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larger growth keeps down the underwood, and one may ride on horseback through the openings."

Since we have found fault with some of what we may be allowed to call the worsification, we should say that the prose work is done conscientiously and neatly. The style is compact and the language has an antique purity like wine grown colorless with age. There are passages of a genial humor interspersed at fit intervals, and we close our article with one of them by way of grace. It is a sketch 'which would have delighted Lamb.

"I can just remember an old brown-coated man who was the Walton of this stream, who had come over from Newcastle, England, with his son, the latter a stout and hearty man who had lifted an anchor in his day. A straight old man he was who took his way in silence through the meadows, having passed the period of communication with his fellows; his old experienced coat hanging long and straight and brown as the yellow pine bark, glittering with so much smothered sunlight, if you stood near enough, no work of art but naturalized at length. I often discovered him unexpectedly amid the pads and the gray willows when he moved, fishing in some old country method,- for youth and age then went a fishing together, full of incommunicable thoughts, perchance about his own Tyne and Northumberland. He was always to be seen in serene afternoons haunting the river, and almost rustling with the sedge; so many sunny hours in an old man's life, entrapping silly fish, almost grown to be the sun's familiar; what need had he of hat or raiment any, having served out his time, and seen through such thin disguises? I have seen how his coeval fates rewarded him with the yellow perch, and yet I thought his luck was not in proportion to his years; and I have seen when, with slow steps and weighed down with aged thoughts, he disappeared with his fish under his lowroofed house on the skirts of the village. I think nobody else saw him; nobody else remembers him now, for he soon after died, and migrated to new Tyne streams. His fishing was not a sport, nor solely a means of subsistence, but a sort of solemn sacrament and withdrawal from the world, just as the aged read their bibles."

ART. III.A SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD, OR DIVINE MAN.

THE Christian doctrine of the Lord, or Divine Man, rests upon this fundamental axiom, that God alone is being, or life in Himself. Man is not being, but only a subject of being, only a form or image of being. His being is not absolute, but phænomenal, as conditioned in space and time. But God's being is utterly unconditioned either in space or time. It is infinite, not as comprehending all space, but as utterly excluding the bare conception of space; and eternal, not as comprehending all time, but as utterly excluding the bare conception of time. He is not a subject of being, but being itself, and therefore the sole being.

Consistently with this fundamental axiom, we are bound to deny that the creature of God has any being or substance in himself. The substantial being or life of every creature is God, while the creature is but a form or image of God. The creature is not another being than God, nor yet is he an identical being with God; because the creature is not being at all, but only a shadow or reflection of being. You would not call the shadow of the tree on the ground another substance than the tree itself, nor yet the same substance, for the reason that the shadow is not any substance at all, but merely the image of a substance. So man, the shadow or image of God, is neither a different being from God, nor yet an identical being, because he is not any being whatever but only the reflection of being. Thus God's creature is without any being or substance in himself, his selfhood being nothing more than an image or reflection of the only and universal being, which is God. The internal of every man is God. The external, or that which defines the man, defines his self-consciousness, is only a shadow or reflection of this internal.

These things being granted, which they must be as it seems to the writer, unless one prefers to deny the fact of creation, it follows from them that the universe of creation is a vast theatre of imagery or correspondence. If God be the sole and therefore universal being, his universal creature can be nothing more and nothing less than His image or shadow. And if the creature be only the image or shadow of God, then creation itself is not the origination of any new being or substance on the part of God, but only the revelation or imaging

forth of a being which is eternal and unchangeable. Thus in the light of the principles here stated, the created universe resolves itself both in whole and in part into an imagery or correspondence of God, and the universal science consequently, or the science of sciences, becomes the science of correspond

ence.

If now all this be true, if it be true that creation can be nothing more and nothing less than the revealing or imaging forth of God, then some momentous results immediately ensue to our theology and philosophy. Primarily it results that the true creature of God is not finite, cannot be comprehended within the laws of space and time. For as the creature is only an image or reflection of God, and as God being eternal and infinite is utterly ignorant both of time and space, so His true creature cannot be finited by these conditions. Thus the life of nature, or that life which lies within the laws of space and time, does not image God. The only life which does image Him consequently is one that transcends these laws, being a spiritual life, and this life belongs exclusively to man.

But in order to justify this affirmation, it is necessary to state what we mean by spirit as distinguished from sensible nature. In speaking of the spirit of a thing in contradistinction to the sensible thing itself, nothing else is meant than its distinctive genius, or faculty of operation. For example, the horse is an outward form discernible by my senses from all other natural forms. But there is something more in the horse than meets my eye, namely, a certain faculty or capacity of use, which constitutes his distinctive spirit or genius, and is cognizable only by the eye of my understanding. Thus what is spiritual about the horse is what lies within his material form, and constitutes his power or faculty of use. This faculty is different in the horse from what it is in every other animal, the cow, the sheep, the ox, the lion, the elephant, etc. Take another example from the sphere of the arts. My hat is an artificial form sensibly distinct from all other forms. But this outward or sensible form of the hat does not exist by itself. It embodies a certain use or function, namely the protection of my head, which use or function constitutes its spirit. In short the spirit of a thing is the end or use for which it exists. Thus you may take the whole range either of nature or the arts, and you will find everything existing for a certain use beyond itself, which use is the spiritual ground or justification of its existence. Nature is properly nothing more than the

robe or garment of spirit. It is only the tabernacle or house of spirit, only the subservient instrument or means by which spirit subsists and becomes conscious. Every thing in nature without any the most insignificant exception embodies an internal use or capacity of operation, which constitutes its peculiar spirit. Deprive it of this internal use or capacity not only actually or for a limited time, but potentially or for ever, and you deprive it of life. Exhaust the power of the horse to bear a burden and draw a load, of the cow to produce milk, of the sheep to produce wool, of the tree to produce fruit or seed, and you at the same time consign them all to death. For death, or the departure of the spirit from the body, means in every case the cessation of the subject's capacity of use. Thus nature in all its departments is merely the vehicle or minister of spirit. Its true sphere is that of entire subjection to spirit, and never since the world begun has an instance occurred of its failing to exhibit the most complete acquiescence in this subjection.

But if this spiritual force reside in Nature, what hinders any natural form being a true revelation or image of God? If for example the horse possess a spiritual substratum, why does not the horse image God? The reason is obvious. The spirit of the horse is not his own spirit. He is entirely unconscious of it. He performs incessant uses to man, but does not perform them of himself. His end is external to himself. The object of his actions does not fall within his own subjectivity. The spirit of universal nature is a spirit of subjection to some external power. It never manifests itself spontaneously, but always in obeisance to some outward constraint. Thus the horse does not spontaneously place himself in the harness. The cow does not come to your dairy, to make a spontaneous surrender of her milk. The sheep feels no spontaneous impul sion to deposite his fleece at your door. Nor does the tree inwardly shape itself in order to supply you with apples. In short there is no such thing as a spiritual horse-cow-sheep or apple tree.

Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves,
Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves,
Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes,
Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.

The

No, all these performances are for the benefit of man. whole realm of nature is destitute of a spiritual consciousness, of such a consciousness as elevates any of its forms to the

dignity of a person. No animal is conscious of a selfhood distinct from its outward or natural limitations. No animal is capable of suicide, or the renunciation of its outer life, on the ground of its no longer fulfilling the aspiration of its inner life. Thus nature is destitute of any proper personality. The only personality it recognizes is man. To him all its uses tend. Him all its powers obey. To his endowment and supremacy it willingly surrenders itself, and finds life in the surrender. Take away man accordingly, and nature remains a clod, utterly spiritless-impersonal-dead.

Thus nature does not image or reveal God. For God's activity is not imposed. It is spontaneous, or self-generated. It flows from Himself exclusively, and ignores all outward motive. Hence God's true creature or image is bound above all things to exhibit that power of self-derived or spontaneous action which constitutes our idea of the divine personality.

Accordingly it is man alone who fulfils this requisition. Man alone possesses personality, or the power of self-derived action. Personality, the quality of being a person, means simply the power of self-derived or super-natural action, the power of originating one's own action, or, what is the same thing, of acting according to one's own sovereign pleasure. It means a power of acting unlimited by any thing but the will of the subject. Thus, in ascribing personality to God, we do not mean to assert for him certain bodily limitations palpable to sense, which would be absurd; we mean merely to assert His self-sufficiency or infinitude-His power to act according to His own sovereign pleasure. We mean, in plain English, to assert that He is the exclusive source of His own actions. So also, in ascribing personality to man and denying it to the horse, we mean to assert that man possesses the power of supernatural or infinite action, the power of acting independently of all natural constraint, and according to his own individual or private attractions, while the horse has not this power. Man's action, when it is truly personal, has its source in himself, in his own private tastes or attractions, as contradistinguished on the one hand from his physical necessities, and on the other from his social obligations; therefore we affirm man's personality, or his absolute property in his actions. Nature's action has not its source in any interior self, but in some outward and constraining power; therefore we deny nature any personality, any absolute property in its actions. When the fire burns my incautious finger, I do not

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