ducements, and with great subtlety presented to affect our choice. Like one of old, who proffer ed Jesus the kingdoms of the world if he would bow before him, this ism lavishly tenders to its faithful subjects, by virtue of unremitting fate, not only earth but the heavens, and even the nature and attributes of deities. Let the race admit its philosophy, (of which especial mention shall be made in a more appropriate portion of this work,) and they are promised progres sion from the ignorance now encompassing them, the thraldom of Bible religion, and the consequent woes that attend them on every hand. They shall dwell upon the lovely banks of beauteous streams; shall recline beneath the shady groves that garland the rivers of pleasure, and gather ripe clusters of knowledge from the depending boughs that droop o'er earth from the superior spheres. They shall also gambol along the gorgeous avenues of affinity, and sip from the sparkly cups of bliss, that shall touch each willing lip; and bathe henceforth in the ever flowing fountains of harmonial peace."Glorious day! long sought day of light and reason!" in lively accents, therefore, glides along the quivering atmosphere. And the burden of their prayer, who move in the harmonial element, is, that Christianity may speedily slumber in the cold sepulchre of the Past; that the

temples of religious worship, where the glory of the Cross has shown, may resound with the merry song; and the dome of heaven reflect the divine harmonies of passional attraction.

Such is the sentiment and the spirit of that inflated system under consideration, and by such manifestations the author of N. D. Revelations and his followers hope to control the world! How unlike that spirit which the Inspired Penman revealed? Who can refrain, in the light of both causes, from a deep sense of the inconsistency and finiteness of the one, and the infini tude and divine harmony of the other?

While Mr. Davis beholds God and Nature combined in the unbounded sea of fire, the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, as already shown, conceived the sublime doctrine of the Infinite, Eternal, Omnipotent, Omnific, and absolutely Holy Being of the Supreme Spirit.

The Pantheistic notion of the fiery materiality of the First Cause, forces the theory of its selfemanation into the present existing universe. But the doctrines of the Inspired Word, maintaining the almightiness and the self-existence of Jehovah, establish that rational premise which accounts for the magnificent manifestations of Nature upon the pre-existence of an intelligent and Omnific Cause. And thus, as well as by Inspiration, reasoning a priori, Moses

assuming the only legitimate conclusion, born of facts, introduced the Sacred History in this graphic and appropriate language: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Not as Mr. Davis revealed--"From the position now occupied I can, in a degree, comprehend the great Spiritual Sun of the Divine Mind that illumines all the Spiritual worlds." "In the Beginning the Univercoelum was one boundless, undefinable, and unimaginable ocean of liquid fire." "This great centre of worlds, this great Power of Intelligence, had wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, lenity, forbearance. It contained truth eternalized like its own nature. So the whole of these principles were joined in one vast Vortex of Pure Intelligence!" "The Power contained in this great Vortex was the Great Positive Mind; and its development was eternal motion." "The essence it contained would inevitably breathe forth the amazing and indescribable qualities that characterize all the organic kingdoms." And now, according to the "Seer, Nature begins to throw off from itself other vortices, worlds, etc., and thus creation was begun. But the Sacred Writer, meek and unassuming, conceded his incapacity to comprehend even Nature, or to encounter with his weak intellect the might of those laws which move the massive members of the Universe. Not inclined to ærial

flights, to spin out romantic worlds, or to construct fairy heavens and people them with blooming sylphs; and, without attempting to define infinitude, from his inspired soul he acknowledg ed the Author of creation, the eternal, uncreated Supreme Being. Thence, through him, of those works which rolled forth from eternity at God's command, the spirit of Inspiration uttered, “In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And this is all that could be said of the Beginning to the understanding of mortals, or by finite speech. Whoever attempts more beggars his cause and mocks divinity. What but insanity could induce a mere mortal, whose breath is in his nostrils, and whose life trembles in its shattered vase of clay, to presume to comprehend the Almighty? or to define his pre-eternal movements who peopled space with super-stellar orbs; whose pavilion is the effulgence of his divinity; and from whose breath of Life the universe of immortal entities derives animation?When man can rotate and retrospect the heavens as the philosopher does his planetarium; when he can say to the deep, thus far shalt thou go and no farther; can arise omnipotent above disintegral elements; chain death forever, that his withering hand shall no more touch material combinations; can take down the temple of Nature, remodel and exalt it; when man can thus

devise and execute, then he may assert his might and God-like wisdom: but, until then, man's greater wisdom is manifested in the humble acknowledgement of the existence of a Supreme Being, and rendering obedience to that divine law immediately affecting him. Thus he doubtless will more nearly fulfill the purposes of this life, and be better prepared for the realities of a disembodied spirit, than to dream his mortal hours away in vain speculations, only to awake at death a novice in the rudiments of real existence.

Such seems to have been the impressions formed in the mind of MOSES when called to record, for man's instruction, the Wisdom of Inspiration; and such seems to accord with what Divine Truth would impart to novitiate man.Even man, when in exalted stations, does not unfold his design, only as it may conserve his purpose, or the interest of his subjects; and especially when the plebian could not comprehend him or his laws. The Monarch only imparts that knowledge adapted to the condition of each province of his kingdom-and he is but a man. Shall Deity exert omnipotent strength to incorporate infinite thought into the frail sense of finite man? Would he commission his angels to inform erring mortals on subjects of whose character a seraph could not conceive? Verily,