will and choice of the recipient, as in the rational man, or without this, as in the lower forms of being,—in all, even the lowest, this power, derived from him and his in its origin, is the power of each thing to do its work. But infinitely above and infinitely distinct from all of these, and from the universe as a whole, is God himself. Flowing forth from himself that all may be created, sending forth life and power into all that is created, distinct from all he also dwells in his own infinity. He fills all being with his presence, and is yet the common centre of all being, towards which all things turn. Dead matter turns to him with its voiceless effort to obey his will by all the myriad activities, only the smallest portion of which we recognize; but all exist by ceaseless tendency to be useful as he bids them be. The animal creation, led by their instincts, follow in the same path. And man, made in his own image, turns to him with obedience, with worship, and with love. And this is true, so far as truth and its offspring, order, prevail throughout creation. It ceases to be true so far as man, (to whom alone freedom is given, and he alone of all the works of God may voluntarily obey, worship, and love his Creator and his Lord,) by the abuse of that freedom, turns himself away; and then through him there falls a blight upon the world around him, that it may still be in adaptation to him; that it may become a world for use and discipline, and not a world for use and enjoyment.

Among the startling facts which Science has recently acquired, is one respecting the latent electricity of bodies. Faraday supposes it to be proved, and in the later textbooks it is stated as an ascertained fact, that every drop of

water contains within itself electricity enough to destroy many men. The discovery of latent heat, made some years ago, is somewhat akin to this. Now, we would ask two questions. One is, whether it is probable that we have now discovered all and measured all the latent forces within dead matter. Another is, whether it is most probable that this tremendous agent thus locked up within a drop of water is doing nothing there. We should answer both of these questions in the negative. We should say it was more probable that we had but entered upon this course of discovery; but we have gone far enough to judge of its direction, to know whither it leads, to admit among rational suppositions, that which tells us that all the great forces of nature are in all nature. In every drop, in every crystal, in every speck that the microscope can only intimate, but not define, lie these great forces. The ethers are there, if in them lie these forces. Describe, name, arrange them as we will, the powers themselves are there in their several degrees. They do not wait until the little becomes by aggregation great; they do not stand without until the mean can grow into a habitation worthy of them. Wherever nature is, there they are. Sometimes we call them latent, or we say they are in their state of repose. If we mean by this repose a peaceful activity, it is well; but probably most persons mean by this that they are doing nothing; stored up in readiness for opportunity; waiting patiently for the time to come when they may act! If we see the lightning leaping to the earth, if before our eyes it dashes a strong tree into fragments, we hear its voice and tremble, and then we say that electricity is active. Is it not, at the least, as active, when it holds the drop together, and preserves in its integrity this life-sustaining element? Let it cease for an instant this silent and unnoticed action, - silent and unnoticed only because normal and unimpeded,

and in the next instant, not only would mankind perish, not only would life cease from the earth, but the solid globe itself would be disintegrated and destroyed.

Science has now some acquaintance with the principal forces of nature, some knowledge of the manner and effect of their operation, and of their relation to the condition and the changes of the substances of nature. It is not far from recognizing in all these substances the perpetual presence and action of these forces, and in ascribing to this presence and action the form and quality and function of each substance. We may not yet call this an ascertained fact; but it is a highly probable inference from ascertained facts. It suggests to us the presence in all substances of creative forces and creative atmospheres, one within another, in such wise as to lead to the belief that there is gradation, not only among created things, but in each created thing. There is to everything an outside and an inside; and when, leaving the outside, we penetrate within, we find within forces and substances, finer, purer, and higher, even to the inmost. We are obliged to use these words, because we have no other; but it is obvious that such words, derived only from place, can express only by analogy the ideas we employ them to convey. But this secondary or analogous meaning is a very plain one. No one doubts what is meant when it is said that the soul is within the body, or that another motive lay within that which some person avows to explain his conduct. For all such purposes we must use words derived from sense; language is full of them. "Right" meant at first only a straight line; "rule" meant only an instrument used to make a straight line, or ascertain whether it was straight. These original meanings are retained; but the secondary and analogical meanings, the higher meanings, are now so well established, and in such common use, that most persons

think them primary, and the lower and external meanings secondary. Such words do not come to express these higher ideas arbitrarily, or from the poverty of human language; but because of the actual and universal analogy and correspondence between the things of sense and the things of thought; between the world of matter and the world of spirit. The words accompany the thoughts, as, led by this analogy, they rise from the contemplation of things of the body to those of the spirit.

To return to our subject. If we may assume as probable the existence of this gradation within the substances of nature, within all the things which constitute or belong to the visible creation, we may, led by the analogy and correspondence between the creation cognizable by sense and the creation which belongs to the spirit, suppose that in spiritual things there is the same gradation; in all and each of them, that which is higher and purer lying within the outermost ; while the steps of this series lead towards the inmost, which is the highest and purest. From this we may at once infer and comprehend that law of human progress which we have described as requiring us to pass through Seeming after Seeming ever towards the Actual; and also the remark, that these Seemings are themselves in some sort Actual. The inmost of everything is the first emanation from the Divine; it is that sphere of existence which is nearest to himself. If the thing be an intellectual entity, a truth, then is its inmost divine truth; and therefore it is unattainable and incomprehensible by us. But this divine truth clothes itself in successive envelopes, all formed of truth so modified, that at last it is brought within reach even of a humble and feeble human intellect. No genius or great power is needed to apprehend this truth in this lowest form in which it has been, by Divine mercy, brought down within the easy reach of all. But every truth is a

ladder let down from heaven. It rests firmly on the earth; and although its higher steps, even all but those that touch the earth, may be unknown and unsuspected, none the less are they there; and the angels of heaven, the ministers of divine love and wisdom, are always descending and ascending upon them; descending to bring us instruction and light, ascending to bear our minds and thoughts upwards. Even so, and in exact parallelism, every substance in nature contains within it in regular gradation all forces even to its inmost, where is the force just emanating from the Divine, the Divine love, which by this gradation can come down and fill the outermost form of the substance with active utility. And thus is creation a present and a perpetual work.

Whether we call it parallelism, or analogy, or correspondence, there is a law of the universe which makes one series of beings answer to another; and this law often comes to the surface, in such wise that it cannot but be seen and acknowledged. Thus, no one in these days proposes an arrangement of the kingdoms of nature in which the series of existences begins with that of man, runs down to its lowest member, and then passing to the highest animal again runs down to the lowest, and then passing to the most perfect vegetable again runs down to the lowest, and then passing to the highest form of inorganic matter once more runs through the series, and ends at last in mud and slime. But all these distinct series, if laid by the side of or over each other, are seen to have a kind of correspondence. The highest of the one answers to the highest of another, the lowest of the one to the lowest of another, and thus their orderly arrangement is into parallel lines, one line higher than the next, and that higher than the next; but with a parallelism of the whole, and of the several parts, which runs through all the series.