the man is dead. The material body is no essential part of man; it is merely a garment, as it were, which the man wears, while he lives here among material things, and which is necessary to him while he continues in this world. But when the time comes for him to rise into the pure spiritual state of existence, he leaves that garment behind, as a thing now useless, a thing too gross to be taken with him into that spiritual sphere. This is the true theory and view of death. It is simply a separation of the spiritual from the material. part. The spirit, or the man himself, continues to live on, for it is a thing immortal; and in a higher and happier state, too, of existence,-as presently we shall see. But first let the point be made plain, that the spirit, and the spirit alone, is the essential man; for then it will be clearly seen, that, if the spirit does not die, the man does not die, hut lives for ever.

In considering a man, what do we estimate him by -his body or his mind? In choosing a friend, do we consider at all his material body? is it not solely his character that we prize him for, that is, his mental or spiritual part, his intellect, his affections? It is possible we may have a friend,—a correspondent, for instance, whom we have never seen, and yet whom we highly esteem and love, from the fine mind and beautiful spirit displayed in his letters. Do we ask or care what his material body is, whether large or small? We may have a kind of natural curiosity about this, but it is really no essential matter. The friend, the man, the whole man, to us, is the mind and spirit. Was Napoleon any the less intellectually great because his body was small? would he have been made any greater,

by his material body being larger? Thus the body, we see, is no part of the essential man at all. We may try this in another way,-which, though it may appear somewhat ludicrous, is not the less logical. Does it alter a man's essential character at all, to cut off one of his limbs ? After the surgeon has performed the operation, is he not precisely the same man he was before-with the same ideas, sentiments, affections, abilities? There may be indeed, a temporary state of excitement upon him, in consequence of pain he may have undergone but when that subsides, he will be the same man as before. Now suppose the other limb cut off: would he not be still essentially the same man? Then suppose both the arms removed: does that have any effect on the ruling character of the individual? We have only to go one step farther: suppose a cannon-ball were to take off his head. Will even that change his mind or character,--still more, destroy it? Why should it do so? If a knife or a cannon-ball, taking off both legs, has no effect on the character, but he is the same man still; if another ball taking away the arms, leave the man precisely the same as beforea brave and high-minded officer, for instance-by what rule of proportion will the third ball change that mind, or destroy it altogether, when two balls had no effect upon it at all? No! the spirit is indestructible and intangible by any material force. We may thus reason satisfactorily, that the material body is no essential part of the man; that though part after part of it be taken away, precisely the same mind remains, and that mind we feel and see to be the man and the whole man. We esteem and love our friend just as highly and as

dearly, after he has been wounded, as before. And why should not our love follow him still, even though his body be hurt to the death?

If this be so, namely, that the mind or spirit is the man and the whole man-if the material body is no essential part of man-then it follows, that, as before remarked, the death of the material body is not the death of the man at all; it is merely the effect produced on the material body by the separation of the man from it—a separation caused by the body's being so injured by violence or disease, as that the spirit can no longer inhabit it. The body lies lifeless, because the man or spirit which before occupied it and gave it life and motion, has left it: just as a thrown-off garment, which has arms and is in the shape of a man, lies motionless, when the man has withdrawn himself from it. The man himself is not dead; he is still living, though invisible, because the spirit is not visible to the material eye. But think you he is invisible to God's eye? think you that he is invisible to the eyes of angels and of other spirits, who, like himself, have left the material body and the material world? Why cannot spirit see spirit, as well as matter see matter? The man has simply exchanged one world for another; he has left the comparatively small company of the inhabitants of this material globe, and joined that of the immensely more populous world of spirits, whither myriads and millions have been departing every year for ages.

The inhabitants of this world come and go in succession; "one generation passeth away and another cometh ;" and the numbers dwelling at the same time on the earth do not greatly vary from age to age, though there is always a small increase. But with the

spiritual world, it is all coming and no going; there is nowhere else to go to; there are but two worlds, the material and the spiritual, and when men leave this world, they enter into that, and there they remain. How full, then, must that world be, when each month and day is thus pouring its thousands into it,-perpetual addition and no subtraction! And if so full and populous, how much richer and more delightful must life be, in that world than in this! for when there is congeniality, numbers, we know, add to enjoyment, and greatly enhance it. The common proverb, "the more, the merrier," expresses this truth. Dr. Johnson, we may remember, declared, in his warm manner, that he could not live out of London,—that it was the only place in the world fit to live in: (as the Frenchman, also, says of Paris.) The reason was, that there he was in the midst of a large circle of literary men, men of congenial tastes, with whom he found exquisite enjoyment: and such a circle was not to be met with in a small town. But in the spiritual world, in how much greater a degree must these advantages exist! How much grander must be the circle of lofty intellects there collected! so that when Johnson departed from this world-which he seemed so unwilling to leave,-in the midst of how much nobler a company of congenial spirits may we trust he found himself! There was Newton, and Milton, and Addison (who on his death bed, had sent for the young Earl of Warwick, that he might "see how a Christian could die")!-there was Shakspeare, and Spencer, and Chaucer,-there were all the great lights of other lands and other ages: these scattered rays all collected, as it were, into one focus of intellect what a brilliant society must it be! What

on

"Royal Society," what "Academy of Sciences" earth, could approach it in excellence? And what delights must attend such companionship! How pleasant would it be, to behold the sages of past time assembled thus together in high converse! How interesting to see the eyes of Milton, no longer blind, flashing with his lofty soul, and to hear Shakspeare's voice, in soft response, uttering bright thoughts in the pure spirit's-tongue, the mind's own language! How charming would it be, to witness a meeting of Dante and his revered Virgil, and to behold them visiting together those scenes of the eternal world-or others more real than they-which the former in his great poem has in so striking a manner pictured them as doing! How interesting to behold Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton conversing together on the high truths of science; and now, in their more advanced state of wisdom, considering not merely the outward system of the universe, not only the fact that world revolves round world by the power of gravitation,but inquiring together into the secret soul of that mighty power,-seeking to know the essential nature of that attraction which holds particles and worlds together, and tracing it through nature up to spirit, and through spirit up to God, the sole Source of all activity and life!-to God, who is ever pouring out from Himself that stream of attractive love, which conjoins the souls of His creatures to each other and then to Himself and which thence, perchance, produces that attraction of cohesion and gravitation, which knits together particles into beautiful globes, and then binds all to the Sun itself, God's representative in the material creation. Or again,-to come down to later times,