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 THE 
 
 FOUNTAIN; 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Illustrated with One Hundred and Forty-Two Engravings. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 
 
 <{ There's a fount about to stream, 
 There's a light about to gleam.'' 
 
 FIRST EDITION 
 
 BOSTON : 
 WILLIAM WHITE & COMPANY, 
 
 BANNER OF LIGHT OFFICE, 158 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 AMERICAN NEWS CO., AGENTS, 119 NASSAU STREET. 
 
 1870. 
 

 Entered according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1870, 
 
 By ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 McCREA & MILLER, 
 209-213 East 12th Street. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 One bright morning last May, as I was idly sleeping at the foot of a 
 grand mountain, the voice of a revered instructor said : " Arise ! Go up 
 to the very top ; survey the ways of wisdom ; observe the needs of the 
 world ; be healthful and hopeful, and perform thy work." 
 
 After journeying through a mass of chilly clouds, which clung to the 
 steep sides of the mountain, I gained the glorious summit. With serene 
 joy and grateful admiration, I gazed upon the magnificence of the heav- 
 ens, and upon the loveliness of the earth, which were unfolded and dis- 
 played in every direction. And observing no human being near me, and 
 feeling myself alone in the lofty solitudes of the mountain, I turned 
 toward mankind, and said : " world ! here am I, after a slow and toil- 
 some progress, far away from you, yet ready to work for you. What will 
 you accept from me ? " 
 
 And suddenly there appeared in the beautiful landscape, not far from 
 the foot of the mountain, A FOUNTAIN ! It was exceedingly beautiful 
 in its strength and simplicity. The sparkling water was flowing and jet- 
 ting incessantly. And the waters of that Fountain seemed to be com- 
 pounded of the needs and wants and wishes of multitudes, yea, hundreds 
 of thousands, of warm, living human hearts ! 
 
 And in the beautiful light above the fount, a friendly voice said : 
 " Write a book, with thoughts for men and pictures for children, which 
 the young as well as the matured can peruse with pleasure and profit." 
 After a silence, the voice added : " Truth, Love, Peace, Mercy, Wisdom, 
 Labor, Education, Religion, Admonition, Hope — these streams, with occa- 
 sional jets and clear intimations of new meanings, must flow from the 
 Fountain. To this end employ little things. With pure affections and 
 
iv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 familiar illustrations you must appeal to the understanding and the heart. 
 To improve the human mind, and to aid and enliven the world's mothers 
 and fathers and educators, you must amuse while you instruct." 
 
 Accordingly, in obedience to the voice of wisdom, I proceeded to 
 " write," and the present volume is the result. 
 
 Employing every aid at my command, I have attempted, with the ut- 
 most sincerity of motive, to relieve the grave profundities and the dazzling 
 magnitude of the Harmonial Ideas, by the introduction of pleasing sim- 
 plicities which may attract and instruct persons of every age and in all 
 states of feeling. And all deficiencies, as well as the omission of many 
 deeply important subjects, must be attributed to the fact that this volume 
 is designed to be simply the first of a short series of like import. In 
 this book there is no effort to sound the very deep in the treatment of any 
 question. The wish to attract and enlighten young persons — in short, to 
 reach the entire family group — is paramount to the desire to impart ori- 
 ginal ideas to established thinkers. 
 
 u I have often thought," remarks a scholarly writer, " if the minds of 
 men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of a 
 wise man, and that of a fool. There are infinite reveries, numberless 
 extravagances, and a succession of vanities, which pass through each." 
 Of grown-up men and women, and of little children and our young folks, 
 the same reflection seems to be not less applicable. Whatever is truly 
 attractive, pleasing, and instructive to one is likely to be equally enter- 
 taining and profitable to the other. It has thus far been observed that, 
 among the hundreds of thousands of elderly persons who drink deeply 
 and constantly at the Harmonial Fountains, not more than a few score of 
 young people read and enjoy our publications and principles. 
 
 If the Sowings of this Fountain shall have the effect to attract and in- 
 struct young persons, while slacking the honest thirst of the grave and 
 thoughtful, and if the teachings of this initial volume shall in some 
 degree assist parents and tutors in the rearing and just education of chil- 
 dren, the Author will deem his industry amply rewarded. And he will 
 interpret the general acceptance of this work to mean that additional 
 books in this series are called for, 
 
 A. J. DAVIS. 
 
 New York, September 20, 1870. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP PAGE. 
 
 I. The Everlasting 7 
 
 II. Bkauty and Destiny of Mother Nature's Darlings 20 
 
 III. The Solitudes of Animal Life 42 
 
 IV. Indication of Reason in Animals 54 
 
 Y. Formation of Nationoids in America 64 
 
 YI. The Wisdom of Getting Knowledge 82 
 
 YII. The Children's Progressive Lyceum 110 
 
 VIII. Lyceum Teachings for Children 123 
 
 IX. Imagination as an Educational Force 137 
 
 X. Prophetic Dreams and Visions during Sleep 154 
 
 XI. True and False Worship. 162 
 
 XII. Origin and Influence of Prayer 180 
 
 XIII. Realms of Sorrow and Superstition 200 
 
 XIV. Effect of a Mistake in Religion 221 
 
 XV. Omens and Signs among Religionists 233 
 
I. 
 
 The Everlasting O. 
 
 rjlIIE English alphabet contains no letter more re- 
 X markable than the familiar fourth vowel, O ; 
 with which, therefore, I have elected to begin this 
 book of interior entertainments. 
 
 The fifteenth letter is written and spoken more 
 frequently than any other in the language, with the 
 
8 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 exception of the superlatively important initial, A. 
 This is because no other letter so spontaneously ex- 
 presses the many and various feelings of the impress- 
 ible spirit. It involuntarily bubbles up to the tongue, 
 in the shape of an interjection, as the natural sound 
 of almost every imaginable emotion—of surprise, joy, 
 alarm, aversion, sorrow, supplication. 
 
 Bees do not swarm more thickly into a clover-field 
 than does this letter crowd itself into the flowers of 
 
 literature. The very 
 existence of poetry de- 
 pends upon the exist- 
 ence of this simple 
 vowel. Starting with 
 these hints, where can 
 you not go in tracing 
 the inclisp disability of 
 this item of the alphabet ? The en^ 
 tire structure of literature would 
 crumble should one letter be with- 
 drawn. Thus we learn, that least 
 things are necessary to the greatest. 
 Let us remember, 
 right here, that the first and the last letters in the Greek 
 alphabet are A and O. Hence, in the Bible phrase- 
 ology, the representative terms, " Alpha and Omega," 
 are naturally used to signify the beginning and the end. 
 
THE EVERLASTING 0. 9 
 
 A is the first figure employed to symbolize the first 
 vocal sound made irresistibly by merely opening the 
 mouth, with the feeling or wish of utterance in the 
 heart. A, M, and O come out of the sweet lips of 
 infants as naturally as music flows from the mouths 
 of birds. 
 
 Destroy the letter O, and you annihilate the Greek 
 language. And then, what would become of poetry 
 and prayers ? " O heart of fire ! " tell us what would 
 be thy fate ? Men of language ! tell us who, deprived 
 of the use of this letter, could exclaim " O, Lord ! " " O, 
 Mother Church ! " " O, God, Omnipotent ! " Without 
 the sound of O, there could be no natural expression 
 in any language of the emotions of joy, warning, 
 admiration, entreaty, or compassion. In vain might 
 we hunt for a substitute 
 
 11 Over low-lands forest-grown, 
 Over waters island -strown, 
 Over silver-sanded beach ; " 
 
 yet, forever, a better letter would be beyond our 
 reach ; therefore, O vowel, wisely chosen ! we lovingly 
 cling to thee through the flower-fields of literature, 
 through the quiet aisles of prayer ; j T ea, through the 
 never-ebbing sea of immortal love we will clino; to 
 thee ! Without this letter, the following could not exist 
 in any language : 
 
10 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 " For the sound of waters gushing 
 
 In bubbling beads of light ; 
 For the fleets of snow-white lilies — 
 
 Firm anchors out of sight ; 
 For the reeds among the eddies — 
 
 The crystal on the clod ; 
 For the flowing of the rivers, 
 
 We thank thee, oh, our God ! 
 
 " For the lifting up of mountains 
 
 In brightness and in dread ; 
 For the peaks where snow and sunshine 
 
 Alone have dared to tread ; 
 For the dark of silent gorges 
 
 Whence giant cedars nod, 
 For the majesty of mountains, 
 
 We thank thee, oh, our God ! 
 
 u For an eye of inward seeing — 
 
 A soul to know and love ; 
 For these common aspirations 
 
 Which our high heirship prove ; 
 For the tokens of thy presence 
 
 Within, above, abroad ; 
 For thine own great gift of being, 
 
 We thank thee, oh, our God ! " 
 
 What a history of completeness and perfection is 
 the history of this simple figure, O. About three 
 hundred and fifty years before the era of Christianity, 
 Plato began the investigation of the circle. After two 
 centuries of researches by different spiritual philos- 
 
THE EVERLASTING 0. H 
 
 opliers into the elements of the circle — the ellipse 
 being one of the conic sections — the figure remained 
 without further analysis for over sixteen hundred 
 years. O how long ! At length, however, the 
 remarkable properties of our letter were brought to 
 light through minute mathematical investigation. 
 
 Although this book is not designed to deal in 
 philosophical abstractions, it cannot be deemed in- 
 appropriate to quote a passage from the wise and 
 comprehensive writer, J. W. Jackson, of Glasgow, 
 who, being a faithful spiritual philosopher, perceives 
 and affirms the spiritual origin of forms and figures. 
 In the London magazine entitled Human Nature, 
 for June, 1870, he thus comprehensively describes 
 angles, circles, and the ellipse : " The primordial 
 bodies on the cosmic plane — suns, planets, and their 
 satellites — are spherical, because the sphere or uni- 
 versal circle represents the perfection of a unitary 
 totality, whereof they are the primal reflection and 
 reproduction. The circle in process of formation 
 represents creation in evolution. When closed, by the 
 movement of the radius vector over the entire cyclical 
 circuit, it equally represents creation finished, and so 
 ready for reabsorption into the Divine unity. We 
 thus see that the centre symbolizes Deity and the cir- 
 cumference creation, the radius vector being a pro- 
 jection of the Divine, from the eternal sphere of the 
 
12 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Infinite One to the temporal plane of the finite many, 
 or as the mystics would say, God in manifestation as 
 the Demiurgus, or Logos Creator. 
 
 " As the sphere or universal circle represents com- 
 pleteness and perfection, so the cube or universal 
 square represents equipoise and strength, and thus 
 morally symbolizes justice and power. It is in every 
 direction equilateral, and thus all its angles are right 
 angles. It is the symbol of being as based on truth 
 and rectitude. As the sphere, or universal circle, is 
 representative of the unity, so the cube, or universal 
 square, is symbolical of the trinity of form — that is, 
 of height, length, and breadth, equal in dimension, 
 yet diverse in direction ; that is again, as the mystics 
 would say, co-ordinate in rank, equal in power, yet 
 different in function. The sphere represents those 
 divine integers, eternity and infinity, having neither 
 beginning nor end ; while the cube or universal 
 square, on the contrary, symbolizes time and space, 
 each susceptible of the most rigid limitation — the 
 sequences of the former implying definite periods of 
 duration ; and the expanses of the latter limited areas 
 of extension, like the lines and sides of a cube. Per- 
 haps the reader begins now to understand something 
 of the Pythagorean reverence for numbers, and the 
 belief once prevalent, as to the magical power of mathe- 
 matical diagrams. 
 
THE EVERLASTING 0. 13 
 
 " The circle — and with it, of course, the sphere — 
 is masculine because it is unitary, being formed on 
 one centre, and generated by the movement of one 
 radius vector. An ellipse, on the contrary, is feminine, 
 being formed on two foci, whose distance is the test 
 of its feminity, the intervening area being the sphere 
 of multiplicity. So a square, or cube, is masculine, 
 while a parallelogram, or parallelopiped, is feminine, the 
 continent lines of length transcending those of breadth 
 or height, so that it is no longer the symbol of absolute 
 rectitude, strength, or stability. It may, perhaps, also 
 be observed, that both in the ellipse and the parallelo- 
 gram the containing lines are longer in proportion to 
 the area enclosed than in the circle and the square." 
 
 A perfect O — which is feminine — is a perfect 
 ellipse. It is the most harmonious mathematical 
 figure, containing all the lines and curves and elements 
 of beauty ; and it is the form of the orbits traversed 
 by the planets of space. Without the O, the uni- 
 versally useful " multiplication table " would be an 
 impossibility. Because, without this plain, frank let- 
 ter to stand with its great meaning upon the right 
 hand of other figures, we could never make any 
 progress beyond the figure 9. 
 
 Therefore was I not doing right to begin this little 
 volume with the essential symbol of a yet more 
 essential part of being? It is a key in every hand. 
 
14 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 SAILING OUT TO FIND NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 My pen needs but the prefix O, to empower it to 
 
 u open " before you many 
 pioneer paths leading through 
 great mountains " of new 
 meanings." 
 
 Now let each reader 
 choose his favorite keel, with 
 which to plough the sea of 
 spiritual commerce and in- 
 tellectual discovery. Every 
 sailor will feel most at home 
 
 on his own vessel. If you would sail out upon life's 
 
 wide ocean — if you would search the 
 
 winter lands of earth while on your 
 
 great voyage to summer lands, among 
 
 the golden stars and beneath clearer 
 
 skies on high — then enlist at once as 
 
 helmman upon the best ship now 
 
 riding in the harbor of your own 
 
 honest knowledge. 
 
 " lonely Bay of Trinity, 
 
 dreary shores, give ear ! 
 Lean down unto the white-lipped sea 
 The voice of God to hear." 
 
 BAILOR'S OCEAN HOME. 
 
 But let all remember humility ; without O, you 
 cannot sail your ship far out ; indeed, without it you 
 
THE EVERLASTING 0. 15 
 
 cannot even weigh anchor. Who ever tried to write 
 anchor without the use of the fifteenth letter ? 
 
 AN HONEST MIND IS AN ANCHOR TO THE SOUL. 
 
 Very sweet and liquid is the sturdy-looking half- 
 vowel, M ! It is, I freely confess, quite as necessary 
 to Latin as O is to Greek. But being one of the easiest 
 to articulate, M is likely to be the first upon the rosy 
 lips of childhood. It comes, O so sweetly ! in the first 
 utterance of "ma." And yet, somehow, I cannot 
 yield the assertion thjat our chosen feminine ellipse 
 is the sovereign letter. Tou cannot perfectly articu- 
 late M, except while closing your mouth and com- 
 pressing the lips. Now, to try an experiment, step 
 before your mirror and pronounce the beautiful letter 
 under consideration. O what a fair countenance you 
 present ! What an " open " mouth you immediately 
 possess ! Therefore, sustained by such prime-facial 
 evidence, I dare affirm that M is by nature contractive 
 
16 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 and conservative ; while our beautiful O is expansive, 
 and maketh the mouth ready to speak from " the 
 abundance of the heart." 
 
 An Oasis, without the letter O, is impossible. 
 The Libyan deserts of human life — without ever-green 
 spots, and without fountains of musical waters — would 
 destroy mankind. " Orpheus," without our opening 
 letter, with all his miracles of music, would drop out 
 of the world. As suddenly would vanish from the 
 world's romantic literature the name " Ossian," the son 
 of Fingal ; and thus, too, would forever disappear 
 " Orion," and the great universe of constellations 
 would know him no more. 
 
 And, let me ask, what would become of the Otto- 
 man Empire ? It would require a greater than the 
 renowned Oberlin to portray the scenes accompanying 
 the downfall of the house of Orleans. The lovely 
 images and picturesque expressions of Ovid, with all 
 his pathos, would vanish in an. instant, as would also 
 the great agitator, O'Connell, and the innumerable 
 " O's " which mean so much as a prefix to names of 
 persons in the old, unhappy land. And unspeakably 
 learned Oxford would sink into the place appointed 
 unto all unprogressive institutions. 
 
 Did you ever reflect that, without the fourth vowel, 
 the revered name of u God " could not be written ; 
 that, if .deprived of this talismanic letter, we could 
 
THE EVERLASTING 0. 
 
 17 
 
 not print the sacred words " mother," " love," 
 " home ; " that, without it, as if crushed by a thunder- 
 bolt, all life would suddenly be deprived of its 
 " glory ; " and that, without it. the idea of an eternal 
 " morning " could never succeed to the night and 
 gloom of existence ? 
 
 A great, strong anchor, both sure and steadfast, we 
 therefore find in the perfect ellipse — our initial letter 
 O ! Even the name of 
 
 goodness is impossible with- 
 out it ; yet, happily, the 
 state of goodness is inde- 
 pendent of all speech. 
 
 Politicians profoundly 
 realize the value of this 
 vowel while laboring for 
 Office, and especially when 
 called upon to " take the 
 Oath." Lawyers depend 
 upon the fifteenth letter 
 when orally opening cases 
 — the outlines of which, to- 
 gether with the order of the 
 offence, with objects, ob- 
 servations, obtruding ob- 
 stacles, optional or othef- 
 
 wise— thus they read and define the oblong character 
 2 " 
 
 cold! and, o so dreary. 
 
18 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 on the obelisks of legal lore and sail out upon the 
 broad ocean of ownership. 
 
 And of Clergy- 
 men — what can we 
 
 O 
 
 of lit- 
 
 say * * U ye 
 k tie faith ! " From 
 H over the old ocean 
 of ancient usages 
 the office of the 
 ministers of the 
 s "Holy One" has 
 been brought to the 
 ("shores of the new 
 ^ continent. And by 
 virtue of that office, 
 and especially owing 
 to the endorsements 
 of custom, the clergy- 
 man is a wholesale 
 dealer in the most 
 sacred feelings, emotions, and passions of the human 
 breast. His lan^ua^e in praver is therefore habituallv 
 interjection al. " How long, O Lord, how long " shall 
 this style of expression continue? is a question not 
 yet answered. The templed mountain of Olympus 
 does not more truly o'ertop the valleys than do the 
 churches of to-day attempt to outrank the testimonies 
 
 'O PRINCELY LOT! O BLISSFUL ART!" 
 
THE EVERLASTING 0. 19 
 
 of Nature. "While the office of minister remains, the 
 frequent and untrammelled pronunciation of " O " 
 must also remain, and must be unfeignedly respected 
 by all who sincerely believe in ministers. 
 
 Imagine just here, O friendly reader ! the hundreds 
 of thousands of words from which the letter O cannot 
 be for one instant omitted. Recall the phrases which 
 awaken no agreeable emotions. Are they not north- 
 erly and extremely cold words ? Do they not come 
 breathing fortli the chilly electricities of the frozen 
 Hebrides ? Northerly and excpisiteiy bitter words, 
 freighted with storm, and snow and frost — with which 
 thoughts and feelings of loneliness and desolation are 
 tearfully intermingled. For even so sounds, in the 
 chambers of my inner hearing, all phrases not flowing 
 from the fountain of wisdom and love. 
 
 Language, like the wave of a magician's wand, can 
 suddenly transform every thing about us. Because 
 spirit is the fountain of feeling and wishes, and is, there- 
 fore, the cause of words spoken by the obedient tongue. 
 
 Let us, therefore, avoid, as far as possible, the 
 articulation of words which casts " sweet home " into 
 the dim and distant background of life's picture. Let 
 us never employ any language which would hang our 
 master-letter upon the scraggy limbs of some fruitless 
 tree — upon some leafless tree of materialistic knowledge. 
 
II. 
 
 Beauty and Destiny of Mother Nature's Dak- 
 lings. 
 
 EATHER GOD calls to His children. He calls 
 them not through the hending domes and crum- 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 21 
 
 bling arches of stone churches built with mortal hands. 
 But His fatherly voice comes through the suns and stars 
 of the boundless firmament ; through the stately monu- 
 ments and constellations of the . universe ; through the 
 swerveless laws of the stupendous whole ; through 
 the love-breathings of the interior heart ; through the 
 starry corridors of the eternal temple of Truth ; 
 through the winds and waves of innumerable oceans ; 
 through the cathedral solitudes and ineffable perfec- 
 tions of Nature. 
 
 Godless, indeed, is that religion which would 
 silence (or rate as beneath paper books) the voices 
 of such living bibles and perpetual preachers as fruit- 
 trees, wild flowers, beautiful birds, whispering bees, 
 sobbing seas, sighing winds, snow-covered mountains, 
 and the grand old pines and mighty oaks bending with 
 the weight and majesty of centuries. 
 
 " Were I in churchless solitudes remaining ; 
 Free from all voice of churchmen or divines, 
 My soul would find in flowers of God's ordaining, 
 
 Priests, sermons, shrines." 
 
 Rightly seen, every thing in nature is a wise and 
 special expression of divine affection. Indians and 
 children and poets, when in their best moods, see the 
 Father-Spirit in every place and in all manifestations. 
 Merrily sings the divine love in birds and bees and 
 
22 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 blossoms. And sadly sings the Infinite Spirit through 
 the dark-green branches of mountain pines, and in the 
 unutterable sounds of the ebbing and flowing sea. 
 Infallibly speaks the Eternal in the boundlessness 
 and unchangeability of those invisible principles by 
 which all things live and move and have their 
 being. 
 
 LOVE AND LABOB. AMONG FLOTTEBS OF GCD'S OliDAINING. 
 
 Nature is God's conjugal mate ; she is, therefore, 
 the Mother of All. Children, like young birds, feel 
 in their hearts the life of heavenly liberty. Girls not 
 less than boys long for the delights of the wide, open 
 fields and far-spreading trees. Boys, naturally, more 
 than girls, seek bold and boisterous sports. Girls are 
 taught to seek and personate the graceful, to dwell 
 modestly in the quiet retirements, and to cultivate the 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 
 
 23 
 
 noiseless, the impractical, and the beautiful. This 
 teaching is founded in the belief that girls are by 
 nature finer than boys. While the truth is, they are 
 only exact counterparts, reversed ; each qualitatively 
 and in substance like the other ; but from exactly 
 opposite sides of the universe. They are born of the 
 same mother, nourished at the same fountain, clothed 
 by the same hand, reared in the same home, watched 
 over by the same guardian angels, pass through the 
 process of death upon the same safe principles, and 
 journey to brighter and fairer lands upon the same 
 celestial highway. 
 
 But a false system of religion, which is as arbitrary 
 as the old fable which discriminates and establishes an 
 antagonism between sheep and goats, has come be- 
 tween children and their intuitions of truth. 
 
 The beautiful butterfly, 
 which used to represent the 
 idea of individual life after 
 death, attracts the girl by its 
 beauty and the boy as an ob- 
 ject of pursuit. Girls and 
 boys are drawn into the fields 
 by the same healthy, sensu- 
 ous attractions. While sisters 
 
 BOYS ARE INFLUENCED BY THE 
 BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 gather blooming buttercups, 
 
 their brothers chase the fleeting butterflies ; bnt after 
 
24 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 awhile they grow weary, and together they soundly 
 sleep among the flowers. They awaken in obedience 
 to the voice of hunger, and run like deer to the call 
 of mother. Beauty in the fields, or imprisoned beauty 
 (behold, how free-born birds are shut up like prisoners 
 
 THE REFINEMENT OP CRUELTY. 
 
 in cages!) exert the same powerful effect on children. 
 
 The common charge, that boys are more cruel than 
 girls in the wish to deprive innocent and feeble birds 
 of their liberty, is groundless. The natural love of 
 ownership and mastery — of possessing exclusively and 
 controlling the existence of that which we love — is as 
 strong and formidable in one sex as in the other. 
 Spiritual culture eventually exalts this innate love ; 
 substituting beauty for tyranny, and wise love for 
 ignorant and selfish discipline. 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 
 
 25 
 
 Men and women associate freely together as bro- 
 thers and sisters, and also in the most holy and del- 
 icate relations of conjugal love ; therefore, why may 
 not our boys and girls be permitted to grow up to- 
 gether in the school, and in all the departments of the 
 state, as well as in the home and family circle ? 
 
 BOYS AND GIRLS IN THE WORLD TOGETHER. 
 
 A child is a divine promise of something better. 
 We are all of us only dim, crude prophecies. 
 
 Girldom, with its sweet femininities, is promising 
 only when the world of u horrid boys " is taken into the 
 account with just valuations. In the family they live, 
 and love, and fight, and laugh, and kick, and run, and 
 eat, and play, and sing, and cry, and grow up together. 
 Why not in the affairs of that larger family, called the 
 
26 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 government, when they attain to the estate of men and 
 women ? Why not ? Because a false religion, feeding 
 and flattering a false custom, insists peremptorily, 
 with terrible penalties of excommunication from "good 
 society," that girls shall forever dress unlike boys, 
 shall studiously refrain from running and climbing, 
 shall make no visible demonstrations of bodily vigor, 
 and shall do nothing and be nothing inconsistent 
 with the established masculine rules of feminine pro- 
 priety. 
 
 The dress of a girl is constructed so that it is cer- 
 tain to trammel her limbs, pervert her growth, derange 
 the functions of the bodily organs, and in truth en- 
 danger the safety of her physical existence. Her 
 younger brother can freely and fearlessly climb hill- 
 sides, race through the wildwoods, leap fences, and 
 play like other darlings on the bosom of Nature. But 
 
 only dare to let her go out 
 with her brother, and lo ! 
 owing to her dress, she falls 
 headlong over the straight 
 gate of pharisaical propri- 
 ety, and is " providentially 
 saved," if her beautiful life 
 is not forever crushed against 
 the rocks of a blind and 
 
 LET HER FOLLOW THE FASHIONS. 
 
 bigoted custom. 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 27 
 
 Nature, who is our graceful arid ever-loving 
 mother, infallibly teaches her children the right way 
 and the whole Truth. She teaches her girls that it is 
 their highest duty to become whatever they can be- 
 come, and to do whatever they can do ; the criterion 
 of right being, that the result of such being and doing 
 is genuine happiness to themselves and lasting benefit 
 to mankind. 
 
 n 
 
 <£kr^Sl«5l 
 
 
 i 
 
 i vl Wf 
 
 L^^D^^^^^^S 
 
 i ■■.:■' 
 
 
 ^^^^^^^^:^^ 
 
 MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS SOMETIMES NEED WASHING AND COMBING. 
 
 Different ambitions and different aspirations burn 
 within different temperaments. Sex does not infallibly 
 determine the nature and quality of this ambition, or 
 aspiration ; neither is it possible for mere sex to in- 
 dicate and limit and establish the sphere of its most 
 effective manifestation. 
 
 The masculine positive temperaments, which are 
 
28 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 the mediums through which the man-organization 
 
 makes itself manifest, 
 are aggressive in their 
 very nature. And yet 
 it should he borne in 
 mind that some women 
 
 A PLAN FOR COMPELLING THE EARTH TO are Jjq this rCSpeCt eOUal, 
 
 ACCEPT SEED. -T U 7 
 
 if not superior, to some 
 men ; but habits and education, as much as tempera- 
 ment and sex, have great sway in determining the 
 manifestations of any personality. Habits exert a 
 subtle influence. Women, especially among the an- 
 cient Romans, by systematically educating their mus- 
 cles, and by abstaining from all intoxicating drinks, 
 developed noble mothers and a hardy race of sons. 
 The Romans were famous for their health, strength, 
 and endurance. It is safe to say that Roman and 
 Spartan mothers were physically stronger and more 
 enduring than many of the men and fathers in our 
 more refined era. 
 
 Still, there is a constitutional difference between a 
 woman-nature and a man-nature which lies deeper 
 than any habits or circumstances — a difference which, 
 although absolute and essential, is not necessarily an- 
 tagonistic. This sex-difference was illustrated by Mr. 
 R. Grant White, in an account he somewhere pub- 
 lished, in substance, as follows : " Some years ago, 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 29 
 
 before monitors or even iron-clad ships were thought 
 of, the enormous and now utterly useless man-of-war 
 Pennsylvania lav at the "Washington navy-yard. 
 Much had been expected of her. and her colossal size. 
 and her enormous battery of one hundred and twenty 
 guns, were looked upon with pride by all ' true 
 Americans/ It was determined that the President of 
 the United States, accompanied by the members of 
 his Cabinet, the principal officers of the army and 
 navy, and other persons of like distinction, should visit 
 her for an ' inaugural ' entertainment, and that in 
 honor of the occasion, he and they should be saluted 
 by the discharge of all her guns. The gentlemen were 
 accompanied by a large number of ladies, and a more 
 numerous and representative party was probably never 
 gathered together on the decks of a national vessel. 
 The salute began, and the rapid discharge of the 
 heavy ordnance produced a remarkable effect on the 
 civilian visitors. Very soon the men were stunned or 
 worried, and showed strong symptoms of nervous 
 anxiety. The women, on the contrary, to the sur- 
 prise of all, showed no fear, but rather delight, and 
 were cheerfully excited, not concealing an inclination 
 to laugh at and crow over the nervous weakness of 
 their masculine companions. The firing went on, and 
 became a protracted and apparently endless series of 
 regular explosions. For the discharge of one hundred 
 
30 .JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 and twenty guns at intervals of only three seconds 
 occupies six minutes, measured by three-second counts, 
 even in silence, seem as if they would never end. But 
 when, as in this case, each interval is marked by a 
 roar that stuns the ears and a concussion that shakes 
 the heavens and the earth, and tills the air with flame 
 and smoke, the performance becomes oppressive and 
 tries nervous endurance to the utmost. And on this 
 occasion a striking natural phenomenon, full of moral 
 significance, was presented to the curious student of 
 human nature. It was observed that as gun followed 
 gun, the men, who were so disturbed at first, became 
 quiet, self-possessed, indifferent, and at last cheerful, 
 while the women, who at first were so filled with life 
 and gayety, soon showed signs of weariness, then of 
 nervous excitement, and finally of terror, looking for- 
 ward with dread to the inevitable and regularly-recur- 
 ring shock ; so that before the salute was over most 
 of them were in a state of extreme distress, some were 
 hysterical and some had fainted. Their nerves could 
 bound with elasticity at a single fillip, but succumbed 
 under repeated blows ; while the masculine nature 
 toughened under resistance to the protracted strain." 
 
 The difference between the man-temperaments and 
 the woman-temperaments, is forcibly illustrated in the 
 foregoing; incident. 
 
 The man-temperament (which is sometimes also 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 
 
 31 
 
 powerfully manifested in woman), is the temperament 
 for pioneering, forth-pushing, domineering, engineer- 
 
 A MASCULINE IXTEXTIOX FOE OVERCOMING THE TTOELD. 
 
 ing, centrifngating. Man's implements and inventions 
 are designed for assailing, overcoming, crushing, 
 destroying, and reforming. Man's hand grasps instru- 
 ments for subduing the earth. Look at the breaking- 
 
 up plow. Look at the seed-drill and the following har- 
 row ; the compression and soothings of the roller; at 
 The ponderous hammer and the anvil ; at the mighty 
 forces harnessed together in the machine-shop ; at the 
 pulverizing energies of the mill ; at the great cities ; 
 at the dwelling-houses and immense factories; at the 
 
32 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 A MILL FOR CRUSHING AND PULVERIZING. 
 
 strong wagons for carrying 
 lumber, stone, and iron ; 
 at the steamboats for riding 
 rivers, lakes, and oceans ; 
 at the railroads and loco- 
 motives made to accom- 
 plish Jupiter-like labor ; at 
 the wire paths for light- 
 ning under oceans and 
 around the great globe ! 
 And think, too, of the discovery and settlement of new 
 countries. 
 
 These tools, these ambitions, 
 these achievements, these broad 
 and mighty enterprises, are crowd- 
 ed by mother Nature into the rest- 
 less hearts and into the incessantly 
 pleading hands of her children — 
 into the open hands and prayerful 
 hearts of women and men alike — 
 and then only time and circumstances, and the spirit's 
 faithfulness to its own interior convictions, can deter- 
 mine which sex, and what particular individuals among 
 men and women, are most attracted and adapted to 
 the grand ends and uses in contemplation. 
 
 Man's force-and-drive elements combine naturally 
 and fruitfully with woman's elements of power-and- 
 
 MEANS AND ENDS. 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 
 
 33 
 
 aspiration. Her power, which is noiseless and spirit- 
 ual, while it requires less brain for its manifestation, 
 
 MAKING INSTRUMENTS FOR ASSAULT AND CONQUEST. 
 
 vet demands a far more compact and impressible 
 physical organism. Man's force, which is full of noise 
 and derived from the soul (which in this life is the 
 spirit's fulcrum or harness), requires a larger brain, 
 more physical body, and a harder-knit frame. But, 
 taken together, and viewed and compared as to their 
 relative endowments and real modes of expression, it 
 will be found impossible to establish the least radical 
 or fundamental inferiority or superiority between men 
 and women. They are both mother Nature's darlings ; 
 and my counsel to them is : Obey Nature. 
 
 Nature, in the largest sense, is adequate to every 
 emergency. She tells woman what to do, and how to 
 
34 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 do it, as she also tells and instructs man. But saint 
 Custom, whose mandates are proclaimed by masculine 
 priests upon the house-tops, and especially for the 
 benefit of the multitudes of worshipping listeners, 
 says : " Wives and daughters ! thou shalt not par- 
 ticipate in neither of the brave-and-dare vocations 
 proper alone to man. Behold ! the gulf between the 
 sphere and labors of woman and the sphere and labors 
 of man, is impassable. You must be self-indulgent 
 and proned to luxury, and devoted to the cultivation 
 
 CULTIVATING A TASTB FOB DISPLAY. 
 
 of those delicate arts and winuing ways by which rude 
 man, self-denying and inured to hardship, is easily led 
 and beneficially governed." 
 
 The fiat has gone forth ! Henceforth your wives and 
 daughters must unquestioningly obey. Behold tho 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 35 
 
 fruits thereof! They are forthwith beautifully helpless 
 and full of demand. They will do nothing practically 
 to enrich themselves. They long for the thousand and 
 one pretty ornaments and magnificent dresses of the 
 reigning fashion ; for the feathers and laces and ribbons 
 and curls ; and for the artificial flowers and grasshop- 
 pers for head ornaments, — all these crowd into the 
 feminine imagination with aggravating profusion. 
 Meanwhile men's imaginations are exasperatingly 
 wrought up to the problem of supporting all this 
 uncontrollable folly ; to which few of them dare 
 openly oppose their will ; for they, too, are largely 
 involved in the popular magnetism of a despotic, im- 
 placable, and diabolizing fashion. Thus the boys and 
 men give their time to machinery and to the mulplica- 
 tion of world-subduing inventions ; while the girls and 
 women are passing their time in constructing the home- 
 beauties, and in multiplying the manifold fleeting 
 attractions of personal exist- 
 ence. 4&P^ 
 
 By this false state is estab- 
 lished that modern absurdity, 
 known as a fashionable parlor, 
 which leads one to ask : " How 
 many people do we call on 
 from year to year, and know 
 no more of their feelings, habits, tastes, family 
 
 GIRLS MUST GROW LIKE THE 
 DAISIES. 
 
36 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 ideas and waj T s, than if they lived in Kamtschatka? 
 And why ? Because the room which they call a 
 front parlor is made expressly so that you shall 
 not know. They sit in a back room — work, talk, 
 read perhaps. After the servant has let you in and 
 opened a crack in the shutters, and while you sit 
 waiting for them to change their dress and come in, 
 you speculate as to what they may be doing. From 
 some distant region the laugh of a child, the song of a 
 canary bird, reaches you, and then a door claps hastily 
 to. Do they love plants ? Do they write letters, sew, 
 embroider, crochet ? Do they ever romp and frolic ? 
 What books do they read % Do they sketch or paint ? 
 Of all these possibilities a mute and muffled room says 
 nothing. ... A sofa, six chairs, two ottomans, fresh 
 from the upholsterer's, a Brussels carpet, a centre 
 table, with four gilt books of beauty on it, a mantel 
 clock from Paris, two bronze vases — all these tell you 
 only in frigid tones : ' This is the best room,' — only 
 that and nothing more : and soon she trips in in her 
 best clothes, and apologizes for keeping you waiting, 
 asks you how your mother is, and you remark that it 
 is a pleasant day, and thus the acquaintance progresses 
 from year to year." 
 
 The mind and its affections grow to resemble in 
 shape and feeling that upon which they constantly feed ; 
 and from the structure and affections of the mind 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 
 
 37 
 
 we derive and establish u character." Men, for exam- 
 ple, think and work upon the world's dry hard facts ; 
 and thus men's characters and dispositions become dry 
 and severe. Women of fashion, on the contrary, with 
 a devotion and perseverance worthy of a better cause, 
 are meanwhile reading the sweet nothings of literature, 
 or listlessly sleeping the pleasant hoars away among 
 flowers, and their characters exactly correspond to 
 their mode of life. 
 
 GIRLS AND BOYS SOSIETLSIES WORK TOGETHER. 
 
 It is recorded that one of the curiosities that is con- 
 tinually presenting itself to the census-taker is the 
 large number of young women who are found listlessly 
 dawdling about houses, poring over the la^t new 
 novel, or thrumming Offenbachian melodies on patient 
 pianos, and this too often in poor families, where the 
 
38 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 mother is busy with the manifold cases of household 
 duties, which could be materially lightened by the 
 assistance of her daughters. 
 
 Testimony by a woman, which fully justifies the 
 strength of the charge herein made, is undisguisedly 
 thus : " In the nursery the mother is called upon to 
 set forward the same injustice which presided over 
 her own education. * Preaching down a daughter's 
 heart,' the beautiful phrase of Tennyson, becomes the 
 duty of every woman who finds in her daughter 
 saliency of intellect and individuality of will. Medi- 
 ocrity is the standard ! ' Seek not, my child, to go 
 
 EMBLEMS OE FASHIONABLE EMOTIONS. 
 
 bej^ond it. Thou hast thy little allotments. The 
 French must be thy classics, the house accounts thy 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 39 
 
 mathematics. Patchwork, cooking, and sweeping thy 
 mechanics ; dress and embroidery thy fine arts. See 
 how small the sphere. Do not venture outside of it, 
 nor teach thy daughters, when thou shalt have such, 
 to do so. 5 And so we women, from generation to 
 generation, are drilled to be the apes of an artificial 
 standard, made for us and imposed upon us by an out- 
 sider ; a being who, in this attitude, becomes our 
 natural enemy." 
 
 Thus the difference in the conduct of life between 
 men and women in popular society, is founded in the 
 difference established through their unjust education 
 and dissimilar habits. Inasmuch as men and women 
 are derived from the same fountain of divine life, are 
 compounded of identical elements, and have a common 
 destiny in the grand progressive career of eternity ; 
 therefore they should learn at once, and practically, 
 to make less educational difference on account of sex 
 in their tastes, professions, interests, duties, labors, and 
 emoluments. 
 
 There is an unfathomable fit of injustice in that 
 social structure which makes labors, rewards, pleas- 
 ures, vices, crimes, and the enactment and enforcement 
 of laws, turn upon the shallow question of sex. Any 
 theory of life, religion, or government, which un- 
 balances the divine equilibrium of Justice, in effect 
 evolves and confirms a wicked warfare between men 
 
40 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 and women, and should be consigned with the popular 
 theology to the pit of oblivion. It establishes a 
 
 EVERT WIFE, AND ESPECIALLY EVERY MOTHER, IS ENTITLED TO A M HOME " 
 (FREE OF ALL DEBTS AND DEMANDS). 
 
 wicked antagonism between the two sides of the 
 human universe. 
 
 The inculcations of this chapter are easily summed 
 up : Let your boys and girls run out into the beautiful 
 world, and let them grow as they play together ; for 
 very soon, as men and women, they will together lay 
 the foundations of future families, societies, states, and 
 nations. 
 
 Babyhood first, then childhood, next youth, and 
 then, O how quickly, in this whirling world ! — come 
 womanhood and manhood ; lastly, old age, and then — ■ 
 
MOTHER NATURE'S DARLINGS. 41 
 
 by the revolution of time's wheel — a certificate from 
 earth's school-masters, entitling the bearer to a full 
 College-course in some of the many mansions " not 
 made with hands/' 
 
 Forever let Love's scepter remain in the soft, 
 honest, kiugly right hand of Wisdom. Infinitely fairer 
 and higher will grow the world — less thorny and bit- 
 ter, less cold and desolate, less miserable and unjust, 
 will seem our pathway — if men, instead of perpetuat- 
 ing the errors and cherishing the superstitions of a 
 former age, would obey the voice of God, speaking 
 infallibly through the mouth of our universal loving 
 mother Xature. 
 
III. 
 
 The Solitude of Animal Life. 
 
 IT must be remembered that plants, in all their vast 
 varieties, are only parts of animals ; that animals 
 are only parts of human organizations ; and that the 
 all-embracing perfection of the human structure com- 
 pletes and coronates the eternal mountains of life. 
 
 Like all incomplete forms of life and animation, 
 however, these manifold fragments of the one growing 
 organism, are happily unconscious of their own incom- 
 pleteness. In themselves, and when not contrasted 
 with man's microcosmic structure and transcendent 
 mental endowments, all the plants and animals are 
 
SOLITUDE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 43 
 
 perfect, and, of course, possess no per se consciousness 
 of individual imperfection. 
 
 The surpassing beauty and sympathetic wisdom 
 manifested in all these kingdoms of Nature cannot 
 but unfold in man holy meditations of Deity. 
 
 But owing to the innate imperfections — the intrin- 
 sically partial instinctiveness and automatic imbecil- 
 ities of the animal's heart and intellect, its life must be 
 essentially solitary. The profound abysses of seas and 
 oceans — the dreary wastes of swampy wildernesses — 
 the lonely caves hidden in the dark bosoms of great 
 mountains slumbering in the unexplored hearts of con- 
 tinents — these are the homes of hundreds of thousands 
 of animals ! 
 
 What can be more overcharged with loneliness 
 than the life of an ignorant man ? What solitude is 
 profounder than the cheerless, obscure, deeply-shaded 
 brain of an idiotic human mind ? " The foxes have 
 holes " in the mountains of solitude ; and the " birds 
 of the air have nests " in the sacred stillness of the 
 forest ; but widely over them all, as 
 upon all the kingdoms below the 
 human, hangs and broods the affec- 
 tionate and solitary night of imper- 
 fection. 
 
 Everywhere around man are affec- 
 N0 ™ ain™ 3 IN tionately living and dependency clus- 
 
u 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 tering millions upon millions of objects — little beings, 
 below man's estate, manifesting wondrous beauty of 
 structure and incomparable wisdom — existing in ser- 
 vant-states of subordination, each inspired with the 
 holy mission of feeding upon, refining, and lifting 
 lower and gross atoms of matter, so that such atoms 
 can feed and fellowship with the sovereign needs of 
 the crowning human kingdom. 
 
 Apparatus upon apparatus exists _r 
 
 in full action — the steady- grinding 
 mills of God — animated by and obe- 
 dient to the infinite law of Progress. 
 These living mills — the bees, bugs, 
 reptiles, rats, creeping things, vines, 
 plants, insects, birds, slugs, worms, 
 weevil — are hard at work, both day and night, in 
 order to receive and advance grossest particles for 
 the nourishment and development of mankind. 
 
 GREAT WORKERS IN 
 THE WOODS. 
 
 LITTLE MILLS FOR REFINING GROSS MATTER. 
 
 And these refining organized mills — these infinitely 
 diversified and w r ondrously beautiful little creatures — 
 live in the great solitudes of the globe ; in the in- 
 
SOLITUDE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 45 
 
 accessible fortresses of rocks, in the watery deeps of 
 great rivers, in the hiding places of the boundless 
 fields, and everywhere, in the countless dark retire- 
 ments, throughout the wide extents of nature. And I 
 think it is well worth remembering that there are no 
 artificial contrivances, no instruments or mills invented 
 by man, which can be compared, either as to the 
 amount or the perfection of the labor performed, with 
 the results of the incessant industry of the plants and 
 animal organisms in Nature's magnificent workshops. 
 
 BIRDS LIVE TOR THE GOOD OF THE WHOLE. 
 
 The holy affectionateness manifested by birds should 
 beneficially impress every true mind. My admiration 
 is challenged, as much as my heart is impressed to 
 worship, when I see the beauty and hear the early 
 songs of birds. They are our great Mother's " wander- 
 ing minstrels,' 1 who, like angel-pioneers, explore the 
 solitudes of the world, and then bashfully shrink from 
 observation within the starry temple of night. 
 
46 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Birds are forms of affection. They are, therefore, 
 extremely impressible and impulsive, and are in- 
 fluenced by very fine and imperceptible circumstances. 
 They sing their truest songs — that is, their vocaliza- 
 tions are most spontaneous and musically freighted — 
 when electrical " conditions " of the hour are balanced 
 and harmonious. If the morning light and after sun 
 shine are just right — if the shrubs and vines along the 
 walls are truly graceful and poetical — if the cloudy 
 sky does not cast a too deep shade upon orchards and 
 verges of forests — then, on that day, you may expect 
 some great music from robins, bobolinks, song-spar- 
 rows, linnets, and meadow-larks. 
 
 The sounds of birds express feelings and emotions ; 
 not thoughts and wishes, which imply reflection. 
 They embody in their songs the sensations of love-laden 
 bosoms ; which are sometimes happy, sometimes fear- 
 ful, sometimes angry, sometimes coquettish, sometimes 
 filled with aversion, sometimes overflowing with fond- 
 ness and joy ; thus resembling, rudimentally and 
 germinally, the higher human heart when not gov- 
 erned by reflection and wisdom. 
 
 What must we think of that boy who could de- 
 liberately shoot or stone the world's loving minstrels ? 
 Behold the wonderfully beautiful nest of a brooding 
 bird ! With what unutterable aversion must we 
 regard a boy who could deliberately climb a tree 
 
SOLITUDE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 47 
 
 PUNISHMENT OP A NEST-ROBBER. 
 
 in order to frighten away the motherly brooding 
 
 bird, and then 
 steal the suppli- 
 cating and de- 
 pendent little 
 ones which con- 
 tain her heart's 
 warm love and 
 beauty ? 
 
 Remember, 
 ye robbers and 
 despoil ers of the 
 weak and inno- 
 cent ! — remem- 
 ber that the sleepless justice, not less than the sustain- 
 ing love, of the Unchangeable Spirit lives and rules in 
 the life of the tiny plant and in the smallest animal of 
 the globe ; and, likewise, remember that whatsoever 
 " ye do to the least of these my little ones," is done hy 
 you against the divine law of your immortal life / and 
 the consequence is, that by the inflexible and unavoida- 
 ble judgment meted out by the just laws of that 
 eternal life, your punishment and your mortification, 
 for every kind and shade of offence, will be absolutely 
 certain — either in some day in this world, or in some 
 one of your countless estates in the great infinity into 
 which you are perpetually travelling. 
 
48 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 There is, however, another side to our charitable 
 estimate of the beautiful uses of bugs, slugs, grubs, 
 flies, insects, worms, weevil, lice, mice, midge, &c. ; 
 which is, that they exist, in connection with man's 
 dealings with himself and the globe, as the legitimate 
 effects of such avoidable causes and conditions as filth, 
 abuse, exhaustion, devastation, and slovenly habits. 
 
 ANIMATED MILLS AT WORK IN THE WILDWOOD. 
 
 Hence a truly advanced and spiritualized state in 
 our common humanity — manifested in cleanliness in 
 mental and bodily life, and in refinements and purifica- 
 tions extended throughout the gardenized fields and 
 fertilized farms — will destroy these innumerable ad- 
 versaries to man's comfort, respectability, and pros- 
 perity. 
 
 The millions upon millions of dollars lost, by the 
 ravages of various prowling birds and hungry insects, 
 are legitimate punishments for neglect, abuse, outrages, 
 or inexcusable ignorance. Of course, when the little 
 
SOLITUDE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 49 
 
 legitimate workers come — when caterpillars, worms, 
 grasshoppers, and lice arrive in vast hosts in order to 
 help on the work of the globe's refinement, which man 
 should have prevented by his superior wisdom and 
 industry — yes ! when the innumerable little u mills of 
 God " have come — crawling upon their white bellies, 
 running upon their many legs, flying upon the millions 
 of hot-sounding wings, boring with their sharp horns, 
 biting with their needle-teeth — yes, O man ! when 
 these friends come, thou should'st be very kind to them 
 in your great sorrow, and should'st learn wisdom amid 
 the surrounding devastations. 
 
 Birds, let it be remembered, are the great field- 
 allies and inseparable friends of mankind. They in- 
 stinctively aid man in the destruction of his countless 
 enemies, which hide themselves in the cellars of trees 
 and plants, and in the germ-grains of the harvest- 
 fields. Therefore, he who destroys these feathered 
 sentinels is inflicting vast and irreparable losses upon 
 the agriculturalists and fruit-growers ; to say nothing 
 of the wrong done to the thousands of poor families 
 who depend upon the crops for the means of life. 
 
 One mill of organized life feeds upon another ; so 
 all the wheels turn ; and every hopper grinds out its 
 allotted grist. Although it is true that worms, wee- 
 vil, lice, flies, and bugs arise from the grossest condi- 
 tions of material imperfection — and from human 
 4 
 
50 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 ignorance, human filth, human abuses, and human 
 vagabondage ; yet, intimately associated with them, 
 there also come great swarms and flocks of hungry 
 workers (the various insect-eating birds of the air), 
 which " mean business," and which at once set about 
 helping man to clean up his dirty ways, and thus to 
 purify his miserable life. Yes, these same mice, lice, 
 grasshoppers, &c, which come like a mighty army of 
 Goths and Yandals — ruthless invaders of man's fields 
 and habitations — are only so many crude immigrants, 
 great laborers and indispensable " field-hands," — come 
 out of imperfection to make perfection come. 
 
 The supreme law of kindness 
 and love, which is justice, should 
 govern man in all his relations 
 and intercourse with his subor- 
 dinates and servants in the 
 floods and fields of existence. the night-hawk works 
 
 WHILE YOU SLEEP. 
 
 When first I arrived at the 
 great knowledge that all minerals and plants, all vege- 
 tables and vines, all flowers and fruits, — in a word, that 
 all the millions upon millions of moving and feeling 
 creatures which abound in the animal world, had 
 existed and were existing for the benign general pur- 
 pose of unfolding and sustaining man's organization — ■• 
 when I arrived at this knowledge, then my heart, all 
 at once enlarged and sanctified by its new universal 
 
SOLITUDE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 51 
 
 ONE OF NATURE'S HIGH 
 PRIESTS. 
 
 sympathy with every living 
 thing, grew inexpressibly tender 
 and bountiful to all the breath- 
 ing world. The sublime solitudes 
 and sweet companionships of 
 affection encompassed and un- 
 folded my spirit. Not again 
 could I willingly divide flesh 
 from its life by instruments of 
 torture. With appalling thoughts 
 I recalled the acts of my 
 gentlemen acquaintances — 
 the effects of murderous 
 rifles even in the white 
 hands of adventurous young 
 women — away in the soli- 
 tudes of the wilderness, 
 hunting the fish, the wild 
 birds, and chasing and cap- 
 turing the pleading, suppli- 
 cating deer! How little can 
 such hunters really know, and 
 Low much less must they real- 
 ly allow themselves to feel, 
 concerning the exquisite har 
 mony and sympathy mani 
 fested by the Eternal Heart in 
 
 BEAUTIFUL IN THE WOOD AND 
 GLEN. 
 
 SINGING THE SONG OF PRO- 
 GRESS. 
 
52 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 the living things of nature ! Universal culture will 
 bring an era of universal tenderness. 
 
 Nothing can be more 
 shallow and garrulous than 
 wild fowls and the "game 
 of life " in the great re- 
 treats of meadow and wil- 
 derness. The babbling 
 tongue of purling streams 
 
 SOLITARY AMONG THE REEDS AND 
 EDDIES. 
 
 is not friendlier nor more childish- 
 ly chatty in conversation. Gre- 
 garious and familiar, in their asso- 
 ciations, are the original tenants of 
 fields and floods and forests; yet, 
 compared with what there is in 
 man's kingdom, to know and to en- 
 joy, how inexpressibly lonely and 
 poor are the servants in the im- 
 mense cellars and dungeon-kitchens 
 of the great earth ! 
 
 The great round world — which 
 has a great heart, pure and modest, 
 and charged with finely-shaded secrets, and with pri- 
 vacies of great richness, never yet exposed to un- 
 worthy eyes — -this great world is man's schoolhouse, 
 his 'home for a^tiine, and his vast machine-shop. His 
 mental sagacity and manual skill are coin :i)ensur ate 
 
 SOCIAL SOUNDS OF WILD 
 CORN. 
 
SOLITUDE OF ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 53 
 
 '_r0^£*±~-2^. - 
 
 USEFUL, BUT NOT A CEL- 
 EBRATED SINGER, 
 
 with the good use lie makes of 
 his surrounding opportunities. A 
 whole world of truth lies concealed 
 within the simple exterior of a 
 garden-plant. Not only love and 
 sympathy, not only wisdom in its 
 manifold manifestations, not only 
 prophetic animal life and processes 
 emblematic of immortal human 
 progress ; but, yet more, in the 
 simple plant — in the corn, wheat, 
 fruit-trees, vines, and floral 
 growths of garden and field — man 
 may, if his eyes are pure and 
 quite clear, see the very essence 
 of that Divine Spirit by which the 
 universe is unfolded and sustained. 
 If you accept animals as ap- 
 proximate parts of yourself, both 
 physically and mentally, although 
 
 not spiritually, then you are 
 prepared and enkindled enough 
 to accept evidences that ani- 
 mals have parts of human in- 
 telligence and sagacity. With 
 this idea in mind let us proceed 
 
 NATURE PERPETUATES HER- ^ ^ fojfo^g copter. 
 
 man's friend and bene- 
 factor. 
 
IV. 
 
 Indications of Reason in Animals. 
 
 WISDOM, or rather the faculties by which Wis- 
 dom is unfolded, can be made larger and wiser 
 by interrogating " the foolish things of this world." 
 But the cheerful confidence and profound self-conceit 
 of the unwise, who know not their ignorance, is a bar 
 to further investigation and improvement. Having 
 intuitive graspings of a few principles, and realizing 
 the frequent deficiency of book-learned persons in 
 these very intuitions, the unwise are sorely tempted 
 to become elated, pedantic, and self-sufficient. 
 
 " There is," said Ruskin, u in every animal's eye a 
 
REASON IN ANIMALS. 
 
 55 
 
 
 dim foregleam of humanity, a flash of strange light, 
 through which their life looks out and up to our great 
 mystery of command over them, and claims the fel- 
 lowship of the creature if not of the soul." 
 
 Man, in his high and true estate, is the animal's 
 superior both by organization and acquirement. But 
 man inverted, or with his faculties yet slumbering in 
 their easy cerebral beds, is frequently inferior to the 
 animals about him; of which unwelcome proposition 
 let me fortify you with evidence. A noble act per- 
 formed by a dog is 
 thus narrated : 
 
 " My oldest son 
 was crossing the fields 
 in the country, some 
 distance from any 
 dwelling, when he was 
 pursued by a large 
 and fierce dog belong- 
 ing to the gentleman 
 whose land he was 
 crossing. The lad was 
 alarmed, and ran for 
 his life. He struck 
 into a piece of woods, 
 and the dog gained 
 
 EVERT DOG IS ENTITLED TO HIS DAT. lip Oil Him, WUCn D.G 
 
56 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 looked around to see how near the creature was, and 
 tumbling over a stone, he pitched off a precipice and 
 broke his leg. Unable to move, and at the mercy of 
 the beast, the poor fellow saw the dog coining down 
 upon him, and expected to be seized and torn ; when, 
 to his surprise, the dog came near and perceiving the 
 boy w r as hurt, he instantly wheeled about and went off 
 for aid which he could not render himself. There was 
 no one within reach of the child's voice, and he must 
 have perished there, or dragged his broken limb along, 
 and destroyed it so as to render amputation necessary, 
 if the dog did not bring him help. He held up his 
 leg, and it hung at a right angle, showing him plainly 
 the nature of his misfortune, and the necessity of lying 
 still. The dog went off to the nearest house and 
 barked for help. Unable to arrest attention, he made 
 another visit of sympathy to the boy, and then ran to 
 the house, there making such demonstrations of anxiety, 
 that the family followed him to the place where the 
 child lay. Now observe that this dog was pursuing 
 this boy, as an enemy ; but the moment he saw his 
 enemy prostrate and in distress, his rage was turned 
 to pity, and he flew to his relief. Here was true feel- 
 ing, and the course he pursued showed good judgment. 
 He was a dog of heart and head. Very few men, not 
 all Christians, help their enemies when they fall. 
 This dog was better than many men who claim to be 
 
REASON IN ANIMALS. 
 
 57 
 
 good men. I do not say that he reasoned in this mat- 
 ter ; but there is something in his conduct on this 
 occasion that looks so much like the right kind of feel- 
 ing and action, that I think it deserves to be recorded 
 to his credit. As few dogs will read the record, I 
 commend the example to all mankind for their imita- 
 tion." 
 
 AFFECTION AMONG DOMESTIC FOWLS. 
 
 A story of some little chickens is thus pleasantly 
 told by a correspondent of the American Scotchman : 
 " Not long ago we received from England a pair of 
 very handsome fowls of a superior breed, of which we 
 took considerable care. The spring of the year being 
 very wet and cold, we were unfortunate with the first 
 brood, saving only one chicken. Shortly afterward, 
 however, our hen had another brood of fine chickens, 
 
58 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 to which she was remarkably attentive ; and when 
 they were only a few days old, they were going into a 
 clover-field near the house; it being a very stormy 
 day, the gate blew down, and unluckily fell on our 
 hen and her little ' chicks. 5 We hurried to release 
 them, and were soon at hand ; but we found to our 
 sorrow, that our favorite hen and several of the little 
 chickens were killed, leaving five of them still alive 
 and unhurt under her wings. Those we at once placed 
 by themselves in a coop. Our little girl, then, brought 
 the chicken from the first brood, and put it along as 
 company for the night with the little ones. Early next 
 morning, we went to see how the little family were 
 getting along. We were very much surprised to find 
 tie little chicken, which was placed with them, acting 
 the part of mother ! There she was, with a very 
 peculiar chuck, tending and feeding them ; not a bit 
 would she eat until the little ones were satisfied first ! 
 The affair became quite interesting, and was looked 
 upon as a great curiosity. Many an hour was spent 
 by our neighbors, as well as ourselves, in watching 
 them ; it was so amusing to see the chicken trying to 
 get the little ones under her wings ; this, however, was 
 a little more than she could manage ; but they seemed 
 perfectly happy with their little mother, and for nearly 
 two months got along remarkably well. Unfortunate- 
 ly, what has been to us such a source of pleasure 
 
REASON IN ANIMALS. 
 
 59 
 
 proved too much for the tender little frame of our 
 chicken — she pined away, notwithstanding all the care 
 and attention we could bestow upon her, and our little 
 favorite died ; and when we buried her, it really 
 seemed as if we had lost some kind friend. We could 
 scarcely eat, and, I assure you, that morning there 
 was not a dry eye in our house." 
 
 Domesticated an- 
 imals, especially the 
 dog and the horse, 
 mav be taught to 
 perform " tricks n and 
 to manifest intelli- 
 gence. They, how- 
 
 HOGS AND HENS ARE MILLS FOR REPINING 
 EXCREMENTITIOUS ATOMS. 
 
 edge to their progeny, 
 imals, unlike mankind, are endowed 
 and governed automatically by the 
 laws of immutable instinct. This dif- 
 ference is a gate of iron. 
 
 But the incessant operation of pro- 
 gressive laws, in the realms of matter 
 and in mind, in the course of ages re- 
 
 ever, never seem to 
 intellectually prize 
 what they thus ac- 
 quire, nor do they 
 impart such knowl- 
 as man does ; because an- 
 
 
 THE SOURCE OP OTTB 
 WOOLEN GARMENTS. 
 
60 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 suits in the extinguishment of inferior orders and in the 
 gradual yet certain establishment of perfect types of 
 every kind of life and sensation. 
 
 Some associate with hens and 
 chickens in the very common, yet im- 
 portant mission of eating and refining 
 up the excrementitious and other very 
 gross conditions of matter. When ^j%*0* 
 mankind come to fully understand ^ T S ^, R ^ E ™^ 
 that swine and various breeds of fowls 
 are but automatic gastronomical machines for rooting 
 up and eating, and thus forwarding for the similar use 
 of higher organisms, a great mass of otherwise poison- 
 ous and disgusting material, most people will forthwith 
 cease devouring their flesh as a suitable article of food. 
 
 But, returning to the evidence that animals are but 
 fragments and prophecies of men, we quote the follow- 
 ing from Watson's work on " The Reasoning Power 
 in Animals," who says that horses will not only be- 
 moan lost companions, but sympathize with, and 
 endeavor to relieve, their living associates. 
 
 " A gentleman was one evening in the full enjoy- 
 ment of a pleasant dinner-party, in his own house. 
 It so happened that a glass-door opened from the 
 dining-room upon the lawn. Pushing open this door, 
 a most extraordinary and unbidden visitor entered the 
 room. Starting up, the amazed company beheld a 
 
REASON IN ANIMALS. 61 
 
 quadruped which had never entered that room before. 
 The gentleman advanced, and recognized one of his 
 favorite mares, which, undaunted by the blazing light 
 and the crowding round her of the astonished guests, 
 showed by voice and manner some strange emotion. 
 Her master went up to the animal, which trotted off, 
 uttering a peculiar cry. It was determined to ascer- 
 tain the cause of the mare's strange conduct. She was 
 followed to a field, and the motive for her unwonted 
 behavior was quickly discovered. Her foal had got 
 entangled in bog and briars, and the alarmed mother 
 had adopted this effective mode of obtaining aid." 
 
 A similar incident has been told of a sheep ; in 
 both cases the appeal for human help had a rational 
 motive, and was prosecuted in a rational manner. 
 Some of the ingenious feats of the more clever horses 
 have a close resemblance to human actions. Take the 
 following case, narrated in Mr. Smiles's u Life of 
 Rennie, the Engineer." A horse, called Jack, was one 
 among many employed at the erection of Waterloo 
 bridge. The horse was accustomed to draw the stone 
 trucks along a tramway to the places where the stone 
 was required. A beer-shop was, of course, opened 
 near the works, for the special use of the ' navvies,' 
 and other workmen. The driver of Jack's truck was 
 an honest sort of fellow, named Tom, who had one 
 special weakness — an inability to pass the beer-ahop 
 
62 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 without taking " a little." Jack was so accustomed to 
 this that, though a restive animal, he waited content- 
 edly till Tom came out of his own accord, or till the 
 appearance of an overlooker startled the man into 
 activity. On one occasion, however, when the super- 
 intendents were absent, Tom took so long a spell at the 
 ale that Jack became restive, and the trace-fastenings 
 being long enough, the animal put his head inside the 
 ale-house door, and seizing the astonished Tom by the 
 collar with his teeth, dragged the lazy man out to the 
 ^f^_ _^^ truck. Every man 
 
 _g " } * f "^ v there understood 
 the action of the 
 horse, and great 
 became the fame 
 '' i l t r -;->M- of Jack among the 
 host of workers." 
 
 In the curtained 
 brain and muffled 
 tongue of the an- 
 imal reside the fun- 
 da mentals of hu- 
 man intelligence 
 and speech. No 
 sea - weed floating 
 on the billow, no 
 
 ANIMALS DISLIKE —^O TREAT THEM ^^ ^^ fa^ 
 
REASON IN ANIMALS. 63 
 
 bing through the heart of fish or bird, but works fur 
 and prophesies of man. Lovingly the song of trees, 
 with tongues overflowing with an infinite language, 
 tell man's listening spirit that not a bee, not a fly, not 
 a gnat breathes and burns in vain. 
 
 What would I not give in exchange for the power 
 to put this whole gospel into the warm bosoms of my 
 fellow-men ! Gusts of passion, hail-storms in social 
 life, sword of warrior, thunders of battle, groans of 
 dying men, moanings of animals in death agony — no 
 more of any of this horrible injustice would be pos- 
 sible ! — if I could but breathe into the throbbing 
 hearts of my peers and fellow-pilgrims the everlasting 
 truth concerning the animals who live before, beneath, 
 around, and within us — our small-brained, almost 
 imbecile, helpless, solitary, dependent, ever-faithful 
 relatives, and friends in disguise — most wonderful 
 forces and organizations, existing and laboring inces- 
 santly for the progression of all matter, and for the 
 ultimate perfection of the whole earth. 
 
V. 
 
 Formation of Nationoids in America. 
 
 THE marvellous loveliness and grandeur of the Amer- 
 ican continent, crowned with open and free insti- 
 tutions, attract, among hosts of different natures, the 
 most enterprising representatives of all the races of 
 the globe. Its magnificent mountains, its valleys of 
 fertility and beauty, its wonderfully beautiful rivers, 
 its great chain of lakes, and vast stretches of coast 
 washed by two oceans, its overwhelming expansions of 
 prairie-lands, its incalculable mineral wealth beneath 
 the soil, its countless varieties of vegetation, its elec- 
 trical climates and unrivalled skies, its total and perfect 
 adaptation to the highest and broadest and deepest 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 65 
 
 needs of humanity, constitute a continent destined to 
 
 act magnetically upon the entire populations of the 
 
 earth. It is a hemisphere of beauty and magnificence, of 
 
 dazzling opulence and boundless fertilization, to which 
 
 no description can do justice. It is open and free to 
 
 the world, to which it sends heartiest invitation ; and 
 
 it is, therefore, a land into which the races of the 
 
 world are rushing with the swiftness and power of 
 
 mighty rivers. 
 
 The grand geographical belt of greatest planetary 
 
 development — not many hundreds of miles wide — runs 
 
 straight across the American continent, and proceeds 
 
 westward until it engirdles and clasps itself around 
 
 the globe. In the tides of the atmosphere, which 
 
 covers and corresponds to this geologic boundary of 
 
 maximum fertility, there floats and soars the celestial 
 
 life of the earth. This circulatory life contains the 
 
 germs and causes of the almost infinite possibilities of 
 
 the globe and its inhabitants. It is impossible that 
 
 any thing human should live in America and not be 
 
 more or less a recipient of these atmospheric germs and 
 
 causes. They float and infuse themselves everywhere, 
 
 and enter the lungs and the life, and indistinctly mix 
 
 into the character of every person. It is best to reside 
 
 near the middle of this geologic and atmospheric belt, 
 
 in order to achieve highest intellectual and industrial 
 
 results ; and to this end, also, it is better to exist 
 5 
 
66 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 and strive on the southern rather than upon the north- 
 ern side of it ; on the principle of magnetic emanation, 
 which produces a greater proportion of health and 
 prosperity upon the sides of mountains and in valleys 
 which openly and frankly face the wonderful sun in 
 the heavens. 
 
 All the way round the globe this magnetic and 
 electrical girdle — an ethereal belt which mathemat- 
 ically marks and defines the boundaries between the 
 earth's two wide extremes — shows where the greatest 
 human developments have been, and are at all times 
 possible. All the civilizations, all the arts and sciences, 
 all the best religions, have been unfolded within two 
 parallel lines less than two thousand miles apart. 
 Within these fraternal lines we find the brightest 
 human intellects, the finest inspirations of music, art, 
 and spirituality, and the grandest conquests of inven- 
 tion and labor ; all set in a framework of great natural 
 magnificence and loveliness of scenery, at once a feast 
 to the eye and a gladness to the heart, and constituting 
 a magnet of wonderful attractiveness to all the world 
 besides. The history of mankind's pathway through 
 the fields of its greatest achievements, and a perfect 
 picture of mankind's situation and highest develop- 
 ments at this moment, would in their general features 
 be one and the same — a repetition of the old pioneering, 
 a recitation of the old wars and struggles, a rehearsal 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 67 
 
 of the old dramas and tragedies, a picturing of the old 
 kingdoms and subjective industries — the present differ- 
 ing from the past only in the minor details of new 
 actors, new dresses, new scenery, and new accessories, 
 developing a variety of effects before an audience of 
 new spectators who, for the time being, fancy they 
 are really beholding " something entirely new." 
 
 HU3IAN ROOTS AT THE BOTTOM OF SOCIETY. 
 
 The positive pole of the great magnetic belt of 
 highest fertility, after a lapse of thousands of years, 
 has so revolved and augmented its prolificating quali- 
 ties as to span the American continent. It extends 
 its great magnetic arms lovingly around a portion of 
 Europe, and clasps its hands tenderly over the nations 
 of the slumberous East. But the parallel lines never 
 vary as to their distance from each other, while yet 
 they are never alike in their relative positive and 
 negative polarities, nor in the marvellous effect they 
 
68 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 exert in different parts of the world upon the feelings, 
 propensities, thoughts, industries, and physical and 
 spiritual developments of the races and individuals 
 within their reach. 
 
 FLOWERS AT THE TOP OF SOCIETY WHO CLAIM SUPERIORITY TO THE ROOTS IN 
 THE SOCIAL SOIL. 
 
 Potential causes, which need not here be consid- 
 ered, cooperate with the dynamics of this nation- 
 generating belt. In the track of these causes travel 
 the progressive pioneers, who, in every stage of the 
 world's growth, appear aggressively in advance of 
 peaceful settlements in new countries. These intrepid 
 adventurers encounter manifold dangers from wild 
 animals, from savages, and from an unpropitious 
 climate. They reach down to the deepest roots of 
 society — find native humanoids in every stage of de- 
 velopment — and begin, through evil and through good, 
 to build the foundations of a new nation. Thus the 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 
 
 69 
 
 Mayflower carried the seed-germs of new common- 
 wealths, and her crew began to lay the foundations 
 of a new world upon the immovable basis of " Ply- 
 mouth Rock." They had no knowledge of the objects 
 
 HOMESTEADS OF AMERICAN PIONEERS. 
 
 of beauty or scenes of grandeur which surrounded them 
 upon the immensely vast continent. They did not 
 know that they were the advancing column of an 
 innumerable army drafted out of all nations on the 
 globe. They did not venture even to dream that they 
 were to establish a new country and a new govern- 
 ment that would in time occupy the highest place in 
 the sight and in the faith of all races of men. 
 
 Far from it. On the contrary, the " Pilgrim 
 Fathers," with their superior characteristics for lay- 
 
70 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 ing the foundation of a great national independence, 
 were simply in quest of a place on earth where a Free 
 Bible and a Free Conscience could be forever possessed 
 and enjoyed. This, with comfortable homes and pro- 
 ductive farms, and nothing more ! They had no en- 
 
 A DREAM TOLD BY THE PURITAN MOTHERS TO THE PURITAN FATHERS. 
 
 11 Too Good to be True ! " 
 
 thusiasm ; no dreams of progression. Their dogmatic 
 theology and inflexible morals, their opinionated 
 bigotries and austerities, their contempt for that which 
 is merely beautiful, and their reverence only for the 
 downright useful and hard necessities of a prosaic life 
 — all promising symptoms of powerful attributes of 
 character and conquest — made them practically theo- 
 cratic in their views and administration of government, 
 — to flee from the wrath of which, Roger Williams, 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 
 
 71 
 
 the first great American Baptist, was compelled to 
 seek protection and freedom in the bosom of Prov- 
 idence. 
 
 ^iSS^jlS 
 
 ^ 
 
 PURITANISM ATTEMPTS THE DESTRUCTION OP EVERY OTHER PORM OF 
 INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 In the Puritan stock we find a variety of the 
 hardest and strongest elements. We are interested in 
 it deeply ; because, according to the laws of hereditary 
 transmission of qualities, America is entitled to a great 
 career ; and because, also, there are already signs of 
 the formation of many nationoids upon this magnifi- 
 cent and beautiful continent. 
 
 Inspiration burned and throbbed within the very 
 heart of this new world. Not political, not social, not 
 industrial ; nay, it was a religious cause that brought 
 the Mayflower to Plymouth Pock. The laws and 
 conditions of Truth — inspiration and aspiration of the 
 Eternal Eight — are manifested, first, in Evolution, 
 
72 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 and, second, in Perception. Between the first and the 
 realization of the second whole generations of men 
 may come and go. Two hundred years upon the 
 American soil, and yet it is doubtful whether, even at 
 this day, the Perception of the possibilities embosomed 
 in the Evolution of the Puritan movement by the old 
 world has been reached by any mind. 
 
 In the stock and blood at the bottom of this history 
 — which is the opening chapters of an unparalleled 
 career — we find elements from every advanced nation. 
 German Martin Luther contributed his spiritual 
 supremacy ; Bohemian John Huss donated the exam- 
 ple of his sublime resistance to religious malpractices ; 
 Italian Peter Waldo sent his example of loyalty to 
 primitive religion ; Geneva John Calvin forwarded his 
 invincibilities of doctrine concerning an unchangeable 
 God ; French Huguenots proclaimed their great gospel 
 of religion as a reformer of government ; Scotch Dis- 
 senters contributed their high principles of indepen- 
 dence of God's church ; these elements we find in the 
 compound out of which is being Evolved the great 
 Nationoid, which, after the gestation of many genera- 
 tions, will certainly develop and establish a new type. 
 
 At present we can behold, as a result of the over- 
 flowing immigration and conjugal commingling of 
 English, French, German, Scotch, Irish, Italians, In- 
 dians, Africans, Chinese, &c, a kind of national com- 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 
 
 73 
 
 pound which may with propriety be called American' 
 ode. It is a mixture not yet typical of any thing prom- 
 ising — except to those who live by interior sight — for 
 it is, so to say, the " protoplasm " merely of a future 
 great nation. American characters are now nothing 
 but humanoids ; the dough of humanity before it is 
 fashioned into loaves for the oven. 
 
 It is profitable to remember that it required a hot 
 oven, and a baking period of more than twelve long 
 centuries, to fashion and establish the present English 
 type. Roman, Britain, Saxon, Norman, — all had to 
 contribute to the new formation. A thousand years 
 are consumed in the fires of progress, together with 
 millions upon millions of individual human homes and 
 interests ; and very soon every one forgets the time in 
 the contemplation of the works accomplished. 
 
 AMERICAN COMMERCE BEEORE THE ERA OF RAILROADS. 
 
 The signs of a war of races in America have given 
 place to premonitory symptoms of a wondrous blending 
 of different physiological elements and different social, 
 moral, and intellectual traits into an Americanade ; 
 
74 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 which is filled to the very brim with executive inspira- 
 tions — a compound absolutely dripping over with in- 
 fallible prophecies of a type, which shall be absolutely 
 unlike any thing known either in the old world or new 
 — a type of character which shall bloom with perennial 
 virtues, and bear the fruits of righteousness, progress, 
 liberty, and spirituality. 
 
 A new prob- 
 lem is to be solved 
 in this appointed 
 land of beauty, 
 fertility, and 
 scenic magnifi- 
 cence. It is to be 
 the birth-place of 
 a comprehensive- 
 ly new blending of human with the celestial govern- 
 ments.. The epoch of theology is nearing its end. 
 Carpenters are at work building the cradle of the new 
 uninstitutional Religion. Along with all races meet 
 also all religions. They are to be melted and run to- 
 gether into one conglomerate mass of historic stuff not 
 good for any thing human. A prodigious revolution, 
 a tremendous change in the feelings and thoughts of 
 mankind in America, is inevitable, in both political 
 and ecclesiastical institutions. Creeds cannot with- 
 stand the pulverizing advancement of positive science. 
 
 MECHANICS AND AGRICULTURE GO HAND IN HAND. 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 
 
 75 
 
 Bigotry cannot set back the on-rolling tides of universal 
 Brotherhood. 
 
 RAILROADS AND TELEGRArHS ARE KNITTING TOGETHER THE ENDS OP 
 THE EARTH. 
 
 The nationoidal condition of America, or rather 
 the humanoidal stage of Anglo-Americans, will account 
 for much of popular transgressions of the laws of 
 peace, justice, and wisdom. The bottom laws of 
 society are atrociously violated by both church and 
 government. Native human roots, the Indians, for 
 example, are plowed up and thrown into the sea. 
 Christians, so called, commit this unrivaled iniquity, 
 through the powerful enginery of government, which 
 rests upon the Army and Navy. But the punishment 
 for such transgressions is hastening with lightning 
 speed. Scientific skepticism, under the sanction of 
 highest scholars everv where, is the Nemesis which 
 will crush institutionalized religion into nothingness. 
 
76 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Protestantism may marshal its fixed moralisms, and 
 may concentrate its speculative faith, against Cathol- 
 icism ; and one tribe of prosaic believers, under the 
 flag of the institutionalized Luther, may war with 
 another equally prosaic tribe under the leadership of 
 some other Protestant organization — Arminianism 
 may antagonize with Arianism, and ecclesiastical inay 
 war with liberal Christianity — but, behold ! when the 
 great army of Ideas shall appear upon the field of 
 battle, under the generalship of Philosophy, interpret- 
 ing the positive facts of natural Science, then the days 
 of dogmas are numbered, then the institutions of the 
 so-called Christians, together with the labors of their 
 administrators, heirs, and assigns, who made friends 
 with injustice and with the mammon of unrighteous- 
 ness, shall go down in lamentations to the caves of the 
 mountains, and they shall be swallowed up by the 
 earthquake, and sink forever into the desert valleys 
 of inextinguishable volcanoes. 
 
 But still another struggle is coming ! While the 
 before-mentioned Americanade is being prepared in 
 the matrix of the present humanoidal condition, there 
 is to be a w r ondrous War of Work — a battle between 
 organized Men and organized Money — a strange strug- 
 gle, going forward at the same moment, on both sides 
 of the two great oceans ! For the first time in the 
 history of man, Labor is to become King ! The powers 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 77 
 
 and principalities of his sovereign majesty, Money, 
 will become .subjects of the heaven-ordained Prince, 
 
 TALACE OF A GOOD AND POWERFUL PRINCE. 
 
 who will rule triumphantly throughout both con- 
 tinents. Black, red, yellow, brown, and white men, 
 associated with black, red, yellow, brown, and white 
 women, are to be together educated, and civilized, and 
 organized into Labor Fraternities. 
 
 Labor is just beginning to be intelligent. Free 
 schools bring forth fruits of righteousness. Money is 
 the hereditary King — ruling for thousands of years by 
 undoubted " divine right," like the long procession of 
 princes during the epochs of superstition — but, thank 
 kind Heaven ! the days of Money -monarchy are num- 
 bered, and the kingdom of Industry is about to come on 
 earth, resting upon the everlasting foundation of Just- 
 ice and Love, which are the will of the Infinite. 
 
78 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 The new Prince of righteousness will rule for a 
 period upon the bottom law of all revolutions— by the 
 
 DRILLING SOLDIERS FOR THE COMING STRUGGLE. 
 
 invincible authority of organized Might. Monks and 
 ministers shudder before this approaching crisis — 
 bringing, as they contemplate the prospect, a civiliza- 
 tion without morals and a religion without Christianity. 
 The soldiers of Labor will not bow to institutionalized 
 religion. Neither will they grope in the dark cellars 
 of mere materialistic metaphysics. The free lands of 
 a free country — brimfull of free schools, free bibles, 
 free consciences, free reason, and free labor ! Great 
 means to great ends ! A short, straight road to un- 
 speakable opulence, progress, and happiness. 
 
 There are fathers and mothers, who have been edu- 
 cated to worship at the feet of the Money- Monarch, 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 
 
 79 
 
 FAVORITE THRONE OP THE COMING KING. 
 
 shuddering at the thought of bringing up their chil- 
 dren to Labor. But in spite of church organizations, 
 
 and in opposition 
 to the doomed 
 doctrines of the 
 monks and min- 
 isters, the new 
 civilization must 
 be born. Lecky, 
 in his masterly 
 " History of Eu- 
 ropean Morals," 
 after much analytical research, says that u the civiliza- 
 tion of the last three centuries has risen in most 
 respects to a higher level than any that had preceded 
 it. Mechanical invention, habits of industry, the dis- 
 coveries of physical science, the improvements of gov- 
 ernment, the traditions of Pagan antiquity, have all a 
 distinguishing place, while the more fully its history 
 is investigated the more clearly two capital truths are 
 disclosed. The first is that the influence of theology 
 having for centuries paralyzed the whole intellect of 
 Christian Europe, the revival which forms the starting 
 point of our modern civilization was mainly due to 
 the fact that two spheres of intellect still remained un- 
 controlled by the sceptre of Catholicism. The Pagan 
 literature of antiquity, and the Mohammedan schools 
 
80 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 of science were the chief agencies in resuscitating the 
 dormant energies of Christendom. The second fact 
 is, that during more than three centuries the decadence 
 of theological influence has been one of the most in- 
 variable signs and measures of our progress. In medi- 
 cine, physical science, commercial interests, politics, 
 and even in ethics, the reformer has been confronted 
 with theological affirmations which barred his way, 
 which were all defended as of vital importance, and 
 were all in turn compelled to yield before the secu- 
 larizing influence of civilization." , 
 
 In the composition of the nationoid, which is being 
 rapidly developed at this moment in America, the 
 Religion of Justice will appear like an angel of uni- 
 versal salvation. 
 
 After the War of Work is over, after Men shall be 
 exalted above the highest place ever occupied by 
 Money, after many ecclesiastical authorities shall have 
 their offices filled by everlasting principles of Truth, 
 then will there be seen a peaceful light shining from a 
 realm beyond the clouds of battle ; then will come to 
 all men titles to a Land higher than the highest of 
 earthly aspirations ; then all eyes will behold softer 
 skies bending tenderly over objects of celestial beauty ; 
 then will our astronomers discover galaxies of stars 
 beaming divinely upon scenes of loveliness unknown 
 to earth ; then will humanity be filled with a grand 
 
NATIONOIDS IN AMERICA. 81 
 
 joy, surpassing all speech, defining mankind's relations 
 to one another and to the Infinite government, and 
 bestowing every mind with the sublime knowledge 
 that a higher, truer, more worthy existence is the in- 
 heritance of every thing human. 
 
VI. 
 
 The Wisdom of Getting Knowledge. 
 
 THERE are in every community two opposing types 
 of character ; which, because of their dissimilarity, 
 may be classified as : (1) The Originals, and, (2) The 
 Civilized. 
 
 To the Originals all serious books, all routine re- 
 straints, all aristocratic respectabilities, all artificial 
 methods of education, are unspeakably repulsive and 
 unnatural. Instead, they choose to give unrestrained 
 gratification to the wild energy of their own wild 
 powers ; to lead a life of apparent ignorance and 
 worthlessness ; or, as many wisely do, choose a trade 
 
wisimM of getting KNOWLEDGE. 83 
 
 or some pursuit, independently of the schools, and 
 often in defiance of prevailing standards of popularity. 
 The Civilizees, on the contrary, with all their 
 aristocratic connections and with all their hereditary 
 respectabilities, naturally and pleasantly take to popu- 
 lar methods; - They become noted and gifted as intel- 
 lectual book-worms ; they discourse agreeable music ; 
 they glibly talk in unknown tongues ; and, at last, 
 they begin to fancy themselv r es a superior race of 
 mortals. 
 
 " With finger-tip he condescends 
 To touch the fingers of his friends, 
 As if he feared their palms might brand 
 Some moial stigma on his hand." 
 
 : h ■'•■ j 
 
 Originals, who kre sometimes inspirational " gen- 
 iuses," are frequently the world's greatest heroes, its 
 pioneers, its conquerors, and its martyrs ; while Civil- 
 izees are as frequently the world's greatest impedi- 
 ments, its cowards, its law-makers, and its inquisitors. 
 Originals are also capable of being the solid and 
 solemn bores of society ; while Givilizees are invariably 
 its ornamental air-holes and accredited ministers. 
 Originals begin at the roots of things ; they eat heart- 
 ily and drink themselves drunk with first meanings ; . 
 while the Civilizee concerns himself only and daintily 
 with results. The first lives in immediate communica- 
 
84 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 tion with the forces and objects of nature ; the second 
 takes advantage of centuries of " experience," and 
 feeds his fastidious wants from the great discoveries 
 and inventions in the sciences — astronomy, geology, 
 medicine, mechanics, the industrial and the fine arts. 
 
 By slow degrees the Original learns the rudiments 
 of astronomy ; how the starry bodies change with the 
 seasons ; how the rain and the shine of the sun affect 
 the germination and development of vegetation ; and 
 the heavenly lights become points on the brilliant face 
 of his chronometer ; while the Civilizee saves himself 
 the trouble of observation by carrying a watch ; by 
 buying an almanac, a book on flowers and agriculture, 
 and reading the outlines of popular astronomy. And 
 thus, in the course of generations, along with intellect- 
 ual culture comes a weak and superficial multitude, 
 making a new stock of Originals absolutely essential 
 to further progress. 
 
 These inevitable Originals, in their countless crudi- 
 ties and by their barbarian disregard for all the kid- 
 glove-and- sugar-tong proprieties, appear frequently 
 like mountebanks, false prophets, and quacks. But 
 this, for the most part, is an appearance only. They 
 reject with scorn the accumulations of book-knowledge, 
 and set out resolutely to dig for the roots of things ; 
 they have a powerful gravitation toward the founda- 
 tions and essentials of knowledge. 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 85 
 
 Thus human nature, ever and anon, reasserts itself. 
 Through a thousand palpable blunders, through hun- 
 dreds of assumptions and egotistic assertions, the Ori- 
 ginal strikes the key-note of a new departure. .The 
 first medicine-men were shepherds, who observed the 
 habits of diseased animals among herbs and roots of 
 the fields ; the first physiologists were the sacrificing 
 priests, who observed the conditions of the organs of 
 the slaughtered animals ; the first real astronomers 
 were the outcast soothsayers and reputed charlatan 
 astrologers of the most ancient tribes of mankind. 
 Said James Martineau : " The first party of painted 
 savages, who raised a few huts upon the Thames, did 
 not dream of the London they were creating, or know 
 that in lighting the fire on their hearth they were 
 creating one of the great foci of Time." Those painted 
 savages were Originals ; they laid the broad founda- 
 tions of the subsequent civilizations. " All the grand 
 agencies which the progress of mankind evolves are 
 formed in the same unconscious way. They are the 
 aggregate result of countless single wills, each of 
 which, thinking merely of its own end, and perhaps 
 fully gaining it, is at the same time enlisted by Provi- 
 dence in the secret service of the world." 
 
 We ought by this time, I think, to demand a type 
 of character superior to either now known — a type 
 founded and unfolded upon harmonial principles ; in 
 
86 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 which Originality is essential, with its inspirable 
 spiritual susceptibilities, and with its great automatic 
 working energies — a type, in which there is an irre- 
 sistible flow toward a loftier Civilization, through the 
 medium of inventions and the arts— a type with its 
 great powers scientifically and gracefully educated — 
 in shortest phrase, a type, in which both the best 
 material and the best spiritual meet and bloom into 
 personal harmony, manifested in society through a 
 healthy will and worthy works, endowed with abilities 
 adequate to comprehend and help forward the higher 
 ends and purposes of the present grand world. 
 
 MAGICIANS CHANGING IRON INTO FORMS OF USE. 
 
 A better type of character will come, I am im- 
 pressed, with a truer, more natural system of educa- 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 87 
 
 tion. But in the present volume this truer educational 
 system must not be particularly explained. 
 
 Brazen boastfulness, flippant irreverence, and out- 
 rageous effrontery, combined with great natural abili- 
 ties and industry, sometimes characterize strong, inde- 
 pendent, original minds ; while, on the contrary, the 
 book-made and scholastically disciplined minds, regu- 
 lated by the graceful laws and brilliant accomplish- 
 ments of education, habitually exhibit nobler traits and 
 address themselves to more agreeable qualities in their 
 fellow-men. 
 
 What, let me ask, is the essential difference between 
 these two apparently antagonistic characters ? The 
 difference, I think, is not essential. In simple truth, 
 the difference is best illustrated by two equally good 
 dwellings: the one painted, pictured, carpeted, and 
 furnished ; the other left destitute of these attractions 
 and advantages, neglected by every fine art, since the 
 day it was pronounced " finished " by the architect ; 
 or the same as the difference between two fruit-trees 
 — the one left to grow and bear as best it can in its 
 native, original wildness ; the other trimmed and fed 
 and cultivated by a scientific and purely conscientious 
 pomologist. 
 
 " I consider a human soul," said Addison, " without 
 education, like marble in the quarry : which shows 
 none of its inherent beauties, until the skill of the pol- 
 
88 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 isher fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, 
 and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein, 
 that runs through the body of it. Education, after 
 the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, 
 draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, 
 which, without such helps, are never able to make 
 their appearance. 
 
 " If my reader will give me leave to change the 
 allusion so soon upon him, I shall make use of the 
 same instance to illustrate the force of education, 
 which Aristotle has brought to explain his doctrine of 
 substantial forms, when he tells us that a statue lies 
 hid in a block of marble ; and that the art of the stat- 
 uary only clears away the superfluous matter and 
 removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone, and 
 the sculptor only finds it. 
 
 u What sculpture is to a block of marble, education 
 is to a. human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the 
 hero, the wise, the good, or the great man, very often 
 lies hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper 
 education might have disinterred and brought to light. 
 I am, therefore, much delighted with reading the 
 accouuts of savage nations ; and with contemplating 
 those virtues which are wild and uncultivated : to see 
 courage exerting itself in fierceness, resolution in ob- 
 stinacy, wisdom in cunning, patience in sullenness 
 and despair. . . t To return to our statue in the block 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 89 
 
 of marble, we see it sometimes only begun to be 
 chipped, sometimes rough hewn, and but just sketched 
 into a human figure ; sometimes, we see the man ap- 
 pearing distinctly in all his limbs and features ; some- 
 times, we find the figure wrought up to great elegancy ; 
 but seldom meet with any to which the hand of a Phi- 
 dias or a Praxiteles could not give several nice touches 
 and finishings." 
 
 Education, therefore, when it is absolutely true — 
 when it is grounded in the mental susceptibilities, 
 and conducted scientifically, with philosophical fitness 
 to the limitations of the pupil's mental constitution — 
 when the range and variety of lessons coincide with the 
 range and variety of the natural powers, and not, as 
 in popular establishments, be multiplied and hastened 
 in proportion to the capacity and retentiveness of the 
 Memory and the culpable ambition of parents — then, in 
 very truth, education is a blessing beyond all speech, 
 because it is indispensable to individual success in this 
 life, to say nothing of the solid happiness and progress 
 to the spirit which true education, like a good angel, 
 brings to the throne of the intellectual and moral powers. 
 
 A chapter on the philosophy of education is not 
 appropriate in these pages ; inasmuch as this book is 
 designed as a vestibule, with entertaining nooks and 
 ravines, and instructive, talkative streams flowing 
 through, opening upon something still better within 
 
90 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 the temple ; and yet, just here, let me express my im- 
 pression, in brief, that Education, when true and 
 genuine, is acquired with delight and joy, on the law 
 of recurrence or repetition. The faculties of thought, 
 like the hands and feet, become truly educated by 
 means of frequently circling repetitions of ideas, apti- 
 tudes, actions, and conditions. Acquisition, in other 
 terms, is an effect of repetition, upon the principle that 
 " habit becomes second nature." 
 
 The Rights of Childhood must be recognized and 
 respected by parents, guardians, and teachers ; quite 
 as much, in justice, as the Duties of Childhood, which, 
 also, must be early inculcated and steadily enforced. 
 
 A few propositions may induce thoughtful and 
 earnest investigation, and may result in wise action, 
 not less, concerning, 1. The borning ; 2. The treat- 
 ment ; and, 3. The training of children. All parents, 
 the rich and the poor alike, should, because they can, 
 recognize and fulfil the following, as their Children's 
 Bill of Rights : 
 
 First A healthy physical and mental organiza- 
 tion from birth ; thus, by the law of hereditary trans- 
 mission, anticipating the fallacious " regeneration " 
 inculcated by religious schemes. 
 
 Second. A rational physical and mental educa- 
 tion, both at school and in the home ; thus, by the law 
 of progressive development, giving the child a fortune 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 91 
 
 infinitely richer and more substantial than untold 
 millions of gold and silver. 
 
 ?S38?S 
 
 A FATHER ENCOURAGING HIS SON TO ATTEND SCHOOL. 
 
 One bottom-truth must be learned by parents and 
 acted upon, to wit : Perfect and most expensive 
 schools, and wisest and most honored teachers, cannot 
 undo the evils imparted to children in homes where 
 the corrective influences of justice and kindness are 
 disregarded, and where the fundamental laws of phys- 
 ical health and mental growth are violated day by 
 day. 
 
 The School constitution is essentially different from 
 the constitution of the Home. Therefore, the relation 
 of teacher to pupil can never be identical with the 
 relation subsisting between parent and child. And 
 yet it is necessary for the young that the school gov- 
 ernment and the home government should correspond 
 
92 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 in every essential. No tyranny is more absolute than 
 parental government without parental love ; which 
 fact is fully manifested in every seminary or college 
 where the corps of teachers and professors assume the 
 relations and responsibilities of parents to the pupils 
 put under their charge. Such a government is founded 
 upon rules, laws, and a programme of requirements 
 enforced by marks of dishonor, penalties, and suspen- 
 sions ; to escape which, the pupils, simply because 
 they are not regulated by an appeal to their individual 
 sense of honor and responsibility, invent every imagin- 
 able phase of falsehood, duplicity, and insubordination. 
 In the absence of parental love, there can be no re- 
 demptive justice in parental government. An appeal 
 both to parents and to the civil laws of the land, by 
 school teachers and college professors, in cases of 
 insubordination and flagrant disobedience, would work 
 far better than the system of private whippings, black- 
 in arking, suspensions, expulsions, &c, at present pre- 
 vailing in various institutions. 
 
 Parents and grandparents usually delight in the 
 possession of u smart children." Conscientious teach- 
 ers, on the other hand, wisely dread this shallow and 
 supremely vicious ambition. If a child-boy can behave 
 in company just " like a little man," or if an infantile 
 girl can strut and simper before folks " just like a little 
 lady," then the boastful parents, swollen with the 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 93 
 
 vapors of extreme silliness, smile upon them with ex- 
 ceeding satisfaction. 
 
 Therefore, in these rushing days, spontaneous child- 
 hood has quite disappeared behind the innumerable 
 smart things, witty sayings, and dignified ways of 
 " young folks," known in literature as our little men 
 and women. 
 
 Inasmuch as a perfect copying or imitation of 
 " grown people" is the popular demand by parents 
 upon professional and conscientious teachers, why may 
 we not at once introduce, as head-schoolmaster, an 
 original embodiment of the science ; so that our smart 
 children may be exceedingly amused, while learning 
 in early years to " put away childish things," and 
 while studiously acquiring the interesting personal 
 habits and manners of superannuated humanity ? 
 
 A story illustrating this imitative propensity, is 
 told of three little girls who were playing among the 
 poppies and sage-brush of the back yard. Two of 
 them were making believe keep house, a little way 
 apart, as near neighbors might. At last one of them 
 was overheard saying to the youngest of the lot, 
 u There, now, Nelly, you go over to Sarah's house 
 and stop there a little while and talk as fast as ever 
 you can, and then you come back and tell me what 
 she says about me, and then I'll talk about her ; and 
 then you go and tell her all I say, and then we'll get 
 
94 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 as mad as hornets, and won't speak when we meet, 
 just as our mothers do, you know ; and that'll be such 
 fun— won't it I " 
 
 A PROFESSOR OP THE ART OP IMITATION. 
 
 ~:iC:li- 
 
 Boys imitate men as naturally as one robin sings 
 like another. The dissipation and excesses of con- 
 vivial fathers — their gambling-amusements, their rum- 
 drinking, their tobacco-chewing, their smoking and 
 snuffing, their silly vulgarity and filthy profanities — 
 all these are copied by most all boys who see and hear 
 such men and fathers. Youth convey these danger- 
 ous mental habits into schools and colleges. And 
 sometimes, notwithstanding the frequent interposition 
 of heavenly guardians to save them, the magnanimous 
 young heart and the fine intellectual brain, once beauti- 
 ful with the grand hopes and sweet promises of child- 
 hood, are wrecked and broken upon the dismal shores 
 of error and misdirection. 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 95 
 
 " A startling example of the results of college dissi- 
 pation is given in the Life of the Eev. Kichard Harris 
 Barham, the witty author of the famous ' Ingoldsby 
 Legends.' A fellow-student of Barham's at Brasenose 
 College, Oxford, had plunged into dissipation and in- 
 volved himself in heavy debts. Unfortunately there 
 are great facilities for doing so at that university and 
 in a lesser degree at Cambridge, owing to the long 
 credit offered by the tradesmen. His l duns ' were 
 upon him. His father had assisted him so frequently 
 that he had declared on the last occasion he would 
 do so no more. The crisis had come. He must have 
 money to satisfy his creditors, or he would be expelled 
 and ruined. He penned a last appeal to him, ending 
 his letter with an oblique but unmistakable threat of 
 self-destruction if his request were refused and he did 
 not receive the amount by return of post. The terri- 
 fied father did not even trust to the post-office, but 
 hurried with his letter containing the required remit- 
 tance to the guard of the mail-coach, to whom he gave 
 a guinea on receiving his solemn promise that so soon 
 as the gates of Brasenose should be opened next morn- 
 ing he would deliver the letter into the hands of his 
 son. The guard, on the strength of his guinea, got 
 intoxicated on reaching Oxford, and many hours after- 
 wards stumbled up the old staircase with the letter in 
 his hand. Here an awful sight met his view. The 
 
96 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANIxVGS. 
 
 student, who had despaired of assistance, when the let- 
 ter-bag had no answer for him, now lay dead upon the 
 floor of his own chamber, weltering in his own blood 
 and with the pistol by his side. This tragic episode 
 in college life so affected Barbara that he abandoned 
 fast living and entered the clerical profession, a step 
 he had never contemplated before." 
 
 
 IMITATION OF A BAD EXAMPLE IS A MONKEY'S TALENT. 
 
 When the mind masters any thing, it takes a cer- 
 tain hue or tendency from the quality of such knowl- 
 edge. The impressible brain, being the headquarters 
 of a constant succession of thought-excitements and 
 thought- discharges, takes the shape and character of 
 that knowledge which rules all the lesser sensations 
 and thoughts. Repetition of feelings, and sensations, 
 frequent associations with the same persons and 
 actions, stamps and moulds the mind inevitably. 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 97 
 
 Useful knowledge in general is that kind of knowl- 
 edge which de-spiritualizes the mind ; it is persistently 
 anti-metaphysical, having little regard to changes and 
 states of the internal consciousness, from which these 
 master materialists " evolve " nothing ; and yet, in 
 some of our highest institutions, what is called " useful 
 knowledge " is in reality nothing but theory-building 
 and word-learning at the expense of the pupil's health 
 and memory. 
 
 A cultivated woman, who is now a teacher in one 
 of the public schools of New York, says that, when 
 she was subjected to an examination at the High 
 School, a proposition or question was put, thus : " The 
 word Nice / spell and parse it ; give the derivations ; 
 state the various meanings, and give examples of their 
 use." This having been done, and the word traced 
 back to six or seven languages, and its dozen different 
 shades of meaning seated and exemplified, the Exam- 
 iner then asked, " Is there another word similarly pro- 
 nounced ? if so, go through it." ISTot one of the girls 
 knew about it, whereupon the Examiner, looking as 
 wise as an owl, referred them to the word " Gneiss " 
 — signifying a stratified primary rock, such a mere 
 geological term that it has not been into the ordinary 
 dictionaries until lately, and crowned this exhibition 
 of his own knowledge, by giving a bad mark to every 
 
 person in the class. 
 
 7 
 
98 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 At a recent examination of boys for the Central 
 High School, a number of hard words — regular puz- 
 zlers, most of which they would probably never be 
 called upon to use in the whole coarse of their after 
 life — were given them to spell : such are diaphragm, 
 Cotopaxi, Guayaquil, and Afghanistan, 
 
 The questions in Grammar, sensible and practical, 
 were evidently put to ascertain the limit of the candi- 
 dates' knowledge. The candidates were then put 
 through, in Mensuration. We do not see why the 
 youthful mind should be burdened with the acquiring 
 a knowledge of mensuration, unless the pupil intended 
 to become an engineer. Rational parents would pre- 
 fer to have the boys made good and ready arithme- 
 ticians and thoroughly acquainted, in such a business 
 world as this, with the science of boot keeping. 
 
 "We should like to know the use of telling how 
 to " define a parallelopipedon, a rhomboid, and a 
 prism ? " What use to any boy or man in ordinary 
 life is it, " when the solidity of a sphere is 47.71305 
 inches," to state what its convex surface is ? Or, when 
 " a pole was broken off in a storm, the broken part 
 resting upon the upright, and the top on the ground 
 27 feet from its foot, the upright part measuring 36 
 feet," to work out the sublime problem of " what was 
 the length of the pole ? " These questions, it seems 
 to us, though they may weary and haply puzzle a class 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 99 
 
 
 of boys, belong, in most instances, to the magnificent 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useless Knowledge, might 
 be dispensed with, in favor of something more practi- 
 cal and useful, in accordance with individual needs. 
 What is needed is simply this — a good, sound educa- 
 tion, which will fit its possessor for the practical work 
 and purposes of life, and yet give a foundation for high- 
 er acquirements, should talent or circumstance render 
 them necessary. Bet- 
 ter a few things thor- 
 oughly learned, than 
 many pretentious ac- 
 quirements imperfect- 
 ly or flashily obtained. 
 To return to our 
 definition of " Ori- 
 ginals." The follow- 
 ing wholesome bit of 
 autobiography — from 
 the faithful pen of 
 that educated " Ori- 
 ginal," the pastor of 
 Plymouth Church — 
 is submitted here as 
 an honest illustration : 
 
 STUDYING IN A HEALTHY PLACE, BUT IN AN 
 UNHEALTHY POSTURE. 
 
 " Did you like to go to school ? " 
 
100 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 " No, sir, I did not. I detested it — all its pre- 
 cedents, all its accompaniments, and all its sequents." 
 
 But this applies only to the primary schools. The 
 academy and the college furnished many hours which 
 are to be remembered with gladness ; the early schools 
 not one. They were engines of torture, devised ex- 
 pressly to make good boys unhappy, and seldom do 
 contrivances succeed so well. Let us see, — the first 
 school that we remember was Miss Collins's. Deacon 
 Collins lived on the green, southeast of old Litchfield's 
 old church. Up-stairs we climbed, we remember that ; 
 on a long bench we sat, with our feet dangling in the 
 air, and a tall, kindly-faced woman there was. But 
 besides, we remember nothing — of book, slate, or reci- 
 tation. 
 
 Next we went to Miss Kilborne's, on the west side 
 of the square, and of this school two things stand forth 
 in memory ; — first, that the wind on this high hill used 
 almost to take us into the air ; the wind that seemed 
 never to be done with blowing. It blew high and low. 
 It swept along the ground, slamming open gates, 
 whirling around corners, pushing us against the fence, 
 and then into the ditch, — a little fat, clumsy boy, that 
 hardly feared any thing visible, but dreaded all mys- 
 teries, and shook with vague and nameless terror at the 
 roar of the wind up in the high tree-tops — the great 
 elm trees that swayed and groaned as if they too were 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 101 
 
 in cruel hands. The other memory of this school was 
 of sitting wearisomely for hours on a bench, and swing- 
 ing our little legs in the air, for want of length to reach 
 the floor. Yes, two other things we recall — one, a 
 pinch on the ear, and the other a rousing slap on the 
 head, for some real or putative misdemeanor, and a 
 helpless rage inside in consequence. But of lessons, 
 knowledge, pleasure, there is nothing. The picture is 
 blank. Not a word of tenderness — not one sympathiz- 
 ing, coddling act, not the sight of a sugar-plum, which 
 in that day would have been to us more beautiful than 
 the stones of the walls of the Heavenly City. Oh, why 
 did they put such tempting candy in long glass jars, 
 and set them in the windows, to put little wretches in 
 
 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OP THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE. 
 
 such a fever of longing, and to make them so un- 
 happy ! How many times have we walked the long 
 
102 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 road to school looking all the way on the ground, in 
 hopes of finding a cent. Such things had happened ! 
 Boys there were in our own neighborhood who had 
 found cents along the road, and even a sixpence in one 
 case. There was a rumor that twenty-five cents in 
 one instance had turned up. But we never heeded 
 that. Had a quarter been lost, the whole town would 
 have been searched as with a lighted candle, and no 
 boy would have been left the luck of finding it. Still 
 the story acted on the imagination like an Arabian 
 Night's tale. But over against that window — was it 
 Buell's store ? — he never gave us a particle of candy, 
 and so his name rests uncertainly in our memory — 
 over against that store we paused full often, and im- 
 agined that the day might come, — what things had not 
 happened that seemed extravagant to think of? — when 
 we should set up a store, and keep candy, and have a 
 right to put our hand in just when we pleased ! 
 
 We liked to have done ourselves a wrong, in saying 
 that we learned nothing. We know distinctly that 
 Harriet one brilliant morning plucked dandelions and 
 taught us how to split them and roll them up into 
 curls. It has been a great comfort to us many times 
 since. 
 
 Our next school was Miss Pierce's. It was a 
 ladies' school. We were sent thither to be under the 
 care of elder sisters. We don't recollect a single reel- 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 103 
 
 tation. For days together we were regarded as a mere 
 punctuation-point, not noticed unless dropped out of 
 place, or turned upside down. Mr. Brace — father of 
 C. L. B. — used to pass by and look at us with a know- 
 ing face, and snap his finger in a significant way — 
 without a word. Bat that mysterious snap was good 
 for ten minutes' propriety and sometimes for even half 
 an hour. 
 
 Once, for laughing out loud at somebody's fun — 
 one had only to put his tongue in his cheek, or to 
 point a finger at us, to set off that laugh which always 
 lay pent-up waiting for deliverance — we were tied to 
 the leg of the bench. The acute pain of shame pierced 
 like a knife — a kiss cured it. For a kind-faced girl, 
 one of the elder young ladies finishing her education 
 there, looked upon our tearful eyes and scarlet-blush- 
 ing misery, took pity on us, put a soft hand on our 
 head and stooped and kissed us. If a cup of cold 
 water to a thirsty child shall bring an immortal bless- 
 ing to the giver, how much more a warm kiss to a 
 crying child unable to defend itself against shame ! 
 May the angels lay their hands upon her as she dawns 
 upon heaven, and kiss from her face every tear and 
 sorrow of the sad world behind her ! 
 
 All experiences of children are evanescent — and few 
 sorrows have they that are not drowned in the first 
 sleep, dead as Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea. The 
 
104 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 school was not expected to teach, us, and it fulfilled 
 every expectation. Our time was in danger at home 
 of raveling out in mischief, and the school was a mere 
 basting thread to hold down the hem of good behav 
 ior. Next went we to the district school. 
 
 Not a tree ! Not a bush ! Only a stone wall on 
 one side and a board fence on the other. No window 
 blinds. The summer sun beat down full upon the 
 small, rough, unpainted school-house. Here we learned 
 to catch flies — to crook pins for boys to sit down on, 
 and from which they always arose with alacrity. If 
 any man wishes to know what spontaneity is, let him 
 sit down on a well-prepared pin. We learned the 
 rudiments of the cost of u carrying on "—an art of the 
 largest proportions, and which in schools, academies, 
 and colleges is amply taught, whatever else is omitted. 
 Our bearing was very humble. We could make a cat's 
 cradle under the bench unseen. We could look on a 
 book seemingly in study for half an hour without 
 seeing a word. We learned how to make paper spit- 
 balls and to snap them across the room with consid- 
 erable skill. But beyond these interesting branches 
 we do not think we ever learned a thing, Why should 
 we ? Is it possible for a boy of six or eight years in 
 the school-prison, with no incitement and no help, 
 from four to six hours a day, and with all out-doors 
 beating on the sehool-house, streaming in at the win- 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 105 
 
 dows, coming, in bewitching sounds, through every 
 crack and crevice, to be studious, regular, and exem- 
 plary ? A good, village, primary school ought to be a 
 cross between a nursery and a play-room, and the 
 teacher ought to be play-mate, nurse, and mother all 
 combined. One teacher we had, young, pale, large- 
 eyed, sweet of voice, but not prone to speak — bless her 
 — why must she have consumption and one day dis- 
 appear ? And the next day, behold, in her place a 
 tall, sharp, nervous, energetic, conscientious spinster, 
 whose conscience took to the rod as a very means of 
 grace ! The first one would have made us love and 
 obey her. We were even beginning. From the 
 second we were marvellously delivered. 
 
 " Mother, I don't want to go to school." 
 
 " You don't wish to grow up a dunce, do you, 
 Henrv ? " 
 
 " Yes, marm." 
 
 " What ? Grow up like a poor, ignorant child, go 
 out to service, and live without knowing any thing ? " 
 
 " Yes, marm." 
 
 " Well, suppose you begin now. I'll put an apron 
 on you, and you shall stay at home and do housework. 
 How would you like that ? " 
 
 " Oh, do, ma." 
 
 Sure enough, we were permitted to stay away from 
 school, provided we would " do housework ; " and all 
 
106 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 summer long our hands set the table, washed dishes, 
 swept up crumbs, dusted chairs, scoured knives ; our 
 feet ran for errands, besides the usual complement of 
 chores in the barn. 
 
 But, oh, did we not glory in the exchange ? Yes, 
 and in the long summer afternoons, when nothing 
 more was left to do, did we not allow a good aunt to 
 lead us along those paths of learning which before our 
 feet eschewed ? 
 
 Great is our zeal for common schools, and disinter- 
 ested. For we are not biased in favor of primary- 
 schools by one single pleasant memory connected with 
 them. They lie in our memory as cunningly devised 
 engines for putting poor, little, innocent, roguish boys 
 to torment because they are mercurial, fun-loving, and 
 impatient of restraint." 
 
 A great many years after the experience embodied 
 in the foregoing bit of autobiography, the same honest 
 hand traced the following philosophical sentences, con- 
 cerning the true and natural law of character-building, 
 beginning with the discipline of children : 
 
 " I knew it would never do to give it up ; the boy 
 would have been ruined ; I felt horribly, but I kept 
 on, for I knew that his will must be broken, then or 
 never." Young teachers in their first school, and 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 107 
 
 young parents training their first child, come to some 
 such crisis, and talk of it afterwards in words like the 
 above. After the crisis is past, and when the event 
 comes up for review, the parties to it are not always 
 sure whether the result was a great blunder or a great 
 victory. Authorities differ. 
 
 A man with a broken back is usually quiet and 
 sweetly submissive ; and if the back be sufficiently 
 broken he gives very little trouble to his rulers or to 
 his fellows beyond a decent burial. Now, will is the 
 backbone of character. To break one's will, or even 
 to subdue one's will by force or violence, is a very crit- 
 ical operation. To break a backbone judiciously, be- 
 longs to high-art in surgery — very high. 
 
 An ingenious device to control a runaway horse is 
 to shoot him ; a pistol for this purpose can be attached 
 to the head-stall, between the ears, and a string from 
 the trigger to the driver's hand puts the most wilful 
 animal completely under control. 
 
 The desirable end to be sought in the matter of 
 wills or horses, is intelligent obedience. Enforced obe- 
 dience is the proper result of breaking a will or a 
 horse. Intelligent obedience is the result of intelligent 
 education. In certain ranges of conduct, all men learn 
 obedience, invariably. A hearty boy-baby is a natural 
 born rebel. But he very soon recognizes his patient 
 and passionless masters, the great stone- faced laws of 
 
108 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 matter. The sober mahogany table hit the boy as he 
 got up from the floor, and his toys. Straightway the 
 boy kicked the table-legs and fisted its corners. But 
 the table was in no degree excited by the crisis. As 
 often as this rebel wishes to try conclusions with the 
 table, the table is quite ready with its lesson. Two or 
 three lessons are usually enough. The boy turns out 
 for the table, and respects it ever afterward. 
 
 So the stove has its lessons ; the hot lamp-chimney 
 it's ; the flight of stairs, down which baby wishes to 
 roll many times, has a lesson ; the hole in the carpet 
 trips the careless toe with passionless punctuality ; 
 aching fingers teach the law of snow and snow-ball- 
 ing ; cut fingers teach children not to meddle with 
 edge-tools. If any parent or teacher will accept the 
 wisdom taught by these laws of matter and of nature, 
 he will find similar results to attend upon his efforts 
 as he stands in the way of a child to guide and educate 
 and govern. Victory is not to be won by a pitched 
 battle. Let any child experience an absolute uniform- 
 ity of law and administration, and sooner or later he 
 will conform. He learns to recognize parents and 
 teachers, not as occasional foes and opposers, but as 
 existing facts — the same yesterday, to-day, and every 
 day. Penalties need not be severe, but they must be 
 inevitable. Rewards need not be costly, but they 
 must be earned, and when earned punctually awarded. 
 
WISDOM OF GETTING KNOWLEDGE. 109 
 
 When an artist, by a few bold, strong strokes 
 makes a likeness, it is usually a caricature. The por- 
 trait, life-like and soulful, is worked up by ten thou- 
 sand microscopic touches, all of them guided by a mas- 
 ter's eye. And when a child is to be educated, there 
 may be educational geniuses, who, by a few bold 
 words or blows, at critical moments, shape a character. 
 But the perfect work is accomplished by them only 
 who, by daily little touches, all loving and all con- 
 sistent, work up a result, which, after years of perse- 
 verance, we call success, for we have been workers with 
 God, and have worked as He works." 
 
 So thinks one who loves little children and lives 
 in the life of childhood. 
 
 But concerning the internal principles and attrac- 
 tive methods of true education, as developed in the 
 Progressive Lyceum System, much more remains to 
 be written, which makes the following chapter neces- 
 sary to both the reader and the subject. 
 
VII. 
 
 The Children's Progressive Lyceum. 
 
 THE Plymouth pastor, with a candor characteristic 
 of the plenitude of his wholesomeness, testifies 
 that he has " not one single pleasant memory " con- 
 nected with primary schools ; they lie in his recollec- 
 tion " as cunningly devised engines for putting poor, 
 little, innocent, roguish boys to torment ; " and even 
 the ever-grateful Whittier, reviewing the shadow- 
 shapes of memory, recalls the patient old country 
 pedagogue — 
 
THE PROGRESSIVE LYCEUM. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "In that smoked and dingy room, 
 Where the district gave him rule 
 O'er its ragged winter school." 
 
 But, O, believe me, kind reader, a higher revela- 
 tion has dawned upon the world. As there is an 
 octave of colors, and an octave of sounds, higher than 
 those which come within the range of purely physical 
 eyes and ears, and therefore unknown, because invisi- 
 ble and inaudible to ordinary humanity ; so is there a 
 system of physical 
 and mental culture 
 higher than any 
 thing now indi- 
 cated or known 
 in the popular 
 world of educa- 
 tion. [No philoso- 
 pher ever imag- 
 ined the possibil- 
 ity of making per- 
 fect men and 
 women out of boys 
 and girls as they 
 are at present in- 
 structed and mis- 
 educated. The 
 methods of mo- 
 
 WISDOM'S WATS ARE PLEASANT, BUT CANNOT BE 
 ENTERED BY VIOLENCE. 
 
112 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 ther Nature are generally misconceived, or else en- 
 tirely ignored, by the powers that be. 
 
 Compare the trifold organization of the little child 
 — the foundation of the future man or woman — with 
 the world's educational methods, and at once you dis- 
 cern the causes why children dread to attend either 
 public or private schools. For the same reason they 
 dread shoes that pinch their tender feet, or garments 
 that aggravate because they do not fit and meet the 
 demands of their young and sensitive bodies. A true 
 mechanic makes his machinery exactly to accomplish 
 the end and uses which originally fired his ambition 
 and inspired his understanding. Sucli a mechanic, 
 true to the laws of his noble science, works to one 
 great point : To accomplish the largest and best results 
 by his invention, with as little noise, with as little fric- 
 tion, with as little wear and tear and expense,- as is 
 possible in the nature and constitution of things. 
 
 Judged by this standard, what must the wise think 
 of those who invented our public system of education ? 
 Its manifold violations of the laws of mental economy, 
 its unadaptations to the organic constitution — occasion- 
 ing unspeakable aggravations and terrible losses, by 
 a succession of exasperating frictions upon childhood 
 and its forming character — all this transcends the 
 largest monstrosities in the realm of mechanical ab- 
 surdity. 
 
THE PROGRESSIVE LYCEUM. 
 
 113 
 
 I have adduced the testimony of a few of our best 
 thinkers against existing methods ; therefore, your 
 verdict must correspond, and the crudities of the popu- 
 lar schemes must be condemned, while better methods 
 are being instituted. 
 
 The higher octave of harmonies, and the magnifi- 
 cent scale of adaptations — to which I have just at- 
 tracted your attention — are just now known among a 
 few advanced minds, and is called u The Children's 
 Progressive Lvceum." 
 
 Watch the nat- 
 ural and involun- 
 tary workings of 
 your own mind, 
 when you are most 
 sincerely like a 
 child, and you 
 will immediately 
 come to a correct 
 
 l-nATT'ln/ln.o nf f"ka CHILDREN rS'TTjITIVELY LOOK AWAY FROM BOOKS 
 
 Knowledge 01 ine TO objects in nature. 
 
 unfailing princi- 
 ples and beautiful methods urged by mother Nature. 
 
 Here, in this volume, an analysis of this celestial 
 plan and method is not deemed appropriate. The in- 
 vestigator can find it, in bold outline, in a little book 
 bearing the expressive name of the system. But it is 
 
 in order here to affirm that its high birth and corre- 
 8 
 
114 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 sponding adaptations are congenial to the whole life 
 of children. 
 
 THE NEW SHIP CALLS FOR NEW BUILDERS. 
 
 The immortal spirit is the fountain. The everlast- 
 ing waters of this fountain are its principles of love. 
 The final coherent manifestation of these principles, in 
 their totality, is called wisdom. The growth of wis- 
 dom is from within, outwardly, by the attractions of 
 congenial methods. Wisdom implies roundness, or a 
 perfect balance and wholesomeness (holiness), includ- 
 ing the normal development and exercise of the bodily 
 powers. Wisdom means also the growth and system- 
 atic cultivation of the social, intellectual, and spiritual 
 elements and powers of individual existence. And it 
 is most religiously believed that the methods of the 
 Lyceum are, in every particular, adapted to the exact 
 and complete accomplishment of these sublime personal 
 
THE PROGRESSIVE LYCEUM. 115 
 
 ends and uses. Therefore, it has been and is presented 
 in grand outlines, with all its imperfections and un- 
 regulated details, as the most loved plan, best known 
 in loftier worlds ; of which the grouped harmonies of 
 the physical universe, in their cohesions and varied 
 beauties, are but an outward revelation. 
 
 Under a republican form of government, the most 
 important question is education. The true Mind- 
 Builder is the true architect of the Republic. Unedu- 
 cated parents do not appreciate the advantages of 
 education ; while impoverished parents cannot afford 
 to educate their children. The first bring up their off- 
 spring in heedlessness and vices ; the second put them 
 to distraining and remunerative hard work. Public 
 schools and compulsory education are consequently 
 demanded. The Republic has a vested interest in the 
 mind and body of every person. And true education 
 is at the bottom of all true progress in a government 
 constituted like ours. A clearer comprehension of 
 some of the ideas and plans I would urge, may be 
 derived from a synopsis : 
 
 1. The mind is built and individualized from germs 
 implanted before birth ; therefore, true education is 
 from within outward — e duco, to draw out — by attrac- 
 tion rather than by compulsion. 
 
 2. The thinking powers, through numberless repeti- 
 
116 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 tions of effort in one direction, acquire the habit of 
 clear-thinking in that direction. A great variety of 
 impressions may be received during a period of extra- 
 ordinary cerebral susceptibility ; but strength and 
 cohesion and availability are at length sacrificed to the 
 " variety " and the " celerity " of the acquisition, and 
 the mind is certain to be debilitated to its very roots. 
 
 3. The operations of the human mind, like the 
 operations of all other great organs in nature, are 
 rotary and revolutionary, or over and over again, in 
 circles of endless recurrence, with a spiral ascending 
 movement toward a climax or crisis, which is the true 
 basic principle whereby the thinking powers and 
 memory can be practically and enduringly educated. 
 
 4. A true process would naturally develop a de- 
 lightful feeling of sympathy between preceptor and 
 pupil — a kind of sacred friendship ; which would open, 
 and keep susceptible, the heart and mind of the child, 
 investing the school-room and the very presence of the 
 teacher with a charm in the highest degree favorable 
 to government and education. 
 
 5. The true process is from within outward, by 
 means of conversation on all objects and subjects with- 
 in the scope of the child's observation, attraction, and 
 natural abilities. The objects of the mineral, vege- 
 table, animal, and human kingdoms are clustering on 
 every side about the pupil. The rudiments of knowl- 
 
THE PROGRESSIVE LYCEUM. H7 
 
 edge are delightfully imparted and acquired by this 
 sweet oral intercourse between preceptor and child. 
 After a certain degree of learning has been attained, 
 by this process, the teacher may employ books, charts, 
 diagrams, black-boards, instruments, illustrations of 
 the arts and sciences, and every other reasonable auxil- 
 iary, to augment the mind's healthful progress and at- 
 traction toward practical knowledge. 
 
 6. Healthful progress means a correct development 
 of the entire physical structure along with the culture 
 of the purely social, mental, and moral. The Egyp- 
 tians, Persians, Greeks, Asiatics, Romans, gave strict 
 attention to the culture of the bodies of their favorites. 
 All children in a true Republic are " favorites," and 
 nothing is too good for either their physical or mental 
 organization. For the purpose of complete physical 
 culture, loose-fitting garments are of preeminent im- 
 portance for our boys and girls. 
 
 7. All time spent in studying antiquated languages 
 is lost beyond redemption. Classical studies, so called, 
 are valuable to those who desire knowledge of the 
 poetry, mythologies, theologies, speculations, dreams, 
 and fables of long-ago-dead epochs. The great living 
 world reaps little nourishment from mind-crops grown 
 twenty and thirty centuries ago. 
 
 8. Teachers and mothers ought to be paid the 
 highest salaries. Mothers are prime-sources of agen- 
 
118 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 cies engaged in modelling and building the young im- 
 mortal, and they should be aided by fathers in cooper- 
 ating with teachers in the mind-developing process, for 
 which schools were established. Those who teach 
 the youngest children ought to be most liberally re- 
 munerated. No position involves greater responsibil- 
 ities. Little children demand the highest order of 
 talents, and the profoundest powers of self-discipline, 
 and a stock of long suffering patience ; and every rea- 
 sonable inducement should be offered to those rare 
 persons, "both male and female,", who can and do 
 every day lovingly mingle with, control, refine, and 
 educate the tenderest and youngest minds. 
 
 9. It is impossible for one teacher to justly educate 
 a large number of children at the same time. Lyceum 
 groups are consequently limited to twelve members. 
 Experience and philosophy uniformly testify that no 
 one teacher can rightfully control and culture any 
 larger number. It is a short-sighted and immoral 
 economy which insists upon crowding into one school- 
 room and under one teacher a mass of children moved 
 by conflicting ages and temperaments. 
 
 10. The school and the family must cooperate, and 
 not, as now, antagonize ; with different teachings, 
 different examples, and different methods of discipline. 
 Home religion — the only religion which is pure and 
 undefiled — is morality practised throughout every 
 
THE PROGRESSIVE LYCEUM. H9 
 
 twenty-four hours. The joys of family are the fruits 
 of righteousness. The spiritual influenced well-ordered 
 home upon society is like that which angels exert upon 
 strangers in the celestial habitations. Home religion 
 is a " means of grace " to all who gather harmoniously 
 in a circle of friendship and love, around the genial 
 fireside sanctuary. 
 
 11. Sweet and pure home-amusements, with uni- 
 form parental kindness and a due respect for the indi- 
 vidual rights and private trials of each juvenile mem- 
 ber, is the certain counter-attraction to vicious haunts ; 
 the only prevention to save the young from the eve- 
 ning dissipations of bar-rooms, billiard-saloons, club- 
 houses, and the select party card-table. 
 
 12. Heart-development should keep step with the 
 growth of the intellectual powers. Grace in the affec- 
 tions lends beauty to the face and sweetness to the 
 body. One cardinal grace is sincerity, which is the 
 key to enduring and perfect confidence ; sincerity, the 
 only power that can open, and keep open, the wise 
 and magnanimous heart ; sincerity, the only influence 
 that can develope the impulses and characteristics of 
 children into sweetest and wisest ways. 
 
 13. Happy the father and mother whose children 
 love their home better than the quarrelsome ways and 
 discordant amusements of the street. Professional and 
 strictly literary men, and fathers accustomed to great 
 
120 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 business cares, are apt to neglect their children in their 
 sports and recreations. 
 
 14. Children love to hear true stories, and to look 
 through books filled with suggestive illustrations. 
 There is a wonderful educational power in the mute 
 language of pictures. The young are keenly and spon- 
 taneously alive to the things of sense. Their growing 
 bodies demand wholesome exercise, fresh air, healthy 
 food, plenty of sleep, and easy-fitting garments. 
 
 15. Conversation is more educational than books. 
 Object-teaching is, therefore, the surest primary 
 method of imparting knowledge. It is the privilege and 
 the prerogative of parents to select teachers, schools, 
 books, objects, scenes, stories, and entertainments. 
 
 16. Kindle a bright fire in your beautiful home. 
 Do not circumscribe the harmless plays, nor crush too 
 suddenly down the noisy sports of your children. 
 Check nothing with impatience. Approve every 
 thing, except that which inflames some dangerous 
 appetite, or disturbs the sacred rights and harmonies 
 of the household. 
 
 17. In another particular the school and the home 
 should be harmonized : Let equal rights and equal 
 responsibilities be in all relations the ruling principle. 
 The unjust world gives into men's hands the power to 
 make laws and the might to execute them. This plan 
 is founded upon the ancient barbarian doctrine that 
 
THE PROGRESSIVE LYCEUM. 121 
 
 " might makes right." Women and children are 
 taught and commanded to obey. 
 
 18. But a new light has come into the world. Just 
 and wise men no longer believe in the inferiority of 
 women. And they now believe in the Rights of Chil- 
 dren ! Men and women naturally stand side by side 
 as brothers and sisters, and as fathers and mothers, and 
 neither should infringe upon the other's existence, 
 liberties, or happiness. 
 
 19. And the same principle of exact divine justice 
 is applicable to the treatment and government of the 
 servants and other dependents in your home. They, 
 inevitably, have sore trials and annoyances inseparable 
 from their incessant labors. Their estate of servitude 
 is frequently the effect of social misfortunes — of purely 
 evanescent circumstances — consequently, one frequently 
 meets servants, who, by organization, possess finer feel- 
 ings and exhibit nobler intellectual faculties than those 
 more pecuniarily fortunate ones for whom they are 
 compelled to labor. They are usually deficient in the 
 graces of book-education ; therefore they exhibit fee- 
 ble, or eccentric, or wild understandings. Hence, with 
 ardent temperaments, servants are quick in personal 
 pride and resent with passion any real or fancied 
 wrongs. Housekeepers and unjust mothers unwitting- 
 ly cause a large part of the terrible discords in their 
 working departments and nurseries. Selfishness is at 
 
122 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 the root of the social Upas. Children receive a mis- 
 education for life from the mal-practices and vicious 
 examples prevailing in the realm of father and mother. 
 20. In a word, the Alpha and Omega of the whole 
 harmonial gospel of education is to develop harmoni- 
 ously both the body and the mind ; and to this end 
 there must exist a harmony between the methods of 
 the School and the methods of the Home. 
 
VIII. 
 
 Lyceum Teachings for Children. 
 
 WISDOM'S ways, although infinitely diversified, 
 and immeasurable in their sweep, are yet in- 
 variably peaceful and pleasant. 
 
 But if scientists demand additional ovidence to 
 establish the theory that man's ancestors were savage 
 inhabitants of the wilderness, one might adduce the 
 existence of that active instinct in human nature, 
 whereby most persons manage to avoid the paths of 
 
124 JETS 0F NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Wisdom and choose instead the absurd, conflicting, and 
 unspeakably miserable ways of Folly. 
 
 What evidence does a man possess when he is 
 physically right ? He is physically happy. What 
 evidence, when he is mentally and morally right ? He 
 is mentally and morally happy. How does he know 
 that his ways are wrong and foolish? He is incon- 
 sistent, quarrelsome, restless, and miserable. When 
 he walks in Wisdom's ways, how does he know ? His 
 life is coherent, peaceful, harmonious, and progressive. 
 Effects and causes, being bound together by the ties of 
 fellowship, are logically and inseparably married. 
 Their fruit are legitimate offspring. 
 
 The least logical reflection, it seems to me, will con- 
 duct any consistent mind to the conclusion, that " Ob- 
 servation " is the president, as Memory is the treasurer, 
 of all sensuous knowledge. The physical senses out- 
 rank intellect, during the early years of every one's 
 life ; just as, during this life, intellect is permitted to 
 outrank Intuition, which is the constitutional author- 
 ity of spirit consciousness. 
 
 Soul lives like an atmosphere, in an elementary 
 condition, within the senses ; the spirit, fully organ- 
 ized, live within the soul ; the eternal, impersonal 
 essences live within the spirit. 
 
 Therefore, in children as well as in adults, the 
 senses are first in the election canvass. They are first 
 
LYCEUM TEACHINGS. 125 
 
 to proclaim their " inalienable rights " upon all occa- 
 sions and under all circumstances. Not trammelled 
 with humility, but emboldened by that amusing, in- 
 corrigible audacity which is natural to intrinsic igno- 
 rance, they nominate themselves as legitimate candi- 
 dates for the highest offices in the gift of universal 
 Knowledge. In truth, to do them exact justice, we 
 must say that the senses are " wonderfully made," and 
 that they instinctively know that they are certain to 
 be elected on every straight ballot. They ascend fear- 
 lessly and rule with power upon all the thrones of 
 Knowledge ; because, simply, they have an indisputa- 
 ble title to " the divine right of kings." 
 
 After them (the five royal bodily senses), comes the 
 modest sovereign grand master within the temple — the 
 immortal Spirit. The best is always last to come. 
 Spirit, being highest of all, arrives last of all. It 
 comes silently with the host of lesser lights, marching 
 with the long procession of experiences, which contrib- 
 ute so largely to individual development. 
 
 Forever, in this material world, the senses will take 
 precedence of both the soul and the spirit, in the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge, and in the conduct of life. 
 
 On philosophical principles, therefore, you should 
 begin to teach yourself and your children to take the 
 first step just right — to observe with accuracy. 
 
 Names and the uses of things, clothed in accurate 
 
126 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 words, certainly follow in the path of accurate observa- 
 tion. Correct verbal or written descriptions of things 
 are impossible without a basis of correct inspection of 
 the things themselves. 
 
 ...u^ii'ifi 
 
 TEACHING YOUNG LADIES THE NAMES OF THINGS. 
 
 Children take notice first of the forms of things ; 
 next of the colors / next, of differences / next, of re- 
 semblances ; lastly, of uses, or rather of the relations 
 of things to each other and to the bodily sensation. 
 
 Objects accurately cognized by the senses awaken 
 corresponding thoughts in the mind ; and this is the 
 absolute basis of all true knowledge ; and the method, 
 if adopted by the world's educators, would be uni- 
 versally recognized and approved as the pleasant ways 
 of Wisdom. 
 
 Suppose, just here, at the very fountain, we try an 
 
LYCEUM TEACHINGS. 
 
 127 
 
 experiment. Mary's perception and observation of 
 things are uniformly more accurate than William's. 
 Therefore, her descriptions are invariably more reliable 
 
 III1M 
 
 WILLIAM AND MARY IN CONVERSATION. 
 
 and always more interesting than his. Now, for a trial 
 of your discerning and analytical powers, O most 
 friendly reader ! Taking cognizance of the picture of 
 William and Mary, let me ask you : Do you discover 
 therein more than six different forms % Are there less 
 or more than ten objects in the picture ? Let us 
 look : Girl, boy, pillars, platform, horses, driver, car- 
 riage, fence, trees, shrubbery, birds, open window, and 
 a spectator. 
 
 1. How many objects ? 
 
 2. Where are they ? 
 
 3. What are they called ? 
 
 4. What are their uses ? 
 
128 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Thus an object lesson is begun. Let us proceed 
 upon this principle. The mental budding, the graft- 
 ing, the exquisite novelty, and the enchanting delight 
 accompanying the fruition, will astonish and richly 
 reward every parent and teacher. " Show us a phi- 
 losopher," writes a close observer, " show us a sage 
 
 that a child cannot puz- 
 zle. We have never 
 seen any such phenom- 
 enon. .Roll all the wise- 
 acres of the world into 
 one, and a school-boy's 
 whys and wherefores 
 shall confound the com- 
 bination. If, when the 
 Admirable Crichton tra- 
 velled through Europe, 
 affixing his challenges 
 to the gates of colleges, 
 the professors had pit- 
 ted their six-year-olds 
 against the prodigy, we 
 warrant they would have 
 propounded problems 
 
 FROGS LEAPING FROM THE OLD OAKEN DeyOnCL 111S SKlll tO SOlVC 
 BUCKET 
 
 The truth is, that it is 
 much easier to answer a learned man than a child. 
 
LYCEUM TEACHINGS. 129 
 
 Tour philosophers understand well enough that there 
 are matters concerning which all men are equally 
 ignorant, and with commendable tact and prudence 
 they steer clear of them. But children are bold and 
 persistent querists. They are not satisfied with evasive 
 replies. They cross-examine with merciless perse- 
 verance, and sometimes drive the most profound to the 
 refuge of ' I don't know.' 
 
 " But even that confession — so humiliating to 
 grown-up wisdom — does not always silence the youth- 
 ful searcher after knowledge. He is apt to think you 
 ought to know, and to ask why you donH know. "We 
 really like to set a smart child on a pedant. It is 
 astonishing how the little interlocutor will worry and 
 badger the man of books. But it does him good. It 
 teaches him how much he does not know. It is very 
 foolish for any man to give himself airs on the score of 
 acquirements which do not suffice to save him from 
 being cornered and convicted of ignorance by a mere 
 babe." 
 
 The complete justice of these reflections can be 
 easily manifested. Place, for example, before your 
 child any picture you may select for observation and 
 analyzation ; or, take any familiar object in nature — 
 an apple, a turnip, a kitten, a dog, a horse, a table, a 
 flower, a leaf, a pin, a piece of bread and butter ! 
 Now interrogate your darling, or induce your pupil 
 
130 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 freely to ask questions. Alas ! how rapidly you slide 
 down the inclined plane from the summit of conceit to 
 the dead barren bottom level of ignorance. The ex- 
 ceeding little which you really know concerning the 
 elements of truth contained in a horse, or a pin, would 
 astound and humiliate a far greater mind than yours. 
 How many ages elapsed, how many myriads of men 
 have been and gone, before a pin was made ? Whence 
 and how is the pin-metal obtained ? By what ma- 
 chinery is it rounded ? and pointed ? and headed ? and 
 prepared so rapidly in rows for the market ? When 
 is a pin better than a nail or a needle ? 
 
 All the time you must intelligently remember, 
 that to develop correct habits of observation, by means 
 of correct interrogations and conversation, is funda- 
 mental to and inseparable from a true education. 
 
 Look at the next picture ; describe in good lan- 
 guage all you see in it. Give the correct names and 
 the known uses of all things visible. Do you discover 
 any animals ? If so, how many ? What is the man 
 doing at the well ? Why does he want water ? With 
 what does he draw the cooling fluid ? Why does he 
 look so astonished ? What is that just leaping from 
 the bucket ? What is the difference between a frog 
 and a toad ? What do they eat ? Are they poisonous, 
 or harmless ? What difference in color ? in habits ? 
 in places they occupy in Nature ? 
 
LYCEUM TEACHINGS. 
 
 131 
 
 To show by example how to do any thing is worth 
 a thousand times more than to teach, by mere words 
 and silly platitudes, how it ought to be done. The lady 
 of the house, instead 
 
 of telling her igno- 
 rant young working 
 maid how she ought 
 to inspect eggs just 
 brought in from the 
 grocery, does far bet- 
 ter by just going in- 
 to her kitchen and 
 showing the observ- 
 ing maid, by exam- 
 ple, exactly how to 
 shade the egg in her 
 hands, while holding 
 
 it between her eyes and the bright sunlight, in order 
 to determine the exact condition of the otherwise un- 
 certain object. 
 
 What is the color, of an unhealthy egg, when thus 
 examined ? 
 
 What its appearance, when fresh and sound ? 
 
 What is the name of the shape of an egg ? 
 
 What is the difference between an oval and an 
 ellipse ? (Consult the first chapter in this volume.) 
 Show with your pencil the two forms, and their unlike- 
 
 A HABIT OP OBSERVATION. 
 
132 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 ness and resemblances, and correctly write the name 
 of each mathematical figure under your drawings. 
 
 Look at the picture again, and tell how mcmy ob- 
 jects you see ? 
 
 And where they are ? 
 
 And their names ? and their uses ? 
 
 A PICTURE FULL OF MEANING. 
 
 Whatever a healthy-minded child sees he wants 
 immediately to know all about. Who is good and 
 wise and patient enough to answer a bright child's 
 ever-recurring questions ? Every thing relating espe- 
 cially to animals and plants marvellously excites fehe 
 infantile and juvenile senses ; thence, that is, from the 
 sensations and reports of the senses, in regular succes- 
 sion, is developed and strengthened the imagination 
 
LYCEUM TEACHINGS. 133 
 
 reason, and intuition, and the well-trained faculties of 
 memory and judgment. 
 
 The quickness of the eye and ear, and the readi- 
 ness of the reasoning and remembering faculties to 
 receive and elaborate impressions, depend upon the 
 natural temperament and the fitness of the organiza- 
 tion. In these respects the difference between chil- 
 dren, born of the same parents, is sometimes world- 
 wide and irreconcilable. Nevertheless, in every case 
 imaginable, whether the organization be defective or 
 propitious, every born child is susceptible to considera- 
 ble rudimental education by this attractive method. 
 
 The young mind is accessible from every side of its 
 existence. Its electrical sympathies flow out first 
 toward what is most attractive and congenial to its 
 own immediate wants. Objects with bright colors 
 first ; then things, which satisfy hunger, with especial- 
 ly attractive flavors ; thirdly, things animated, for any 
 thing in motion is intensely attractive ; next, how 
 various things are used by papa, or by mamma ; then 
 sounds, even harsh concussions, become essential to 
 infantile happiness. A child will throw aside the most 
 delightful playthings to listen to novel noises from 
 whatever source. All these propositions, as funda- 
 mental to the education of the sensibilities and the 
 development of the knowing faculties, must be self- 
 evident to every thinking mind. 
 
134 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 In this fountain volume, small as it is, you can find 
 pictures, and jets of new meanings — or representations 
 and signs of things — sufficient to test the truth of this 
 theory, and to lay the foundation of your child's true 
 and lasting education. Make yourself thoroughly the 
 master of the thoughts awakened by an accurate ob- 
 servation of the pictures ; then, in a simple and concise 
 manner, with fewest possible words, which you should 
 be willing to repeat an hundred times, if necessary, 
 and thus you are prepared to teach. 
 
 Take an apple : (1) its form ; (2) its color ; (3) its 
 flavor ; (4) its uses ; (5) its resemblances ; (6) its 
 origin ; (7) the Divine love and wisdom, as manifested 
 in its adaptations to the wants of mankind. 
 
 A PRACTICAL LESSON IN SAILING VESSELS. 
 
 Children and youth are constantly asking for 
 change, variety, and novelty. They immediately drop 
 
LYCEUM TEACHINGS. 135 
 
 one thing for another, and they ask and long for vari- 
 ety and inconsistency throughout all their waking 
 hours ; because, to be brief, their mental impressibil- 
 ity is superficial, while their sensuous activity is un- 
 controllable. Motion is a safety-valve in the quick life 
 of the young. It is, therefore, impossible for a child 
 to think consecutively upon any one subject, or to feel 
 long from any cause for joy or sorrow. In the system 
 of the Progressive Lyceum, which is the child's most 
 natural school, complete provision is made to meet 
 childhood's imperative and just demand for diversion 
 and recreative change. Children naturally need to 
 drop the consideration of a lesson — they even need to 
 abandon impulsively for a time the most delightful 
 amusement — so that they may return to it with fresh- 
 ness, and feel the joy and appetite awakened by the 
 original attraction. 
 
 In conclusion, a word : Parents, guardians, or teach- 
 ers who are not constituted and trained so that they 
 can comprehend children — can take pleasure in their 
 incessant changeabilities, and with gentle patience give 
 audience to their ever-recurring questions — are suita- 
 ble for neither of the high offices designated, and ought 
 to assign their functions and places to individuals 
 rightly and appropriately organized. 
 
 Wisdom's ways are always beautiful. They are as 
 perfect in the simplicities of children as in the pro- 
 
136 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 fundities of maturity. But, alas ! how few there are 
 who enter in at " the strait gate " which opens upon 
 the temple of Truth, surrounded by the immeasurable 
 gardens of God, and traversed by the eternal paths of 
 pleasantness and peace. 
 
IX. 
 
 Imagination as an Educational Force. 
 
 IT must not be inferred, from the principles so 
 warmly advocated in the preceding chapter, that 
 my impression is to exalt object-teaching above every 
 other method. Children do not always remain in the 
 
138 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 juvenile stage. A few years convey them to where 
 their enlarged and kindling powers demand higher 
 methods of thought and expression. Objects teach 
 children to comprehend the meaning and uses of lan- 
 guage. " In old times," says Ruskin, " men used 
 their powers of painting to show the objects of faith ; 
 in later times they used the objects of faith that they 
 might show their powers of painting." But during 
 the period of youth the quickened imagination — whose 
 office is to perceive truth and to picture ideas upon the 
 reasoning faculties — as an educational force calls for 
 new fields of exercise. By this spiritual power the 
 
 WHERE CHILDREN LEARN TO READ, WRITE, AND CIPHER. 
 
 mind is lifted above the persistent downwardness and 
 materialism of the senses. 
 
IMAGINATION AS A FORCE. 139 
 
 Imagination, as was stated in the Penetraua, is im- 
 portant as an interior clairvoyant. Its practical work- 
 ings and benefits, as aids to intellectual and spiritual 
 development, are scarcely more than barely recognized. 
 Much less is it believed to be the fountain which feeds 
 all the mental powers. Without imagination the facul- 
 ties cannot be reached and developed ; while with it, 
 as an active educational force, the whole mind may be 
 made to blossom and to bear immortal fruit. 
 
 Old schoolmasters in the old schoolhouses adhere 
 blindly, or with opinionated obstinacy, to the old-time 
 methods as presented in the old books by the old au- 
 thors. Often the conservative utilitarian teacher, sus- 
 tained by the yet more unprogressive commissioners 
 and ignorant parents in his district, refuses to impart 
 any thing beyond the dry facts of " reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic." The reading of each pupil in such a 
 school is exasperatingly monotonous — without taste, 
 without grace, without ideality, without expression — 
 because the method of teaching is without the en- 
 kindling force and grasp of imagination. 
 
 Mental and spiritual culture, without the inspiring 
 flame of the imagination, is impossible. As well at- 
 tempt to run machinery without lubricating oil. 
 
 Of all the wonderful genii — surpassing any mon- 
 ster you. ever read of in the u Arabian Nights " of long 
 forgotten ages— the modern locomotive is the most 
 
140 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS 
 
 perfect. But it was first perceived by the imagina- 
 tion. It came up out of the vapors within the en- 
 chanted chambers 
 of the mind. Then 
 the inventor began 
 to describe his im- 
 aginings by tongue 
 and pen ; and at 
 last, which was 
 surpassingly best 
 of all, he embodied 
 his " ideas " in 
 steel, iron, wood, 
 and brass. And 
 now behold, O ye 
 favorites of For- 
 tune ! behold, 
 throughout the en- 
 tire prolific belt 
 of civilization, the 
 powerful genii which the first man evoked from the 
 vapors of his imagination ! 
 
 The human mind, especially when youthful and 
 alive to Intuition, is a wondrous world of beauteous 
 pictures. It is a complete pantheon of divine powers 
 and high purposes; within itself a gallery of God- 
 painted scenes, beycmd the language of the tongue to 
 
 A MIGHTY MACHINE BORN IN IMAGINATION. 
 
IMAGINATION AS A FORCE. 
 
 141 
 
 portray. Young persons, with such impressible organ- 
 izations, quickly acquire a reputation for " story-tell- 
 ing," which is twin-sister 
 to "falsehood;" and 
 strange to say, both are 
 well-born, being first cous- 
 ins to mankind's sublime 
 faculties of " invention," 
 without which the world 
 could make no positive 
 advancement in science, 
 mechanism, and art. 
 
 Thus you comprehend 
 that the human spirit is 
 a wonderful compound of the young mind is a repository 
 
 r OP PICTURES. 
 
 impersonal principles — a 
 
 fearful arrangement of impressible faculties — which 
 incessantly call for gratification, and for the most wise 
 dramatic discipline. 
 
 Pictures within the mind — that is, the inwrought 
 possessions of the imagination — call for pictures adapt- 
 ed to the pleasure of the senses. Modern educational 
 literature is an example of this proposition. Latest 
 issues of school-books teem with pictorial illustrations 
 of positive excellence as works of art. Every depart- 
 ment of creation is brought forth and minutely de- 
 scribed in words and pictures. For purposes of educa- 
 
142 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 tion diagrams, maps, and pictures appeal suggestively 
 to both the senses and the imagination. 
 
 Science is lifting the veil, and the practical mys- 
 teries of Truth are rapidly surplanting the bewildering 
 fancies of supernaturalism. No creed-breaker is more 
 ruthless, no iconoclast is more heartless, than are the 
 chariots [mowing machines] and palaces [iron foun- 
 dries and factories] of our scientific and driving era. 
 Mournfully it has been said that " there is nothing 
 sacred now. The last holy of holies has been invaded 
 and desecrated. One of the Pharaohs is a mummy in 
 Barnum's Museum. A mountebank travels over 
 Europe with a little tent in which he exhibits for four 
 sous ' a piece of the Holy Cross.' Where the genii of 
 the ' Arabian Nights' Entertainment ' once reigned 
 supreme, there is now a ten-cylinder Hoe press print- 
 ing the Koran and a ' History of the Caliphs.' A 
 news-boy has a stand near the ruins of the Coliseum, 
 and old ladies peddle peanuts in the streets of Jerusa- 
 lem. A factory has been established on the river Jor- 
 dan. Recently the cable informed us that a railroad 
 track is being laid upon the classic plains of Marathon, 
 and now comes the startling announcement that a tele- 
 graph station is being located on the site of what is 
 supposed to have been the original ' Garden of Eden ! ' " 
 
 Pictorial school-books are food for the imagination 
 through the senses. Eight millions of American boys 
 
IMAGINATION AS A FORCE. 
 
 143 
 
 and girls demand an annual production of twenty mil- 
 lions of books and primers. The great publishing 
 warehouses are stacked with food for the vast armies 
 of children. From floor to ceiling, and all through the 
 
 '*%*&& 
 
 BOYS IMITATE MEN IN BUILDING THE WALLS OF SOCIETY. 
 
 great length of the stores, you behold beautiful caskets 
 of really useful knowledge. Science has brought in 
 new text-books and advanced methods of instruction ; 
 but greater improvements and higher developments 
 are yet to come. 
 
 From Thorndale, concerning the use of science, 
 comes wisdom in these words : " Some poets, in their 
 verses, have lamented the inroad which science will 
 occasionally make in their favorite associations, or pre- 
 dilections. A weak lament. Speaking largely, the 
 more we know of nature, the more beautiful it be- 
 comes. Who has not felt that such knowledge as he 
 
144 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 had acquired of physiology and comparative anatomy 
 (remote enough at first from aesthetics) has ended by 
 throwing a fresh grace over every limb, a fresh charm 
 over every movement in the animal creation ? As to 
 the vegetable world — as to our trees — I have not skill 
 enough in language to describe the mystery and en- 
 chantment which modern science — whether of light, 
 of chemistry, or of vital growth — have filled them with 
 
 AN ENTERING WEDGE IS NECESSARY IN EVERY NEW QUESTION. 
 
 for me. Their leaves, as they rustle, seem to murmur 
 of the half-told secrets of all creation. And take this 
 with you : As science advances, each object, without 
 losing its individuality, speaks more and more of the 
 whole ; and this — because each living thing gets some 
 beauty from the harmony disclosed in its own struc- 
 ture." 
 
IMAGINATION AS A FORCE. 145 
 
 The true educator may be known by one thing : 
 He or she seeks to u call out " the mind's natural 
 powers, and to improve and harmonize upon its con- 
 stitutional adaptations. 
 
 A true reader is one who reads with the eyes of the 
 imagination. Imagination is necessary to give ideas 
 their true meaning and emotions their true expression. 
 Tones are sounds awakened either by thoughts or 
 feelings ; which act upon memory and the imagina- 
 tion ; which, in their turn, act upon and give expres- 
 sion to the vocal organs. 
 
 On this dramatic law children unconsciously take 
 on the feelings and perfectly imitate the tones of voice 
 they day by day associate with in the homestead. " I 
 know some houses," says one writer, " well built and 
 handsomely furnished, where it is not pleasant to be 
 even a visitor. Sharp, angry tones resound through 
 them from morning till night, and the influence is as 
 contagious as the measles, and much more to be 
 dreaded. The children catch it, and it lasts for life. 
 A friend had such a neighbor within hearing of her 
 house, and even Poll Parrot has caught the tune, and 
 delights in screaming and scolding, until she has been 
 sent into the country to improve her habits. Children 
 catch cross tones quicker than parrots, and it is a much 
 more expensive habit. Where mother sets the exam- 
 Die, you will scarcely hear a pleasant word among the 
 10 
 
146 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 children in the play with each other. Yet the disci- 
 pline of such a family is weak and irregular. The chil- 
 dren expect just so much scolding before they do any 
 thing they are bidden, while in many a home where 
 the low, firm voice of the mother, or a decided look of 
 her eye is law, they never think of disobedience, either 
 in or out of her sight. Oh, mothers, it is worth a great 
 deal to cultivate that i excellent thing in woman,' a 
 low, sweet voice. If you are ever so much tried by 
 the mischievous or wilful pranks of the little ones, 
 speak low. It will be a great help to you, even to try 
 and be patient and cheerful, if you cannot wholly suc- 
 
 1 EVERY WOMAN BECOMES A MADONNA BY THE CRADLE OF HER FIRST- 
 BORN CHILD." 
 
 ceed. Anger makes you wretched, and your children 
 also. Impatient, angry tones never did the heart 
 good, but plenty of evil. You cannot have the excuse 
 
IMAGINATION AS A FORCE. 147 
 
 for tliera that they lighten your burdens, for they only 
 make them ten times heavier. For your own, as well 
 as your children's sake, learn to speak low. They will 
 remember that one tone when you are under the 
 willows." 
 
 Conceiving ideas and making them a part of you, 
 putting " yourself in his place," and giving correct 
 expression to emotions, are effects and exercises impos- 
 sible without aid from the imagination. The faculty 
 of imitation, as well as the power to conceive origin- 
 ally, is substantially one and the same. The spiritual 
 attributes of character, in both old and young, nat- 
 urally appear in actions physical and dramatic. 
 
 Memory in every mind is furnished with dramatic 
 dreamSj events, and situations. Thus Douglas Jerrold 
 exclaims : " Blessed be the hand that prepares a pleas- 
 ure for a child, for there is no saying when and where it 
 may again bloom forth. Does not almost every body 
 remember some kind-hearted man who showed him a 
 kindness in the dulcet days of childhood ? The writer 
 of this recollects himself at this moment, as a bare- 
 footed lad, standing at the wooden fence of a poor little 
 garden in his native village, while with longing eyes 
 he gazed on the flowers which were blooming there 
 quietly in the brightness of a Sunday morning. The 
 possessor came forth from his little cottage ; he was 
 a wood-cutter by trade, and spent the whole week at 
 
148 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 his work in the woods. He had come into the garden 
 to gather flowers to stick into his coat when he went 
 to church. He saw the boy, and breaking off one of 
 his carnations — it was streaked with red and white — 
 he gave it to him. Neither the giver nor the receiver 
 spoke a word, and with bounding steps the boy ran 
 home. And now here, at a vast distance from that 
 home, after so many events of so many years, the feel- 
 ing of gratitude which agitated the breast of that boy 
 expresses itself on paper. The carnation has long 
 since withered, but now it blooms afresh." 
 
 DREAM OF A QUARRELSOME LITTLE BOY. 
 
 Thus life's events gradually assume dramatic com- 
 binations in the memory. Dreams, for the most part, 
 are dramatic (sometimes tragical) exercises of the un- 
 sleeping imagination. The faculties work and do at 
 night what they think and fancy in the daytime. A 
 
IMAGINATION AS A FORCE. 
 
 149 
 
 boy dreamed out "what he had long wanted to see : His 
 favorite dog kill three troublesome mice. At night 
 the whole mind is at liberty to picture, upon its own 
 memory canvas, the forms of eyes and faces aud fea- 
 tures before unthought of and unknown. 
 
 Endlessly diversified are the activities of the imagin- 
 ation. Attention is cultivated and disciplined quickest 
 by training the mind to accurately imagine any object 
 or scene. Tou cannot truthfully and graphically de- 
 scribe any thing in language or by pencil, unless you 
 first clearly imagine and picture to yourself its shape, 
 
 size, color, nature, hab- v 
 
 its, &c. A new breed of .^m^SS 
 domestic fowl, for exam- 
 ple, cannot be pictured 
 by you to a friend unless 
 your imagination is first 
 fixed upon the entire cor- 
 rect appearance of the 
 feathered bipeds. 
 
 This perception of the 
 form is the picture focalized upon your memory. If 
 you would imitate accurately, you must imagine exact- 
 ly. This rule is infallible. If you fail in conception, 
 you will certainly fail in execution. Bring your atten- 
 tion to a focus, then think from that as a starting 
 point, from which you make a new departure ; and the 
 
 PERCEPTION OP FORMS. 
 
150 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 result will infallibly reveal where you need develop- 
 ment, and where repression ; in order to symmetrically 
 unfold your intellect, and to bring out the full powers 
 of your spirit. 
 
 In reading, as a part of education, the tongue, 
 which should be governed by a well-disciplined imagin- 
 ation, gives ex- 
 pression in 
 tones to ideas 
 and feelings. 
 But why should 
 not the same 
 discipline b e 
 extended to the 
 eye, the face, 
 the posture, the 
 attitude, and 
 the gestures ? 
 How, otherwise, can the whole body and mind be 
 harmoniously cultured and disciplined ? Parts of the 
 pupil's existence, if not cultured, will remain in a state 
 of unproductive ignorance. Those uneducated parts, 
 even if they do not produce evils, will act like heavy 
 manacles in after life upon the individual ; than which 
 there are no more serious material embarrassments to 
 personal happiness and success. If you leave a young 
 person's voice uneducated, or his hands and feet with- 
 
 STRUGGLING FOR A NEW DEPARTURE. 
 
IMAGINATION AS A FORCE. 151 
 
 out training, you leave him with grave disqualifications 
 for a successful career. 
 
 The Progressive Lyceum System, be it remembered, 
 provides for the dramatic exercise and symmetrical 
 culture of both mind and body. The imagination is 
 appealed to as a great educational force. Harmonious 
 physical movements regulated by musical sounds, and 
 various disciplinary amusements at stated intervals, 
 lend enchantment to the otherwise unspeakably tedious 
 trials of acquiring useful knowledge. Daily drill in 
 an unimaginative method of training the young mind 
 — which method is in the programme of every impor- 
 tant educational institution — is certain, in effect, to 
 develop an extremely useful, yet crude and ill-man- 
 nered, population within the bounds of civilization. 
 By such method mankind are enriched in the imme- 
 diately practical, but impoverished exceedingly in 
 every ennobling and spiritualizing manifestation. 
 
 The harmonial plan is, I trust, by this time, made 
 sufficiently apparent : The mind's native powers must 
 be called out, marshalled, drilled, and strengthened ; 
 the Will must be taught to grasp and to hold ; the 
 attention must be fired with the intention of accuracy ; 
 the faculties of Reason must be plied with ideas of 
 largeness and proportion ; and the Imagination, with- 
 out which mind can achieve nothing, must be vivified 
 with truth ; in brief, our whole human nature must be 
 
152 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 unfolded, and made to exemplify divine love and wis- 
 dom — in their most beautiful, as well as in their most 
 practical forms, adapted to the present world and its 
 manifold demands. 
 
 But in this treasure-grasping age, when the passion 
 of avarice and the prince of extravagance drive up the 
 same avenue together, all my words concerning living 
 " a life of love and wisdom " must seem superlatively 
 imaginative. Schemes for acquiring property would 
 doubtless attract more immediate attention. The pop- 
 ular creed consists of two words : " Material Prosper- 
 ity." Thus thought a writer who offers the follow- 
 ing rules for becoming a millionaire : 
 
 1. You must be a very able man, as nearly all mil- 
 lionaires are. 
 
 2. You must devote your life to the getting and 
 keeping of other men's earnings. 
 
 3. You must eat the bread of carefulness, and you 
 must rise early and lie down late. 
 
 4. You must care little or nothing about other 
 men's wants, or sufferings, or disappointments. 
 
 5. You must not mind it, that your wealth involves 
 many others' poverty. 
 
 6. You must not go meandering about Nature, nor 
 spending your time enjoying air, earth, sky, and 
 water ; for there is no money in it. 
 
 7. You must not distract your thoughts from the 
 
IMAGINATION AS A FOKCE. 153 
 
 great purpose of your life with the charms of art and 
 literature. 
 
 8. You must not let Philosophy or Keligion engross 
 you during the secular time. 
 
 9. You must not allow your wife or children to 
 occupy much of your valuable time or thoughts. 
 
 10. You must never permit the fascinations of 
 friendship to inveigle you into making loans, however 
 small. 
 
 11. You must abandon all other ambitions, or pur- 
 poses ; and finally — 
 
 12. You must be prepared to sacrifice ease, and all 
 fanciful notions you may have about tastes, and luxu- 
 ries, and enjoyments, during most, if not all, of your 
 natural life. 
 
 The foregoing rules (which originally appeared in 
 the Galaxy)^ illustrate the truth of the ancient pro- 
 verb : " It is easier for a camel to go through the eye 
 of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom 
 of God." 
 
X. 
 
 Prophetic Dreams and Visions during Sleep. 
 
 STRANGE to say, almost all men, even metaphy- 
 sicians, are deficient in real knowledge of the 
 sublime possibilities of human nature. Knowledge, 
 which is derived through the senses, is limited at any 
 one time by the manifested degree to which the mental 
 powers have attained by their activity and prolifica- 
 tions. 
 
 It is impossible that an ignorant, narrow, idle mind 
 
PROPHETIC DREAMS. 155 
 
 should consecutively think any wise thoughts ; and it 
 is equally impossible that such a mind should, during 
 sleep, dream any wise and comprehensive and signifi- 
 cant dreams. 
 
 This is true in principle, because the mind conveys 
 itself bodily, with all its conditions and habits of think- 
 ing and feeling, into each and every state of which it is 
 susceptible. Thus, whether asleep or awake, whether 
 at rest or in self-conscious action, the individual, with 
 his ruling affections and intellectual and moral charac- 
 teristics, is irresistibly and unfailingly present. 
 
 You cannot part company with yourself; no, not 
 even by the wicked folly of u suicide." 
 
 Spiritually minded persons, therefore, unless labor- 
 ing under physical derangements, are most likely to 
 dream concerning spiritual and beautiful things. 
 
 The latent capabilities of such a mind may become 
 suddenly illuminated. The mysterious panorama of 
 circumstances, as it is with wonderful velocity unrolled 
 within the transphysical realm, " cast their shadows " 
 among the thoughts of the impressible dreamer. In 
 spite of ordinary rules of reasoning the mind of such 
 a dreamer is profoundly affected. 
 
 Rev. John Hall, in an article to the New York 
 Observer, gives a striking illustration of premonitory 
 dreaming : " Sometimes depression is the witness with- 
 in one's self of actual, impending trouble and sorrow, 
 
156 J E TS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 sometimes coming we know not how, sometimes a 
 prophecy that fulfils itself. One notable case of this 
 kind may be mentioned. Twenty years ago, the late 
 Alexander Stewart, a Free Church minister, was called 
 to the most influential charge in Edinburgh, and all 
 the church said, Go. Only his own feeling was against 
 it. Modest, gentle, and loving retirement, he shrank 
 back from it. Yet he dare not please himself. Will I 
 not be more useful in Edinburgh, though I lived only 
 three months, than if 1 remained in Cromarty three 
 years, indulging my own* ease and feelings while God 
 forsook me, because I forsook both Him and the path 
 of duty ? But he felt he was not to live there. Af- 
 ter his Presbytery had released him, Dr. Buchanan 
 accompanied him home, and, noticing his depression 
 as he walked along the street, he said to Mr. Stewart, 
 4 You look as if you were carrying a mountain on your 
 back.' i Ko, Dr. Buchanan/ was the reply, ' I am 
 carrying my gravestone on my back.' And he never 
 entered on the new charge, dying of fever before his 
 settlement." 
 
 Dreaming prophetically is not a common expe- 
 rience ; because the prophetic gift is rare. 
 
 A mind accustomed to thinking consecutively and 
 habitually in an orderly manner, is best qualified to 
 catch and retain the regular logical succession of night- 
 time impressions. But an unbalanced thinking and 
 
PROPHETIC DREAMS. 
 
 157 
 
 PROPHETIC VISIONS IN THE STILLNESS OF 
 NIGHT. 
 
 dream-brain, like that of the abnormally-minded De 
 Quincy, while he was under the diabolical influence 
 of opium, sees objects 
 absurdly enlarged, or 
 magically dwarfed, 
 and grotesquely situ- 
 ated. The thrilling 
 realities of pleasure 
 and pain, and the in- 
 definite number of 
 experiences natural to 
 a succession of months 
 and years, are some- 
 times pressed upon 
 
 one's susceptibilities between the setting and the rising 
 of the sun. But the next day's labors, cares, and sensa- 
 tions — save in the most essential repositories of the 
 spirit — drive such dreams into the realms of forgetful- 
 ness. Only apparently so, however ; for, among the 
 faculties, a memory, a dream, of it all remains. And 
 hence it is that in the tranquil hours of future dream- 
 ing, which is a dramatic form of recollecting, whether 
 by night or by day, vague reminiscences of personal 
 experiences in dreamily remote times, as of some pre- 
 existent life in long-forgotten ages, rise up mysteriously 
 in the recesses of the private consciousness. Some 
 minds are so peculiarly constituted as to experience 
 
158 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 at night a kind of involuntary periodical introversion 
 of the thinking faculties ; at which times they seem to 
 themselves to hold confidential interviews, to make 
 voyages to remote countries, to live and act in strange 
 scenes, and to perform remarkable mental feats, quite 
 at variance with their every-day thoughts and volun- 
 tary inclinations. 
 
 The only rational explanation is to be found in the 
 peculiar constitution and processes of such minds ; it 
 is all attributable to an overmastering proneness of the 
 faculties in such persons to act and play lawlessly upon 
 
 61 O, BACKWARD LOOKING SON OF TIME." 
 
 and among themselves. Inward realities, to such self- 
 entertaining and unregulated minds, are nothing but 
 the evanescent memories of the shadows of events in 
 their own self- conscious kingdom. 
 
PROPHETIC DREAMS. 159 
 
 Prophecy, or rather the love of foreseeing events, 
 or of having " a fortune told," is almost a passion with 
 minds so constituted. And yet but little reliance can 
 be placed upon the imaginary predictions of these 
 periodical introversionists. It is, in fact, fortunate 
 that, notwithstanding his two-fold life, with both sides 
 open to both worlds, man can only properly and hap- 
 pily enjoy the phenomena and current realities of but 
 one world at a time. 
 
 Nevertheless man's spiritual altitude is such — being 
 externally related to the world of effects, and interiorly 
 consociated most intimately with the universe of causes 
 — he can, in certain exalted and superior moments, 
 discern what is possible, even probable, yea, certain / 
 were it not for the unfathomable ocean of ebbing and 
 flowing contingencies which perpetually mingle with 
 and modify the superficial manifestations of undeviat- 
 ing principles. But for this limitation — this inability 
 to foresee all the processes involved, this defective 
 vision of all the shadows of changes possible in the line 
 of the event which is coming so rapidly on the bosom 
 of fixed laws — but for this, and it is a mighty impedi- 
 ment between the human spirit and the exercise of 
 omniscience, man could foretell and comprehend the 
 occurrences of the future like one of the gods. " If I 
 dream one way," said a learned doctor, " and you 
 dream another way, which of them am I to follow ? 
 
160 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Some are inclined to believe their own dreams. But 
 few are inclined to believe the dreams of their neigh- 
 bors. And so in the end every one will be found to 
 take the way in which his whim, or his impulse, or his 
 fancy leads him." 
 
 In all cases of prophecy, yet known, there have 
 been obvious mistakes as to time, or place, or manner, 
 or accompanying events ; all which was owing to the 
 lack of perception of all the many and various effects 
 which incidentally cropped out of the ocean of causes 
 and principles. Most exalted residents of the Sum- 
 merland, like our own astronomers and mathemati- 
 cians, cognize the causes and laws which will inevitably 
 develop certain natural effects. 
 
 What marvellous clearness of perception is de- 
 manded ! What philosophical accuracy of judgment 
 must be exercised ! 
 
 But, alas ! how unspeakably difficult for any citizen 
 of the skies to impress with accuracy the whole mind 
 of any one person on earth. The unexpected and rude 
 intervention of human acts, the sudden snapping of 
 some one of the many intricate threads in the web-work 
 of life, the unavoidable complications arising from the 
 intercepting forces within the mind of the medium who 
 might receive the impressions — think of all these inter- 
 polations and uncontrollable interruptions incessantly 
 occurring along the far-extending lines of prophecy, 
 
PROPHETIC DREAMS. 161 
 
 and you will be convinced that it is excessively diffi- 
 cult, although not absolutely impossible, for any one 
 terrestrial mind to foretell with unfailing certainty 
 every event which may happen in the career of a per- 
 son or nation. 
 
 Thus human nature is forever surprising itself, being 
 limited at all times in the exercise of intellectual and 
 spiritual endowments ; and thus humanity is forever 
 progressing and unfolding " something new." George 
 Washington did not discern the immense possibilities 
 of the vast civilized America in which we live to-day ; 
 neither did the profound Benjamin Franklin in any 
 degree foresee the wonders of the electrical telegraph ; 
 nor did any of the ancient prophets forecast the mar- 
 vels of spiritual intercourse which crown the religious 
 developments of these days ; because from each of 
 them, as from each of lis, is wisely denied the om- 
 niscient faculty of knowing the end from the begin- 
 ning. 
 
 11 
 
XL 
 
 T 
 
 False and True Worship. 
 
 RUE worship is an involuntary act of the inmost 
 
 affections. 
 
 Will and the understanding can determine and 
 regulate the act, but they cannot originate and inspire 
 the feeling, which rises unbidden from the bosom 
 toward the supreme attraction. 
 
 False worship, on the other hand, is not necessarily 
 hypocritical. It is false in the sense of being, instead 
 of from the affections, a result of religious teachings ; 
 in which the real feelings and the real sentiments of 
 the worshipper may take no honest interest. 
 
 Worship of the supreme Spirit of the Universe is 
 possible only to those who feel, and are, therefore, 
 
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP. 163 
 
 powerfully attracted toward the sacred essence of the 
 infinite Love. Any feeling less profound, any attrac- 
 tion less essential, is certain to worship a lesser God 
 and in an inferior manner. And inasmuch as the 
 masses, among the most enlightened, are inspired with 
 no such spirituality of feeling, they will not rise supe- 
 rior to religious materialism. 
 
 Pagan monuments and other ethnological relics 
 give evidence of mankind's childhood in religion. 
 Jove fills with awe and adoration the heart of the 
 young worshipper. The Druids, the Syrians, and the 
 Persians worship sincerely, yet how antagonistically ! 
 They did not, any more than do people about us called 
 Christians, exemplify in practice that religion, pure 
 and undefiled before God and the Father, which is : 
 " To visit the widows and the fatherless in their afflic- 
 tion, and to keep unspotted from the world." 
 
 False worship in religion is an attractively artistic, 
 as well as an exquisitely artful, exercise in fashionable 
 avenue churches on the Sabbath. The foundation of 
 religion is believed by many to be the " sacred vol- 
 ume ; " by such minds the real works of God, the uni- 
 verse and the starry skies, are overlooked as of little 
 moment. In a little work published in New York, 
 1869, entitled the a Worship of the Body, compiled 
 from the Anglican Authorities, and adapted to use in 
 the American Church,' 5 we find that both the artistic 
 
164 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. ' ' 
 
 and artful rules for worshipping are, in the most solemn 
 language, as follows : 
 
 OBJECT-WORSHIP IN AMERICA. 
 
 66 If you should by any chance have to enter or 
 leave Church, or to pass before the Altar after the 
 Prayer of Consecration, then you should ' genuflect ' 
 (i. e. 9 kneel upon one knee) in adoration of Him Who 
 veiled His Godhead under the mean form of a little 
 Infant when the wise men knelt and worshipped Him, 
 and Who now veils both His Godhead and Manhood 
 under the mean and common forms of bread and wine 
 in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 " In making your reverence let it be always towards 
 the Altar (i. e., facing it). Your obeisance should be 
 an inclination of the body, and not of the head only. 
 If made as you pass the Altar (whether you are so do* 
 
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP. 165 
 
 ing in the Chancel or Nave) pause a moment, face it, 
 and bend in devout consciousness of the act. The 
 first kule then is, whenever you enter a Church, bow 
 towards the Altar on passing it, and also before enter- 
 ing or on leaving your pew. Should the Blessed 
 Sacrament be upon the Altar at the time, genuflect. 
 
 " Should you during Service or at any other time 
 have occasion to approach the Altar, make your reve- 
 rence at the point you reach nearest to it, and before 
 doing any other act for which you have so approached ; 
 the act completed, again bow and retire." 
 
 These empirical rules, for worshipping the Al- 
 mighty acceptably, are obeyed in the Metropolis of 
 America ; at the present moment, and as religiously, 
 too, as not more formal nor more false rules are this 
 hour obeyed in India, in China, or in Japan. Again, 
 the same evangelical instruction-book says : 
 
 " You should bow at the Name of Jesus whenever 
 it occurs in the course of Divine Service, — whether you 
 are kneeling, standing, or sitting, — in devout adoration 
 of that Name, at which, as St. Paul says, c every knee 
 shall bow, of things in Heaven, and things on Earth ; ' 
 also at the first verse of each Gloria Patri, in wor- 
 ship of the Holy Trinity to Whom glory is therein 
 ascribed. . . . Unless prevented by ill-health or bodi- 
 ly infirmity, you should be most careful to obey the 
 Church's injunctions, as set forth in her rubrics, as to 
 
166 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 A TEN-POWER GOP. 
 
 kneeling, standing and the like. Kneeling is the ap- 
 pointed attitude of prayer, stand- 
 ing of praise, sitting of instruc- 
 tion : therefore the Church di- 
 rects us to kneel when praying 
 to Almighty God, to stand when 
 singing His praises, and to sit 
 when listening to the lessons or 
 sermon." 
 
 In Pagan countries, or, 
 more properly, in countries 
 more pagan than ours, the 
 religious ceremonials are 
 outwardly more crude and, 
 therefore, less intellectual ; 
 but no one can with truth 
 affirm that worship there 
 is less sincere than in the 
 popular institutions of our coun- 
 try. In America there is an un- 
 counted host engaged in wor- 
 shipping both day and night the 
 herein illustrated almighty trin- 
 ity : Copper! Silver!! Gold!!! 
 The final doom of the devo- 
 tee of Mammon is nothing less 
 than to die miserably with a gold-fever ! Or, which is 
 
 everybody's god. 
 
 A FRACTIONAL GOD. 
 
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP. 
 
 167 
 
 not less to be dreaded and avoided, lie may die with 
 a softening of the brain ; accompa- 
 nied with a hardening of the heart, 
 preceded by breaking of the spir- 
 itual ligaments, and the overthrow 
 of all ties connecting his affec- 
 tions with the Good, the True, and 
 the Beautiful. 
 
 Little children are most sincere 
 in worshipping objects. They are 
 true idolators. All mothers know 
 this truth by heart. 
 
 RICH MAN SICK WITH THE 
 GOLD-FEVER. 
 
 A SINCERE WORSHIPPER. 
 
 Fold to thy heart thy child, 
 darling mother ! Time will 
 quickly enough change the 
 manifestations of the young 
 affections. Another law of the 
 interior life, more imperative 
 in its commandments upon the 
 heart than the filial, will in after years influence your 
 son to bow in adoration before another shrine. It is 
 true, and beautiful as true, that a child's love for the 
 parental source does not die ; but, at the right time, 
 another love becomes more' active and influential. 
 Being born with organic attractions, inheriting bone 
 of your bone and blood of your blood, does not control 
 character or determine destiny. It is true that the 
 
168 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 mother's offerings of affection may live and act within 
 the child's immortal spirit ; but it is likewise true that, 
 in accordance with the Divine 
 decree, the processes, refinements, 
 conjugations, and prolifications 
 of the universe must go un- 
 changeably forward. Therefore, 
 deeper and more controlling than 
 any physiological tie, stronger 
 than any inheritance of parentage 
 or country, is that sovereign Con- 
 jugal principle which attracts to- 
 gether two human hearts, and 
 weds and melts and moulds them 
 into one — thus beautifully har- 
 ISSSSS^SSSS ionizing exactly opposite sides 
 of the universe, with dissimilari- 
 ties and varieties too delicate for analysis and too 
 impalpable for classification. 
 
 In order to successfully propagate the Christian 
 religion, the policy and Jesuitical trickery of being 
 " all things to all men " is recommended for use by a 
 popular minister, thus : u When the Lord sent out 
 His apostles He gave them what was in modern lan- 
 guage a charge, when sending them out as sheep in 
 the midst of wolves — they were to be wise as serpents 
 and harmless as doves. We might think that the Mas- 
 
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP. 169 
 
 ter lived without prudence and tact, particularly in its 
 use toward men. But from a human side the prudence 
 of the Lord was remarkable. He left Jerusalem be- 
 
 A DEER-KEEPER WORSHIPPING A DEAR. 
 
 cause He knew the Pharisees would kill Him, and 
 stayed away until the prophecy was to be fulfilled ; 
 but He had foresight and nice judgment of men, and it 
 is shown by His charge to the disciples. In ancient 
 times the serpent was the emblem of sagacity and wis- 
 dom, and in that way it was used by Christ. They 
 were to be shrewdly, closely wise ; to think, judge, 
 and administer the truth ; they were not at liberty 
 only to speak the truth, but to be circumspect at times, 
 even to be silent, or to tell only a part of the truth. 
 Men might have an impression that this was worldly 
 
170 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 polity, but it does not change the fact that it is the 
 duty of a man to employ all his foresight in the cause 
 of Christ, and adapt himself to circumstances. But 
 no man may use the weaknesses of his neighbor for his 
 own selfish good ; but if you can use them to make 
 him better, more virtuous, or more Christian, do it. 
 The true way is to he all things to all men, if by so 
 doing some may be saved. A Christian is clipper-built 
 and glides along smoothly, but the blusterer has broad 
 bows and makes a great fuss in the waters. To the 
 Jews Paul was a Jew, to the Gentiles he was a Gen- 
 tile. Kampant frankness had no discrimination and 
 did no good, but the men who did the church most 
 
 ORIGIN OP THE ART OF BEING " ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN.* 1 
 
 service as administrators and organizers have been wise 
 as serpents. But they must be also harmless as doves, 
 and make that impression upon outside men." 
 
TRUE AXD FALSE WORSHIP. 171 
 
 Such language, notwithstanding its evident sin- 
 cerity, is the language of one who prays for the success 
 of a particular creed or system of religion. Not such 
 policy deterred n.or governed the good Channing. He 
 said : u The very religion which was adapted to exalt 
 human nature, has been used to make it abject. The 
 very religion which was ^iven to create a generous 
 hope, has been made an instrument of servile and tor- 
 turing fear. The very religion which came from God's 
 goodness to enlarge the soul with a kindred goodness, 
 has been employed to narrow it to a sect, to rear the 
 Inquisition, and to kindle fires for the martyr. The 
 very religion given to make the understanding and 
 conscience free, has, by a criminal proversion, sent to 
 break them into subjection to priests, ministers, and 
 human creeds. Ambition and craft have seized on the 
 solemn doctrines of an omnipotent God, and of future 
 punishment, and turned them into engines against the 
 child, the trembling female, the ignorant adult, until 
 the skeptic has been emboldened to charge on religion, 
 the chief miseries and degradation of human nature." 
 
 The first minister quoted, said : " If you can use 
 the weaknesses of the neighbor to make him more 
 Christian, do it." On the other hand, the second min- 
 ister boldly denounces " wise as serpents " doctrine, 
 with its correlation of " all things to all men," as a 
 criminal attempt to " subject man to priests and hu- 
 
172 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 man creeds." With clearer and worthier vision a wise, 
 womanly writer said : " Religion is the true, the only 
 reformatory power. She sometimes wears one gar- 
 ment, sometimes another — the crown of art, the veil 
 of philosophy, the hard and shining armor of the law. 
 All of these by turns disguise her, and when these 
 various forms effect any thing, we find that religion 
 was at the bottom of what was done. Our applications 
 of religion are often defective, often at fault. Men 
 build stone cathedrals in place of living temples, and 
 invent stony creeds in place of discovering vital doc- 
 trines. In view of this I would repeat one of the 
 prayers familiar to my youth. I was taught long be- 
 fore I knew any thing of spiritual or other anatomy, 
 to pray that God would take away my heart of stone 
 and give me a heart of flesh. So now I will pray that 
 God would take away our church of stone and give us 
 a church of flesh, with the living blood of the body 
 politic circulating through it." 
 
 Throughout Christendom, especially in Catholic 
 countries, " the cross " is reverently regarded by au- 
 thority. By many religionists it is well-nigh wor- 
 shipped. "Within the sacred temples of monastic days, 
 as well as w r ithin the groves and along the rivers of 
 the classic lands, the crucifix is lifted and kissed as the 
 symbol of an infinite God's own personal sufferings 
 and tragical local sacrifices for the inhabitants of this 
 
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP. 
 
 1T3 
 
 * Ji 
 
 little seventh-rate globe. " The custom of making the 
 Sign of the Cross," says the authority quoted, " is as 
 old as Christianity it- 
 self, and is mentioned 
 by the earliest writers. 
 It is done by touching 
 first the forehead and 
 then the breast with 
 the fingers of the right 
 hand, and then in a 
 similar way making a 
 line across the breast 
 from left to right. You 
 should at least practice 
 this venerable custom 
 before and after engag- 
 ing in public and pri- 
 vate prayer, at the 
 same time invoking 
 the Holy Trinity, say- 
 ing ' In the name of the Father ' as you touch the 
 forehead, because the Father is head of all things ; 
 ' and of the Son ' as you touch your breast, because 
 the Son was begotten of the father ; ' and of the Holy 
 Ghost ' as you draw the line from left to right across 
 the breast, because the Holy Ghost is co-equal with 
 the Father and the Son. Thus the Sign of the Cross 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S EMBLEM. 
 
174 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 is not only a token that you begin and end your ser- 
 vice trusting in the merits of your crucified Lord, but 
 it is also a beautiful symbol of your faith in l" 
 the Blessed Trinity." 
 
 In the sight of other eyes, from which §1 
 look minds and hearts belonging to the pro 
 
 PICTURE OP 
 AN IDOL. 
 
 gressive school of faith and works, " the 
 Cross " is nothing more than a relic of an ancient semi- 
 civilized method of publicly and ignominiously execut- 
 ing persons convicted of capital crimes. " During the 
 middle ages," says a candid writer, " a famous instru- 
 ment of death, called the Maiden, was in use. It was 
 the figure of a beautiful virgin placed in the niche of a 
 prison-cell to represent the adorable Madonna. The 
 prisoner, exhausted by fasting and torture, and turned 
 into this cell, falls in supplication before this image, 
 which is contrived to open its arms, as if to invite his 
 bewildered fancy to a protecting embrace. He rushes 
 into the trap ; the arms close, and a thousand knife- 
 blades kiss his life away. Such is the religion of every 
 kind of oppression." 
 
 With this diabolical virgin-punishment w r e are, by 
 the imperative promptings of both truth and humanity, 
 compelled to classify every ancient and modern plan 
 for inflicting suffering and mortification. Therefore 
 the rack, the gibbet, the wheel, the guillotine, the gal- 
 lows, and " the cross," we classify and impale together 
 
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP. 175 
 
 as so many monstrous human inventions for overcom- 
 ing and punishing evil with evil. Not one of these 
 inventions merits the least exaltation ; for each alike is 
 nothing but an emblem of man's ignorance, retaliation, 
 and cruelty. The sign of the modern gallows, and not 
 the sign of the ancient cross, should be made by every 
 devout American. Harmonialists accept as worthy of 
 perpetuation none of these old-time inventions ; and 
 yet, as F. L. H. Willis, in a moment of inspiration, 
 said — 
 
 u We can look on scenes of glory 
 
 That no artist can reveal ; 
 Though no saints are in our niches, 
 
 Carved from blocks of faultless stone, 
 Yet we know that saints are with us 
 
 Helping all our labors on. 
 All the pomp, and pride, and fashion, 
 
 Priests once gave to church and fane ; 
 But we give to saints immortal 
 
 Wealth that loving hearts contain. 
 They once thought to enter heaven 
 
 By the wafer and the wine, 
 But we seek the living water, 
 
 And we ask for bread divine. 
 Holy spirits ! ye who usher 
 
 In the day of truth and love, 
 Bring us gifts from off the altars 
 
 Of your own blest spheres above. 
 Then we'll feel the fire of heaven 
 
 Kindling in our waiting hearts, 
 
176 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS 
 
 And we'll know our God is with us 
 
 By the life its warmth imparts ; 
 And as true and loving brothers 
 
 We will wage a noble strife — 
 Daily met in one great temple 
 
 Of a true harmonious life, 
 'Mid whose high and fretted arches 
 
 We may hear the angels sing, 
 To whose fair and unstained altars 
 
 We may every purpose bring. 
 Thus the temple shall be builded, 
 
 Reaching to the heavens above : 
 Consecrate to God the Father, 
 
 Because built of human love." 
 
 Impressed with the beauty and mystery of the 
 Wheel, the ancients erected it into an object of wor- 
 ship. Ethnological researches, bringing to light the 
 devices and designs of diverse kinds of art, architect- 
 ure, and religion, disclose the most popular forms and 
 objects of primeval worship. Wheel- worshippers be- 
 gan with the figure of the Circle; and the serpent, 
 with its imagined death-dealing, healing, and life-giv- 
 ing qualities, was the accepted symbol. The prophet 
 Ezekiel frequently refers to the wheel, with indefinite 
 intimations of its profound mysteries. For myself, 
 since perceiving the eternal elements enfolded by the 
 ellipse as a mathematical figure, I could bow to " the 
 circle " as reverently and as sincerely as Christians 
 
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP. 177 
 
 uncover before " the cross," making its sign with a 
 prayer for recognition and protection. The pre-empted 
 proprietors of the " Garden of Eden " unjustly claim 
 to have originated the Wheel-and-Serpent religion. 
 Whether Adam introduced the Tree-warship and Eve 
 the Serpent-worship >, or the reverse, is as yet unhap- 
 pily an open question. The truth is that, except the 
 empire of China, the serpent-wheel religion has had 
 devotees in all parts of the world. Until the reign of 
 Hezekiah, the image of the serpent was worshipped by 
 certain tribes of Jews, during more than six hundred 
 years ; because they, in common with many sects of 
 Asia and the East, supposed the serpent to be in some 
 mysterious manner a representation of both the crea- 
 tive and the destroying deities. Of course, the most 
 ignorant believers worshipped the Serpent itself, instead 
 of the particular deity which it was originally designed 
 to conspicuously represent ; just as, in our more en- 
 lightened day, the most ignorant among Christians 
 revere and worship the cross, the church, the Bible, 
 and other images, instead of the life that led to the 
 Martyrdom, the Truth, the Spirit, and Nature, which 
 are the only real realities worthy of all adoration and 
 obedience. 
 
 Sincere and true worship may be outward and ob- 
 jective, or interior and subjective ; but invariably the 
 
 act is in accordance with the real moral and intellect- 
 12 
 
178 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 THE IDOL OP MANY. 
 
 ual growth of the worshipper. False worship, on the 
 other hand, is in accordance with the individual's 
 religious instructions, social temptations, and govern- 
 ing circumstances. The kind-hearted lover of the 
 noble horse is sincerely filled with admiration (possibly 
 with emotions amounting to adora- 
 tion), for the majestic and full-blood- 
 ed beauty. While the purely intel- 
 lectualist, the man devoted to the won- 
 ders of antiquity, of research in sci- 
 ence, glorying over and feasting upon 
 the great wealth of literature — such a 
 man is a devotee at the shrine of Ge- 
 nius — and hooks, instead of running 
 brooks, are his supreme and all-ab- 
 sorbing attraction. 
 
 A distinguished writer once dared 
 to express in verse the thoughts and 
 meditations of every rational observer. 
 In a style of unaffected simplicity, which is only 
 equalled by the plainness of his speech, he wrote : 
 
 I stood at the door of God's temple one day, 
 
 And gazed at the throng as they entered : 
 I studied each face, as they passed up the aisle, 
 
 To find out on what their thoughts centred. 
 
 BIBLIOLATRY. 
 
 And I judged, from the lookB that the most of them wore, 
 And the glances they cast at their dresses, 
 
TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP. 179 
 
 That they worshipped, instead of their Father above, 
 The diamonds they wore in their tresses. 
 
 And I thought, as I stood looking silently on 
 
 Until all the throng had been seated, 
 If this is the way they worship their God, 
 
 I am sure He is very ill-treated. 
 
 Then I turned me away, my soul's feelings to hide, 
 
 And wandered to where, in the wildwood, 
 I could hear the birds sing their joyful songs, 
 
 As sweet as in days of my childhood. 
 
 And I seated myself by the side of a brook, 
 
 On a time-worn and moss-covered stone ; 
 And I said to myself, with a sigh of relief, 
 
 " I will worship my God here alone. 
 
 "And the sweet birds that sing in the tops of the trees 
 
 Shall waft to the throne songs of love, 
 While my heart shall go out, in its fulness, to Him 
 
 Who reigneth in mercv above." 
 
XII. 
 
 Origin and Influence of Prayer. 
 
 TRUE prayer, oral or silent, is born of the bosom, 
 not of the brain. It is the legitimate child of emo- 
 tion, undisturbed by skeptical suggestions of the intel- 
 lect. Hence as a purely spiritual exercise, springing 
 from the love-gravitation of the finite toward the 
 attraction of the Infinite, prayer is likely to include a 
 great variety of conflicting elements ; among which 
 may be mentioned — fervency, rapture, inconsistency, 
 selfishness, mystery, shallowness, awe, reverence, ego- 
 ism, conceit^ fear, worship, confidence, rest, and joy. 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 181 
 
 Spirit is the source of the emotion which seeks to 
 utter itself in prayer. Closet prayers are petitions for 
 benefits, or expressions of gratitude, or praise, or sub- 
 mission, too deep for words, whispered to the Infinite 
 from the divine silence of the sincere spirit. 
 
 The earnest and sincere nature is invariably devout 
 and prayerful. Devotion is the allegiance and bestow- 
 nient of mind to its labors, objects, and enterprises. 
 A mind, sincere and earnest, but not intelligent, prays 
 to the gods for special favors. The God conceived by 
 such a mind is not unchangeable. He thinks, or rather 
 he unthinkingly believes, that praying " without ceas- 
 ing," or that human entreaties uttered in profound 
 faith, may attract God's attention, overcome His ori- 
 ginal reluctance to granting personal favors, and may 
 possibly induce Him, " just for this once," to modify 
 or suspend the operation of natural laws and causes. 
 
 A mind capable of such a conception is happily 
 incapable of perceiving the detrimental blasphemy 
 involved. Nor does such a mind realize the equal 
 sincerity and earnestness of every other devotee at- 
 tached to the conflicting forms of religion in other 
 parts of the globe. From hundreds of minarets, 
 throughout the vast empire of the Sultan, at this very 
 hour, the faithful are forwarding sincerest petitions to 
 God — asking that infidelity (by which they mean 
 Christianity) be destroyed, that Mahomet be univers- 
 
182 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 ally accepted as prophet, and the Koran received by 
 mankind as the only infallible rule of faith and prac- 
 tice. With no more sincerity the faithful in the dif- 
 ferent Christian 
 churches, beginning 
 with the head of 
 the papal system 
 and ending with the 
 youngest exhorter in 
 a camp-meeting, are 
 praying for favors 
 and results entirely 
 antagonistic. War- 
 riors pray to the 
 God of Battle; 
 p eace-makers peti- 
 tion a God of Love. 
 Beading with Chris- 
 tian eyes, and pray- 
 ing with the emotions familiar to the catechismally- 
 educated Christian heart, pass for nothing in thoSe 
 immense regions where, for twelve hundred years, the 
 Mohammedans have sincerely prayed to Allah, which 
 Is only another name for " God." On the other hand, 
 in countries over which the religion of the Jews and 
 converted Gentiles prevails, under the general term of 
 Christianity, the reading and devout praying of the 
 
 READING WITH CHRISTIAN EYES. 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 
 
 183 
 
 followers of Buddha, Brahma, or Mahomet, pass for 
 nothing. And yet all praying is essentially the same, 
 differing in expression only as there is difference in the 
 birth, temperament, and education of the individual. 
 A child-state of mind is essential to fervent and 
 rapturous prayer. Every thing wonderful is possible 
 in the ignorant mind. The absolute impartiality of 
 God, and the irreversible and eternal unchangeableness 
 of Nature's laws, are ideas impossible to be understood 
 by partial and fickle persons. In the beginning man 
 made God in his own image and likeness ; and unto 
 this primal masterpiece man has ever since addressed 
 his childlike prayers. It is related that a little boy of 
 Provincetown, four 
 years old, very anxious 
 for a drum, the eve- 
 ning preceding Christ 
 mas Eve, on going to 
 bed, uttered the fol- 
 lowing earnest prayer : 
 " Now I lay me down 
 to sleep," / want a 
 drum, " I pray the 
 Lord/' / want a drum, 
 " my soul to keep ; if 
 
 I should die before I wake," / want a drum. And 
 his prayer was answered ! 
 
 PRAYER OP THE BEGGAR-GIRL. 
 
184 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 The universal practice is to pray upon the theory 
 that the Infinite expects and requires of finite creatures 
 vocal recognition, glorification, and entreaty. This 
 fallacious theory has resulted in universal routine 
 praying — a sort of Sabbath-drill and periodical drive 
 at the original source of every blessing — so that the 
 phraseology of prayer, as well as the peculiar emotions 
 volitionally summoned to stimulate vocal utterance, 
 have become wearily monotonous and blasphemously 
 
 V jfea 
 
 PRAYER BY MAN TO MAN IN POWBR. 
 
 mechanical. As a labor-saving expedient, the more 
 logical, yet not less sincere, heathen have instituted 
 divers praying-machines ; which, it is affirmed, uni- 
 formly maintain an untarnished reputation for " good 
 morals," and demand nothing by way of salary for 
 religious " services rendered." 
 
 Enthroned human power, which means influence 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 185 
 
 embodied in place or genius, commands respect and 
 compels worship. " Hero-worship," is the homage paid 
 by awe-struck and submissive idolators to the personi- 
 fication of power. The prone spirit of prayer is pre- 
 sent in all such adoration. It is this spirit of syco- 
 phantic subserviency which urges men to surrender 
 their natural rights, and to sign : " We are your Lord- 
 ship's humble and obedient servants." Obedience to 
 constituted authority is necessary to private and public 
 order. With such obedience is mingled the element 
 of conscience or duty. But it is manifestly every 
 man's higher duty, all his life long, to search out and 
 obey the Truth. " His Worshipful Highness," is the 
 utterance of a devotee. The primal impulse is the 
 same, only directed with different thoughts, when the 
 tongue substitutes the words — " O thou, Lord God 
 Almighty." 
 
 An ardent, poetic temperament, stimulating a mind 
 much more developed in the moral faculties than in 
 the intellectual, is most successful in expressing the 
 beauty of holiness in prayer. Only religious poets, 
 during their youthful epochs, can reach the climax of 
 inspiration in utterance. 
 
 True prayer is the glowing and graceful expression 
 of the virgin imagination, warmed and fed by spiritual 
 passion and devout meditation. Religious feeling is 
 the poetic brooding of the spirit. It is cherished most 
 
186 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 devotionally in youth. And being an intimation of 
 that infinite and eternal life of which the spirit is mys- 
 teriously a part, the feeling grows in the most inmost 
 secrets of the heart, and is revealed often in the pas- 
 sionate and picturesque language of prayer. Analysis 
 of the development and formation of the religious 
 character would reveal elements which are indispensa- 
 ble to a true poetic genius — such as childhood, with its 
 apprehensive and clinging consciousness of depen- 
 dence ; love of solitude, with its unconquerable melan- 
 choly and brooding ; love of the supernatural, with 
 its delicate imaginations and bold appreciations of the 
 Supreme Power ; love of ideas, with its conflicting 
 consciousness of ignorance and intuition strangely inter- 
 mingled ; and, lastly, the love of life, with its moods 
 and mysteries, with its loneliness and associations, with 
 faith and doubts, attempts, failures, reveries, sorrows, 
 and despair — these elements, in states more or less act- 
 ive, are to be found in the composition of the sincerely 
 religious character, especially during the earlier years 
 of its development. 
 
 Finite good within yearns toward the Infinite good. 
 The spirit's natural impulse is to enlist in God's 
 service ; and prayer is the formal act of enrollment. 
 The ambition to be an officer, and not a private, in the 
 Lord's army, is deemed a holy ambition. The protec- 
 tion of the Almighty is a feeling with which eternal 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 187 
 
 love and assistant angels clothe every human heart 
 that truly pours itself out in prayer. 
 
 A young and recently consecrated clergyman is 
 most enthusiastic in feeling ; and he is on most familiar 
 and affectionate terms with God. His feeling of 
 " power from Heaven " is equal, in his own estima- 
 tion, to the might of ten times ten thousand sinners. 
 He fights valiantly under the war-standard of the 
 Almighty. It is, perhaps, a great happiness that he 
 is not disturbed with the fact that thousands of persons 
 — his equals in position, ability, industry, and sincer- 
 ity — have entered God's service through fervent and 
 constant prayer, uttered before altars in pagodas and 
 in countries where the Christian's bible and plans of 
 salvation have never been heard of. Was is not some- 
 what youthful to write in the following style ? " In 
 your lonely prayers are the springs of all prayerful 
 influence. What mighty heroes have sprung from 
 that closet-communion ! O, those wells that gushed 
 in God's sight only ! That outcry in secret to God ! 
 What great life has come from private prayer ! Chris- 
 tianity was born in Gethsemane. Cromwell's soldiers, 
 beneath their iron armor, wore priyate prayer, and 
 that is the reason they whipped the dashing cavaliers. 
 .The old Covenanters tore their knees upon the rocks 
 in wrestlings with themselves, and then went to mar- 
 tyrdom as to a feast. We owe it to the Puritan pri- 
 
188 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 vate prayer that we have this Republic today. Not 
 to talents alone, not to genius, not to tact, is the world 
 in debt ; but to the prone soul in the shut chamber. 
 O, when you hear the tramp of armies, do you think 
 they win the day ? No ! but God's step in the soul's 
 communion." 
 
 There is doubtless a certain correspondence between 
 a man's life and his prayers ; not because of his pray- 
 ers, but because of the mental and moral condition 
 out of which his petitions are spoken. A wicked- 
 minded man is insane. He is ungrateful and turbu- 
 lent ; like the tempest, he is full of discords and de- 
 struction. He is no poet, and his whole life is covered 
 with the clouds of calamities ; his ship is tossed in the 
 waves of woes and passion ; so that, unless he selfishly 
 supplicates for help, he is a stranger to every kind of 
 prayer. 
 
 Religious persons, on the contrary, believe that 
 every day, like every great labor, should begin and 
 end with prayer. This systematic plan, under God's 
 blessing, it is believed will make the day and the labor 
 prosperous. But all experience proves that obedience 
 to the laws of truth and justice is attended with far 
 greater happiness and prosperity. The history of the 
 American nation, like the career of every other people, 
 indicates that divine principles, when obeyed, and not 
 prayers uttered either by priests or citizens, accom- 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 189 
 
 plished all the real prosperity it ever enjoyed. Our 
 Congress lias a chaplain. " I heard him pray this 
 morning," writes a correspondent to the Independent. 
 u I haven't a doubt but he intended to offer it to the 
 Lord, that loud-rolling, oratorical prayer ; but it sound- 
 ed very much as if it were addressed to the senators. 
 Half the public prayers we hear seem to bound back 
 from the ceiling. I wonder how they seem to the 
 Lord, these astonishing literary performances made at 
 His feet, in which he receives much curious informa- 
 tion concerning His universe and the way to manage 
 it ! I know I am not a standard in such matters. I 
 couldn't throw out my arms, throw back my head, and 
 lift up my voice in rolling thunder to the Almighty, 
 if I would ; and I would not, if I could. Therefore, 
 I'm no criterion while I say that if every senator 
 bowed his uncovered head in silent supplication it 
 would be much more impressive as an act of worship 
 than all the rhetoric which ever rolled heavenward 
 from the desk." 
 
 u Would'st thou know the lawfulness of the labor 
 which thou desirest to undertake ? " asked Enchiridon. 
 u Let thy devotion recommend it to divine blessing ; 
 if it be lawful, thou shalt perceive thy heart encour- 
 aged by thy prayer ; if unlawful, thou shalt find thy 
 prayer discouraged by thy heart." That is to say, a 
 man must first desire to do good, and his exertions 
 
190 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 must correspond with his desire, before he can realize 
 much strength and comfort from prayer. Such pray- 
 ers are simply right actions. The firmest will and the 
 toughest muscles give out eventually in a bad cause ; 
 while in the cause of truth, love, justice, and peace, 
 success is certain at last to crown the weakest and 
 humblest laborer. Who would attempt to pray for a 
 harvest without having first plowed and planted the 
 ground ? Prayer is a healer of diseases ; only when 
 faith is sufficient to stimulate the will-power, whereby 
 
 PRATERS WHICH ANSWER THEMSELVES. 
 
 crippled functions are aroused to new life. Prayer 
 feeds the poor, only when some attending angels bring 
 aid from the rich ; but this is an end not easily or fre- 
 quently accomplished. Labor, righteously and per- 
 sistently bestowed, is the surest self-answering prayer, 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 
 
 191 
 
 and it never comes without the blessings and sweet 
 benedictions of God and Nature. 
 
 It is mental infancy which believes in a fickle and 
 wrathful God. Believers in supernatural warnings, 
 and in sudden strokes from the throne of omnipotence, 
 are ignorant of the laws of 
 reason and science. A clap 
 of thunder, which is utterly 
 without power to harm, is 
 more alarming to the igno- 
 rant than the flash of light- 
 ning which alone can de- 
 stroy. So with all ideas 
 among the superstitious con- 
 cerning the efficacy and 
 mystery of prayer. They think that a roaring Metho- 
 distic petition, let off at the top of the voice, will 
 quicker attract God's attention than the unspoken 
 " good wish" which, like the " God bless you " of an 
 angel's whispered prayer, throbs and burns before high 
 heaven, noiselessly, in the sweet sanctuary of the sin- 
 cere heart. 
 
 Attributing horrible deeds to God's direct agency 
 belongs legitimately to the era of oral and noisy pray- 
 ing. In Richmond, Va., within a few months, there 
 occurred a terrible scene ; about which one of " the 
 great dailies " thus most wisely discourses : " It is a 
 
 MEN SAVING THEMSELVES. 
 
192 • JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 weakness of clergymen to attribute to providential 
 agency, as either directly or indirectly manifested, the 
 most horrible of deeds. In this particular case we find 
 the Rev. Mr. Hepworth gravely asserting that ' there 
 was a God in it ; it was no blind accident.' Rev. Mr. 
 Smyth, discoursing on the same subject, held that 
 homes were made desolate and hearts cruelly wrung 
 because of political injustice, which was true enough ; 
 but he followed up these ideas by indirectly express- 
 ing the conviction that the accident was due to a 
 special visitation of Providence. In Washington, the 
 Rev. Mr. Barry, after declaring that ' God moved in 
 a mysterious way,' applied this quotation from the 
 hymn to the disaster, by saying that ' the Richmond 
 catastrophe and similar calamities only illustrate the 
 fact of God's providence. Such things are not the 
 work of chance.' We could quote from several other 
 sermons to show that all the preachers were of one 
 mind ; but these will suffice for our purpose. 
 
 " Now, with all due respect to the clergymen, we 
 must differ with them in their conclusions. The Rich- 
 mond accident was due to purely natural causes, or 
 rather to the disobedience of laws laid down by nature. 
 We cannot see wherein the Lord had any thing to 
 do with the giving way of the floor. Ignorant archi- 
 tects, and not Providence, are responsible for the kill- 
 ing and maiming of nearly two hundred persons. 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRATER. 193 
 
 There was not, and is not, the slightest evidence of 
 the supernatural having been concerned in the disas- 
 ter. Certain pillars which had supported the floor 
 had been injudiciously removed, thereby weakening 
 the power of the beam to support a heavy weight. 
 For the first time, probably, since the alterations were 
 made the court room was densely crowded. As a nat- 
 ural consequence the laws of gravitation asserted them- 
 selves ; the girder gave way, and the mass of human 
 beings was precipitated to the floor beneath to meet 
 death or wounds. Here we have a clear, simple ex- 
 planation of the affair. Nowhere in it can we see the 
 hand of Providence. Nothing occurred which cannot 
 be accounted for on purely natural grounds. 
 
 " If we are to agree with the preachers that the 
 Almighty deliberately cut off from earth some sixty 
 persons, mangled the bodies of more than one hundred 
 others, brought misery and penury to many domestic 
 circles and plunged an entire community in mourning, 
 why shall we not hold Him responsible for the com- 
 mission of every frightful act ? Shall we hold that 
 when one man murders another the hand of Provi- 
 dence is apparent in the deed ? Are all the horrible 
 and nameless crimes almost daily committed the work 
 of God? If they are, then nothing is left for Satan to 
 do. Certainly, when we reflect that the victims of the 
 
 Richmond disaster were not more sinful than the ma- 
 13 
 
194 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 jority of men, it seems very much as if the King of 
 Evil had more to do with it than the God of mercy 
 and righteousness. One's faith in the divine truths 
 of Christianity would be much shaken if the belief 
 could find lodgment in the mind that to the direct 
 agency of Providence is due all, or a great part, of 
 human woe and misery. JSTo ; mysterious as are God's 
 ways, they do not manifest themselves in such horrors 
 as that which occurred at Richmond last week, The 
 Infinite mind seeks not thus to impress its power upon 
 sinful humanity, and we must, therefore, dissent from 
 the views of those clergymen who argue that it does. 
 And more ; in leaving this subject we must give ex- 
 pression to the profound conviction that one of the 
 great reasons for the wide-spread scepticism of the age 
 is to be found in clergymen preaching from the pulpit 
 the doctrine of providential agency in the most repul- 
 sive occurrences. By this teaching Christianity is 
 divested of its most beautiful features, and God Him- 
 self is represented as the very incarnation of cruelty 
 and revenge." 
 
 So much wholesome common sense, uttered so free- 
 ly by the editor of a leading journal, in the Metropolis 
 of America, is enough to induce the Governors to ap- 
 point a " Day for Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer." 
 
 It is no mystery why infantile and sincere minds — 
 that is, religious-minded persons, totally ignorant of 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 195 
 
 the teachings of modern science — should be terrified 
 by great material changes. (We do not now speak of 
 pulpit charlatans and professional hypocrites.) Nine 
 out of every ten of such minds believe devoutly that 
 the earthquake and the thunder-storm are really God's 
 chosen chariots in which to drive furiously and roar- 
 ingly about among His insignificant creatures. They 
 think that nothing but noise and fire and fury — like 
 volcanic thunders, lightnings, and ocean tempests — 
 can give adequate expression to the unfathomable 
 opinions and feelings of omnipotence ! Persons of 
 this way of believing are usually gifted in vociferating 
 tremendous prayers into the immense ears of their 
 changeful and wrathful god. 
 
 There really is, however, an impressiveness in thun- 
 der and lightning, and in falling floods of rain, which 
 cannot but fill the mind with wonder and awe ; and 
 it was but natural that, before men could comprehend 
 the phenomena of nature through science, the ignorant 
 worshipper was overwhelmed with unspeakable fear 
 and trembling. 
 
 In, Ludlow's recent work, entitled " The Heart of 
 the Continent," we find the following grand description 
 of a thunderstorm on the great Western Plains ; by 
 which the religious imagination is distinctly impressed 
 with the terrible grandeur of the scene : " The agency 
 that wrought those delicate traceries of golden sprig 
 
196 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS, 
 
 and anastomosing vein-work began to have a voice. 
 At the foot of the great stair came a rumbling and a 
 groan, as if the giants were beginning to climb. It 
 grew louder, and here and there step parted from step, 
 then the structure lifted at the base and descended at 
 the top, making a series of black blocks and boulders, 
 hanging downward from the same level of sky with 
 lurid interstices between them, through which the up- 
 ward depths looked awful. Never in my life did I see 
 cloud distances graded with such delicacy. One could 
 almost measure them by miles from the inky surface, 
 hanging with torn fringes of leaden vapor just above 
 our head, up through the tremendous chasms flecked 
 along their wall, with dying gold and purple color, 
 with wonderful light and shadows, and marked by in- 
 numerable changes of contour, to the clear but angry 
 sky that paved the farthest depth of the abysses. (I 
 rode on the box for an hour looking into these glorious 
 rifts with fascinated eyes.) Then between their wails 
 began a hnrrying interplay of lightning, and the great 
 artillery combat of the heavens commenced in earnest. 
 At first the adjoining masses had their duels to them- 
 selves, battery fighting battery, pair and pair. Half 
 an hour more and the forces had perceptibly massed, 
 their fire coming in broader sheet, their thunder bel- 
 lowing louder. An hour, and the fight of the giants 
 became a general engagement. The whole hemisphere 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 197 
 
 was a blinding mass of yellow flauie at once, and the 
 reports were each one an instantaneous shock, which 
 burst the air like the explosion, of a mine. Then the 
 wind rose to a hurricane ; and before the dust could 
 be set whirling by it, there followed such a flood of 
 rain as I never saw anywhere, on sea or land. Sitting 
 on the box still, for I bad much rather be soaked than 
 desert such a spectacle, I found my breath taken away 
 for the first minute, as if I had been under a waterfall. 
 It was not drops, nor jets, nor a sheet ; it was a mass 
 of coherent water falling down bodily. Five minutes 
 from the time it began to wet us, the horses were run- 
 ning fetlock-deep, with the road still hard under their 
 hoofs, for the soil had not yet had time to dissolve into 
 mud. Torrents were flowing down every incline ; 
 where the plain basined, the water stood in broad 
 sheets revealed by the flashes like new ponds suddenly 
 added to the scenery. Still the storm did not spend 
 itself in wind and water. The lightning got broader, 
 and its flashes quicker in succession ; the thunder sur- 
 passed every thing I have heard, or read, or dreamed 
 of. Between explosions we were so stunned that we 
 could scarcely speak to or hear each other, and the 
 shocks themselves made us fear for the permanent loss 
 of our hearing. One moment we were in utter dark- 
 ness, our horses kept in the road only by the sense of 
 feeling ; the next, and the vast expanse of rain-tram- 
 
198 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 pled grass lay in one embrace of topaz fire, with the 
 colossal piles of clefted cloud out of which the deluge 
 was coming, earth and heaven illumined with a bright- 
 ness surpassing the most cloudless noon." 
 
 In contemplating such a storm, with all its atten- 
 dant phenomena, the mind is involuntarily made to 
 think of the immeasurable energies of Omnipotence. 
 Great mountains, seen by impressible eyes, produce the 
 same internal effects. Thus people grow like the 
 scenery and character of the country they for centuries 
 inhabit. Oriental life is a reflex of Oriental scenery. 
 Hebrew history embodies the physical facts and cli- 
 matic phenomena of the great East. The sumptuous 
 pomp, the barbaric magnificence, the (so to speak) 
 supernatural vicissitudes, the picturesque superstitions, 
 the wars, successes, revolutions, and the religious mani- 
 festations of the ancient Oriental nations, have counter- 
 parts in the great deserts, fertile plains, beautiful val- 
 leys, mighty mountain ranges, unsurpassed rivers, and 
 vast seas of that most wonderful continent. 
 
 Therefore, if you would understand the origin of 
 a oral prayer," you must look into the spiritual ima- 
 ginations of the Hebrew and other Oriental nations. 
 Day after day, night after night, until forty suns were 
 gone, Moses dwelt alone upon the mountain. The 
 dread shadow of the Eternal throne impressed the 
 religious poet and lawgiver. He was praying for the 
 
INFLUENCE OF PRAYER. 199 
 
 good of the multitudes in the valleys below. The good- 
 will of God was solicited day after day by the inter- 
 cessor in his vocal prayers. He sought to change the 
 purposes of the Unchangeable ! He sought to alter the 
 inflexible will of Jehovah. Thunders roared and light- 
 nings played fearfully upon the mountain. The dis- 
 cordant hosts of the vale witnessed the terrors of the 
 Almighty. Yet they were deplorably ignorant and 
 superstitious. They instituted other more palpable 
 means than prayers for obtaining God's favorable no- 
 tice and protection. But the power of the great leader 
 was commensurate with his untiring persistency in oral 
 prayer. Accordingly on returning from the mountain 
 to his brethren, he instituted the government and wor- 
 ship of the King of kings ; and his inflexible will, act- 
 ing like God's voice upon the weak and idol-building 
 hosts, filled them with reverence and unquestioning 
 obedience. 
 
 From all which we gather a lesson : that the most 
 sincere and uncompromising love of truth, the strongest 
 will, combined with the clearest practical wisdom, 
 burning with fervent religious feeling, and exemplified 
 by unweariable industry, are infallibly certain to win. 
 
 But, O friendly reader ! let us not leave this theme 
 without considering some of its correlations and help- 
 ful auxiliaries. The following chapter should be read 
 as " the same subject continued." 
 
3^r " *5^s^" 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Realms of Sorrow and Superstition. 
 
 THAT superstition is hurtful which attributes horri- 
 ble deeds to the direct agency of an angry personal 
 God. 
 
 It is at the bottom, because it is the stem-supersti- 
 tion, of that kind of " religious duty " which, swayed 
 by an educational conscience, imposes upon its posses- 
 sor the solemn necessity of oral prayers and formal 
 supplications. The originators of this theory say that 
 God's anger must be placated, His good-will must be 
 obtained, and direct acts and benefactions by Him in 
 your favor, must be secured ; and the " means " most 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 201 
 
 certain, according to sectarian superstitions, are faith 
 and works, but above and surest of all, are frequent 
 and long-continued prayers, " put up " with all your 
 soul and might and mind, wrestling with God not to 
 be omitted, accompanied by any form of entreaty ima- 
 ginable. It was said of a certain eloquent preacher 
 that, after the fine choir sung a few hymns, u the doc- 
 tor delivered a nice essay in the vocative as a prayer, 
 and then took the text from which to preach." Such 
 gifted prayers — " nice essays " — are more abundant 
 than beneficial. 
 
 This superstition sometimes takes on another form ; 
 of which the following is an illustration : " A religious 
 woman who always kept Sunday and washed o' Mon- 
 day, and in fact all the rest of the week, as she was a 
 washerwoman by occupation, had managed to scrape 
 up money enough to build a snug little house and barn 
 in the country, and one afternoon, after she was com- 
 fortably settled, there came along a terrible tornado 
 which tore her barn to pieces and smashed part of the 
 house. The old lady's indignation was at first un- 
 speakable, but at last she sobbed, u Well, here's a 
 pretty piece of business. No matter, though ; I'll pay 
 for this — I'll w T ash on Sundays." The world's mourn- 
 ful graveyards, in which all are sooner or later mus- 
 tered from life's battle-fields, are the realms of numer- 
 ous sweet superstitions. Of the many beautiful or 
 
202 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 otherwise, I will here mention but two : One, that 
 death is a perpetual sleep in the grave ; the other 
 (which contains a sublime truth), that the gates of 
 heaven open so broadly that the hosts are perpetually 
 marching in and out, from earth to heaven and from 
 heaven to earth, subject to solicitations of terrestrial 
 high privates, who congregate in " circles " or kneel 
 together in "prayer." 
 
 Of the superstition that " death is an eternal sleep " 
 much might be written. It is the foundation of all ab- 
 solute skepticism concerning the existence of a world 
 beyond the grave. It argues that beyond known 
 phenomena there is nothing different to discover. Our 
 knowledge of mind and our knowledge of matter is 
 asserted to be scientific and certain, only limited ; and 
 that, so far as our real observation and knowledge of 
 these conditions go, all is just as infallibly reliable as 
 though it were extended through infinity and pro- 
 longed through eternity. Coupled with this reasoning 
 is the assertion that death is death, and not life ; that 
 the idea of personal immortality is fallacious, being 
 " an idea," and nothing more. Death, these reasoners 
 say, is the certain end of all. Thus — 
 
 " An immense solitary spectre waits ; 
 It has no shape, it has no sound ; it has 
 No place; it has no time ; it is and was 
 And will be ; it is never more nor less, 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 203 
 
 Nor glad nor sad. Its name is Nothingness. 
 Power walketh high ; and misery doth crawl 
 And the clepsydra drips, and the sands fall 
 Down in the hour-glass, and the shadows sweep 
 Around the dial ; and men wake and sleep, 
 Live, strive, regret, forget, and lovej and hate. 
 And know it. This spectre saith I wait, 
 And at the last it beckons and they pass, 
 And still the red sands fall within the glass, 
 And still the shades around the dial sweep, 
 And still the water-clock doth drip and weep. 
 And this is all." 
 
 These bold and irreverent Materialists are met by 
 equally bold and irreverent Spiritualists. Christians 
 cannot meet them philosophically, unless they appeal to 
 the " phenomena " accepted by Spiritualists ; which de- 
 velopments most Christians are either too ignorant to 
 comprehend, or too proud to accept. 
 
 The Christian testimony upon which faith in the 
 New Testament miracles is based, has been assailed 
 and invalidated for generations ; so that Materialists 
 have no obstacles to encounter save the " inexplicable 
 physical phenomena " presented by the troublesome 
 and irrepressible Spiritualists. These new evidences of 
 "immortality" have not been successfully assailed; 
 although the " facts " have been multiplied, and re- 
 peated in every part of the civilized world, beyond all 
 parallel during the past quarter of a century. In 
 
204 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 many parts of the world they are just about to come 
 forth. Consequently the hosts of doubters are effect- 
 ually silenced, but not yet fully convinced ; and so the 
 great and good " fight " is certain to terminate. 
 
 POPULAR DOGMAS BARKING AT MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 And thus we arrive at our second superstition , 
 which, nevertheless, is mingled with many momentous 
 truths. The illustrious leaders, the 
 valiant soldiers, and the high-born 
 heroes of this long battle with Ma- 
 terialism, have stacked arms and 
 encamped upon the ground of in- 
 discriminate faith in a constant 
 communion with the angels. The 
 a comfortable seat UN- bitter enemy is silenced, his guns 
 
 DER A FRUITLESS TREE. J J © 
 
 spiked, his forts dismantled, and 
 the flag of " immortality demonstrated," floats proudly 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 205 
 
 upon the heavenly atmosphere. The realms of shadow 
 have been richly furnished with substance. Individ- 
 uals believed to be u dead " have responded when their 
 names were properly called. Human prejudices have 
 given way before the accumulated weight of genuine 
 spiritual evidences. And the martyred saints and 
 patriots and comrades of the " new era," clothed in 
 their shining victorious habiliments, are already in 
 danger of conquerors' crowns and martyrs' monuments. 
 
 And why are they not crowned ? Why do not the 
 enriched and grateful people erect altars to Spiritualism ? 
 Why are not Spiritualists more united in good works ? 
 The people's answer 
 comes, thus : u If it can 
 be shown that Spiritu- 
 alism has purified the 
 characters and ennobled 
 the lives of its votaries, 
 we shall be prepared to 
 welcome it. But no such 
 result is yet apparent, 
 and the world must con- 
 tinue to regard even its 
 highest advocates as en- 
 gaged in work unworthy 
 of their faculties." 
 
 What rejoinder from us is possible? 
 
 CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOT7L. 
 
 We have 
 
206 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 braved the perils of the most searching investigation, 
 have successfully withstood the shafts of ridicule and 
 the destructive assaults of bigotry, and have planted 
 our " evidences " upon an impregnable basis ; and yet, 
 upon the very threshold, around which our laurels are 
 beautifully growing, we are met with an objection, 
 which like a flash of lightning demoralizes our grand 
 army, fills thousands of honest minds with unhappy 
 doubts, and conveys unmerited relief and comfort to 
 the bitter enemy whom we. have long since silenced, 
 if not vanquished. 
 
 Attributing both good and evil deeds to the direct 
 agency of a personal God — out of which has grown 
 up a custom of oral petitions and written prayers — this 
 superstition has been greatly modified by a large un- 
 philosophical class among nominal Spiritualists ; so 
 that, as another superstition (with grains of truth in 
 it), it stands in this proposition : That in and through 
 all human thoughts, feelings, and actions, Spirits are 
 incessantly operating as primary causes and control- 
 ling powers. Thus a limited number of Spiritualists, 
 unconsciously following the affirmation of Swedenborg 
 in this particular, because they have not adopted the 
 purely philosophical method of investigation, unwit- 
 tingly practise upon the dogma that " Spirits can and 
 do displace the private will and personal consciousness 
 of human minds; and thus, fully possessing and con- 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 207 
 
 trolling such minds, do make manifestations of every 
 name and nature, and frequently for their own parti- 
 cular selfish gratification." 
 
 Wonderful private experiences are adduced to 
 substantiate this exceedingly infantile and easily-ac- 
 cepted theory. Because it is scientifically true in part, 
 therefore it is believed and acted upon as though it 
 were wholly true ; instead of being mostly ai> error, as 
 it is, filled with a variety of hurtful subversions of sense 
 and conduct. 
 
 One effect is : A narrowing and debilitation of the 
 believer's conceptions of the grand system of truths 
 and principles ; and the correlative effect is : An 
 irreverent familiarity with spirits, on the fallacious 
 dogma that spirits, like body-servants and house- 
 waiters, are at all moments subject to the will and 
 wishes of the questioner. 
 
 One day, in Broadway, a gentleman accosted me 
 with : " Mr. Davis, I want your clairvoyant aid in a 
 money enterprise in which I am deeply interested." 
 Upon inquiry, the fact came out that he was " digging 
 for lost treasure " under the directions of some fortune- 
 telling medium. 
 
 My reply was emphatically that "I had not a mo- 
 ment to give him for any such purpose." Still he urged 
 his case by promises of " large sums he was to donate 
 at once to charitable works to the everlasting glory of 
 
208 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Spiritualism." Again with kindness, but yet more 
 emphatically, refusing to give a moment of time to his 
 scheme, he replied wilfully : " If you were in the 
 spirit-world, Mr. Davis, I would go to my medium and 
 make you communicate in five minutes, and as long as 
 I pleased ! " 
 
 Such Spiritualism, as is illustrated by the folly and 
 shallow superstition of this man, is not worthy a place 
 
 MONET -HUNTING UNDER MEDIUMISTIC DIRECTION. 
 
 in the lowest witchcraft huts of the middle ages. 
 u Sir," I said, " do you imagine that I shall have less 
 command of my time and person in a higher state of 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 209 
 
 existence than I have at this moment ? " His reply 
 was : " Spirits are bound to come when we call them ! 
 They have nothing else to do but to look after the 
 friends that they have left behind ! " I said : u House- 
 servants as obedient to ' calls ? would certainly com- 
 mand the highest prices." And further I assured him 
 that, speaking for myself, " If I ever returned after 
 death to this seventh-rate planet, it wonld be to accom- 
 plish some object in accordance with my own affec- 
 tions, reason, conscience, and will, and not in response 
 to ' the call ' of some selfish money-hunter or any 
 other special investigator." Whereupon, of course, he 
 marked me forever " out of his books." But to every 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATION OP UNCULTURED INDIVIDUALISM. 
 
 sound mind it must be evident that such Spiritualism, 
 
 considered with reference to its effect upon the struc- 
 14 
 
210 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 tare and growth of character, is weakening and decora- 
 posing, not to say disintegrating and dwarfing, to the 
 last degree. 
 
 A true religion, independent of all tricks and mys- 
 teries, can be everywhere known by three signs : (1) 
 It causes the person, inwardly, with reverence and 
 affection, to look up to the Infinite Perfection ; (2) It 
 causes the person to rise to the universal love of man- 
 kind, and to deal justly, truthfully, and peacefully 
 with every living being ; and (3) it causes the person 
 to strive to live physically, mentally, socially, and spir- 
 itually, according to that standard of supreme excel- 
 lence to which the immortal spirit naturally calls and 
 points all mankind. 
 
 If I were asked to give, in brief, the chief good and 
 use of this great Spiritualistic movement, my reply 
 would be, as heretofore, that the term " Spiritualism " 
 is properly applicable to a revival of evidence, appre- 
 ciable by the physical senses, that a person is not de- 
 stroyed by the chemistry of death, but exists as much 
 of an individual as before, and enjoys the privilege of 
 travelling in the spiritual universe, and of revisiting 
 the earth and holding converse with friends still in the 
 flesh. 
 
 Spiritualists teach very generally that " circles " 
 and " manifestations " should be multiplied and the 
 spirits continually evoked. 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 211 
 
 On the contrary, I teach and insist that, beyond 
 establishing the momentous question, " If a man die, 
 shall he live again ? " — beyond a sensuous demonstra- 
 tion of the fact of personal immortality — the convening 
 of " circles " and the accumulation of repetitious " man- 
 ifestations " are not beneficial, but weakening to both 
 the sensibilities and the judgment. 
 
 DISTINGUISHED PROFESSORS TRYING TO EXPLAIN SPIRIT MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 And except for scientific investigations — that is, to 
 test the delicacy and wondrous power of spirits over 
 material things — it will be found that " dark circles " 
 are valueless and injurious. As means of carrying con- 
 viction to skeptical minds, the lightless sessions amount 
 simply to this : Persons convinced by such evidences 
 usually require periodical repetitions of " facts " to keep 
 their night-encompassed faith from languishing. 
 
 But, although Spiritualism is not, according to this 
 
212 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 definition, a new religion, it is the herald of a higher 
 era of spiritual enlightenment. It hospitably welcomes 
 every fresh thought in philosophy, and inspires every 
 advancement in science, society, and life. A free de- 
 velopment of the essentials of true Religion is one of 
 the accompanying effects. 
 
 It must be remembered that in Arabula and else- 
 where I have employed this term, " Spiritualism," with 
 the largest meanings, in a pure spirit of accommodation 
 to the popular use and acceptation. I do not now 
 justify such use of the word, although I do not mean 
 to recall any of the affirmations under that head ; be- 
 cause it is all true of the Dispensation of which spirit- 
 ual intercourse is a living part. 
 
 Behold what Spiritualism (in the sense with which 
 I now use the term), has already encountered : 
 
 1. Sectarians, in their ignorance and pride, have 
 repulsed and spurned it ; 
 
 2. Skeptics, in their strongholds of materialism, 
 have ridiculed and neglected it ; 
 
 3. Spiritualists, in their familiarity and fanaticism, 
 have covered it with imperfections and chaos. 
 
 Familiarity is the temporary suspension of all rules 
 of delicacy and veneration. If this is true, right here, 
 between man and man, how much more must it be 
 true as between earthlings and their celestial visitors ! 
 
 It is an abuse of such exalted intercourse to try to 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 213 
 
 make it subservient to personal ends. The sad misfor- 
 tunes which befall many mediums, and some Spiritual- 
 ists, can be traced directly to this outrageous selfish 
 practice. With many the practical uses of medium- 
 ship are adopted as purely mercenary. Fortune-tell- 
 ing and treasure-hunting characterize the faith and 
 conduct of too many believers. And the direful con- 
 sequences of these crimes are upon us all. 
 
 It was true that the doors and windows of heaven 
 were opened, and, happily, it is true that they are still 
 open ; and it is also true that angels often descended ; 
 and, happily, it is true that they are still descending, 
 with the abundant showers of their sweet influences, 
 to bless and elevate humanity. 
 
 But the legitimate punishments of transgressed laws 
 and violated conditions are also descending upon the 
 disobedient world. The delicate fineness, not to say the 
 modest self-respect, of our celestial visitors compels 
 them to shrink away from these prolonged abuses — the 
 practice of using mediums and spirits for selfish ends 
 and temporary benefits. Their justice and then 1 power 
 are being silently concentrated to resist and to punish 
 such grovelling malpractices. 
 
 One punishment, which must deeply sadden every 
 sincere heart, is : The withdrawal from direct inter- 
 course with earth's inhabitants of scores of truly great 
 and learned minds ! 
 
214 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 This proceeding is going forward at this moment 
 in every direction. 
 
 Thus the grand use of spiritual intercourse — " a 
 living demonstration " — is rapidly passing into record- 
 ed history. The refreshing shower from the spiritual 
 skies is well-nigh over. By this is not meant that all 
 communication is to cease ; nor that a renewal is not 
 possible in response to worthy solicitation. 
 
 Humanity has many times before approached, and 
 enjoyed, and passed through, these wonderful epochs 
 of contact with the celestial spheres, and the believers 
 have been before, as again they are about to be, affiict- 
 ively punished for sacrilegious treatment of privileges 
 so high and pleasures so holy. 
 
 It seems mournful that mankind cannot at once and 
 universally obey the laws of Nature, Reason, and In- 
 tuition. Especially in the realm of religious feelings 
 and faith, it is sad that principles and Ideas cannot be 
 accepted by which to judge all phenomena and human 
 testimony concerning them. But the explanation is, 
 that the world lives progressively in emotion and in 
 feeling, and does not easily and quickly arrive at the 
 lofty blessings of thought, reflection, and intuition ; so 
 that, unless men surrender themselves obediently in 
 all matters of doctrine to some supreme " dogma of in- 
 fallibility," unless all bow to some external standard of 
 authority, it is but natural that most persons should 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 215 
 
 become involved in many errors and superstitiQns 
 while independently searching for truth. 
 
 Among the errors and hurtful superstitions which 
 have sprung up in modern fields — in fields where we 
 fondly hoped the immortal flowers of Reason alone 
 would grow and forever bloom— I will in this place 
 mentioi} only nine, as follows : 
 
 1. That departed spirits, both good and evil, con- 
 tinually float and drive about in the earth's physical 
 atmosphere ; 
 
 2. That evil-disposed characters, having died in 
 their active sins, linger around men and women both 
 day and night, in order to gratify their unsatisfied 
 passions and prevailing propensities ; 
 
 3. That all known mental disturbances — such as in- 
 sanity, murder, suicide, licentiousness, arson, theft, and 
 various evil impulses and deeds — are caused by the 
 direct action of the will of false and malignant spirits ; 
 
 4. That certain passionate spirits, opposed to purity 
 and truth and goodness, are busy breaking up the ten- 
 der ties of families and take delight in separating per- 
 sons living happily in the marriage relation ; 
 
 5. That spirits are at all times subject to summons, 
 and can be " called up " or made to " appear " in 
 circles ; and that the " mediums " have no private 
 rights or powers of will which the spirits are bound to 
 respect ; 
 
216 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 6. That spirits are both substantial and immaterial ; 
 that they traverse the empire of solids, and bolt 
 through solid substances, without respecting any of 
 the laws of solids and substances ; and that they can 
 perform any thing they like to astonish the investi- 
 gator ; 
 
 7. That every human being is a medium, in one 
 form or another, and to some extent ; and that all per- 
 sons, unconsciously to themselves, are acting out the 
 feelings, the will, and the mind of spirits ; 
 
 8. That spiritual intercourse is perpetual ; that it is 
 now everywhere operative ; and that, being at last 
 established, it cannot be again suspended ; 
 
 9. That the reading of books and reflection, as a 
 means of obtaining truth, are no longer necessary to 
 believers ; that the guardian band of spirits will im- 
 part to the faithful every thing worth knowing ; and 
 that, for any thing further, one need only wait upon 
 the promptings of intuition, and that, in any event, 
 " whatever is, is right." 
 
 These errors, these superstitions, and these dog- 
 mas, like all other human developments, contain 
 rich intimations and germs of truth. These theories 
 have taken deep root among a large class of avowed 
 Spiritualists. And the legitimate effects, it will be 
 remembered, are visible in the disintegrations and de- 
 compositions of character ; in mutual disrespect and 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 217 
 
 A CREED-CRUSHER EARNESTLY RECOM 
 XENDED. 
 
 recriminations ; in the disorganization of all our public 
 efforts, and tlie abandonment of our beneficent enter- 
 prises ; in the irreverence manifested toward even the 
 great central Princi- 
 ples around which all 
 persons and facts 
 must bow and cling ; 
 and, lastly, in the 
 gradual suspension of 
 the delightful inter- HH 
 course itself, by which 
 the glory and un- 
 speakable opportuni- 
 ties of immortality have been brought to light. 
 
 After twenty-five years of constant investigation 
 into the many and various phases of 
 this subject, and with almost daily 
 realizations of somewhat of the infinite 
 goodness embosomed in these high 
 privileges, I can most solemnly affirm, 
 and I do now make the declaration, 
 that the nine propositions contained 
 in. the indictment, are mostly errors and hurtful the- 
 ories — injurious in their effect upon the individual 
 judgment, and still more injurious when made the 
 foundation of faith and practice. They belong to the 
 age of broom-riding witches ; to the shallow doctrines 
 
 A PROCESS THROUGH 
 
 WHICH EVERY CREED 
 
 SHOULD PASS. 
 
218 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 of personal devils and sorcery ; and to the fiction-age 
 of astrology and the small gods of superstition. They 
 will not bear analysis by the philosophical method of 
 detecting the presence and value of truth. They will 
 not stand a test by the supreme infallible authorities — 
 Nature, Reason, Intuition. This affirmation is made 
 without qualification ; and it contains a challenge — a 
 summons to investigation. 
 
 AN AGENT OP SAINT CUSTOM PUTTING A COLLAR OVER THE HEAD OF THAT 
 WHICH IS STRONG AND USEFUL IN SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Instead of the assertion that spirits are continually 
 
SORROW AND SUPERSTITION". 219 
 
 present, and the belief that they are instantly engaged 
 in influencing human feelings, convictions, and con- 
 duct — instead of this, it would be far nearer the exact 
 truth to say : 
 
 " Spirits even now rarely communicate with 
 
 MEN." 
 
 Numberless absurdities spring from the supposition 
 that mankind are continually in contact with citizens 
 of the air. It is, alas ! too high a privilege, too deli- 
 cate a luxury for the human heart, to be frequently 
 mingled with current experiences. The percentage of 
 intercommunication, O, believe me ! is still very small. 
 It is yet the exception in human life, I am constrained 
 to affirm, and not the rule. More contact with the 
 spiritual life is what the world most needs. 
 
 What, then, are we to do ? Are we admonished to 
 retire from the spiritual movement ? Shall we aban- 
 don life because it is burdened with trials and imper- 
 fections ? All delicate relations are attended with 
 great risks and enjoyed amid great dangers : Shall we, 
 therefore, refuse to enter into them ? Nothing noble 
 or heroic can be achieved without labors and dangers 
 of greater or less magnitude. Therefore, although un- 
 diluted intercourse with the celestial citizens is still 
 rare, yet the grand prize (the knowledge that personal 
 life is continued beyond the grave /) is worthy the exer- 
 tions of the finest powers of every doubting mind. 
 
220 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 But remember, O, most friendly reader ! that all 
 other uses of the high privilege of spiritual intercom- 
 munication — except when it comes in response to the 
 unselfish prayers of friendship and love — are flagrant 
 violations of its fixed laws, are transgressions of its 
 delicate conditions, which cannot but be followed by 
 innumerable mortifications and various disastrous pun- 
 ishments. 
 
 In conclusion, this one word : Prayer is sometimes 
 a key, by which the golden door of infinite opportuni- 
 ties may be unlocked ; and, sometimes, prayer calls to 
 our immediate aid those wise and strong guardians, 
 who daily live in harmony with the eternal currents 
 of affection. 
 
XIV. 
 
 Effect of a Mistake in Religion. 
 
 A SERIES of supplemental considerations for thee, 
 O faithful reader ! in continuation of the general 
 subject treated in the last chapter, as follows : 
 
 Spiritualism, which is sometimes called u spiritism," 
 has justly inspired hundreds and thousands of noble 
 hearts with the fondest hopes for humanity. Highly 
 endowed intellects have been by its immense promises 
 filled with the most brilliant anticipations. Many of 
 these fond hopes have perished ; many a bright prom- 
 ise has been toned down to the verge of despair. 
 
222 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Hundreds of the professors of Spiritualism have retired 
 into the frigid, barren, and inhospitable, yet popular, 
 territories of conservatism. The movement was, and 
 is, full of aggressive and progressive minds ; and it is 
 correspondingly empty of constructive and charitable 
 labors for human advancement. Nowhere on the good 
 Father's footstool can be found a richer soil so ut- 
 terly grainless and unproductive. No other existing 
 movement embraces so many enlarged ideas, quickens 
 so many generous instincts, inspires so many impressi- 
 ble minds, opens so many grand scenes for mankind ; 
 and yet, to tell the plain truth, no other movement, of 
 the same age and with the same wealth of opportuni- 
 ties, ever exhibited more miserly stinginess in its ap- 
 propriations for worthy enterprises, or more senseless 
 extravagance in rewarding individuals for the selfish 
 use of their powers. 
 
 
 "AS THE TWIG IS BENT, THE TREE IS INCLINED." 
 
MISTAKE IN RELIGION. 223 
 
 The beautiful tree bears but little practical fruit for 
 the millions of the globe, because of the existence of an 
 error j which like a devouring worm, lives in the very 
 foundation, and which is day by day eating out the 
 life of its finest roots. 
 
 This destructive error is the general misapprehen- 
 sion, entertained by the intelligent and the ignorant 
 alike, that the fact of communication with the other 
 world is worthy of exaltation to the dignity of a re- 
 ligion, and that the constant prayer for and enjoyment 
 of such intercourse is the practice of religion. 
 
 u In all kindness," says one of our most prominent 
 writers, "we ask, is not Spiritualism founded on the 
 revelations of mediums ? Could it have sprung into 
 existence without them ? " My reply is : " Certainly 
 not ; and simply because Spiritualism has no other 
 foundation, it is radically incapable of becoming a 
 practical religion." Some of our best workers and 
 most philosophical thinkers have strenuously advocated 
 this error (of a medium-originated religion), as if it 
 were the most solemn and momentous truth — adequate, 
 when believed in and acted* upon, to overcome all pri- 
 vate human ills, and adequate not less to work in 
 society universal redemption from every form of evil 
 and wretchedness. The reduction of this central rad- 
 ical error to a sort of independent individual practice 
 has eventuated in the belittling and wretchedly barren 
 
224 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 crop of small gratifications, which have come to all 
 such self-painstaking practitioners. 
 
 MEN HEAP FROM THE SEEDS THEY PLANT. 
 
 What is such a religion reduced to practice ? It is 
 simply and only and forever nothing more than the 
 private drawing-room development of mediums, and 
 the night-after-night communications with spirits of 
 every name and nature — with friends and foes alike — 
 and for no purpose other than the immediate gratifica- 
 tion which may arise from having your great mental 
 powers applauded and flattered, your fond hopes 
 illuminated with immense promises of wonderful works 
 in store for you, and your feelings poetically excited 
 and your industry lulled to sleep by assurances that 
 " angels will take care of you," and that the slowly 
 rolling ages will bring every thing straight and 
 smoothe all the rough places. 
 
 With such delightful convictions, the illogical pro* 
 
MISTAKE IN RELIGION. 
 
 225 
 
 fessor of Spiritualism goes out into the busy world 
 dreamily, like an opium-eater, full of enchanting sub- 
 jective sensations and thoughtful ambitions, but really 
 and practically with but one ever-present and all- 
 mastering motive : Personally to enjoy the present 
 life ! Do things go wrong about you ? " Wonder 
 
 INCONSISTENCIES RECONCILED BY COERCION AND FEAR. 
 
 why the spirits don't step in and make every thing 
 smooth and right." Do your children need to be 
 saved from theological errors, and put upon the health- 
 track, and taught to do their own thinking and work 
 in the world ? " Let them go to some church or send 
 them to Sunday-school, and let them adopt the ways 
 of society. A working organization, founded upon a 
 declaration of principles, is another sectarian move- 
 ment ; therefore it must die, because we will have no 
 more association with sectarianism." 
 15 
 
226 JETS 0F NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Are there old dogmas and old practices to be over- 
 come ? " Certainly ! Spiritualism is the infallible cure- 
 all — the leaven of old institutions ! Let the churches 
 absorb it (which they are doing very rapidly), and the 
 result will be a radical modification of old theology." 
 
 All these sayings come flowing free from the 
 mouths of the professors of Spiritualism. Still they 
 claim to be philosophers ! They really think that 
 they are logical reasoners ! Many of them fancy that 
 they have fathomed the deeps of human history ! And 
 a few believe that they know all of any importance that 
 can be said or written this side of the loftiest angels. 
 And thus they are, (only, however, in their imagina- 
 tions,) above all authority, having arrived at the estate 
 of free religion and perfect self-control ; and yet a 
 medium, if believed to be " under a high control," 
 need but say " Go," and they depart, or " Come," and 
 they approach, obediently like well-drilled soldiers un- 
 der an unseen commander. 
 
 Freely and honestly I have written against the pro- 
 fessors and teachings of old religions, and against pop- 
 ular speculations, called " orthodox theology." Over 
 and again I have denounced their most sacred faiths as 
 weak and soul-cramping superstitions. I do so still, 
 and retract nothing ; neither asking nor giving quar- 
 ter ; never compromising with error, nor favoring any 
 forms which oppose the freedom and progress of man- 
 
MISTAKE IN RELIGION. 
 
 227 
 
 kind. Here an old question, founded in a principle 
 of charity and justice, may be repeated : " "Why be- 
 hold est thou the mote 
 that is in thy brother's 
 eye, but considerest not 
 the beam that is in thine 
 own eye ? " 
 
 And now, in this spir- 
 it, without wishing to 
 give a grain of comfort to 
 the enemies of Spiritual- 
 ism, I am constrained, in 
 the interest of truth and 
 humanity, to speak as 
 freely and honestly against 
 the radical errors in both G0 forward without fear when 
 
 41 ON THE RIGHT TRACK." 
 
 faith and practice, which 
 
 have cropped out among spiritualists. As in my heart 
 there is not one feeling of unkindness or bitterness 
 toward any believer in any Church or Bible ; so there 
 is nothing but earnest fraternal love toward all men, 
 inspired by a still more profound love of truth and en- 
 franchised reason, which moves me to indite these 
 protestations. 
 
 Spiritualism, when properly defined with its limita- 
 tions, is not a religion ; and the practice of communi- 
 cating with spirits, however delightful to the better 
 
228 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 feelings, is not the practice of religion ; and, therefore, 
 spiritualists (i. e. spirit-communicants), are not neces- 
 sarily a religious people. The seed of Spiritualism is 
 spiritual intercourse. Can the fruit of a tree differ 
 from its seed ? If your religion begins in the practice 
 of holding such communications, where will it end ? 
 It is a circle, and will end just where and just as it be- 
 gun, in the practice of commerce with spirits. Pri- 
 mates and ultimates resemble one another, as grain bears 
 
 BIRDS ARE SOMETIMES INFLUENCED BY SPIRITS. 
 
 a likeness to its germs. If Christianity relied wholly 
 upon miracles for its existence, it would have died 
 when its seed-causes (the miracles), were suspended 
 and practically abolished. Interior ideas, and not won- 
 derful works, were the vitals of the movement ; there- 
 fore, the cessation of the (so-called) miracles, which 
 only illustrated the ideas, did not destroy Christianity. 
 The ideas and doctrines of Christianity constitute its 
 
MISTAKE IN RELIGION. 229 
 
 religion and theology, and the practice of its ideas and 
 precepts constitutes the practice of its religion ; and 
 thus it will live and flourish, and originate and control 
 governments and educational institutions, until better 
 ideas and better precepts eventually modify and super- 
 sede them. All this undeviatingly proceeds, like the 
 universe itself, upon the principle that " effects and 
 causes correspond." 
 
 It is folly of the most foolish quality to expect sal- 
 vation through the performances and wonderful works 
 of any self-asserting special son of God; and not less 
 senseless is the presumptive faith that the state of 
 mediumship, and the consequent sympathetic commerce 
 with the citizens of the next world, will upbuild indi- 
 vidual character and carry forward the grand ends of 
 growth in humanity. 
 
 The effect of the first error, when fully accepted 
 and acted upon, is visible in the startling imperfections 
 which crop out in the character and conduct of Chris- 
 tians ; and the effect of the second error, when reduced 
 to faith and practice, is manifested in the characterless 
 sentimentalities and non-productiveness of theoretical 
 Spiritualists. 
 
 Spiritualism, as I have frequently used the term, by 
 way of accommodation, from a purely harmonial out- 
 look, may be truthfully called a religion ; but when 
 strictly interpreted, and measured and valued by its 
 
230 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 scientific claims alone, it is little more than another 
 name for a belief in and knowledge of " Spiritual In- 
 tercourse." And this last definition, which is the only 
 interpretation a careful thinker can conscientiously 
 give to the term, also defines the uses and abuses of it 
 which abound. Those who have unphilosophically 
 insisted upon a wider definition, who have been loudest 
 in proclaiming " Spiritualism " as the all-in-all of a 
 New dispensation, who have, while encouraging the 
 most extravagant egoistic manifestations of individual- 
 ism, advocated a declaration of principles as the basis 
 
 THE PROGRESSIVE TRACK OF SPIRIT-FACTS RUNS ALONG THE 
 RIVER OF PRINCIPLES. 
 
 of an organization of its powers and professors — such 
 will find, sooner or later, that, by a radical error in 
 their definition, they have established and encouraged 
 a radical error in practice, to the advantage and vital- 
 
MISTAKE IN RELIGION. 231 
 
 ization of the all-appropriating churches, and to the 
 corresponding disadvantage and debilitation of the 
 freely-imparting tendencies of the central good there is 
 in a demonstrated immortality. 
 
 Ideas and indestructible Principles, and not the 
 wonders of communications with persons residing be- 
 yond the tomb, are the seed-causes of progress and re- 
 construction. 
 
 The eternal Truth, as it is revealed through the 
 beautiful mediums of Love and Justice, is the only 
 everlasting standard. 
 
 Science is a sure safeguard against superstition. 
 
 Reason is the exponent of truth to the intellect ; 
 even as Intuition is truth's exponent to the affections. 
 
 Religion is true and undefiled when it is absolutely 
 free — independent of dogmatic theology on the one 
 hand, and free of fleeting marvels and superstition on 
 the other — free as immortal love and truth are free, a 
 power of eternal Good and Right in the indestructible 
 constitution of the Spirit, removing error and distribut- 
 ing justice throughout the world. 
 
 Wisdom is the most sacred name, above every other 
 name, unto which every knee should bow and every 
 tongue confess. Our Redeemer is Wisdom ! whose 
 ways are pleasant ; whose paths are peace ; whose 
 heart is Mother Nature ; whose head is Father God ; 
 who saves the whole world with an everlasting salva- 
 
232 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 tion. Truth, Love, Justice, Wisdom — each an angel 
 of life, light, and happiness ! Let us strive to com- 
 municate with them ; let us listen reverently to no 
 other voices ; let us obey no other authorities. 
 
XV. 
 
 Omens and Signs Among Religionists. 
 
 EVERY philosopher must decide that it is unrea- 
 sonable to expect, in the present stage of human 
 progress, the general diffusion of any religious faith 
 without a corresponding expansion of refined forms of 
 fear and superstition. Those who delight themselves 
 chiefly in the feelings and mysteries of religion possess 
 little ability to reason philosophically concerning the 
 laws and requirements of truth. Every established 
 system of religious faith, and every denomination of 
 faith in every such system, is supported by multitudes 
 who utterly repudiate Reason as an authoritative ex- 
 ponent of religion. 
 
234 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Supernaturalism, being intrinsically nothing but 
 unnaturalism, is the mother of innumerable fears and 
 superstitions. If a new phase of the spiritual comes, 
 like the wonders of modern Spiritualism, large acces- 
 sions are made from the ranks of old and existing sys- 
 tems. As the converted Gentiles of the olden time car- 
 ried into Judaism their long-cherished myths, fears and 
 follies ; so converts from Judaism convey many of their 
 ancestral rites, omens, and superstitions into Christian- 
 ity ; even as Christians, converted to Spiritualism, bring 
 with them a long baggage-train of prejudices, weak- 
 nesses, fears, and superstitions, whose maternal ancestor 
 is Supernaturalism, which is the foundation of the 
 entire superstructure of Christianity. 
 
 " Faithful are the wounds of a friend." Infantile 
 states of mind demand a religion of " rattles and 
 straws ; " which the estate of manhood utterly rejects 
 as " childish things." Therefore human nature, before 
 it comes to a knowledge of fixed principles, naturally 
 believes in signs, omens, and superstitions ; which crop 
 out of the spirit's instinctive trust and comfort in the 
 idea of an arbitrary protective Providence. 
 
 Helpless and weak and wretched is human nature, 
 in its physical and mental infancy ; beset on every side 
 with mysteries, contingencies, calamities, and misfor- 
 tunes. Life's changes are charged with alternate de- 
 feats and victories. We do not stop to think when sur- 
 
OMENS AND SIGNS. 
 
 235 
 
 rounded by dangers, and when encompassed by number- 
 less difficulties, which, threaten to crush and destroy. 
 
 From the visible the feelings yearn for protection 
 from the invisible. With firm reliance upon an in- 
 finitely wise Providence, overflowing with illimitable 
 power and with equal goodness, thousands of persons 
 in every system of religion will brave any danger and 
 attack obstacles of every magnitude. 
 
 Men are fatalists in these affairs of religion, and 
 many minds have hope and patience and cheerful cour- 
 age under mysterious trust and faith ; while under 
 Reason and Conscience, as counsellor and guide, the 
 same persons would sink into helplessness and despair. 
 There are persons who do physical wonders, and ex- 
 hibit abilities not to be matched, only while under the 
 effect of some powerful stimulant or mental excitement. 
 
 Faith in the invisible is pe- 
 rennially important. But it 
 exists not without dangers and 
 absurdities to the faithful ; even 
 while it brings tender comfort 
 and sweet trust into the relig- 
 ious feelings. Unless the judg- 
 ment is fortified in knowledge, 
 
 the faith becomes extravagant 
 
 THE END OF LIFE TO THOSE 
 WHO SEE NOT. 
 
 and superstitious, and the be- 
 liever is easily influenced by omens, signs, spectres, 
 
236 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 wraiths, forerunners, and whimsical prognostications 
 of future events. 
 
 A sailor, who cared nothing for storms and dangers, 
 
 could not be induced to 
 go out one fine morning 
 with some fishermen, 
 because the night before 
 he encountered a bat 
 behind a broom in his 
 cabin on the beach. He 
 was a good Methodist^ 
 believed in a personal 
 God, and in a kind of 
 Providence which sends 
 to a believer distinct 
 signs of impending disaster. 
 
 Heaven's ante-chamber would seem, according to 
 
 some providence-believers, to 
 be a place of evil. I know 
 a distinguished preacher and 
 orator who confessed that to 
 see the moon for the first 
 time after her change over 
 the left shoulder, is certain 
 immediately to depress his 
 feelings ; and his mind is 
 filled with vague apprehensions, whenever he thinks 
 
 A SAILOR S UNLUCKY OMEN. 
 
 SAW THE MOON OVER HIS LEFT 
 SHOULDER. 
 
OMENS AND SIGNS. 
 
 237 
 
 of the omen, during the entire month. Notwithstand- 
 ing the fact that his judgment rejects the omen as 
 sheer superstition, his feelings and conduct are never- 
 theless more or less unhappily affected by the trifling 
 circumstance, simply because the supposed significance 
 of the fact was mingled with his early education. 
 
 Not many months since I received a letter from an 
 unmarried woman, who had what she deemed the mis- 
 
 A STRANGE CAT RAN INTO THE HOUSE WHILE THEY WERE TALKING 
 
 fortune of seeing a strange cat run into the door just as 
 her sister's only son was about to commence a horse- 
 back journey in company with a neighbor. She had 
 received a good education, and she was rather ashamed 
 to confess to any apprehensions arising from the fore- 
 runner ; but she could not shake off the old Welsh 
 rustic belief that, unless the cat was caught and con- 
 fined in the house a day and a night, some dire ca- 
 
238 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 lamity would overtake the darling boy. She had also 
 been recently disturbed by bad dreams of muddy 
 water, especially since the youth had commenced the 
 journey ; and on several nights that same neighbor's 
 dog had foreshadowed the worst fortune by howling 
 most dismally ; and there were also other signs of 
 trouble. 
 
 Her fears were so excited that, although she was a 
 theoretical believer in the doctrine of a fixed natural 
 law within the cause of every event, she could not 
 shake oft* the painful anxiety and foreboding. In reply 
 I urged upon her the supreme authority of Reason ; 
 that her dark and melancholy apprehensions were 
 probably owing to her early miseducation in the super- 
 naturalism of Christianity ; and that, besides, there was 
 possibly some phrenological or physiological cause for 
 the sufferings she experienced. 
 
 I tried, as delicately as possible, to intimate that 
 the " dreams of muddy water " originated in some bad 
 condition of the brain or bile ; and intimated, also, 
 that I should be glad to see her photographic likeness, 
 in order to determine the temperaments of a person so 
 filled with faith and doubts concerning symbolic signs 
 and omens. Her answer, which covered her photo- 
 graphic likeness, was couched in terms of earnest pro- 
 test ; giving her opinion most decidedly to the effect, 
 that she had a firm trust in a supreme Being of infinite 
 
OMENS AND SIGNS. 239 
 
 power and wisdom ; but did not doubt but that, some- 
 times, He permitted looking-glasses to break, dogs to 
 howl, and imparted bad dreams to presage a death, or 
 to warn people of impending evil. She entertained a 
 
 A DREAMER OF BAD DREAMS. 
 
 natural dread of ridicule, however ; and it is my con- 
 viction that this dread, more than the exercise of her 
 reason, limited the indulgence of her superstitious fears. 
 She was not a believer in Spiritualism, but had great 
 faith in the fortune-telling faculty of some mediums. 
 
 The inhabitants of India suffer vastly from snake- 
 bites, and the havoc caused by man-eating tigers, leo- 
 pards, and other wild beasts of the jungle. In the 
 Central Provinces the loss of human life by tigers, 
 
240 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 wolves, hysenas, leopards, bears, and panthers, is im- 
 mense. We learn that superstition also plays no small 
 
 part in the mainte- 
 nance of these intol- 
 erable scourges. The 
 Gonds, for instance, 
 instead of mustering 
 in force to hunt down 
 the tigers who wage 
 war against them and 
 their herds, have an 
 idiotic way of regard- 
 ing the tiger as a 
 divinity whose wrath 
 it is unsafe to arouse. 
 If one of them falls a 
 prey to the divinity's 
 appetite for human 
 flesh, the rest of the 
 family are forthwith tabooed as displeasing to the ob- 
 ject of their reverent dread, and must expiate their 
 offence by costly sacrifices, which may leave them pen- 
 niless but will restore them to their caste-rights. 
 
 What misery comes from the womb of Ignorance ! 
 Disordered imaginations, the changing and inclement 
 skies of superstition, entail distress and wretchedness 
 upon human nature. We listen with reverence to the 
 
 BAD DREAMS OF ONE NOT A TEE-TOTALLER. 
 
OMENS AND SIGNS. 241 
 
 dictates of truth, while with abhorrence we hear the 
 prayers of superstition. A firm believer in spiritual 
 intercourse, I know, is not exempt from the bitter 
 struggles and horrible notions fixed in the religious 
 imagination by having once believed in popular theol- 
 ogy. They are afraid of u ghosts and graveyards," 
 and dread encountering " imps of darkness," and suf- 
 fering many deaths by being in " bondage through fear 
 of death." At length they obtain a life-long emanci- 
 pation by being converted to the evidences of spiritual 
 intercourse. And yet I know a Spiritualist, who would 
 repel with scornful emotions the least insinuation that 
 he is superstitious, who was one day absolutely dis- 
 heartened in the prosecution of a worthy enterprise, 
 because by chance a striped squirrel ran across the 
 path in a grove through which he was walking toward 
 
 INNOCENTS PLATING IN THE GROVE. 
 
 the residence of a friend. Esteemed for his wit and 
 geniality, and beloved for his strict integrity and high 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 moral principles, and yet so suddenly weakened and 
 turned from his purpose by what he considered " a bad 
 sign ! " 
 
 Strong intellects cannot escape the effect of the 
 memory of u signs," and the occurrence of events de- 
 noting " evil," which they learned by heart in child- 
 hood. The human spirit, naturally reaching into the 
 invisible after aid, and craving sympathy in its trials 
 and dangers, is sensitively alive to the teachings and 
 influence of fate. In spite of the keen shafts of ridi- 
 cule, and in opposition to the plainest dictates of com- 
 mon sense and accept- 
 ed science, it is easy 
 for eight-tenths of ev- 
 ery population by in- 
 sensible degrees to lean 
 to the side of ignorance 
 and superstition. Upon 
 no other principle can 
 a philosopher account 
 for the wide - spread 
 acceptance throughout 
 civilization of this dis- 
 mal thing which calls 
 itself " Christian The- 
 ology." Thousands up- 
 on thousands in mis- 
 
 A BIRD OP EVIL OMEN. 
 
OMENS AND SIGNS. 
 
 243 
 
 erable homes and mad-houses realize the unutterable 
 horrors implanted by a cateehismal education into the 
 deplorable superstitions of literal hells of fire and brim- 
 stone, a personal devil of magnificent abilities in eternal 
 opposition to Deity, and all the thirty-nine other name- 
 less nightmares and mythic horrors which float current- 
 ly as great truths in the best Christian communities. 
 
 Physiologists have 
 demonstrated that the 
 " hog," although not a 
 medium for the lesser 
 devils as reported in 
 story, is a first-class 
 boarding-house for mil- 
 lions of m a n-killing 
 worms. Scrofulous 
 diseases, not personal 
 devils, arise from the 
 post - mortem remains 
 of swine. Christians 
 still continue to eat 
 this devil-meat ; over 
 
 which many daily " ask blessings " and subsequently 
 " return thanks ; " as if the God of eternal and unalter- 
 able truth and justice would or could, by special mir- 
 acle, convert pork into piety and scrofula into rose- 
 tints on the lovely cheeks of childhood ! 
 
 
 ANOTHER BAD SIGN. 
 
244 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 Bad dreams naturally visit the brains of pork-eating 
 Christians. Impossible works cannot be wrought ; all 
 
 A PORK-EATER AND WINE-BIBBER PREPARING FOR A DREAM. 
 
 things are not possible. It is a weak and wicked 
 superstition to believe and teach that an unchangeable 
 Deity is engaged in listening to and answering the 
 selfish prayers of pork-devouring and wine-engulfing 
 believers. The fixed laws of the spirit, graceful in 
 their dealings and eternally protective in their govern- 
 ment, guard the citidal of human life. No act goes 
 unrecorded ; no transgression escapes punishment. 
 Mercy is manifested in the gentleness of the record, 
 and in the complete and perfect redemption they ac-. 
 
OMENS AND SIGNS. 
 
 245 
 
 complish in the offending spirit. The transgressor's 
 way is very hard, and his salvation greater in agony 
 than the pains of a fabled hell. The human mind is 
 constituted for an eternal 
 search after and progres- 
 sion in Good ! Any other 
 use of its great powers — 
 all mere search after that 
 folly which the ignorant 
 call u happiness " — is be- 
 set with calamities and 
 wretched defeats. Why 
 cannot men look into the 
 laws of life, from a pure- 
 
 THE OLD MAN'S AFTER-DINNER DREAM. 
 
 ly honest observation of 
 
 its principles and purposes, and thus harmonize with 
 
 its constitutional needs 
 and eternal ends ? The 
 numberless evils of the 
 world are the offspring 
 __- ~^- ~ of ignorance ; then, the 
 brood being hatched 
 and multiplied, a mil- 
 lion-sided net of self in- 
 terests encloses the evils 
 and protects them as 
 though they were good ; 
 
 DREAMS OF FLOODS AND FAMINE. 
 
246 
 
 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 the effect is oppression and general wretchedness, and 
 the end is revolution. 
 
 In order to illustrate what I mean by tracing out 
 u by honest observation " the laws and the evils of life, 
 
 let us read Dr. Hachen- 
 b erg's very faithful ac- 
 count of Indian Trailers 
 and Trappers, in his let- 
 ter from U. S. A. Post 
 JP< Hospital, Fort Band all, 
 Dacotah Territory, to the 
 Hudson Star, February 
 12, 1869, as follows : 
 
 " The most extraor- 
 dinary skill that is exhib- 
 ited in this part of the 
 country, either by the white man or red native, is the 
 practice of trailing. Here it may be accounted an art 
 as much as music, painting, or sculpture is in the East. 
 The Indian or trapper that is a shrewd trailer, is a man 
 of close observation, quick perception, and prompt 
 action. As he goes along, nothing escapes his obser- 
 vation, and what he sees and hears he accounts for im- 
 mediately. Often not another step is taken until a 
 mystery, that may present itself in this line, is fairly 
 solved. The Indian trailer will stand still for hours in 
 succession, to account for certain traces or effects in 
 
 A BELIEVER IN SIGNS AND OMENS. 
 
OMENS AND SIGNS. 247 
 
 tracks, and sometimes give to the matter unremitting 
 attention for days and weeks. 
 
 " The trailer is not a graceful man. He carries his 
 head much inclined, his eye is quick and restless, 
 always on the watch, and he is practising his art un- 
 consciously, hardly ever crossing the track of man or 
 animal without seeing it. When he enters a house, he 
 brings the habits he contracted in the practice of his 
 art with him. I know a trailer as soon as he enters 
 my room. He comes in through the door softly, and 
 with an air of exceeding caution. Before he is fairly 
 in, or, at least, has sat down, he has taken note of every 
 article and person, though there may be a dozen va- 
 cant chairs in the room. He is not used to chairs, and, 
 like the Indian, prefers a more humble seat. When I 
 was employed by General Harney, last summer, to 
 take charge temporarily of the Indians that were gath- 
 ered here to form a new reservation, one day a guide 
 and trailer came into the General's headquarters. I 
 told him to be seated. He sat down on the floor, brac- 
 ing his back against the wall. The General saw this, 
 and in vexation cried out, ' My God, why don't you 
 take a chair, when there are plenty here not occupied ? ' 
 The man arose and seated himself in a chair, but in so 
 awkward and uncomfortable a manner that he looked 
 as if he might slip from it at any moment. But when 
 this uncouth person came to transact his business with 
 
248 JE TS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 the General, he turned out to be a man of no ordinary- 
 abilities. His description of a route he took as guide 
 and trailer for the Ogallalas in bringing them from the 
 Platte to this place was minute, and to me exceedingly 
 interesting. Every war party that for the season had 
 crossed his trail, he described with minuteness as to 
 their number, the kinds of arms they had, and stated 
 the tribes they belonged to. In these strange revela- 
 tions that he made there was neither imposition nor 
 supposition, for he gave satisfactory reasons for every 
 assertion he made. 
 
 " I have rode several hundred miles with an expe- 
 rienced guide and trailer, Hack, whom I interrogated 
 upon many points in the practice of this art. Nearly 
 all tracks I saw, either old or new, as a novice in the 
 art, I questioned him about. In going to the Niobrara 
 River we crossed the track of an Indian pony. My 
 guide followed the track a few miles and then said, ' It 
 is a stray, black horse, with a long, bushy tail, nearly 
 starved to death, has a split hoof of the left fore foot, 
 and goes very lame, and he passed here early this 
 morning.' Astonished and incredulous, I asked him 
 the reasons for knowing these particulars by the tracks 
 of the animal, when he replied : ' It was a stray horse, 
 because it did not go in a direct line ; his tail was long, 
 for he dragged it over the snow ; in brushing against a 
 bush he left some of his hair, which shows its color. 
 
OMENS AND SIGNS. 249 
 
 He was very hungry, for, in going along, lie has nipped 
 at those high, dry weeds, which horses seldom eat. 
 The fissure of the left fore-foot left, also, its track, and 
 the depth of the indentation shows the degree of his 
 lameness ; and his tracks show he was here this morn- 
 ing, when the snow was hard with frost. 5 
 
 u At another place we came across an Indian 
 track, and he said, ' It is an old Yankton, who came 
 across the Missouri last evening to look at his traps. 
 In coming over he carried in his right hand a trap, and 
 in his left a lasso to catch a pony w T hich he had lost. 
 He returned without finding the horse, but had caught 
 in the trap he had out a prairie wolf, which he carried 
 home on his back and a bundle of kinikinic wood in 
 his right hand.' Then, he gave his reasons : c I know 
 he is old, by the impression his gait has made and a 
 Yankton by that of his moccasin. He is from the other 
 side of the river, as there are no Yanktons on this side. 
 The trap he carried struck the snow now and then, and 
 in same manner as when he came, shows that he did 
 not find his pony. A drop of blood in the centre of 
 his tracks shows that he carried the wolf on his back, 
 and the bundle of kinikinic wood he used for a staff for 
 support, and catching a wolf, shows that he had traps 
 out.' ' But, I asked, how do you know it is a wolf? 
 why not a fox or a coyotte, or even a deer ? ' Said he, 
 ' If it had been a fox, or a coyotte, or any other small 
 
250 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 game, he would have slipped the head of the animal in 
 his waist belt, and so carried it by his side, and not on 
 his shoulders. Deer are not caught by traps, but if it 
 had been a deer, he would not have crossed this high 
 hill, but would have gone back by way of the ravine, 
 and the load would have made his steps still more tot- 
 tering.' 
 
 " Another Indian track we saw twenty miles west 
 of this he put this serious construction upon : ' He is 
 an upper Indian — a prowling horse thief — carried a 
 double-shot gun, and is a rascal that killed some white 
 man lately, and passed here one week ago ; for,' said 
 he, ' a lone Indian in these parts is on mischief, and 
 generally on the lookout for horses. He had on the 
 shoes of a white man whom he had in all probability 
 killed, but his steps are those of an Indian. Going 
 through the ravine, the end of his gun hit into the deep 
 snow. A week ago we had a very warm day, and the 
 snow being soft, he made these deep tracks ; ever since 
 it has been intensely cold weather, which makes very 
 shallow tracks.' I suggested that perhaps he bought 
 those shoes. ' Indians don't buy shoes, and if they 
 did they would not buy them as large as these were, 
 for Indians have very small feet.' The most noted 
 trailer of this country was Paul Daloria, a half-breed, 
 who died under my hands, of Indian consumption, 
 last summer. I have spoken of him in a former letter. 
 
OMEXS AND SIGXS. 251 
 
 At one time I rode with him, and trailing was nat- 
 urally the subject of our conversation. I begged to 
 trail with him an old track over the prairie, in order to 
 learn its history. I had hardly made the proposition, 
 when he drew up his horse, which was at a ravine, and 
 said, ' Well, here is an old elk track. Let us get off 
 our horses and follow it.' We followed it bnt a few 
 rods, when he said, it was exactly a month old, and 
 made at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. This he knew, as 
 then we had our last rain, and at the hour named the 
 ground was softer than at any other time. The track 
 before us was then made. He broke up here and there 
 clusters of grass that lay in the path of the track, and 
 showed me the dry ends of some, the stumps of others, 
 and by numerous other similar items accounted for 
 many circumstances that astonished me. We followed 
 the trail over a mile. Xow and then we saw that a 
 wolf, a fox, and other animals had practised their trail- 
 ing instincts on the elk's tracks. Here and there, he 
 would show me where a snake, a rat, and a prairie 
 dog had crossed the track. Nothing had followed or 
 crossed the track that the quick eye of Daloria did not 
 detect. He gave an account of the habits of all the 
 animals that had left their foot-prints on the track, also 
 of the state of the weather since the elk passed, and 
 the effect of sunshine, winds, aridity, sand storms, and 
 other influences that had a bearing on these tracks." 
 
252 JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 
 
 The true philosopher will observe the entire absence 
 of " superstition " in all the methods and convictions 
 of the wild trailer of the far West. His observations 
 are correct and of practical value, because strictly in 
 accordance with the laws and teachings of cause and 
 effect. He has recourse to no mysterious proceedings, 
 incantations, fortune-telling crystals, or other witch- 
 craftiness, which are so popular with omen-believers 
 and the very superstitious. But, instead, you mark 
 the honest regard for facts in the nature and habits of 
 the animals and persons which inhabit that part of the 
 world. Somewhat of this natural sturdy accuracy, and 
 somewhat of this anti-superstitious knowledge of the 
 laws and facts of life, may be incorporated into the 
 education of every human mind. 
 
LIST OF THE WORKS 
 
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 must necessarily revolve, is exfgetically foreshadowed in this Review, which is 
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THE CHILDREN'S 
 
 Progressive Lyoeu 
 
 A MANUAL, 
 
 With directions for the Organization and Management of Sunday-Schools, 
 adapted to the Bodies and Minds of the Young, and containing Rules 
 Methods, Exercises, Marches, Lessons, Questions and Answers, Invoca- 
 tions, Silver- Chain Recitations, Hymns and Songs. 
 
 Original and Selected. 
 
 By ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 
 
 "A pebble in the streamlet scant 
 
 Has changed the course of many a river; 
 A dew-drop on the baby plant 
 
 Has warped the giant oak forever." 
 
 $W The Lyceum externally is a work of art — its emblems all bearing 
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 every badge telling the story of its group, and every group indicating 
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 a yearning for God and Heaven. 
 
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 Address the Publishers, 
 
 WILLIAM WHITE & CO., 
 
 158 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS., 
 
AN EXTRAORDINARY NEW BOOK 
 
 BY ANDEEW JACKSON DAVIS, 
 
 ENTITLED, 
 
 A. STELLAR KEY 
 
 TO 
 
 The Summer-Land. 
 
 P ART 1 . 
 
 Illustrated with Diagrams and Engravings of Celestial 
 Scenery. 
 
 Men of Science ! Thinking Men ! ! Independent Men ! ! 1 Minds 
 skeptical about the Future ! ! ! ! - HERE IS A BOOK FOR YOU. 
 
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 progress, and harmony of Nature in thousands of pages of living inspi- 
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 between the world of matter and the world of spirits. 
 
 Mr. Davis opens wide the door of future human life, and shows us where 
 we are to dwell when we put aside the garments of mortality for the vest- 
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 tific and philosophical evidences of the existence of an inhabitable 
 sphere or zone among the suns and planets of space. These evidences 
 are indispensable, being adapted to all who seek a solid, rational, philo- 
 sophical foundation on which to rest their hopes of a substantial existence 
 after Death." 
 
 The lessons of this book are entirely original, and direct the mind and 
 thoughts into channels hitherto wholly unexplored. 
 
 The account of the spiritual universe : the immortal mind looking into 
 the heavens ; the existence of a spiritual zone ; its possibility and proba- 
 bility; its formation and scientific certainty; the harmonies of the 
 universe ; the physical scenery and constitution of the Summer-Land, 
 its location, and domestic life in the spheres — are new and wonderfully 
 interesting. 
 
 This book is selling rapidly, and will be read by hundreds and 
 thousands of persons. Price $1 ; postage 16c. Liberal discount to the 
 trade. 
 
 Address all orders to the Publishers, 
 
 WILLIAM WHITE & CO., 
 158 WASHINGTON STREET, 
 
 BOSTON. MASS. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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