unfold through those below him. Centuries pass; whole races
of men are expended in the effort to produce one that shall
realize this Ideal, and publish Spirit in the human form. Here
and there is a degree of success. Life enough is lived through
a man, to justify the great difficulties attendant on the
existence of mankind. And then throughout all realms of
thought vibrates the affirmation, "This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased."

'I do not mean to lay an undue stress upon the position and
office of man merely because I am of his race, and understand
best the scope of his destiny. The history of the earth, the
motions of the heavenly bodies, suggest already modes of being
higher than ours, and which fulfil more deeply the office of
interpretation. But I do suppose man's life to be the rivet in
one series of the great chain, and that all higher existences
are analogous to his. Music suggests their mode of being, and,
when carried up on its strong wings, we foresee how the
next step in the soul's ascension shall interpret man to the
universe, as he now interprets those forms beneath himself. * *

'The law of Spirit is identical, whether displaying itself as
genius, or as piety, but its modes of expression are distinct
dialects. All souls desire to become the fathers of souls, as
citizens, legislators, poets, artists, sages, saints; and,
so far as they are true to the law of their incorruptible
essence, they are all Anointed, all Emanuel, all Messiah; but
they are all brutes and devils so far as subjected to the law
of corruptible existence.

'As wherever there is a tendency a form is gradually evolved,
as its Type,--so is it the law of each class and order of
human thoughts to produce a form which shall be the visible
representation of its aim and strivings, and stand before it
as its King. This effort to produce a kingly type it was, that
clothed itself with power as Brahma or Osiris, that gave laws
as Confucius or Moses, that embodied music and eloquence in
the Apollo. This it was that incarnated itself, at one time as
Plato, at another as Michel Angelo, at another as Luther, &c.
Ever seeking, it has produced Ideal after Ideal of the beauty,
into which mankind is capable of being developed; and one
of the highest, in some respects the very highest, of th