor, whilst the philanthropist prays by carrying supplies to their very doors. The churchman, partaking of a rich repast, prays God to clothe and comfort the widow and the fatherless, and expects by these soulless ceremonies to win the special favor of heaven. Up from your knees, O Ritualist! and bestow the blessings which you ask God to confer. Golden the age when men will do, rather than say their prayers. The Grecian drayman received no help from Hercules, though calling in prayer, until he put his shoulder to the wheel.

Invocations to spirits, angels, God-"Jehovah, Jove, or Lord"-when bubbling up spontaneously from the inner depths, are vitalizing and strengthening to the divine forces of the soul. Whether most efficacious, voiced, or breathed in calm silence, each must determine. No mortal is independent. Sympathies and destinies blend like the tremulous branches of forest trees. Man, dependent as stream upon fountain, is fed from the ever-flowing rivers of inspiration. Is it not expressive of gratitude, as well as wisdom, then, for man to look to God, as drop, rill, stream, lake, all, to the immeasurable oceanic fountain of waters? Thus, aspiring to the good and lofty, to angels and arch-angels, we approximate their states of recipient love, and become illumined with the Promethean fires of God's eternal sunshine, our souls invited up and standing upon high mountains of holiness, under the arching rainbows of Infinite Mercy.

Aspiration knows no bounds; ideally it measures all spaces over which the soul treads; it is the highest form of prayer. The immediate object of prayer, then, is to incite calmness of spirit. It puts us into an inspirational condition.