Milton, in grandest of poems, hints that the highest heaven may be encroached upon by the lowest, Apolleon. Defeated above, the devil-darkness— sought the light in mankind. In other words the Christ permitted the old boy to get a lodgment; but we are of the godly,-yet-beware!

Adam lied when he said he walked with the true God in the cool of the evening; then he whispered to the Highest that Eve had tempted him, and he did eat (some person's chicken of woman's excellent cooking), the blasted snake-fruit!

I have marks on my body called stigmas, that mark infrequent intervals in man's history to account for the last 2,000 years of the struggle to escape savagery of the Roman period. This sign, marks of that Age of Tyranny from which the gentle Jesus died in many hours of his agony on the cross. That great New England author, Hawthorne, dared to raise his voice against fanaticism. His heroine was branded by public authority of Puritan religionists, and she died bearing the cursed mark on her breast. And scores of so-called witches (earliest of Christians) were put to death in this land of the free. Even in our day the citizens of all governments dare not risk a vote to publicly declare if wars shall cease! Two thousand years ago a preacher was abroad asking for peace and compassion. Even Lincoln says of majorities, "God must love the poor, He made so many of them." People of old were satisfied (?) to be called publicans and sinners. To torture and kill the great preacher, Jesus, a pact was made between Power-Rome, and Religion,

such as it was; a judge, however, declaring, "I find no fault in this man Jesus.

Dante:

In this their order diversely, some more
Some less approaching to their primal source.
Thus they to different havens are moved on
Through the vast sea of being, and each one
With instinct given, that bears it in its course;
This to the lunar sphere directs the fire,
This prompts the hearts of mortal animals,
This the brute earth together knits, and binds.
Nor only creatures void of intellect,

Are aimed at by this bow; but even those
That have intelligence and love are pierced.
That Providence, that so well orders all,

With her own Light makes ever calm the heaven,
In which the substance that hath greatest speed,
Is turned. And thither now as to our seat
Predestined, we are carried by the force
Of that strong cord, that never loses dart
But at fair aim and glad. Yet is it true
That as ofttimes but ill accords the form
To the design of Art through sluggishness
Of unreplying matter, so this course

Is sometimes quitted by the creature, who
Hath power, directed thus, to bend elsewhere-
As from a cloud the fire is seen to fall
From its original impulse warped to earth,
By vicious fondness. Thou no more admire
Thy soaring (if I rightly deem) than lapse
Of torrent downwards from a mountain's height.
There would in thee for wonder be more cause,
If, free of hindrance, thou hadst fixed thyself
Below, like fire in moving on the earth.

From Dante's Pergatory, I pass along to his Paradise-vision of a returned soul upon earth:

That Lethe's water hath not hid it from him.
That oft the memory 'reaves, perchance hath made
His mind's eye dark. But lo! where Ennoe flows!
Lead hither; an as thou art want, revive

His fainting virtue.

Then Reader, might I sing, though but in part,
That beverage, with whose sweetness I had ne'er
Been sated. But since all the leaves are full.

Appointed for this second strain, mine art
With warning bridle checks me. I returned
From the most holy wave, regenerate.

Even as new plants, renewed with foliage new,
Pure and made apt for mounting to the stars.

And this is an age for us mortals to rise in airplane flights surely! The babe, sated with that beverage, the mother's milk,

Gazing as never eagle fixed his ken,
As from a first a second beam is wont
To issue, and reflected upwards rise,
E'en as a pilgrim bent on his return.

So with her (soul's) act, that through the eyesight passed
Into my fancy, mine was formed; and straight
Beyond our mortal wont, I fixed mine eyes

Upon the sun. Much is allowed us There

That Here exceeds our power; thanks to the place
Made for the dwelling of the human kind. . . .
And suddenly upon the day appeared

A day new risen, as He who hath the power
Had with another sun (soul) bedecked the sky.

In the last analysis of character, the system called reincarnation has no weak spots, not in smallest of the spirits.. Souls that are for earth, we may say, all generations, are as to the smallest forms-making growth, making changes to suit the condition as to future heat and cold, for our earth itself has soul and body. Let us refer to all animal life, that we know grows in shape and fineness to suit the later conditions. Take the forms so familiar to us, the horse, in fact all domestic animals. Then the earth's pets (butterflies, locuts, etc.), we know of their passing long years in the "underworld," to appear for a brief spell in full sunlight, almost momentarily to enjoy existence, then as happily sings the locust, after the egg-laying, seeks again the darkness that fits its longer term of existence.

Our Creator has ways past finding out. Fitted are the two polarities of being as needed. We wonder why such as the fleas, as robbers of human blood, or as the bigger torments, human criminals, are needed for life's purposes. But a heaven can be fuller here, than (imagined) above all the homes of earth, again grandeurs, joys and social life are beyond dreams of poet and artist!

Body and soul so intimately blended are they, that a healthy person knows scarcely where one touches the other. Traits of character are almost like the twin body, with its soul. We know of most remarkable men and women whose traits re-unitedly theirs.. Sickly children have often the healthy after-life of effort and joy; some of these, poets and philosophers, caused their mothers often to wonder as of a gift from God, knowing how the little ones thrive.

We have amongst us Helen Keller, whose faculties have been restored, trained from the inborn traits. And her soul now, in life and joy, is the greatest of puzzles. A body that was tortured, crucified, as was that of Jesus, leaves marks to show plainly elsewhere after nearly 2,000 years! These stigmas are more than birthmarks.

In lower forms of the soul, the "worm" stage of the body, from plain and loathsome (to us) they in later existence give us butterflies and other of the most beautiful aspects in colors and forms.

Read Franklin H. Heald's Procession of the Planets, scouted at or ignored as it may be by scientists; yet in studies like Prof. Chamberlin's of Chicago, lately, you will find the ipse dixit of the learned ones

of the past entirely reversed, as to the earth's solidity. The sun in every system of planets must resemble,as Lakes of Lethe for our souls-have material unseeable to constitute the materials, for life, here on earth and elsewhere. New worlds are thus formed, so are new bodies for all the living. Heat, of the material kind, has wonderful properties it may be, to weld the two aspects, soul and body. The soul's individual complexities, generation after generation in a true Path-"driven out from God," as we say, then reaches the sphere called Life. No two souls are just alike! Even in birth of twins or triplets, as often happens with us, the natures are entities.

Wise men of the East, as recorded by the shepherd poet watching by night his flocks, saw overhead the galaxy of bright stars, and also the comet westward. He does not make record of the other party in daytime, going westward looking for the foot of that rainbow-where gold is buried,-some of each party finally landed in California and other states of our Union.

As to where the Wise Men found the new-born Christ, opinions differ; some say in a stable, others in

a manger.

Soon after the cruel ending of this babe, the dominant religionists (or conquerors) and one pope remained settled in Rome, the other in Constantinople. Since the recent overthrow of the son of Victoria of England, Russia has no "religion."

The Night and the Day. John Burroughs, my serene and happy friend and friend of the birds, had query as to the cruelty of nature-that gives us the