perties suited to the harmonious cooeperation of the two,
in their respective purposes in nature. To represent matter as something
wholly antagonistic to spirit and incapable of any relations with it, is
to ignore all our own experience, and the significance of all the grand
phenomena of nature.

However great may be the distinction between matter and spirit, the
Creator has evidently established the closest relationship between them.
All that we can ever know of matter arises from its power to affect the
soul,--through the senses while we remain in the body, whatever may be
its relations to the spirit in another state of existence. If we take,
for instance, the inertia of matter, and consider it philosophically, we
can make of it nothing more than a power of resistance, or persistence,
residing in certain points, which we call particles of matter. The same
is true of attraction and repulsion. These are forces residing in the
same points; and these forces are all we know, or can know, about them.
So of the sensible qualities of matter; color, for instance. This is
merely the power of the same points, to cause vibrations in an elastic
medium; and these, acting on the sensorium, communicate sensations, and
become the basis of ideas in the soul. Who can say this subtile power,
residing in the points which we call particles of matter, is not
spiritual in its nature? Or, indeed, who can affirm, with absolute
certainty, that there is anything else known to us in the universe,
except that which is kindred to the soul by its power to communicate
with and inform it. From the very dawn of our existence we have been
encased in what we call matter, and have derived all our education from
it. It is the only medium by which we communicate with each other; nor
have we any other means of climbing up to a knowledge of GOD himself. We
do not mean to say that the spirit of man has no faculties for a direct
perception of divine influences; but simply that the material world is
the appointed instrument for educating the human soul, through the
senses, to the consciousness and intelligent use of its highest and
noblest faculties.

By human means, and, also, by all the tremendous operations of nature,
so far as they are known to man, matter is wholly indestructible. No
instance is known, from the beginning of creation, in which a single
particle of matter has been annihilated. Can anything more be said of
the soul? Or should we not rather fe