embraces whatsoever lies below myself, whatsoever is contained in the sphere of sense, and excluded from that of consciousness. Revelation, on the other hand, is objective knowledge: that is to say, it embraces all that is above myself, whatsoever is included in the sphere of consciousness, and excluded from that of sense. My senses tell me what is below myself: and this is the realm of information. My consciousness tells me what is above myself: and this is the realm exclusively of all Divine revelation. That I can only discern my proper face as it is reflected in a looking-glass is a most strict effect from a spiritual cause; that is, it is a strict correspondence or symbol of the spiritual truth that the soul or selfhood is incessantly derived to us from God, and hence is capable not of an absolute or sensible realization, but only of a conscious one.

It is indeed manifest from all that has gone before, that only this revealed or mirrored knowledge of spiritual substance is possible to us. God, or perfect Love and perfect Wisdom, is the sole and universal spiritual substance; is what alone gives being and gives form to all things; in other words, is sole Creator and Maker of the universe. But we cannot know God intuitively, for in that case we should require to be God: we can only know Him experimentally, that is in so far as we become subjectively conscious of being animated by perfect Love and perfect Wisdom:

or in Swedenborg's formula, in so far as we become SUBJECTS in which His Divine may be as in Himself, consequently in which it may dwell and remain." In short, we know God only through the Christ, only through the Divine becoming Immanuel, God-with-us, partaker and glorifier of our nature, glorifying it to its actual flesh and bones, and hence as solicitous to give us bodily health and blessing, as health and blessing of soul.

Clearly, then, it would not be one whit less contradictory to postulate for us direct or intuitive knowledge of spiritual substance, than it would be to postulate an acquaintance with our own persons, independently of the looking-glass. In the very nature of things, all our knowledge of the spiritual world must be reflected, or symbolic knowledge must come to us precisely in the way that the knowledge of our own face comes to us, that is, through the mirror WHICH NATURE HERSELF IS, and which therefore she indefatigably holds out to us. Of course, so long as we foolishly hold nature to be destitute of this higher significance so long as we hold the natural world to be essentially magisterial instead of ministerial; to be, not the mere mirror of the real and substantial world, but that real and substantial world itself: we shall remain utterly devoid of spiritual insight, and continue to be the righteous prey of the dull and lurid despotisms which, under the

names of Church and State, drink up God's bounteous life in the soul of man, and turn what should be His blossoming and fruitful earth, into desolations fit only for the owl, and the fox, and the bittern to inhabit.

Yours truly,

LETTER VII.

MY DEAR W.,

Paris, Nov. 1st, 1856.

You know it is essential to the perfection of a mirror that it should be achromatic or colorless, in other words, that it should not illuminate the object projected on it. If the mirror possess any active qualities, any character or significance apart from the function it performs, it will not be sufficiently passive to the impression made upon it; it will of necessity add something to, or take something from, the image sought to be impressed on it. If it possess substantive life or character,—a life or character of its own, and independent of its properties as a mirror, it will of course reflect the image only in so far as the image is congruous with itself; that is, it will not reflect but absorb the image we seek to impress on it. And its value consequently as a mirror will be destroyed. Thus a mirror in order to be perfect must be merely a mirror, deriving all its force or character from the function it fulfils, and having no significance independently of that function. If it have

any independent significance, any light or life of its own, and apart from its function, it will of course color the image impressed on it, and so far forth vitiate it. A mirror therefore, I repeat, should be as near as possible perfectly achromatic or colorless, imparting no illumination to the image impressed on it, but simply reflecting it as it stands illumined by some superior light.

Now, as we have seen, Nature is the perfect mirror of the Divine image in creation. But inasmuch as every true mirror is achromatic, or incapable of illuminating the image it reflects, we do not ask of Nature to supply the light also by means of which the Divine image becomes revealed in her. If we do this; if we allow Nature to dominate the image impressed on her; to color it by her own light; we shall utterly fail of any valid result. A light above nature must evoke the desired image—a light which is not only unaffected by Nature's perturbations and diffractions, but actually reduces them by its stedfast and commanding glow to a perfect order or unity. This light is REVELATION. Revelation is the lamp which darkens the light of sun, moon, and stars, or turns them into the obedient vassals of the soul, by shewing them to be merely a passive mirror of the Divine image in humanity. But here let us always remember that revelation, like man whom it serves, and whom it could not otherwise serve, claims both a body and a soul, both a letter and a