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big one, the empty church the full one. The writer heard, a few Sundays since, a prominent clergyman of his city exhort his congregation to pay attention to the parishes which were enticing their children away from them into their own churches, and he very feelingly requested his hearers to try and recruit their parish from some of the more successful ones. Had not this gentleman been a clergyman, I should have had no hesitation in saying that he evinced a considerable degree of envy.

Let us strive, then, to be as content with our lot as is consistent with the urgent necessity of our bettering it. A spirit of emulation is most praiseworthy, for emulation does not seek to mount the throne of success over the necks of the down-fallen. If you would envy the rich you have

but to remember;

"Often it is your millionaire who holds the mockery, and misses the crown. *Behind many a plethoric purse is a starved mind and shrunken soul.” What is the end of life? Surely not wealth; for that last garment which the soul puts on is pocketless.

What shall it profit a man though he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

There is no cause for envy there. Let us strive to be free from such material and petty sentiments. The beggar who shares his crust of bread shall take with him a coin which is current in heaven, and beside which the hordes of miserly magnates shall all be counterfeit.

The question actually is; do you leave the world richer in real riches than it was when you entered it? If not, you have lived in vain: but if you do; humanity is your debtor, and the loan shall be repaid.

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"When you were born
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Life is too short for envy, malice, hate, revenge, resentment, jealousy, or any of the many other evils too numerous to mention here.

"If we really understand life, we know that it is the childhood of immortality."

Let us look at it in this light," the childhood of immortality;" the childhood in which we are developing a mental and soul-structure that shall outlast this physical body, molding and shaping our spiritual personality even till the heavens shall be rolled up in a scroll.

"As the twig is bent the tree's inclined."

We are, in this life, bending the young shoots of spiritual growth, and remember, the result of this will be a spiritual tree which shall grow throughout eternity. If it be gnarled, deformed, and blighted, it is because of the evils which assailed it as a twig. If it be stanch, straight, and beautiful, it is because its early roots drew sustenance from a virtuous and beautiful character.

Be advised; the life that lives, and the death that dies, make all the heaven and hell in creation.

"Infidels in theory," says Hogan, "are shunned as plagues, while practical infidels are cherished amongst us." This remark of the reverend gentleman is laden with significance. There are so many who are religious in theory and Godless in action, and these very individuals are the loudest in their anathemas against those who are contented to be upright in act, without making any religious professions. (Ed.)

MUTABILITY.

A STAR fell down from out the blue
Of heaven's vast domain;

It flashed an instant and was gone

To ne'er be seen again.

A bubble blown by child's sweet breath,
Reflecting gorgeous views

It trembles now upon the air,

And now its form we lose.

A world is moving round its sun
In grand, exalted curves;

A force within exerts its power,
And from its course it swerves.

A life in perfect pride of health
Seems surely ours for aye,

But as with bubbles, stars, and worlds,
We're shown it cannot stay.

And yet from this we should not think
That man by chance is led

'Tis all beyond our narrow powers,
Yet absent is not dead.

CHARLES H. MACKAY.

ESOTERIC TALKS.

BY J. VINCENT TAYLOR.

NEW WORLDS FROM THE FRAGMENTS OF AN OLD ONE.

THE extracts in the preceding article are correct commentaries on what is seen and known, applicable alike to the past, present, and possible futurity of human intelligence, passing onward to a state of universal, celestial intelligence being possible in the present duration of the globe, (which is an acknowledged atom of the sublime eternal areas above, beyond, and around it. These are dotted with other material worlds full of tone, beauty, and splendor, not unequal, though sometimes grander, than our own. May not the same or similiar laws have obtained in a former duration of time, full of beings endowed with a beauty and grandeur surpassing, perhaps, that which is now enjoyed? This seems especially likely when we remember that old worlds, as well as new ones, can be traced as being recalled back to light, after seeming obliteration from space and time, as has been demonstrated in the discovery of the asteroid named Vesta, Juno, Ceres, and Pallas? The celebrated Bode, and others of his school, formed opinions that the bulk of worlds had something to do with the distance they occupied from each other; but when they came to consider the relative positions and bulk between Mars and Jupiter, they found that a difficulty existed in proving the correctness of their theory, which embraced the idea that the diameter of one world would be proportionally smaller than another in the same system, as they ranged in juxtaposition. Hence Venus, nearer the Sun than the Earth, is smaller, and the distance of the

Globe from the Sun is three times greater than that of Venus, which is one-third the size of the Earth. Of course, when they came to measure the distances and bulk of Mars and Jupiter they were perplexed, but only for a time. They went to work to discover if there were not a planet, or planets between them, when the asteroids were soon made known to the astronomers of the world by men at dates as follows:

Ceres, January 1, 1801, by Piazzi, of Palermo.
Pallas, March 28, 1802, by Olbers, of Bremen.
Juno, September 1, 1804, by Harding, of Bremen.
Vesta, March 29, 1807, by Olbers of Bremen.

Thus the want of a missing world was supplied, occupying a part of space where a previous vacancy had seemingly upset the correctness of a theory found accurate in all other geometrical calculations. Such is their proximity to each other, and the singularity of their orbits, — each crossing the paths of the others at different times, that even now, it is supposed that two of them must sooner or later again come into collision.

In recording the facts of each discovery, Burrett, Dick, and others recited the following:

"The orbit of Vesta is so eccentric, that she is sometimes farther from the Sun than either Ceres, Pallas, or Juno, although her mean distance is many millions of miles less than theirs. The orbit of Vesta crosses the obits of all the other three, at two opposite points.

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Juno, the next planetoid in order after Vesta, revolves around the Sun in four years, four and one-half months, at the mean distance of 254 millions of miles, moving in her orbit at the rate of 41 thousand miles an hour. Her diameter is estimated at 1393 miles. This would make her magnitude 183 times less than the Earth's. The light and heat which she receives from the Sun is seven times less than that received by the Earth.

"Ceres, the planetoid next in order after Juno, revolves about the Sun in 4 years, 7 1-3 months, at the mean distance of 263 1-2 millions of miles, moving in her orbit at the rate of 41 thousand miles an hour. Her diameter is estimated at 1582 miles, which makes her magnitude 125 times less than the Earth's. The intensity of the light and heat which she receives from the Sun, is about 7 1-2 times less than that received by the Earth.

"Pallas, the next planetoid in order after Ceres, performs her revolution around the Sun in 4 years, 7 2-3 months, at the mean distance of 264 millions of miles, moving in her orbit at the rate of 41 thousand miles an hour. Her diameter is estimated at 2025 miles, which is but little less than that of our Moon. It is a singular and very remarkable phenomenon in the Solar System, that two planetoids, (Ceres and Pallas,) nearly of the same size, should be situated at equal distances from the Sun, revolve about him in the same period, and in orbits that intersect each other. The difference in the respective distances of Ceres and Pallas is less than a million of miles."

From these and other circumstances, many eminent astronomers are of the opinion that these four planetoids are the fragments of a large celestial body which once revolved between Mars and Jupiter, and which burst asunder by some tremendous convulsion, or some external violence. The discov ery of Ceres by Piazzi, on the first day of the present century, drew the attention of all the astronomers of the age to that region of the sky, and

every inch of it was minutely explored. The consequence was, that in the year following, Dr. Olbers of Bremen, announced to the world the discovery of Pallas, situated not many degrees from Ceres, and very much resembling it in size.

From this discovery, Dr. Olbers first conceived the idea that these bodies might be the fragments of a former world; and if so, that other portions of it might be found either in the same neighborhood, or else having diverged from the same point. "They ought to have two common points of reunion, or two nodes in opposite regions of the heavens through which all the planetary fragments must sooner or later pass.

One of these nodes he found to be in the constellation Virgo, and the opposite one in the Whale. It is a remarkable coincidence that it was in the neighbourhood of the latter constellation that Mr. Harding discovered the planet Juno. In order, therefore, to detect the remaining fragments, if any existed, Dr. Olbers examined, three times every year, all the small stars in Virgo and the Whale; and it was in the constellation Virgo that he discovered the planet Vesta. Some astronomers think it not unlikely that other fragments of a similar description may hereafter be discovered.

Thus patient astronomy has established to its own satisfaction, and to ours, that new worlds may spring forth, or be recalled by the Creative Mind from the fragments or chaos of old ones, for a time hidden away in the universe. If so, this is one more golden link in the chain of evidence we are forging in studying the anteriority of the Globe and former inhabitants which, as atoms situated in an eternal round of changes, must necessarily be, and have been, items of the same great eternity of transformation. This, because the Globe is a member (an insignificant one perhaps,) of a sublime celestial family of worlds full of a diversity of intelligences peopling them, and all presided over, arranged, harmonized and adjusted by a Creative Universal Father, who has ever been, ever is, and will always be at work remodeling old systems, modeling new ones, and creating fresh germs of life and light among things liable to change and decay. This is what pure, incorruptible astronomy teaches us incidentally. Christianity teaches a God interested in the welfare of man's eternal futurity, without going into the universe to demonstrate His presence there. But astronomy, the fit companion of Christianity, after listening to the great story of universal love in Christ, patiently searched out, and now guides us into the eternal empire of creative God Himself; demonstrating that the system in which the globe exists, is but a very small province of the grand and mighty whole! Also, that if our terrestrial sphere of Sun, Moon, and planets were in a moment hurled back again into chaos, it would scarcely be missed from the glorious empire of ten million other suns around which may revolve a million billion other worlds. Yes, mother Earth is an item in an arrangment of things wherein all space seems to be illuminate, and every particle of light a world,

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or sun.

To be continued.

BEAUTY needs no apology,

it is sufficient unto itself. It need not be tacked

on to any creed or philosophy to make it sacred. It is its own divinity. Emerson;

"If eyes were made for seeing,

"Then beauty is its own excuse for being."

Says

(Ed.)

A CONCISE COURSE OF LESSONS ON REGENERATION.

THERE is a stir throughout the length and breadth of the land, as though the breath of the Lord, so to speak, had moved on the hearts and minds of mankind, causing them to seek for spiritual light, and to gain access to the kingdom that Christ taught was within man. The world has commenced on a new age, the age preceding the long-looked-for millennial glory; and the light being thrown on the teachings of the Bible, and the world which is seeking for truth, are only indications of the dawn,the signs of the times. But, notwithstanding the great flood of light coming to man, there remains the same inexorable law governing the entrance to the spiritual kingdom, that there is governing every science. How can we understand mathematics, chemistry, physics, or any of the sciences, except we learn the principles and laws governing them? So it is with the spiritual kingdom. Although it is within, and nigh unto all, it can only be entered by understanding the principles and laws governing it.

These principles and laws we must comprehend before we gain access to, or before the Kingdom can become visible to us. There has been a mistaken belief about man being able to enter the kingdom of Heaven through God's mercy, or to live without reference to the laws. While God's love and mercy are constantly manifested toward all His creatures, it is not till they come to understand the laws and principles governing the realm, that they can avail themselves of its riches.

The term "theology" means the science or knowledge of God. "Theosophy," the wisdom of God; and each implies the same necessity of close study and application if we would know anything satisfactory of it, as is required for the study of geology, if we would know anything of the earth's formation and structural history. If we go back through the past and question history, we find that in proportion as man has been ignorant of spiritual truth, in that degree has the race sunk into darkness and materiality, with its attending wretchedness. Notwithstanding that the church has had the Bible, the book of all books, because it contains the teachings concerning the spiritual kingdom,-it lost sight of the true interpretation and significance of the teachings used, following the letters, instead of the inner, mystical meaning, which is only discerned by the spiritually illumined. The kingdom of heaven is not at a distance, nor in a future state, but within us, now and here, and can be entered by learning its laws, and complying with them, and making its principles ours. The first question that arises, is what advantage does living in, and possessing a knowledge of this kingdom give to man? Why is it the one thing needful, the pearl of great price, that should be sought till found, and all else sold to pay for it? We will tell you.

Man has run to and fro through the earth seeking rest and happiness in every worldly avenue, and found only disappointment and wretchedness. He has sought health, and found disease; sought pleasure, and found pain and sorrow. He has sought enlarged mental freedom in narcotics and intoxicants, to find deeper pits and greater bondage and despair; he has sought dominion through earthly power and wealth, to find himself the the greatest of slaves.

Thus we might continue, through the whole list of the deceptions of the natural man, and find the same results. We find poverty, sickness, and crime everywhere; and the question of all humanitarians everywhere

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