magnetism which draws to itself all thought, all truth, and renders subject each object within the bounds of Infinity.

It is said

Imperial Cæsar dead and turned to clay,
May stop a hole to keep the wind away.

Yet, but one breath of God-hood, one moulding pressure from the potter's hand, when dust will be Man! This instillation is one of Life-Power-thenceforth the secret of all effects, the producer.

It is a queer thought, that perhaps this essence of our being is but a higher order of the same power which breaks the nutshell, and throws into the air a tree. Centuries ago the banks of these rivers were lined with swinging lilies, whose tops of mouthlike formation drooped down over the stream to gather those floating substances which nourished this strange combination of vegetable and animal life -almost the power which now swims the sea-our's but a few grades higher-Life and Intelligence. It is hard for us to draw distinct boundaries in the species of creation while God stands at the head, as the Genius of all existence.

It is often remarked, Life is a search for happiness, but it is more truly one for power-imperium-to gratify ourselves with a consciousness that we have a strong hold upon the reins of incoming events, or may say to another-Do this, and know that he doeth it. The King rules the people, but the resistless expansion of popular power will rule the King. As the balance of wrong goes down, popular indigna. tion hurls the sword of justice upon the other side, and at least restores the equilibrium.

The whole world is filled with elements, and the designed labor of intelligence is to effect the most favorable combinations, the results of which shall be human power. This is the land, these the subtle agencies, and the attendant command-Go work to-day in my vineyard. A few happy combinations have been made, and already man rides upon the whirlwind-with a world between us we talk face to face; we have lured the giant of vapor into the bottle, and now, with ceaseless racket, are weaving the warp and woof over the muscle of a thousand millions of men.

Shapeless bits of thought, variously tinged by prejudice and circumstance, lie scattered within the circle of human mind, but a rude event comes elbowing through the world, and jogs this mass of observation, of mental disquiet, of change by piece-meal, into a principle, and a landing upon Plymouth Rock.

Our resources are limitless. This world is a great reservoir of Power. We have turned the faucet, and imagine, because the stream only trickles now, the supply is low. But it is only a pebble in the pipe.

Every object in nature is an embodiment of Divine thought. Now shall we venture a supposition that six thousand years have sufficed to gather all the lessons from "her granite lips?" Must Divinity work through ages to supply human-kind with the primer of Creation?

There are three grand departments of power in every nationality, civilized or barbarian, and these three rule, Physical power, Gold and Intellect.

The predominancy of one, may partially supersede the necessity of another, or may detract from its sovereignty, while their combination presents the daily operations of life.

It is pleasing, too, to observe the singular channels which human nature will often select for removing the naturally attendant superfluities of these forces. The boiler of life will sometimes exhibit too high pressure, when safety demands the engineer should blow off steam. Such was the fact when the alarming excess of brutality and men, of blood and bones, in Northern Europe, expended itself in terrific onslaught upon the South, and perished over the ruins of Romeor when, satiated with the past, thirsting for novelty and discoveries, the dense populations of the Old World demanded the freedom of action, and freshness of life, which the victorious faith of Columbus found over the sea. French exhilaration and enthusiasm, factional desire for domination-the elements which always float in veins whose current of red life runs swiftly--only found their exit when war had torn the nation limb from limb, and left the land as a grave-yard.

Then, too, it is impossible to hem the hilarity of boyhood, into brass buttons and new boots. It will crop out-in marbles and liespies and pistols, with all the et cetera of young life. Meantime his face bids fair, by absorption, to take into the system the allotted nutrient of mother earth, and thus, by the increased facility for vegetation, possibly account for the emeraldine feature of his early days.

The power of Gold in determining the various conditions of Society, will readily suggest itself.

Let us briefly consider the Intellectual forces of the world.

You may recall the incident given by one of the best essayists of Edinburgh, saying-An artist of enviable reputation throughout Europe was confronted by a young pupil who urged this inquiry-My

friend, with what do you mix your colors? the only reply.

"With Brains, Sir," was

And this is the ingredient, of not simply the mellower tones of general action and thought, but an indispensable requisite in producing the bolder conceptions of individuality.

It is intellectual power and weakness which constitute the positive and negative poles of every character. That power may find its development on the printed page, or in personal manners, where emanations of an occult power appear in the movements of a hand, in a certain resistless grace, winning against the will; which is really the product of superior conception-the Brain ingredient. It is studied. power-thought in action.

But the chief method of rendering the power of Intellect available, is that of Concentration-the all in one-a centralization of forces, which shall be as convenient for action, as pent up waters, always ready to rush roaring through the sluice.

All the lights of various intensity which luminous thought is constantly emanating, must be focalized, and for focalization, the lens required will be a mind entirely subject to the authority of will. Not only must the pointed, burning thought be reached after prolonged application, but so instantaneous as to be well nigh involuntary; sensitiveness to the countless impressions, and hints of deeper import, which fill the Earth, the Air, the Sea, and great or small, are all radiations of Truth divine.

Carlyle and His Religion.

THE period immediately following that of Voltaire and the French Revolution, introduced in England a new dispensation of metaphysical thought. Coleridge, trained in the German schools of philosophy, and inspired by the speculations of his German masters, we consider its pioneer prophet. His residence at Highgate was the nursery of its develoment.

There, on stated occasions, enthroned in his great easy-chair, presided the oracle, pouring forth in deep organ tones those floods of

dreamy eloquence, which fell upon the ears of his disciples like inspiration, and to this day have made the fame of Coleridge as a conversationalist eclipse even his princely renown as a poet or metaphyscian. Although confessedly the most creative and comprehensive genius of his age, if not altogether, according to De Quincy, the "largest and most spacious intellect that has hitherto existed among men," the great apostle of spiritual philosophy seems after all but litte better than a glorious antinomy

"A beam ethereal, sullied and absorped,"

discoursing like an angel, living like a slave; now soaring to the very gate of heaven, now sinking in the lowest pit of sensuality; a stricken Titan, within whose soul the celestial fire, well-nigh smothered with the damps of earthly passion, at times burst forth in wild, dazzling spendor, which, though fitful, might well be taken for the lightnings of a true Apollo. Thus, too, we imagine, thought young Carlyle as he mingled with the crowd of devotees at Highgate. With them he loved to frequent the English shrine of philosophy, but according to his own admissions, more as an admiring skeptic than a hearty, sincere worshiper.

The glittering word-pomp and gorgeous imagery of the drug-inspired dreamer were to him rather unprofitable trash. Like Byron amid the gayeties of Venice, he wanted "something more craggy for his mind to break upon." Though Coleridge and his "transcendental moonshine" could not satisfy the earnest young Scotchman, his connection with him is of great significance, from the fact that he did much to foster his genius and mold his character. Indirectly, too, he supplied him with that craggy nutriment for which his soul hungered. Although he did not open to his inquiring disciple the portals, yet he undoubtedly was the first who displayed to him the inner recesses of the great mystic temple of German literature.

The admirers of Carlyle are disposed to make his introduction to the philosophers of Germany the grand epoch of his life-the point at which his true history begins. However this may be, it was to him the opening of a new world—a world of primordial thought, peopled by true royal thinkers. Jean Paul, the homely, sublime prose poet, whom his countrymen delighted to call the "unique," first entranced the young explorer. From him he passed into the society of Schelling, Hegel, Schiller, Novalis, Fichte and Kant. Leaving all these he finally seated himself, a humble student, at the feet of the renowned Goethe-a man whose calm, strong, intellectual manhood excited his

highest reverence, and whom he afterward, with much glorification, placed first in his Pantheon of Modern Literary Heroes. Carlyle entered upon the study of German literature as an earnest, sincere inquirer. He pursued it like one digging for hidden treasures. That his search was successful, that he found something which entered into his very being and molded all his subsequent thought, every page of his writings testifies. That his vision was entirely unimpaired by his attendance upon the smoky altars of German metaphysics, upon which were equally sacrificed the burnt-offerings of reason and the incense of imagination, we will leave his panegyrists to demonstrate. Suffice it for us to consider the kind and degree of spiritual satisfaction that he there obtained.

"A man's religion is the chief fact with regard to him," is a Carlylean truth, equally applicable to the author and to the rest of humanity; nay, of such a man it is the all and in all. What he believes and how he came to believe it, are questions of transcendent import.

In regard to Carlyle's religious opinions there can now be no manner of doubt. Every sentence that flows from his pen is an earnest, solemn, irrevocable declaration of faith. Of his spiritual growth, his struggle from doubt to belief, we must remain comparatively ignorant. Fxcept a few strange, somewhat disconnected passages in "Sartor Resartus," he sees fit to make us no revelation upon the subject. In that most extraordinary book of the nineteenth century, amid the quaintest humor, the sublimest poetry, the most grotesque imagery, we, however, find utterances which seem to speak to us with tongues of fire, telling us the history of a wild, mysterious, spiritual warfare. Under the guise of a wandering German philosopher, discoursing in a truly-original style upon the philosophy of clothes, and stuffing zodiacal-inscribed paper-bags with curious scraps of autobiography, Carlyle has attempted to sketch the progress of his soul from what he calls the "Everlasting No," the kingdom of doubt, where all nature is shrouded in midnight gloom, where unbelief has planted its brazen heel upon the hearts of men, and the universe is but " a vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, a mill of death," through the "Center of Indifference," the Mountain of Purification, where the rays of hope begin to stream from the over-hanging blackness, and the stricken soul dares to utter its stern, defiant protest against the sovereignty of Falsehood, up to the realms of the "Everlasting Yea," where the breaking clouds reveal the heavens of love, and where by the sunlight of faith the conquering spirit can read the divine significance of nature, and rejoice