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production of the phenomenon of death. It matters not on what point of the system a drop of prussic acid falls, for, whether it be insinuated into the organ of veneration, or the ball of the big toe, the whole organism is petrified in a moment. A transient whiff of arseniuretted hydrogen inhaled over the nervine fibrils of the windpipe, were as certain a quietus as if it were condensed into a dreadful liquor and instilled into the ear. As for mechanical wounds, it is to be remembered that the spinal marrow and the brain are soft and tremulous, being far less protected in their intimate structure than the nerves. It is to be supposed that the true nervous matter of the brain alone could be spun into a whole body of thin well-sheathed nerves of sensation and voluntation; yet after these deductions are made, the relation is mutual and equipoised. In truth, when the head is severed from the trunk, the trunk is just as truly severed from the head, and they fall dead together in an equal separation.

Everywhere is the soul. It sustains all Nature: sustains and is irritable by Nature in vegetable forms; sustains, is irritable by, and is sensitive of Nature in zoophytes; sustains, is irritable by, is sensitive of, and perceives Nature in animals properly so called; and not only sustains, is irritable by, is sensitive of, and perceives Nature, but sees the law of Nature through the sublime port of man. These are the fine manifestations of the soul in Nature. They are so many kinds of life, or so many specific natures, from mineral up to human nature. By man alone is the highest function of the soul in Nature ever performed; and even by him only rarely, never continuously, and always partially as yet. Appearing in him as it has done, it has been called the Word

the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world-a particle of the Divine afflatus-the spiritual mind—the reason in distinction from the understanding, which every animal alive enjoys-the pure reason, and many other names, which all signify the peculiar relation to the soul and to Nature sustained by man. Believing in the soul, in nature, and in himself, it is Faith or Reason intuitive; recording the law of equity and iniquity within a man, it is conscience or Reason practical; and decreeing the law of necessary relation, it is Reason speculative. Prophets, poets, and philosophers, are men through whom one or other of these modes of this, the highest function of the soul, is made manifest in Nature, with less or more impartiality. Holiness, prophecy, and genius, are kindred outbreathings. He whom they should conspire to fill, were a man complete, and the Lord of Life.

Manifold Nature is the express image, and the true contemplation of Nature is the jubilee of the soul. The man in whom such contemplation transpires, is among the blessed. He utters his joy; he builds temples, carves shapes of ideal grace, paints the perennial beauty of embodied Godhood, or hymns, in melting music, the harmony that penetrates and dissolves him. He sings God and Nature in the life of man. If all the ravishing utterances of sense, and even the higher harmonies of poetry, be for him swallowed up of the serener passion for the True (which enfolds the beautiful as the sky embosoms the glowing stars), he proclaims the law of God in Nature. Such are the artist, the poet, and the sage,-Handel and Raphael, Shakspere and Homer, Spinoza and Plato. There There is a form above them all, as far as the heaven is above the earth. It is the saint.

He realises, or wrestles to realise, the ideal life. A true life is the wisest philosophy; a beautiful life is the noblest work of art. Its melody is music, its repose is the perfection of form, its radiance colours the world with celestial hues, its eye builds everywhere a fane; and a good life is the only true and beautiful Theology.

LAY SERMONS ON THE THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY.

No. I.

THE FIDIANISM OF ST. PAUL.

BY VICTORIOUS ANALYSIS.

TO THE READER.

BROTHER!-The history of the Discourse you are about to read is very simple.

A little company of the Lay Brethren of Christ Church is wont to assemble every Sabbath evening in my cloister, because it is the lightest and airiest of the sacred establishment to which we belong, being right over the gateway, and having a skylight. Then and there, the statelier services of the day over, one or other of our company delivers some digested word of his own to the rest. Finding ourselves placed midway between the Church and the World, the two great ends we constantly hold in view are the vindication of the one and the conversion of the other. We would vindicate the former by telling the modern world what the Church really believes; and do our best towards the consummation of the latter, by showing how conformable that belief is with all that can be known about the Universe of God.

Now, although our quiet proceedings have arrested the attention of some few familiars of our own, who like to lounge a good deal about our gates and shady pleasure-grounds, and are allowed to listen on the leads of the archway; and although we have incurred the censure of our ecclesiastical superiors, some of whose tale-bearers have been eaves-dropping, and have not heard at all, but run away with a phrase here and there; it has for some time been our conviction that, true as it is that nothing is ever lost, it cannot be very useful to be preaching our gospel views only to each other, since we all believe the same thing in the same way. Accordingly, we have thought to try if our analytico-fidian Sermons, as one of the brethren likes to call them, meet and in any degree supply the wants of any the smallest section of the reading public, either in the Church or out of it. This is our first experiment; Brother Analysis' discourse having been chosen, not because it is a very favourable specimen of either himself or us; but because it was our introductory address, and the theme was fallen on by lot. Reader, we commit it to thy charity. If the experiment be anywise successful, it will be repeated from time to time, till it cease to be so. If not, forgive us.

(Signed)

ERNEST TRUMAN,

In name of the little company aforesaid.

CHRIST CHURCH.

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