him; the beauty of nature is the veil, growing slenderer with every
fresh access of knowledge, which scarce conceals the Great Presence.
Vanini was thrust into the dungeons of the Inquisition at Naples on a
charge of atheism. "Atheism!" contemptuously retorted the wretched
captive, "I could prove God from that straw," picking up with his feet
a fragment of the bed on which he lay in fetters. For the universal
Life was in the straw. The life in that slender ear is one with the
mighty pulsations of the ocean, the growth of the forest, and of the
world of men, and the illimitable stars beyond. The being is one, the
life is one, and above all, the mind, the exclusive endowment of man,
is one too--one in us, one in the Supreme; we share it, for "we also
are his offspring". There is only one Soul--the Divine, and the souls
of the sons of men are, not so much images of that, made in its
likeness, as it itself, in essence one, yet, participately, in every
human being. "I have said, ye are gods, and sons of the Most High,
every one," quoted Jesus with approval. So says Emerson, and this is
his doctrine of the "Over-soul".

After thus indicating in general outline the essential features of this
culminating teaching of ethical religion, it may be well to trace its
historical development. It will be found to be, not an original
speculation of our own teacher, but a precious belief held by elect
souls in all ages to embody the truth of the relations between what is
_called_ the Divine and the human. I say "called" because this
doctrine annihilates the distinction. As the electricity in the
atmosphere may annihilate space by enabling us to flash a thought
instantaneously even to a world whose distance is measured in millions
of miles, so does this sublime conception of the great Oneness shatter
the foundations on which all _outside_ redemptions, priests,
sacrifices, formalisms, rituals, sacraments, devilry, hell fire, and
the rest repose, by showing every man that he is his own priest and
sacrificer. No anointing or ordering can make him more than he is in
himself (not through Christ or any man), the true-born son of God, one
in nature with whatsoever is Highest in existence. Boldly does Emerson
fling out his challenge--

Draw it thou canst the mystic line,
Rightly severing his from thine,
Which is human, which Divine.

We cannot. In our innermost selves we are Divine. We may say with
Emerson, on the heights