THE TEMPLE.
I sing the Song of Heaven,
Where God himself abides,
'Midst all the Holy Angels,
Whom light supernal hides.
There is a Temple holy,
To which no dog e'er came;
Whose battlements are golden,
With doors of living flame.

Its peace was never broken,

By passion or by hate,
Since stars did sing together,
Until this latest date.

In silent adoration

It still dawns on each saint,
Whose soul rapt up in glory
Within through joy doth faint.
No race, no tribe, no nation.
Of any earthly land,

The language of that Mansion
Did fail to understand.

All holy souls' decisions

Were made within this Fane,
All vows are here recorded,
All passions here were slain.

Here wait all blessing visions,
To help some candidate;
All tearful supplications

Here for their offerers wait.

No grief or disappointment
Can ever enter here:

Here reigns perpetual sunshine.
Through an eternal year.

Here reigns divinest sadness,
Here flow the bitterest tears,
For those in filth who wallow.
And waste each shortening year.

Whoe'er God's laws will follow,
Shall soon be entered here,

And once for all be wakened
To this supernal sphere.

Lo kings and priests and prophets,
In vain have dreamed of thee,
And nations groaned iu anguish
For what mine eyes do see.
For thee, O dearest Country,
Mine eyes long vigils keep,
In very joy beholding
Thy entrances so steep.

O blessed Father, wake me,
To this divinest light,

That there I be forever
Redeemed from pain and night!

Oh, quickly, quickly, wake me,
Oh, here, to-day, call me,
That I be consecrated,
For all Eternity.

SEARCH AFTER GOD.

BY CLARA G. ORTON.

I sought for God in earth and air,
I sought Him in the realms of space,
In all the works of Nature fair,
And found him not in any place.

I questioned every burning star,
I questioned every leaf and flower,
Vague answers sounded from afar
That spoke of wisdom, life, and power.

I sought Him in the human heart
And prayed His grace to make me wise;—
The world was changed with magic art,

The veil was lifted from mine eyes.

The birds gave answer in their song,
The grasses whispered at my feet,
All earth rang out in chorus strong,
The heavens replied in echo sweet.

In air, in earth, in wood and wold,
On every side, beneath, above,
Came back the message thousand-fold—
I knew and felt that God is love.

ONENESS OF NATURE.

Scientific research discloses the fact that all organic life. from the lowest to the highest, originates as a single germ-cell, and that, apparently, the only difference between highly organized man and the lowest phase of animal development, is in the number of cells added to the organism and their specialization in the structural building. Moreover we are told that the force which sets these cells in motion, giving them form, direction, and the general phenomena of their life, is the same force that is active in all nature, and that is especially manifest in the two kinds of electricity,-positive and negative. Should we stop to inquire whence this force comes, we might begin from the phenomenal standpoint, and, examining the human body, find that, at particular periods, these potential creative energies are more active than at other times. This fact has been fluently accounted for by the theory of "stored-up energy." which seems to meet every objection until one begins to retain all the life generated in the body from month to month. Then he discovers that, at fixed intervals, the creative life is most energetic and full, and that this active energy is in no way dependent upon the thought, or the mental or physical conditions of the individual; and, by having an ephemeris at hand, he readily discovers that such periods are marked by the regular recurrence of certain positions of the heavenly bodies.

Inductive philosophy reasons that, if the phenomena upon which a certain hypothesis is based, be found to be invariable, it is proof of the soundness of the hypothesis; and as the investigator discovers that the facts to which we have referred always obtain, he may safely conclude that this creative force is set in motion and directed by the movements of the heavenly bodies. If, therefore, the heavenly bodies really influence the life currents of this planet, then we may logically infer that the electric energies, or, as the ancients called them, the astral elements, are indeed the life element itself.

Positive proof of this position may, however, be demanded, as the evidence before us simply shows that the life energies are set in motion by the astral influences. But personal expe

rience furnishes quite as strong evidence that the mind is also under the influence of the heavenly bodies; and as scientists claim that mind is force and that the same force is also manifested as electricity and in many other ways, we have good reason to believe that the force which stirs within the individual at certain periods is nothing less than certain qualities of mind. We, therefore, reach the conclusion that not only is the body of humanity one, but that it is also one with the planet earth and its forces, and that our earth is one with all the planets of its system; that the relation of the Solar System to other systems may be sometime proven, so that evidence will be such as to lead scientific investigators to the conclusion that the entire universe is one correlated body.

Scientists recognize that the law of use, service, is the cause of divergence in unity. We quote the following from Haeckel's "Evolution of Man," which may suggest profitable thought to thoughtful minds:

"The discovery that every human being at the beginning of his existence is a simple cell, that this egg-cell is essentially similar to that of other Mammals, and that the forms arising during the evolution of this cell in Man and in the other higher Mammals, are at first similar,-supplies a basis from which we may trace the further processes of evolution. In the first place we have convinced ourselves of a fact which is of great importance to the empiric side of the history of development, relating to those ontogenetic facts which can be directly traced by means of the microscope; and this fact is that in Man as well as in other animals the developed many-celled organism with all its various organs proceeds from a simple cell. Secondly, as regards the phylogenetic side of the question, the speculative part of the History of Human Development, which is based on those facts, we have reached the conclusion that the original ancestral form of Man as of the other animals was a one-celled organism. The whole difficult problem of the History of Evolution is thus now reduced to the simple question: "How has the complex many-celled organism arisen from the simple one-celled form? By what natural process has the simple cell been transformed into that complex life-apparatus with all its various organs, the apparently rational and purposive construction of which we admire in the developed body?"

Turning now to answer this question, we must bear in mind the view to which we have already alluded, that the many-celled organism is ordered and constituted on the same principles as a civilized state, in which the several citizens have devoted themselves to various services directed towards common ends.

This comparison is of the greatest service in enabling us thoroughly to understand the construction of Man from many cells of various kinds, and to understand also the harmonious cooperation of these cells for an apparently pre-conceived purpose. If we bear this comparison in mind, and apply this significant idea of the developed many-celled organism as a civil union of many individuals, to the history of the evolution of this organism, we shall obtain a correct view of the real nature of the first and most important processes of evolution. We can even, on deeper reflection, guess the first stages of development, and establish them a priori, before we call observation, a posteriori knowledge, to our aid.

Let us therefore first answer this question: 'Granting the correctness of the fundamental law of Biogeny, how would the original one-celled organism which founded the first cell-state, and thus became the ancestor of the higher, many celled animals, how must that organism have acted at the beginning of organic life on the earth, or at the beginning of creation, as it is usually expressed? The answer is very simple. It must have acted just as a man who founds a state or a colony for a given purpose. Let us trace this process in its simplest form, as, for example, may have easily taken place when any of the remote islands in the Pacific Ocean were first peopled. Two South Sea Islanders, a man and a woman, have gone in a boat to fish; they are overtaken by a storm, carried far away, and at length driven on to a remote island, as yet uninhabited. This "first human pair" remaining isolated, play the parts of Adam and Eve, and produce a numerous posterity, thus becoming the parents of the future inhabitants of the island. they are entirely devoid of all resources, without the many means of support possessed by the founders of states of advanced civilization, the posterity of this uncivilized and isolated pair have first developed as genuine savages. Their only purpose in life for centuries has remained as simple as that of the lower animals and plants; the simple aim of self-preservation and of the production of descendants; they have been contented with the simplest organic functions, nutrition and reproduction. Hunger and love are their only motives of action.

As

For a very long period, these savages, scattered over the whole island, must have aimed at the one single object of selfpreservation. Gradually, however, several families collected at certain places, larger communities arose, and now many reciprocal relations began to arise between individuals; in consequence, a rude division of labour took place. Certain savages continued to fish and hunt, others began to cultivate the ground, others devoted themselves to religion and medicine, which now began to develop, and so on. In short, the everincreasing division of labour specializes the people into vari