in withdrawing carbon from the air and storing
it in its trunk in the form of wood, which, as charcoal, is again
almost pure carbon, only in this case the metamorphosis is far more
rapid. This is perhaps the natural law that Elijah, by God's aid,
invoked in the miracle of the widow's cruse, and that produced the
manna that fed the Israelites in the desert; while apergy came in play
in the case of the stream that Moses called from the rock in the
wilderness, which followed the descendants of Abraham over the rough
country through which they passed. In examining miracles with the
utmost deference, as we have a right to, we see one law running through
all. Even in Christ's miracle of changing the water to wine, there was
a natural law, though only one has dwelt on earth who could make that
change, which, from a chemist's standpoint, was peculiarly difficult on
account of the required fermentation, which is the result of a
developed and matured germ. Many of His miracles, however, are as far
beyond my small power as heaven is above the earth. Much of the
substance of the loaves and fishes with which He fed the multitude--the
carbon and nitrogenous products--also came from the air, though He
could have taken them from many other sources. The combination and
building up of these in the ordinary way would have taken weeks or
months, but was performed instantaneously by His mighty power."

"What natural laws are known to you," asked Bearwarden, "that we do not
understand, or concerning the existence of which we are ignorant?"

"Most of the laws in the invisible world," said the spirit, "are the
counterpart or extension of laws that appear on earth, though you as
yet understand but a small part of those, many not having come to your
notice. You, for instance, know that light, heat, and motion are
analogous, and either of the last two can be converted into the other;
but in practice you produce motion of the water molecules by the
application of heat, and seldom reverse it. One of the first things we
master here is the power to freeze or boil water, by checking the
motion of the molecules in one case, and by increasing it, and their
mutual repulsion, in the other. This is by virtue of a simple law,
though in this case there is no natural manifestation of it on earth
with which to compare it. While knowledge must be acquired here through
study, as on earth, the new senses we receive with the awakening from
death render