UC-HRLJF. 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIKT OK 
 
 Received 
 Accessions 
 
 , 189 / . 
 Shelf No. 
 

 
7?. TJ'. Murplty. ^f. T). 
 
A 
 
 KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 Solution of Man*s Origin; 
 
 THE 
 
 Philosophy of His Present Condition; 
 
 AND 
 
 His Future Destiny* 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT WILSON MURPHY, M.D. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 890. 
 

 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen 
 hundred and ninety, 
 
 BY ROBERT WILSON MURPHY, M. D., 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washing- 
 ton, D.C. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
You cannot judge of a book by its cover. "Uni- 
 forms are often masks," said Wellington. A cow- 
 ard may be wrapped up in a red coat with gilded 
 buttons ; so error may be bound in red morocco ; 
 deadly poison may be gilt-edged ; immoral pictures, 
 obscene thoughts, vulgar sayings degrading to the 
 intellect, contaminating the moral nature, may be 
 put in the most attractive forms in order to catch 
 the thoughtless and corrupt the innocent. 
 
 All books ought to be transcripts of good minds. 
 For in the study of the book we are studying the 
 author of the book. We can know but little of an 
 author save by the study of his works ; critics may 
 pronounce for or against a book in accordance with 
 their notions or personal idiosyncrasies and the 
 
ii PREFATORY. 
 
 style of the author, whether dull or dynamic, clear 
 or keen cut. 
 
 The method of expression has much to do both 
 with the popularity and value of a book. 
 
 Often the plainest and cheapest binding may 
 contain the treasures of long years of the best 
 thought of the good and great, the brightest gems 
 that will enrich the race and lift mankind to the 
 highest plain of mental and moral wealth. The 
 healthy mind will search for truth as for hid 
 treasure, search until it find the key to the compli- 
 cated lock. 
 
 The architect who embodies his thought in tem- 
 ple or tower, only reproduces himself in thought 
 forms, the beautiful and the true, and he must be 
 judged by the product of his own genius. To judge 
 of an architectural monument the critic must have 
 correct perspective. Form, light, shade and color 
 have fixed laws ; the laws of optics are strictly 
 mathematical ; hence they are immutable and not 
 subject to the notions of the critics ; but while 
 truth is niany-sided there is only one point of per- 
 
PREFATORY. iii 
 
 spective where the whole is seen from the stand- 
 point of the artist. 
 
 To reach this position requires at least two 
 things : a desire to know the truth and a surrender 
 of all prejudice and self-conceit. Some long estab- 
 lished dogma, or pet creed, educational bent of 
 mind may cause such mental aberration, that the 
 unchangeable law will seem to make the long short, 
 the straight crooked, or the worse to appear the 
 better reason. Truth is often mistaken for error, 
 and error taken for truth. 
 
 Mental aberration is the father of a numerous 
 progeny critics, cranks, dementia, mania and mad- 
 ness are but normal growths of ignorance and 
 prejudice. Mind, mad with error attacks the truth 
 like a wounded bear in defense of her cubs. Igno- 
 rance and prejudice carry their own two-feet rule 
 by which they measure truth and mind. 
 
 It requires more moral courage to defend the 
 truth in the face of the multitude than to spike an 
 enemy's battery. 
 
 Mind, giving expression to the truth is always 
 
iv PREFATORY. 
 
 divinely supported ; truth cannot be conquered ; 
 it may be taken prisoner and shut up in a dungeon 
 for a while, but release will come, and it will at 
 last triumph. 
 
 " The immortal years of God are her's." 
 
 The heliocentric system was a philosophic truth 
 long before Descartes made his demonstration. 
 Truth is none the less true because the majority 
 may reject it. The multitude may mob Galileo, 
 the priests may threaten, but the world moves 
 on just as the moon does though the dogs may 
 continue to bark at it. 
 
 Some people are intellectual idolaters ; moral 
 enthusiasts ; religious fanatics ; they prefer to live 
 in darkness and feed on falsehood and die from 
 starvation, rather than to confess ignorance and 
 retract error. Intellectual pride prefers darkness 
 to being illuminated by obscurity with a torch in 
 his hand. 
 
 Some, as Ephraim are joined to their idols 
 intellectual idolaters beyond the reach of any Evan- 
 gelist ; the author has written for them also. To 
 
PREFATORY.. v 
 
 Understand a book, read preface and page without 
 prejudice, and from the proper perspective the 
 stand-point of the author. Take a bird's-eye view, 
 so as to take in the whole by seeing all the parts 
 in their true relations. 
 
 What can we know of the parts of a temple till 
 the superstructure is completed and the top-stone 
 is finished ? Wait until you read the last line of 
 the last chapter in a book before you pronounce 
 judgment or say, Grace, grace unto it. 
 
 Every man was made to think for himself, and 
 if he think logically and honestly he will be heard. 
 The Author attempts a survey of an unfenced terri- 
 tory Man, his spiritual origin ; present condition 
 and future destiny. 
 
 The book is his field notes to be examined and 
 worked up by others. 
 
 Read it, topic and page, preface and finis. 
 
iott 4 an's twi 
 
 THE BOOK OF NATUEE. 
 
 "Speak to the Earth and it shall teach thee." JOB. 
 
 The Book of Nature is a transcript of the Author 
 himself. A record of his thought and a manifesta- 
 tion of his will power. The study and knowledge 
 of this wonderful volume will bring man nearer the 
 heart of the Great Author, and enable him to read 
 these ancient records. 
 
 Nature not only stimulates thought, but it is 
 the great volume which furnished thought in the 
 purest and most beautiful forms. It is thought in 
 the original forms of language ; the symbols of 
 thought, emotion, beauty, power ; a transcript of 
 the Divine Mind ; his plans, laws and methods of 
 work, and final design. 
 
 Job reveals a great truth when he declares that 
 
2 THE BOOK OF NATURE* 
 
 Earth is commissioned to teach man, and reveals 
 also the method of the Teacher. The secret key 
 is put into man's hands, the great store-house of 
 learning is opened, the secrets are within mortal 
 grasp ; yet nature keeps no free schools ; issues 
 no free tickets to any of her libraries of learning. 
 " Speak," is the divine price of knowledge ; interro* 
 gate ; desire to know ; free yourself from all preju- 
 dice ; look at her truths from the right stand-point, 
 and in the right spirit ; then she will unfold her 
 sacred scrolls, and answer your questions. 
 
 She has epics and lyrics for the poet ; cartoons, 
 friezes and sculptured beauty for the artist ; points^ 
 lines, cones and motions for the mathematician ; 
 rocks, fossils, eruptions, ripple-marks and revo- 
 lutions for the antiquary; plans and purposes^ 
 progress and power* under the personal control of 
 the divine mind working out the onward march of 
 the centuries all in the interests of man. 
 
 These records of primeval history, written upon 
 the rocks in sacred hieroglyph by the finger of 
 God ; these immeasurable cycles of untold ages 
 and strange revolutions, all in the interests of 
 man, may be translated by man, who holds the 
 key to the secret vault. 
 
OEIGIN AND LAW OF MATTEE FOKMS. 
 
 " Things which are seen were not made of things which do 
 appear." PAUL. 
 
 The first chapter in the history of the earth 
 reveals a formless void ; a mass, immensely vast, 
 yet with limits, but in great confusion, enveloped 
 in darkness unorganized material akin to the 
 heavenly planets before their birth. The Divine 
 Intelligence brooded over the shapeless mass, as a 
 dove upon her own eggs. Atoms combined into 
 molecules, molecules into substances. Substances 
 took the form of gases, and gases combined into 
 substantial forms of matter, by the law of affinities ; 
 dissimilar atoms were wedded by a divine law of 
 love ; particle united with particle and formed 
 masses, and masses were formed into worlds. 
 
 The Divine Mind but gave expression to a still 
 higher thought and unfolded a prophecy of a wider 
 plan, when the Great Architect gave the new earth 
 a place among the sister planets. 
 
 It had form, and he gave it motion upon its axis 
 and in its orbit, but earth was without life ; it was 
 
4 ORIGIN AND LAW OF MATTER FORMS. 
 
 still covered with thick darkness ; by an Almighty 
 fiat and in accord with divine law, light came and 
 drove away the darkness, and the vast planetary 
 system, complete in its mechanism, began its 
 mission in the interests of the higher order of 
 beings, man being the climax of the divine plan. 
 
 The sun, but newly created and but feeble in his 
 power, yet needed another force to counteract the 
 solar attraction. The attraction of gravitation, or 
 the persistent will force of the Deity. Without 
 this law of antagonism the sun would very soon rob 
 our planet of its vitality, but this law of attraction 
 is so wisely adjusted, that it restores what other- 
 wise would be dissipated by the sun's action, or 
 the earth would become parched and unfit for the 
 home of any kind of life. 
 
 This law of antagonism is divine in its origin 
 and includes in its range all forms of existence, 
 animate and inanimate ; it is the great law by 
 which the onward progress of the world is accom- 
 plished, from the lowest to the highest forms of 
 life. By it the balancings of nature are secured ; 
 by it the mists are lifted up, the clouds surrender 
 their treasure ; and the floods are carried back to 
 the sea ; the moaning winds, the muttering thunder 
 
ORIGIN AND LAW OF MATTER FORMS. 5 
 
 and the vivid lightning put to confusion the atmos- 
 phere, purify the earth, and prophesy of man. 
 
 Man himself is subject to the same law. He 
 swings from one extremity of the arc to the other, 
 till at last he settles down at the point of progress 
 and moves forward. The next generation moves 
 in the same way, only in a longer arc, and finds a 
 higher resting point. One generation is sacrificed 
 for another, as forests feed on the rich soil of their 
 predecessors. Men are persecuted in one age and 
 die martyrs, but the next age makes heroes of them 
 and builds monuments over their graves. 
 
 Scientific and philosophic and religious truths 
 are persecuted in one age and immortalized in 
 another ; laughed at and driven out of the world, 
 then ushered in with music and banners and shouts 
 of the multitude. 
 
 The see-saw of civilizations, nations and empires 
 has been a forward movement over the graves of 
 the buried past. The dead past is but the prelude 
 of the onward future ; out of the ruins of the old 
 come the institutions of the new. Thus the majestic 
 procession moves on to perfection. Matter and 
 mind alike are under the general superintendence 
 of the All- Wise. 
 
LIFE AN ENDOWMENT. 
 
 " One indissoluble chain of affinity binds together all nature.' 1 ' 
 
 HUMBOLDT. 
 
 "Give me matter, and I will explain the formation of a world; 
 but give me matter only, and I cannot explain the formation of a 
 caterpillar." KANT. 
 
 The planets are a great brotherhood. Sun and 
 earth are made of the same materials ; made on 
 the same plan ; bear the same image the Author 
 is one. Thirteen elements principally compose the 
 earth. Only four of these are prominent oxygen, 
 carbon, silicon and hydrogen are the principal 
 material in world-building. 
 
 Professor Huxley reduces all material substances 
 to water, ammonia and carbonic acid. Oxygen is 
 the chief basis of the planetary worlds, being about 
 equal to all other elements. 
 
 Who made the atom ? What architect con- 
 structed atoms into worlds ? Who gave the atom 
 motion and form ? Who developed it in accordance 
 with a great plan ? 
 
LIFE AN ENDOWMENT. 7 
 
 " The genesis of an atom is no easier to conceive than the genesis 
 of a planet." HERBERT SPENCER. 
 
 Admit the existence of the atom, who or what 
 gave it a start ? Or could it move itself ? Sir 
 Isaac Newton denied that the force of gravity was 
 in the atom, and Faraday, the greatest modern 
 thinker on this subject, pronounces the dynamical 
 theory absurd. 
 
 " When nature underneath a heat) 
 Of jarring atoms lay, 
 
 And could not heave her head, 
 The tuneful voice was heard from high, 
 Arise, ye more than dead ! " DRYDEN. 
 
 Man may not be permitted to know much about 
 gross matter, yet he may have some insight into 
 nature's methods and the plans of the Author of 
 nature. Primary among his methods must be the 
 law of affinity, that mysterious power by which 
 heterogeneous elements are drawn together and 
 held in their places to form gases and grosser 
 forms of matter. Oxygen is not water ; Hydrogen 
 is not water ; but combine the two in the right pro- 
 portion and water is the resultant that is, water 
 is created or produced from that which was not 
 water. 
 
8 LIFE AN ENDOWMENT. 
 
 The methods of the Author of nature may be 
 examined, for the law by which they are combined 
 is exact, mathematical ; it is the law of chemical 
 equivalents. This great law gives the method of 
 the formation of all inanimate substances ; gases, 
 rocks, metals, etc. So that "things which are seen 
 were not made of things which do appear." By 
 the analysis of matter we find the world is built 
 upon mathematical law, and hence its Author is 
 the Great Mathematician. The chemical world is 
 built upon the laws of arithmetical proportion ; 
 the world of forms, crystals, mountains, and worlds 
 with their motions in space, are all constructed in 
 accord with geometrical laws ; mineralogy is divine, 
 solid geometry. 
 
 The visible world is a divine system of spheres, 
 cubes, squares, angles, lines in motion ; geometrical 
 forms moving according to geometrical law. Here 
 man holds the key to the secret of inorganic matter 
 and nature-forms ; but is there a key to organic 
 forms ? Will the law of affinities account for vege- 
 table and animal forms ? 
 
THE PKOCESS OF DEVELOPMENT IN 
 VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 " The rounded world is fair to see, 
 Nine times folded in mystery; 
 
 Though baffled seers cannot impart 
 
 The secret of its laboring heart. 
 Throb thine with nature's throbbing breast 
 And all is clear from East to West" EMERSON. 
 
 The separation of the water from the land was a 
 physical necessity to the production and develop- 
 ment of vegetable and animal life. Divine intelli- 
 gence gives a key to his thought and great plans 
 in the production of the lowest forms of life; 
 the revelations of these plans are seen especially 
 in the construction of the first forms of animal life. 
 The fish is not the first form of man, not the first 
 cast of the divine Artist, but it is the prophecy of 
 the coming man. 
 
 "Man is the purpose toward which the whole animal creation 
 tends from the first appearance of the first paleozoicfish." AaASSiz. 
 
 But before vegetable or animal forms could have 
 place, the law of antagonisms must be wisely ad- 
 justed and put in force ; this is a higher law than 
 
10 VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 the law of combination or chemical affinity, or the 
 mathematical law of form ; it includes the thought 
 of force, motion and personal superintendence. 
 
 The currents of wind set in motion by solar heat, 
 swept over the great deep, setting the waves in 
 motion, which being resisted and curbed by the 
 antagonizing force of gravity ; so that the mad 
 billows, by this action and reaction were decom- 
 posed and another elementary force liberated ; that 
 most subtle agent, electricity, which plays so great 
 a part in the phenomena and among the forces of 
 the world. It is the indispensable agent in the 
 development of vegetable and animal life. 
 
 There is not an ocean wave, a roaring cataract or 
 wailing wind that sweeps the mountain or the 
 plain ; or wing of bird or bee that beats the air in 
 its daily flight, but generates electricity ; every 
 particle of this magnetic fluid is vitalized. These 
 forces are correlated into vegetable forms of life, 
 these again into animal forms, and these into 
 spiritual forms. 
 
 Perhaps not more than a millionth part of the 
 sun's light and heat and solar attraction reaches 
 our earth ; and yet these forces are so well ad- 
 justed that they are just enough to nicely antago- 
 
VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. H 
 
 nize the force of gravity in our planet and keep all 
 balanced. The final result and product of these 
 antagonizing forces is the life-giving principles ; 
 intelligence with all its wonderful pontentialities. 
 
 Sun and earth, the positive and negative agents, 
 are working in harmony with God, the divine 
 Intelligence and personal power operating through 
 them by his divine law of antagonistic forces. 
 
 This law is not some force put into matter and 
 there left to operate itself ; nothing is left to blind 
 fate ; but the divine Intelligence is ever present 
 directing the evolution of vegetable and animal 
 life. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL LIFE FORMS. 
 
 There is a universal stamp put upon all organic 
 being that is divine in its origin, inherent and 
 transmissible in its history. Individuality has 
 permanent and fixed laws, immutable through all 
 ages ; each after its own kind is the divine law of 
 living beings. There is no accidental law. The 
 great Author is present unfolding his plans in all 
 vegetable and animal forms, in all the past ; flower 
 and fish, forest and family have kept their forms 
 and preserved their habits, amid all the revolutions 
 of time. The flowers we cultivate in garden or 
 
12 VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 home continue to preserve their individuality and 
 unfold their beauty from seeds produced years ago 
 in other climes ; the form, color and odor remain 
 as permanent elements of character. There seem 
 to be some exceptions both in the vegetable and 
 animal world, which are only freaks of nature ; 
 these will be treated in their proper places. 
 
 This law of life is most remarkable and beneficial 
 to man and divinely wise. In man it seems to 
 blend with the different races, but only to produce 
 another variety ; the type remains unchanged. 
 
 There may be some truth in the Darwinian 
 theory, but it is not all true. Man never sprang 
 from the monkey or the baboon or any mere ani- 
 mal, but was created a separate, independent type. 
 
 Monkeys and baboons never show any moral 
 qualities ; no reverence for the Divine Being ; no 
 disposition to worship ; they are not capable of 
 any moral development ; for them there is no such 
 thing as science. These permanent, historical facts 
 are conclusive evidence that man has a higher ori- 
 gin than mere animal being ; that no centuries can 
 change one type of being into another. 
 
 There may be some striking resemblance between 
 the physical anatomy of man and some animals. 
 
VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 13 
 
 There is some resemblance between the oak tree 
 and the walnut ; but as the walnut could not come 
 from the oak, much more man could not come from 
 the baboon. 
 
 Man has an animal nature, but is more than an 
 animal ; he possesses a high spiritual and moral 
 nature that lifts him above the beasts of the field 
 and links him to something higher. Man intel- 
 lectually has made great advancement ; his history 
 is one of grand achievements and great acquire- 
 ments in knowledge. 
 
 His genius is seen in his inventions, in the arts 
 and sciences, philosophy and poetry, and mechani- 
 cal pursuits ; bringing the elements under his con- 
 trol and making them serve him. He harnesses 
 the unseen forces about him like steeds to his 
 chariots, and guides and controls them as with bit 
 and bridle. He measures the stars and calls them 
 by name, and weighs the planets in his scales. 
 
 Man has moral powers unlimited in their range. 
 Most of the animals show some capacity for a cer- 
 tain kind of education, but it is man's moral quali- 
 ties that distinguish him from the lower animals, 
 and make him a companion of the angels and 
 entitle him to a Divine revelation for his guide. 
 
14 VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 
 
 He is a moral agent, free to act for himself, 
 only limited by the laws of his own freedom ; this 
 enables him to hold communion with God and to 
 receive a certain amount of Divine love and truth 
 so as to mingle with his spiritual nature. 
 
 "O rich and various man ! Thou palace of sight and sound, carry- 
 ing in thy senses the morning and the night and the unfathomably 
 galaxy ; in thy brain the geometry of the city of God ; in thy heart 
 the power of love and the realms of right and wrong." EMEBSON. 
 
 Man has the power to unlock the secret history 
 of the past, raise the dead from their rocky tombs 
 and unloose the tongue of the forgotten ages. He 
 is the head of an ascending series, the last term, 
 the objective point in creation. For him the un- 
 told centuries have lived ; atoms have been com- 
 bined into worlds ; flowers have bloomed and died ; 
 millions of beings have walked the earth, then have 
 been transmuted into soils ; revolutions have lifted 
 the mountain systems ; formed the valleys ; cut 
 the river channels and purified the atmosphere ; all 
 for the preparation of the human home, the com- 
 plete development of the race, and to unlock the 
 secrets of matter and mind, and bridge the gulf 
 between life and death. 
 
THE KEY TO THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 " The universe is the realized thought of God." CARLYLE. 
 " Mind is God's first end." CHANNINQ. 
 
 "All really scientific experience tells us, that life can be produced 
 from a living antecedent only" UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 
 
 The universe, including man, is an evolution of 
 God. This is the only evolution possible to thought. 
 This world and all worlds, including all phenomena, 
 physical and spiritual, in all detail, are but the 
 manifestation of the invisible and personally con- 
 scious Intelligence, working out his plans according 
 to his own methods. The great object revealed 
 by these divine manifestations is the formation, 
 development and destiny of man. 
 
 Development must have a developer and a law 
 or a method of development. The machinery of 
 the world must have a machinist and a personal 
 superintendent. 
 
 The plan of the Deity and his divine processes 
 are written in distinct chapters and in hieroglyph 
 on the face and in the secret places of the earth. 
 Great epochs mark the history of the earth, and its 
 
16 KEY TO THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 wonderful revolutions are but the divine processes 
 of fitting up this planet for the abode and develop- 
 ment of man. 
 
 The order of the divine plan as written in the 
 earth is : 
 
 First, Atoms or essences, molecules, particles and 
 substances united by mathematical law and held 
 together by a divine force called chemical affinity, 
 in the plastic forms of matter. 
 
 Second, Mathematical points about which matter 
 centered by the force of attraction. 
 
 Third, The masses thus formed are put in motion 
 according to mathematical law, and they assume 
 mathematical forms. 
 
 Fourth, These masses are put in motion and kept 
 in motion by the presence and power of the Great 
 Intelligence. 
 
 Fifth, As the earth begins to cool, vapors are 
 precipitated and are condensed into water and 
 cover the face of the earth. 
 
 Sixth, The seas are joined about the globe to 
 complete the equilibrium about the centers of 
 motion, and the dry land appears. 
 
 Now earth is but a dreary solitude, with nothing 
 to disturb the awful silence but the wailing winds 
 
KEY TO THE LAW OF EVOL'UTION. 17 
 
 and mad seas dashing themselves to pieces against 
 the cold, hard rocks. 
 
 The antagonism of the waves set at liberty that 
 subtle agent, now called electricity. 
 
 Seventh, New and more complex combinations 
 then take place. Kocks and metals are formed, 
 the metals crystallize in beautiful forms by mathe- 
 matical law, the prophecy of higher forms. 
 
 Eighth, Another form of Divine force is intro- 
 duced : the mysterious life, force, and the prophecy 
 in the metal forms is fulfilled, and earth is clothed 
 with ferns and flowers. 
 
 Ninth, The flower in its organic structure, pro- 
 duced by matter centering about this new point of 
 attraction, the life centre, now becomes a higher 
 grade or order of prophets to introduce a new 
 order, and another form of Divine force. 
 
 Tenth, The introduction of animal life. Above 
 the blooming, fragrant flower wasting its beauty on 
 the desert air, appears the beautiful Psyche flutter- 
 ing and humming the prophecy of bird and beast 
 and man. But earth was unfitted for the abode of 
 higher animal life. Monstrous, gigantic forms of 
 life first appear suited to the hot and horrible 
 climate. Trilobites, ammonites, frogs, lizzards, the 
 
18 KEY TO THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 huge and hungry ichthyosaurus, mastodon and 
 megatherium, that have been preserved in their 
 desolate graves, are proofs of the predecessors of 
 man. 
 
 The consumption of the oxygen of the air by 
 millions of air-breathing animals produced an 
 atmosphere of carbonic acid gas. Seas of poison- 
 ous atmosphere enveloped the animal world, till at 
 last the equilibrium was restored by the death of 
 millions of these monsters. The fossil forms are 
 found in the secret places of the earth, the history 
 of the age engraven in the rocks forever. Gigantic 
 forests then covered the earth on a scale with the 
 extinct animal life, and consumed the seas of car- 
 bonic acid gas and converted them into forms of 
 beauty and sources of wealth for the coming man. 
 
 Long ages pass ; ferns grow in the dark, seques- 
 tered nooks and shadows of the trees ; flowers 
 bloom in solitude and drink in the sunlight and 
 transmute it into shades of beauty and sweetest 
 fragrance ; busy life develops into higher forms 
 as the atmosphere becomes purified ; the old 
 species do not change, but more perfect varieties 
 appear ; still, earth is not ready for the home of 
 man. Great revolutions must first take place, and 
 
KEY TO THE LA W OF EVOLUTION. 19 
 
 long, long ages are to be employed in this great 
 work. 
 
 Continents are to be raised from the bottom of 
 the sea ; oceans are to exchange places with the 
 land ; mountain systems are to be formed ; great 
 valleys carved out ; river channels cut, so that the 
 home of man might be irrigated and the future 
 citizen might have commerce with his fellow. 
 Hundreds of volcanoes must open their safety- 
 valves ; revolutions, through the agents of fire and 
 water, must uproot the forests and convert them 
 into fields of coal, wells of petroleum and fountains 
 of gas. Earth must be turned upside down and 
 inside out in order that iron mountains might be 
 formed and the precious metals deposited in the 
 secret veins of the rock ; that salt might be brought 
 to the surface and minerals be within the reach of 
 man ; that sandstone and limestone might be found 
 in the quarries for his palace and marble for his 
 tomb ; and that an atmosphere might be formed 
 in which the future cosmopolitan might live and 
 be developed. 
 
 When all was ready, and ages of revolutions had 
 wrought out their mission, man appeared on the 
 stage of active life, not as a development of some 
 
20 KEY TO THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 higher animal forms, but the top-stone of the 
 temple ; the highest evolution of God ; the incar- 
 nation of spirit and soul in his own image. God 
 is our Father, and we are his offspring and the 
 crowning work of his hands. 
 
 The greatest work of Deity, that for which the 
 earth itself was built, was the creation, develop- 
 ment and discipline, and the perfection and final 
 elimination of the human soul from gross matter. 
 There is no process in mathematics more certain 
 than God's method of transmuting matter and 
 spiritualizing it for the purposes of spiritual 
 intelligences. 
 
 The chief object in giving form and development 
 to earth and position in the solar system was, that 
 through the divine forces of solar attraction and 
 the attraction of gravitation, life would be possi- 
 ble. By the great chemical laws established by 
 the Divine Intelligence, being was to ascend 
 through a long series from the lower to the higher, 
 until the climax was attained in man, a spiritual 
 being with an indwelling soul. This essence of 
 the spiritual nature outweighs worlds, in value, is 
 more important than all the planetary systems that 
 fill the unexplored space of the universe ; for man, 
 
KEY TO THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 21 
 
 the perfected man, will forever retain his individu- 
 ality and personality, and will become a companion 
 and co-laborer with Deity himself. 
 
 The development of spiritual intelligence is at 
 the expense of years and revolutions in gross mat- 
 ter. Earth is daily growing colder and constantly 
 changing as man advances toward greater per- 
 fection and as spiritual intelligences and spiritual 
 potentialities increase. 
 
 "It is impossible not to believe in- the children of the gods." 
 
 PLATO. 
 
 The fact that man believes in a higher order of 
 intelligences is proof of man's own power. The 
 history and revolutions of the earth were the 
 prophecy of the coming man. The ideal was per- 
 fection. He must be more than a trained and 
 developed animal, he must be on a plain with the 
 gods. In addition to instinct and appetite, he 
 must have reason, imagination, conscience and 
 will power ; he must be personal, responsible and 
 immortal. He must bear the image of his Creator. 
 He must be able to command the forces of nature, 
 rule the animal kingdom, convert the mineral 
 kingdom to his own uses. He must cut down the 
 forests and quarry the rocks from the mountain 
 
22 KEY TO THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 and convert them into cities ; melt the iron mount- 
 ains and shape them into instruments of husbandry 
 and roads of commerce ; be able to harness the 
 lightning, bottle up the steam and turn the world 
 into a speaking gallery. He must be able to create 
 a philosophy and to answer his own questions ; 
 solve the problems of the stars, personal existence 
 and human responsibility. He must have a spirit- 
 ual nature and be able to commune with God. 
 
 Can such a being be created by an Almighty fiat, 
 or must he be developed and disciplined by the 
 same eternal law of antagonistic forces ? Is not 
 character a result of conflict, the product of action 
 and reaction ?. Does not matter affect mind and 
 mind modify matter, and by this great law of 
 forces produce personal history ? The most per- 
 fect ideals of beauty and excellency lie in the 
 realm of developed, disciplined man, and moral 
 and physical causes are blended into the one com- 
 plex result, character. 
 
 The philosophy of man is the test of his intel- 
 lectual powers ; the proof that he belongs to the 
 children of the gods. 
 
II. 
 
 THE GKEAT LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 " Ideas go booming through the world louder than cannon. 
 Thoughts are mightier than armies. Principles have achieved more 
 victories than horsemen and chariots. 1 ' 1 PAXTON. 
 
 " Man cannot think highly enough of man.' 1 ' 1 KANT. 
 
 The Athenians, who boasted that they sprung 
 from the earth, wore a grasshopper in their hair ; 
 in these later days the grasshopper has evolved into 
 a monkey, and some men are still proud of their 
 ancestors. From the lowest vertebrate to man, 
 from the savage to the sage, from the philosopher 
 to the perfect man, are great gulfs deep and wide, 
 which have never been satisfactorily bridged. The 
 most difficult are, the distance between the mere 
 animal and the man, and between the savage and 
 the perfect ideal-man. 
 
 One class of thinkers bridges the first gulf by the 
 
24 THE GREAT LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 theories of correlation, organization and spontane- 
 ous generation. Another class bridges the second 
 gulf by education, discipline and regeneration. Is 
 there a theory that will include all ? Is there a 
 gulf to be bridged ? Does not the Divine process 
 revealed in the history of the earth dispose of every 
 difficulty ? Can a general law be found ? 
 
 " To read creation, read its mighty plans 
 The plan and execution to collate." 
 
 How does the Deity produce results ? He evolves 
 himself into a world of life and beauty by the law 
 of antagonistic forces. Life is a series of unfold- 
 ings through death ; struggle and suffering and 
 voluntary sacrifice has been the process through 
 the ages ; these bridge all the gulfs, explain all 
 the phenomena, account for all results. Suffering, 
 toil and sacrifice account for all development. 
 
 Man had a prophetic period ; the revolutions 
 through the long ages were the prelude, the an- 
 nouncement of his coming. When he arrived and 
 began the personal, historic period he found no 
 new law. Conflict, toil, sacrifice is but a new edi- 
 tion of the old law ; each link in the series rises 
 out of the grave of its predecessor ; matter dis- 
 solves, plants live, plants perish for the sake of 
 
THE OR EAT LAW OF EVOLUTION. 25 
 
 animal life ; the lower orders perish for the sake 
 of the higher ; man sacrifices life for self, and he 
 in turn is sacrificed for others. 
 
 One nation perishes at the hand of another, but 
 from the graves of the dead comes a higher civili- 
 zation. There is an eternal see-saw among antago- 
 nistic forces, but there is coming out of it a forward 
 movement, an onward progress from matter to 
 man, from man to God. The trituration of the 
 mountain, the grass on the hill-side, the bleating 
 flock, the bustling, busy man and the powerful 
 nation are the outcome of the force of Deity exerted 
 through the antagonism of forces in nature. 
 
 By these the savage may be developed into the 
 citizen, and political ideas are incarnated in consti- 
 tutions and institutions and civilizations. Religious 
 thought expresses itself in the form of temple and 
 ceremony and systems of faith ; tombs and epitaphs 
 mark the onward progress. Nature is one constant, 
 unmistakable commentary on the law of develop- 
 ment by conflicting forces, under the superin- 
 tendence of Deity. 
 
 " The chain of being is complete in me, 
 In me is matter's last gradation lost, 
 An the next step is Spirit Deity!" 
 
 There have been five or six epochs and revolu- 
 
26 THE GREAT LA W OF E VOL UTION. 
 
 tions in the elevations and depressions of the earth ; 
 at least five complete organic revolutions among the 
 living forms of the animal kingdoms, and more than 
 that in the elevation of man to his present state of 
 civilization ; but the onward movement of the ages 
 is under the same law and under the same Super- 
 intendent. 
 
 This law is seen in the oldest rocks. They were 
 formed and developed by two conflicting forces 
 chemical affinities and forces of environment. These 
 produced the granite and porphyries ; syenite and 
 greenstone and all the basalts. What marvelous 
 shades ! What infinite variety ! What untold beauty 
 and divine taste are exhibited by the Great Chemist 
 in that far off, heated laboratory. These varieties 
 of rock are proofs of the changes in climate going 
 on in the first ages of the world, of the presence 
 of the Chemist, combining the felspar and horn- 
 blende into beautiful porphyries. 
 
 He compounded the metalloids by chemical 
 affinities and in due time heated them in his fur- 
 nace and deposited them in the crevices of the 
 rocks to cool ; others he left in the form of oxides, 
 carbonates and sulphurets, in order to develop the 
 genius of man. 
 
THE GREAT LA W OF EVOLUTION. 27 
 
 The fossiliferous rocks are the homes of extinct 
 species, that lived in the hot climate in the early 
 history of the earth ; the lowest orders of vegeta- 
 ble and animal life ; these were balanced one 
 against the other ; the carbonic acid gas manu- 
 factured by the animal was consumed by the vege- 
 table world. Had there been no conflicting forces, 
 this condition of things must have remained un- 
 broken forever, and all progress must have ceased 
 at this point. 
 
 The Divine again interferes, and progress is on- 
 ward. Earth's climate changed, the atmosphere 
 became cooler, the balance is destroyed ; plants 
 and animals perish and are buried in the rocks ; 
 their history recorded, and another chapter is 
 finished, and the world is again in a state of equi- 
 librium. But new chemical combinations take 
 place and gases are compounded, and heat is elimi- 
 nated in the great laboratory ; conflagration breaks 
 out, and the earth trembles ; the rocks are melted 
 and lifted up by chemical forces ; all things are 
 out of balance. 
 
 The earth moves on for ages, but the planet is 
 getting cooler at every revolution ; the long cycles 
 bring changes ; the revolution has altered the 
 
28 KEY TO THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 world and buried the dead. The granite peaks cool 
 off and remain standing monuments of the -past. 
 The metallic oxides have been compounded and 
 preserved in the lonely cliffs and secret places 
 among the rocks. Gold, by the great law of 
 attraction, is hid away in veins and fissures, that 
 man might develop his energies in the on-coming 
 ages of commerce and higher civilization. 
 
 Thus, age after age have these antagonistic forces 
 been at work, producing revolution upon revo- 
 lution ; but under the guiding hand of the Great 
 Superintendent, there has been constant progress. 
 As the climate of the earth changed, new orders of 
 animals and plants appear adapted to their environ- 
 ment. Either the old species were miraculously 
 preserved or new creations took place, so the world 
 moves onward without a break. 
 
 Geological changes did not evolve man, but made 
 man possible by fitting the earth for his abode. * * * 
 
 THE KEY. 
 
 Has not all life vegetable, animal and spiritual a common origin ? 
 Are there not three distinct grades of life, not flowing out of each other, 
 but in three distinct channels ? Is not this method of evolution the 
 universal and Divine law of all being ? Is it not contained in the uni- 
 versal formula of the prof oundest man of the race ? 
 
 " In Him we live and move and have our being." 
 
THE ADVENT OF MAN. 
 
 " Connection exquisite of distant loorlds ! 
 Distinguished link in beings endless chain 
 Midway from nothing to The Deity ! " 
 
 What a manifold mystery is man ! He has his 
 origin in the dust, but he is a part of a divine plan 
 that reaches to the heavens. There is a strong, 
 intangible, invisible something in us that asks 
 questions What ? Whence? Whither? Where- 
 fore ? What relation has organism to life ? life to 
 the spiritual nature ? What is soul ? The fact that 
 man can ask such questions is proof of his exalted 
 nature. If he can ask them it is evident that he 
 has the capabilities of answering them when once 
 developed. 
 
 " Who reads his bosom reads immortal life ; 
 Or nature there imposing on her soul, 
 Has written fables." 
 
 We have traced the processes in nature from the 
 dull clod up through the tiny plant and the highest 
 forms of animal life to man. A being in whom is 
 found the stamp of Divinity 
 
 " Spirit, that lurks each form within, 
 Beckons to Spirit of its kin ; 
 Self kindled every atom glens, 
 And hints the future which it owes." 
 
30 THE ADVENT OF MAN. 
 
 A personality with a capacity for an eternal pro- 
 gression toward the Deity ; an onward, upward, 
 sublime movement toward the perfect and infinite 
 through the laws of truth and love. Man is the 
 highest evolution of God higher than matter 
 forms, higher than plant or animal life ; a distinct, 
 independent evolution ; an image of the Deity 
 himself. 
 
 The process of the evolution of human life may 
 be traced from the foetus through all the transmu- 
 tations and growth to birth, and from birth, through 
 development and discipline to manhood and old age. 
 
 In all these changes the same law of antagonizing 
 forces is present. The body is for the use of the 
 spirit-nature. The nervous system, including the 
 spinal cord and brain, represents the inner or 
 spiritual man ; this spiritual man is elaborated at 
 the expense of gross matter. 
 
 The net- work of the nervous system has its origin 
 in the fine nervous tubes, which contain delicate 
 protine threads which terminate in a cell forma- 
 tion; the very sensitive membrane that envelops 
 the nerve fibre becomes the inner lining of the 
 nerve cell ; this cell contains protoplasm which is 
 received from the blood. These cells are both 
 
THE ADVENT OF MAN. 81 
 
 negative and positive, and there is generated a 
 current in definite directions, which may be deter- 
 mined by the galvanometer. In this mysterious 
 laboratory, amid the most ethereal harmonious 
 spirit-like currents, the human spirit seems to have 
 its genesis and the spiritual man to be secretly 
 elaborated by the Divine Chemist ; but who can 
 trace "the way of the Spirit" ? 
 
 "A beam ethereal, sullied and absorbed! 
 Though sullied and dishonored, still divine ! " 
 
 In this secret chamber, the invisible workshop 
 of God, the man receives not only the stamp of 
 individuality, but that which lifts man above all 
 animal life and allies him to his Maker, personality. 
 The growth of the spiritual man from his genesis 
 to birth is at the expense of gross matter. In the 
 laboratory of animal chemistry is provided nourish- 
 ment for this immortal mystery until he comes 
 forth into a new world, helpless and dependent 
 upon others, yet endowed with power to transmit 
 his nature to posterity. Here he begins the con- 
 flict of life, for he grows, is developed and disci- 
 plined and perfected by the same law of antago- 
 nizing forces, though on a higher scale and in a 
 wider field. 
 
MAN'S HISTOEICAL EVOLUTION. 
 
 " The mind 
 
 Forges from Knowledge an Archangel's spear, 
 And with the spirits that compel the world, 
 Conflicts for empire." 
 
 Man from the beginning of his history moved 
 on a higher plain of progression. Plants and ani- 
 mals were limited by their geography, to latitude, 
 longitude and elevation. Man defies all climates, 
 and climbs to all altitudes, and claims the world 
 for his home. He developed a social and spiritual 
 nature and usurped authority over all kingdoms, 
 and began to write his own history. He gathered 
 up the facts of the past and appropriated them to 
 his own use. 
 
 Human records are but additional and more 
 emphatic proofs of the Divine method of man's 
 evolution. Personal interest or social affinities 
 brought men together in groups. Communities, 
 tribes and nations are but great social compounds 
 bound by spiritual attractions, to be dissolved 
 again in the presence of stronger affinities. Here 
 
MAJT8 HISTORICAL EVOLUTION. 33 
 
 we have the same law, only in a higher plain of 
 life, that is found in chemical forms. 
 
 The date of the oldest records of the race cannot 
 now be satisfactorily ascertained. Whether China, 
 India or Africa is most ancient. If Moses has not 
 given to the world the oldest records, all acknowl- 
 edge he has furnished what are the most valuable 
 to the race and the most reliable. A part of his 
 writings is no doubt inspired, while much that he 
 records seems to be facts and observations of his 
 own, and information obtained from others. But 
 whether inspired or uninspired, they are factors 
 and forces in the evolution of human history and 
 .in the higher development of man. 
 
 When man reached the proper plain of intelli- 
 gence he was divinely impressed through his 
 spiritual faculties, that there was an Intelligent 
 Power operating through matter, by which the 
 world was brought into being and carried forward 
 in accordance with a Divine plan. 
 
 This personal Power and Presence was called 
 Jehovah. Man also received the impression that 
 he was a spiritual being and possessed of immor- 
 tality. 
 
 The first great event in the evolution of man's 
 
34 MAN'S HISTORICAL EVOLUTION. 
 
 history was the religious force and thought power 
 incarnated in altars and temples of worship; in 
 offerings and sacrifices and religious ceremonies. 
 These offerings were not mere acts of worship, but 
 prophecies, and shadows of a great event in the 
 evolution of man's history. Jehovah selected the 
 best specimens of the race to be workers with him 
 in the development and discipline of all the peoples 
 of the world. Moses and the prophets were chosen 
 to carry out the plans of Jehovah concerning the 
 history and destiny of mankind. Through them 
 he gave to man the moral constitution of the world, 
 the Decalogue, which is suited to the wants of men 
 in all ages. 
 
 The best example of national evolution is found 
 in the history of the Hebrew people ; there is more 
 historical detail given, and more marked epochs in 
 their development. 
 
 The race to be disciplined and developed, must 
 be set in families and organized into nations and 
 fenced about with institutions. 
 
 The marriage contract, the Sabbath, and religious 
 ceremonies, are essential to the highest evolution 
 of any people. 
 
THE FACTOBS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 " Nations are God's training schools for the development of man." 
 
 -A. J. N. 
 " Mind is God's first end." CHANNING. 
 
 A nation is not a multitude or a mass, held 
 together by some extraneous forces. A country 
 and a flag is more than a crowd with a ballot ; as 
 a mob is not a city, so a race of people is not a 
 nation. A nation is an organized people with 
 powers, functions, responsibilities and a mission 
 in the world. 
 
 Nations are born, grow, live and die ; the indi- 
 viduals are bound together by sacred ties and 
 spiritual affinities ; when these are broken disso- 
 lution takes place. The life of one nation is sacri- 
 ficed for the good of another, as soils are for greater 
 growths. 
 
 The secret power of attraction is thought-force 
 manifested through two agents ; like the temple^ 
 God is the Architect and man the builder; God 
 furnishes plans and specifications and superintends, 
 while man constructs and works out the plans. 
 
36 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 There are two essential thought-forces that hold 
 nations in their places ; a centripetal and centri- 
 fugal force such as bind the planets into systems 
 
 The doctrine of God as a personal, Supreme 
 Ruler. 
 
 The doctrine of political equality and personal 
 liberty of man. 
 
 These imply sacred days, sacred books, sacred 
 oaths and sacred officers. One people may build a 
 Babel or a Chinese wall or a pyramid. Another a 
 temple, a Parthenon or a Pacific railroad. Babylon, 
 Egypt, Persia, Israel, Greece, Home and America 
 are all developments of distinct thoughts. 
 
 A complete history of man would include the 
 entire history of this world and perhaps of all 
 worlds. 
 
 " On earth there is nothing great but man." 
 
 The development of man through national train- 
 ing is a part of the Divine plan ; without social 
 law and political restraints man would be only a 
 savage ; a being of appetites and passions, full of 
 sensuality, violence and crime, and tend to self- 
 extermination. This was his early history, and the 
 Supreme Ruler followed the same plan with man 
 as with the lower animals. In the fullness of time 
 
FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 37 
 
 the over-populated earth was revolutionized by 
 the law of antagonism, and a new chapter in 
 history begun ; only a few of the best stocks 
 were left to re- populate the earth ; but from the 
 graves of their fathers was to come another gener- 
 ation better prepared for higher development. 
 The new race was set in families ; social and re- 
 ligious restraints were imposed ; the history of 
 their fathers was a terrible lesson ; the death 
 penalty was enacted, and the value of life greatly 
 emphasized. 
 
 Population was soon too great to be controlled 
 by families alone, and the tendency to centraliza- 
 tion would have again destroyed the race. 
 
 The law of antagonistic forces alone could pro- 
 vide a remedy ; decentralization or death was the 
 alternative. 
 
 THE WORLD'S GREAT CONVENTION DISPERSED. 
 The great population held a mass-meeting, or 
 national convention, at Babel, and resolved to build 
 a race-monument to bind the multitudes together. 
 Jehovah defeated their plans and put them on the 
 high way to a higher civilization by confounding 
 their speech, breaking their language into strange 
 dialects, and by the great law of decentralization 
 
38 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 which still sends the people from our over- crowded 
 cities to the country, they were dispersed abroad, 
 and stimulated by new homes and competition, 
 they were preserved from the fate of a former 
 history. Years elapse, and another forward move- 
 ment was necessary. Jehovah selected from the 
 valley of the Tigris the best specimen family that 
 the centuries had produced. 
 
 The masses had become hero-worshipers and 
 idolaters, and the tendency of the people was 
 downward. God chose Abraham and his family 
 and sent them to the best climate and best country 
 then on the face of the earth ; for two hundred 
 years they were under special discipline ; but idola- 
 try corrupted them, passion, like a fountain of cor- 
 ruption broke forth, the strong, animal nature of 
 this vigorous family must be crushed, and they 
 must again be separated from idolaters and put 
 under special discipline. 
 
 Isaac was a quiet specimen of ease and self- 
 indulgence ; Jacob was a cunning, shrewd man, 
 but needed twenty years of exile ; Joseph was sold 
 into slavery ; Keuben and Judah, Bilhah and Tamar 
 were not models of perfection. These Hebrews 
 were the highest attainments in manhood the race 
 
FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 39 
 
 had made, and they were sent to the strongest, best 
 educated nation in the world, to be disciplined by 
 the same law. The pendulum now swung to the 
 other extreme. 
 
 They were made slaves, and recklessness was 
 cured by hard work. A common sympathy in toil 
 and suffering bound them together in one brother- 
 hood. The constant worship of idols disgusted 
 them with false gods and drove them to the living 
 God for help. The learning of the Egyptians was 
 essential to a preparation for their future life ; 
 Moses, their great leader, must be educated in the 
 college of the Pharaohs. 
 
 Schooled in Egypt for two centuries, the Hebrews 
 had increased to two millions. Moses was born at 
 the right time and trained in the science of govern- 
 ment for forty years ; then sent to the mountains 
 of Arabia to make a survey through the wilderness 
 to the home of their fathers. He was commissioned 
 at the burning bush in the deserts of Sinai, the 
 mightiest man of all the old centuries. 
 
 The nation, the first great nation, was now ready 
 to be evolved ; it had a history and a leader, and a 
 divine Superintendent. 
 
 Moses marched the people out to the wilderness 
 
40 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 in a mass ; they stood in front of Sinai, heard the 
 voice of the Almighty and saw the mountain quake. 
 The people accepted Jehovah as King and received 
 from him the three essentials of a nation : the 
 Law to instruct, the Temple for worship, and the 
 Shechinah, or special, divine Providence to lead 
 them to national greatness and religious develop- 
 ment. 
 
 The nation is now organized and worship is 
 established, and the race has moved up in the 
 scale of a higher manhood, yet years of disci- 
 pline were needed to reach the best types of the 
 nation ; development must come through suffering. 
 
 Moses died, but the nation lived on through 
 years of conflict and struggle. 
 
 David, the most perfectly developed type among 
 the Hebrews, came to the throne ; Solomon, his 
 son, built the temple, the most magnificent monu- 
 ment the race has produced. The temple- was a 
 divine order of architecture ; ground plan, eleva- 
 tion and detailed drawings were all made by the 
 Grand Master of the universe. 
 
 The workmen were inspired; Bezaleel and 
 Aholiah were filled with wisdom and knowledge, 
 to work in gold and silver and brass. 
 
FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 41 
 
 Moses could not have been produced by any 
 other nation or at any other time. David must 
 come from the sheep-cotes of Bethlehem and the 
 temple must be built in Jerusalem. 
 
 THREE GREAT RACE MONUMENTS. 
 
 The grandest symbols of thought-forces found 
 in the history of the race are the Pyramids, the 
 Temple and the Parthenon ; they mark the differ- 
 ent phases of national evolutions, by the great law 
 of antagonistic forces, superintended by the Divine 
 Presence. 
 
 The Pyramids are grand monuments of religious 
 thought, and mark the highest point made by the 
 nation. It was not the ambition of great kings to 
 preserve their names, that piled up those massive 
 forms according to exact science. The highest 
 attainment made in mathematical and astronomical 
 science are recorded in that stone edition of civili- 
 zation ; there is the history t)f religious ideas ; 
 molecular, soul power at work down deep in the 
 spiritual nature of these energetic, superstitious 
 Egyptians ; the most ancient monument of science, 
 sociology and religion. 
 
 The Parthenon, the gods and temples and altars 
 
42 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 of Athens were but physical incarnations of the 
 nation's highest thought ; symbols of the spiritual 
 forces at work in the heart of the proud Athenian. 
 He who could produce the most impressive picture 
 of the incomprehensible powers, in statue or song, 
 was immortal. 
 
 The Temple surpassed all monuments of the 
 race in both magnificence and meaning. , It was 
 the symbol of all that is true and beautiful and 
 good. It was built for the visible residence of the 
 Invisible Jehovah ; a physical expression of his 
 glory and a symbol of the still greater truth, Man 
 is the microcosm, the true temple, with sanctuary 
 and inner court. The great object to be accom- 
 plished by the evolution of nations, was the higher 
 evolution of man in the nations, that the highest 
 types might be produced. 
 
 The symbolism of a people is their national 
 biography. Religious ideas have been the intel- 
 lectual and moral muscles that have elevated all 
 peoples ; all progress in art and science and liter- 
 ature is traceable to religious thought force ; hence 
 the best types of every nation are found in the purest 
 religionist. The Greek culminated in Socrates, the 
 Roman in Cicero, the Arabian in Job, and the 
 
FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 43 
 
 Hebrew in David and Paul. These are the marked 
 men of the old past, the product of the antago- 
 nistic forces of their age under the Divine Super- 
 intendency. 
 
 The influences that operate in the production of 
 a nation are both material and spiritual. 
 
 That which built the temple was chiefly spiritual; 
 the outgrowth of thought and religious emotion. 
 
 THE PYRAMIDS ARE MAJESTIC MONUMENTS OF RE- 
 LIGIOUS THOUGHT. 
 
 "Virtue alone outlives the pyramids, 
 Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall." 
 
 The Pyramids are monuments of religious 
 thought ; the great volumes in the nation's history 
 and the key to the national character. 
 
 The force of religious ideas gave birth to every 
 motive, quarried every stone in that mighty super 
 structure. It is Egyptian mythology that solves 
 the problem of the Pyramids. 
 
 Osiris was the god of the dead, the supreme god. 
 He had himself died at the cruel hand of Typhon. 
 The belief that Osiris would rise again from the 
 dead and destroy his enemy, and that man was 
 immortal, and the bodies should be preserved 
 
44 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 till the resurrection of Osiris, stimulated them to 
 preserve the bodies of the dead by embalming 
 them, and is the solution of the strange fact of 
 Egyptian mummies. The kings and great men 
 had money and power. Their great life-work was 
 to build a tomb that would stand all the ravages of 
 time. "Old Cheops" is the crowning monument 
 of the faith of Egypt in the doctrine of the im- 
 mortality of man. It is the great depository of 
 their knowledge of science and art, architecture 
 and mechanical skill, mathematics and astronomy. 
 Wrapt up in this sacred volume preserved in stone, 
 we have the history and philosophy of the evolu- 
 lution of the nation. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF NATURE IN THE EVOLUTION OF 
 A PEOPLE. 
 
 "Is it not worth while, for the sake of the history of men and 
 nations, to study the surface of the globe in its relations to the in- 
 habitants ? " GCETHE, 
 
 Greece was the great intellectual world-center, 
 the birth-place of art and oratory, philosophy and 
 poetry ; its evolution cannot be studied without 
 the study of its geography; climate and scenery 
 have more to do in the development of man 
 than has yet been dreamed of by the profoundest 
 
FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 45 
 
 thinkers. Latitude and longitude have set bounds 
 to the development of the race. This is an histori- 
 cal fact that must enter in to the problem of evolu- 
 tion as an essential factor. As the Hebrews were 
 the center of religious force, so the Athenians were 
 the acme of intellectual power. The Temple could 
 have been built only at Jerusalem on the hills of 
 Zion, the Parthenon only on the hills of Athens. 
 The great national centers were fixed by their 
 geography ; the natural scenery of Greece is with- 
 out a parallel. 
 
 "Greek scenery presents the peculiar charm of an intimate blend- 
 ing of sea and land, of shores adorned with vegetation, or pictur- 
 esquely girt with rocks gleaming in the light of aerial tints, and an 
 ocean beautiful in the play of the ever-changing brightness of its 
 deep-toned wave." HUMBOLDT. 
 
 Athens was the outgrowth of her geography ; 
 the most favorable locality on earth for the highest 
 evolution of human genius. The long centuries of 
 intense energy have produced no duplicate ; in 
 these great Grecian Masters, art, eloquence, phi- 
 losophy and poetry crystalized ; they are still the 
 classics of all their successors. It was the great 
 commercial center and afforded "the market-place " 
 for the active minds of the world. Here was the 
 great arena of debate ; the most complete, intel- 
 
46 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 lectual gymnasium of the race. Here were dis- 
 cussed the mightiest problems of the human mind ; 
 and here mind made its most extensive surveys of 
 all the field of thought, and produced the most per- 
 fect ideals of beauty and the finest specimens of 
 literary genius yet attained by the race. 
 
 Here reason attained its meridian splendor ; this 
 incarnation of highest thought and culture remains 
 as model for all time. 
 
 The songs of Homer, the statues of Phidias, the 
 dialogues of Plato, are immortal. The magnificent 
 temples and statues and altars ; the Lyceum, the 
 Academy, the Garden, the Temple of Demeter, the 
 superb home of Polytion the most magnificent of 
 all was the Temple of Minerva, the Parthenon, the 
 chief pride of the proud Athenian. These are 
 chapters in the biography of the nation. What 
 advance from the "giants" of Genesis to the 
 geniuses of Athens ! 
 
 What is the law of their evolution ? Why the 
 conflict of mind with mind and the influence of 
 matter on mind ? They are the result of antago- 
 nistic forces. 
 
 The Greek poets could have been produced no 
 place else but in Athens. 
 
FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 47 
 
 The majesty of her mountains, the music of her 
 seas, the genial sunlight, the pure breezes, the 
 snow-capped mountains, the finely wooded hills, 
 the olive and palm, the matted ivy, the golden 
 crocus and blooming asphodels, were divine poems 
 scattered broadcast, and these geniuses had only 
 to read and translate. 
 
 Subtract the natural scenery from Grecian poetry 
 and the beauty and inspiration are gone ; it is the 
 woof of the immortal web of their supernal thought. 
 Byron never could have written his finest lines 
 except under the inspiration of her splendid 
 scenery. Attic air was a better stimulus than 
 English brandy 
 
 " Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild ; 
 Sweet are thy groves and verdant are thy fields, 
 Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled, 
 And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields." 
 
 The product of Grecian genius was inspired 
 thought-force. They were not geologists studying 
 rocks and fossils and revolutions of forgotten ages, 
 but poets translating the Divine thoughts in 
 mountains, seas, birds and breezes. They were 
 the best dreamers of the world struggling for the 
 light ; searching for God, to know his character 
 
48 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 and the powers and responsibilities of man. They 
 saw the invisible powers back of force and energy 
 and law ; but saw through a glass darkly. They 
 saw back of all phenomena there must be person- 
 ality ; and they filled mountain and stream, and 
 forest and crag with dryad and naiad and oread ; 
 living beings instead of the abstract forces of the 
 laboratory ; the invisible, spiritual powers were 
 their inspiration. 
 
 Conflict of the highest thought gave birth to 
 both the nation's institutions and the national 
 spirit. The gods of Athens, the temples and altars* 
 her statues and philosophy, her poetry and oratory, 
 are the growths around a common center. The 
 statnes of Jupiter and Juno, Neptune and Pluto, 
 Minerva and Apollo, were but the highest efforts 
 of human genius to incarnate the invisible in forms 
 of beauty and power; back of the threatening 
 storm-cloud and deep muttering thunder, the forked 
 lightning and moaning ocean must be some spirit- 
 ual personality. 
 
 Among the four thousand gods of Greece there 
 was no image of the true God. Jehovah was not 
 in the range of the highest imagination. They 
 built a plain altar and placed upon it a public con- 
 
FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 49 
 
 fession of the nation in the simple inscription, 
 AGNOSTO THEO To the unknown God. This marks 
 the highest limit of the nation's evolution. It must 
 have more light or perish ; but it rejected the light 
 and died, and all posterity feeds out of its richest 
 accumulations. 
 
 THE COMPLEX FORCES IN THE FORMATION OF OTHER 
 NATIONS. 
 
 Modern nations are no exceptions to the great 
 law of antagonistic forces. 
 
 France is a most remarkable nation. The out- 
 growth of religious, political and social forces ; a 
 nation full of dynasties and dynamite, still ready 
 to explode at any moment. It has produced at 
 least two of the most powerful men : Napoleon and 
 Victor Hugo ; one is the product of victories and 
 defeats ; the other, a mountain of the richest ore, 
 the result of the great upheavals of society and 
 social life. 
 
 The conflicts of his times developed Napoleon, 
 the most ambitious and mightiest military genius 
 of the race. He was the greatest force of its kind 
 ever let loose on earth ; the man of destiny, dis- 
 asters and defeats. 
 
 God defeated all his plans at the battle of 
 
50 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 Waterloo by sending a rain-storni the night before 
 the battle to swamp the great guns of the world's 
 greatest artillerist, in order that Europe might 
 have time to get its breath. During the dreadful 
 pause, God pushed the civilization of the world 
 forward a thousand years. Men perish, but out of 
 their tombs come other forces to lift their fellows 
 upward. Man may say 
 
 ' ' I can command the lightning and am dust ! 
 A monarch a slave ! a worm ! a god ! " 
 
 The evolution of Europe is the result of the 
 literature of England, the philosophic thought- 
 force of Germany, the gunpowder of France, and 
 the Gospel introduced by St. Paul and superin- 
 tended by a national Providence and a personal, 
 Divine Presence. 
 
 The great central thought of the American nation 
 is the most advanced and the most emphatic ; the 
 doctrine of Liberty is both center and circumfer- 
 ence. 
 
 The rights of man have never been so well 
 formulated or pushed to the front by any other 
 nation in history. These are clearly stated in our 
 bill of rights, incorporated and inwrought in our 
 constitution and unfurled to the breezes in our flag. 
 
FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 51 
 
 The conflict necessary to maintain these princi- 
 ples against antagonistic forces produced our 
 national character ; the highest type that has yet 
 appeared. It gave birth to our heroes and states- 
 men and constitutional lawyers, our capitalists and 
 our inventors ; it cut down our forests, built our 
 cities, fenced the valleys, tunneled the mountains, 
 built our railroads, and filled the warehouses of the 
 world with bread. Liberty, is the magic word that 
 thrills the race and sends the people by thousands 
 to our shores. There is both Divine plan and pur- 
 pose seen in the law of immigration. In the 
 western world, by the conflict of free thought, God 
 intends to solve the problems of all the centuries ; 
 and by the great battle of ideas to eliminate error 
 and lift the race to the highest civilization. 
 
 "There have been more changes in thought in the last thirty years, 
 than since the beginning of the world." PRESIDENT HITCHCOCK. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon are all packing up for the 
 west ; the tide was never so great as now. If Rome 
 shaped the politics of the Old World, and Greece 
 her literature and art ; if the Jews gave to the 
 world a spiritual momentum, what will be the for- 
 ward movement of the race when all these forces 
 are combined in one nation ? There has been no 
 
52 FACTORS THAT MAKE UP A NATION. 
 
 history so marked, none has made such rapid 
 progress in population, wealth and civilization as 
 America, and no people are so well fed and happy 
 as Americans. 
 
 " America may reasonably look forward to the time when it will 
 have produced a civilization grander than the world has ever known." 
 
 HEBBERT SPENCEB. 
 
 " America is only another name for opportunity. It is God's final 
 effort in behalf of the human race." EMERSON. 
 
 America is built on the doctrine of a personal 
 God, a Divine Superintendent and a Supreme 
 Judge, and the doctrine of the political equality 
 and personal liberty of man. It has given to the 
 world the Declaration of Independence, free speech 
 and a free ballot, the Emancipation Proclamation 
 and the Fifteenth Amendment, and the highest 
 civilization was born in a day. 
 
 The nations of the past attempted to build their 
 civilizations on caste, on culture or on law, but all 
 have perished. America has for her corner-stone 
 personal liberty, the rights of conscience and free- 
 dom of speech. Ages of experience have taught 
 man that the best method of developing the race, 
 the great law of historical evolution, is found in 
 the revolutionary power of ideas. America is the 
 highest result yet reached by all the centuries. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF PEKSONAL CHAE- 
 ACTEK. 
 
 " Some are born great, some achieve greatness, 
 Others have greatness thrust upon them." 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The great want of this age, both in church and 
 state, is the study of great men. All great events 
 center around a few great men at the centers of 
 influence and power ; hence these central charac- 
 ters become the greatest phenomena of history ; 
 here may be obtained some real notion of the won- 
 derful capabilities of the human soul and its lofty 
 aspirations. 
 
 The present century has given more study to the 
 philosophy of human history than all the preceding 
 eighteen, and the results have been reduced to two 
 theories represented by Carlyle and Spencer. First, 
 great men mould the masses. Second, great men 
 are the product of the masses or the query : Are 
 great men produced by revolutions or evolutions ? 
 
 No solution of this problem is possible that re- 
 jects God as the prime factor in personal history ; 
 
54 EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL CHARACTER. 
 
 God puts men in the great world-movements in his 
 own way and in his own time. 
 
 Abraham and Moses, David and Paul, Confucius 
 and Plato, Homer and Shakespeare, have been great 
 centers of influence, great world-forces in the evo- 
 lution of the world's history. 
 
 As the quarry is greater than the block, and the 
 fountain is greater than the stream, so man is 
 greater than all his works. Abraham is more to 
 the race than all his history ; the choice man of 
 his age was put in training under the personal 
 direction of Jehovah. He was separated from the 
 heathen and left their gods beyond the flood, and 
 followed the voice of the living Jehovah ; he crossed 
 the Jordan, built an altar and held communion 
 with God ; he passed through great trials, high 
 tests of loyalty, and surrendered self. Jehovah 
 visited him at his tent, and promised him great 
 things in the future. Abraham believed God, 
 sacrificed his dearest idol, and thus the father of 
 the faithful was produced. Moses is a complex 
 force composed of great personality, the influence 
 of his mother, the culture of the Egyptian college, 
 patriotic devotion to his slave-people, forty years 
 training in the desert and forty years of the per- 
 
EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL CHARACTER. 55 
 
 sonal presence of Jehovah. These great oppor- 
 tunities added to his own genius and personal 
 development in the struggles with his enemies 
 and the perverseness of his own people, produced 
 Moses. Out of these conflicts, aided by Divine 
 influences, came the great Lawgiver, the mightiest 
 man of the Old Testament times. 
 
 Plato is a compound of the sayings of Socrates, 
 the debates of the "Marketplace" and the influ- 
 ences of the Academy ; he is the sum of all philoso- 
 phy ; the wisdom of the race condensed in one 
 man. Every thing passed through his mind and 
 was colored by his genius. But his inspiration 
 came from God ; he depended on him. "If it please 
 the God, you will make great and rapid proficiency ; 
 you will not, if he does not please." In him the 
 Divine and human meet in the highest intellectual 
 plain. "If Jove should descend to earth, he would 
 speak in the style of Plato." 
 
 Philosophy is a revelation ; Plato is the Apoca- 
 lyptic Angel, the personal evolution of all phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 But philosophy alone cannot shape the world 
 correctly. Eeligious thought is the great force 
 that has shaped the ages. As there can be but 
 
56 EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL CHARACTER. 
 
 one greatest thought, so there can be but one great- 
 est man ; that man is Jesus. 
 
 Paul and the colleges of the apostles and the 
 great geniuses of the race, did for the intellectual, 
 social and spiritual world what the internal fires and 
 physical forces have done for the material world 
 
 Fitted the earth for the highest civilizations and 
 the highest conditions of human development. 
 
 But there is something greater than logical argu- 
 ment or the ability to organize truth into a system, 
 something greater than preaching : it is humility, 
 se]f -sacrifice, the spiritual power of a personal life- 
 
 Jesus is greater than the whole college of the 
 apostles, greater than the combined genius of the 
 race ; he is the only perfect IDEAL-MAN. 
 
 A class of men was chosen by the Master for the 
 purpose of carrying out the details of the plan of 
 the Father for the highest evolution of the race- 
 Each of the twelve was a factor in the plan, each 
 performed his part of the work in the evolution 
 of truth. Evangelism, instruction, organization, 
 apocalyptic vision and betrayal, are but the prime 
 factors of the Divine plan. 
 
 Who can determine which man played the most 
 important part ? Which was the greatest moral 
 
EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL CHARACTER. 57 
 
 force ? Which has resulted in the greatest good, 
 Pentecost, or Aceldama ? the field of blood ; Peter 
 or Judas ? The profession of Paul the martyr, or 
 the confession of Judas the traitor ? 
 
 "They are but parts of one stupendous whole." 
 
 They are all in the Divine plan. " Jesus knew 
 from the beginning who it was that should betray 
 him." Hence he was neither disappointed nor 
 deceived. What would have become of the king- 
 dom had Judas not been chosen an apostle ? 
 
 The voluntary sufferings of the apostles and the 
 agony of Judas the transgressor are the great 
 spirit forces from the opposite hemispheres of the 
 soul moving on together, turning the tide of human 
 sympathy of all the future generations toward the 
 Man of Sorrows. 
 
 This force moving forward with increasing energy 
 must culminate in the highest evolution of the indi- 
 vidual and the race, by the eternal law of compen- 
 sation. The evolution of character is the purpose 
 of all the Divine plans and the interpretation of all 
 the facts of history. 
 
58 EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL CHARACTER. 
 
 JESUS IS THE HIGHEST MANIFESTATION OF PERSONAL 
 CHAEACTER. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth is the most exalted and most 
 complete character that has ever appeared on earth. 
 He is the Ideal-Man that has revolutionized the 
 thought of the ages, changed the moral atmosphere 
 of the world and furnished the race with a perfect 
 model for human living. 
 
 He is the Divine clothed with and dwelling in a 
 fleshly body. He was so conscious of the indwelling 
 of the Divine, that he said, "I and my Father 
 are one." He is the highest incarnation of God, 
 and a necessity for man's spiritual nature, as the 
 grandest exhibition of love. He was promised 
 by the prophets, and came in the fullness of time 
 to fulfill Jehovah's pledge, sent by the Father to 
 give a new life to the world and a higher class of 
 teachings and miracle working for the spiritual 
 advancement of the people, and to convince them 
 of the truth. While Jesus is the highest type of 
 man and the highest incarnation of God, he is not 
 the only incarnation of the Divine ; wherever the 
 innocent babe is found and the pure in heart, there 
 God dwells ; there the Divine is incarnated. What 
 is the new birth taught by Jesus but an incarnation 
 
E VOL UTION OF PERSONA L CHAR A CTER. 59 
 
 of the Divine ? So that all thought and all purposes 
 are changed for good. 
 
 God dwells in his prophets and ministers of all 
 ages ; what is prophesying and preaching* but God 
 speaking through men ? This is God's method of 
 giving expression and exposition to his own revela- 
 tion ; so that every one conscious of the Divine 
 truth and love in the heart can say, I and my FatEer 
 are one. 
 
 The same Divine Spirit that filled to overflowing 
 and illuminated the great soul of Jesus and made 
 him the willing sacrifice for the good of others, 
 fills man's spirit ; it supported the martyrs in their 
 unfaltering tread to the stake. The teachings of 
 Jesus are the thoughts of Jehovah and ought to be 
 accepted by all because they are the very best the 
 race has. 
 
 His Spirit is the sublimes t exhibition of purity 
 and love. He was led by the Divine Spirit to 
 be tested in the wilderness, and voluntarily sur- 
 rendered himself to die on the cross ; he could not 
 refuse the Father, and was sustained by him ; he 
 accepted the work his Father gave him to do, and 
 sealed it with his blood. 
 
 Whether Christ died to redeem fallen man or for 
 
60 EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL CHARACTER. 
 
 a principle or doctrine that if obeyed would save 
 man, matters not, so far as our responsibilities go. 
 Christ could not have done more than he did to 
 save ten thousand worlds. 
 
 God gave the Messiah to the world, and Christ 
 is the Saviour of all who accept his doctrines and 
 live them. 
 
 Jesus is the universal mind, the highest expres- 
 sion of humanity ; there is no teacher like him ; 
 in the range of his thought he surveyed both 
 worlds ; in his method he is alone ; he never 
 learned letters, belonged to no school of philoso- 
 phy, no sect in religion ; he compassed all the 
 race. While a Jew by birth and early influence 
 he was broader than Moses or Abraham, broader 
 than Brahmanism and all the old religions of the 
 world. 
 
 Confucius was a great teacher, but he was only a 
 Chinaman ; Chinese in thought and expression, 
 and limited by the boundaries of his own people. 
 Plato was a great teacher, but he was a Greek ; he 
 was limited to speculative science ; his method 
 was dialectic, his spirit was Greek ; he organized 
 no schools, built no temples, left no systematized 
 thought, has no disciples. 
 
EVOLUTION OF PERSONAL CHARACTER. 61 
 
 Paul, the highest development yet made by the 
 race, was only the great disciple and expounder of 
 his Master ; he never added a line to the teachings 
 of Jesus. Paul has no school and no disciples. 
 Jesus is the Universal, Ideal, Perfect Man ; the 
 mightiest of all the ages and the model for all 
 men ; not a man, nor the man but Man. " An 
 Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no guile." 
 
 Sublimity of character, immaculate life and 
 spiritual power are the Divine forces incarnated 
 in Jesus, which will conquer all antagonistic forces 
 and draw all men unto him. 
 
 " Jesus has no visions; God does not speak to 
 him from without. God is in him ; he feels that 
 he is with God, and he draws from his heart what 
 he says of his Father. He lives in the bosom of 
 God by uninterrupted communication ; he does not 
 see him, but he understands him without need of 
 thunder and burning bush like Moses, of a reveal- 
 ing tempest like Job, of an oracle like the old 
 Greek sages, of a familiar genius like Socrates. 
 
 " Complete conqueror of death, take possession of 
 thy kingdom ; whither shall follow thee, by the royal 
 road which thou hast traced, AGES OF WORSHIPERS ! ! " 
 
 Kenan . 
 
EVOLUTION THKOUGH SUFFEEING. 
 
 Disease, decrepitude, disappointment and death 
 are great facts full of mystery. Who shall furnish 
 a key to this sad secret ? 
 
 Epicureans have taught for ages that the good 
 overbalances the evil and that this is the best 
 possible in a world of matter. 
 
 Idealists have said that poverty, misfortune, 
 affliction, strikes and bread riots are only the poetry 
 of life ; but suffering for the right, or moral sacri- 
 fice, is the philosophy of moral development, a 
 method of the evolution of character and the high- 
 est moral force in the universe. 
 
 To get the flour out of the wheat, it must be 
 ground between the upper and nether millstones 
 and be bolted ; to get the gold out of the quartz, it 
 must be crushed before the gold can be separated ; 
 so the highest qualities of manhood are often 
 developed through suffering. 
 
 The crust of the globe is mostly made of animal 
 remains. Our richest soils which produce the 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 63 
 
 golden grain, the most luscious fruits and fragrant 
 flowers, are but the dust of the graves of dead 
 generations ; our limestone ledges and sandstone 
 hills, and our beautiful oxides which are decom- 
 posed by the storms and triturated by the years 
 into the most productive soils, are only the sacri- 
 fices of the by-gone ages transmuted into valleys 
 of wealth for the personal benefit and higher 
 development of the race. 
 
 These apparent contradictions are not accidents ; 
 God makes no mistakes ; they are parts of a divine 
 plan for the complete development and highest 
 perfection of man. 
 
 Earth is full of calamities, accidents and catastro- 
 phes on every page of its history. Earthquakes 
 swallow up whole cities, and hundreds of thousands 
 of lives and millions of money are destroyed. Hun- 
 dreds of frightful volcanoes vomit forth destruction 
 and floods of fire overwhelm the horror-stricken 
 inhabitants ; the desolating tornado and terrific 
 cyclone, physical monsters without mercy, rush in 
 wild fury, powerful and pitiless in their work of 
 death. Is there a defect in the planetary system ? 
 Have the physical laws broke loose from the Great 
 Superintendent ? No ! Emphatically no ! 
 
64 EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 
 
 Drouth and famine stalk abroad with haughty 
 step like fiends, lawless and invulnerable, and 
 whole countries are reduced to starvation. Epi- 
 demics, with silent tread steal into the homes of 
 poverty and wealth, and neither science nor sacri- 
 fice are able to explain or defeat the terrible 
 scourge. Is the Superintending Power unable to 
 control his own work, or is man ignorant and un- 
 able to explain ? 
 
 There are freaks in nature in the forms of 
 the vegetable and animal world that seem to be 
 difficult to explain strange defects, mysterious 
 malformations, unaccountable deformities. Dwarfs 
 among the grasses, poison among the most beauti- 
 ful flowers, rot seizes a whole crop of potatoes on 
 which helpless children depend for bread, rust 
 attacks the wheat and the price rises above the 
 pockets of the poor, and thousands go hungry 
 while the warehouses of the world are full. The 
 cattle die from diseases and bleating flocks perish 
 from drouth. One half of mankind die in infancy 
 and a large proportion are born blind and deaf and 
 deformed. As the trees in the mighty forests are 
 crooked and gnarly and twisted and defective at 
 the center, so men are diseased and deformed, both 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. C5 
 
 in body and in mind ; some idiotic and not able to 
 take care of themselves, and but few come up to 
 any correct standard of physical perfection. 
 
 There are also some examples of the wonderful 
 intellectual capabilities of man. His wonderful 
 achievements in the arts and sciences, in bringing 
 the elements into subjection and using them for his 
 own purposes. He can weigh the planets, estimate 
 their distances and calculate to a second their 
 wonderful revolutions ; but what a large propor- 
 tion are low in the intellectual scale, with but little 
 capacity for education, and how few come up to 
 any reasonable standard of perfection ? Are they 
 failures ? Then, who is to blame ? Is there any- 
 body to blame ? 
 
 Had man the key to this mystery, would not all 
 be plain ? But defect and error and discrepancy 
 are found in every thing about us ; it abounds in 
 man's moral nature. 
 
 Man has capability to hold communion with God ; 
 how beautiful and complete he is in moral excel- 
 lence and grandeur, as seen in his works of love 
 and charity and deeds of self-denial. But how few 
 indeed have a well developed moral character. The 
 masses are immoral, deceitful, revengeful and 
 
66 EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 
 
 treacherous; how many are dishonest, selfish, 
 licentious and criminal ? 
 
 God looked down from heaven and saw that 
 there was none good, none that came up to the 
 Divine standard. What a verdict for the Creator 
 to pronounce upon his own children ! Are men 
 failures? Has God made a mistake in bringing 
 man into being ? 
 
 Why this imperfection in all things about us ? 
 There is nothing that seems complete. Even the 
 revelation that God gave to man seems full of im- 
 perfections. Why a hundred different creeds, all 
 purporting to be based upon the same revelation ? 
 And what has been more violent than the collision 
 of creeds ? 
 
 One claims infallibility, claims that Christ dele- 
 gated all power to St. Peter and his legal suc- 
 cessors, and hence there is no salvation outside the 
 confessional and priestly absolution. Another 
 limits salvation to a class called the elect, fore- 
 ordained before they were born ; and still another 
 sets no limits and claims from the same revelation 
 universal salvation of all men. 
 
 Then, there seem to be contradictions in the 
 statements made in the Bible. David is declared 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 67 
 
 to be a man after God's own heart, yet he mur- 
 dered a man by putting him in the front of the 
 battle, that he might get his wife. Abraham had 
 his Hagar, an Egyptian concubine, and Jacob was 
 a polygamist. Why this conflict of life and law ? 
 Why are such examples, with a hundred others, 
 spread upon the divine record ? Choice men have 
 their faults, and this world is one of apparent 
 defects and deficiencies in every department. 
 
 Both matter and spirit are imperfect in their 
 present condition ; crystals are defective, the vege- 
 table world dwarfed ; animals deformed and men 
 depraved ; nations are at war, and states are in 
 commotion politically and socially ; there is a 
 general ebb and flow in society, like the tides in 
 the ocean ; now a community is lashed into foam, 
 then the breakers become quiet and the waves 
 return, but to repeat themselves again in foaming 
 white caps. Our social and political problems are 
 the most important that ever agitated or convulsed 
 a nation. 
 
 The race problem is not yet settled ; it is liable 
 to throw the nation into spasms at any moment. 
 We have overworked the doctrine, that all men are 
 born free and equal ; the fact is, there is no such 
 
68 -E VOL UTION THRO UGH SUFFERING. 
 
 thing as equality among men. There are certain 
 fixed laws in social life, as fixed and immutable as 
 in mathematics or mechanics ; these must not be 
 violated. There can never be peace in society till 
 some platform is discovered broad enough to com- 
 prehend and provide for all the wants of every 
 individual ; any effort to solve the problem upon 
 the hypothesis that all men are equal factors in the 
 intellectual and social unit, will ever be fruitless 
 because it is false. 
 
 Nature has a kind of aristocracy in the intel- 
 lectual and social world ; a few men have always 
 done the thinking and planning for the many. But 
 the many have political rights which must be kept 
 inviolate ; life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness belong to man by virtue of his manhood ; 
 neither ignorance, poverty nor color can rob man 
 of rights which are inalienable ; yet such is the 
 condition of society, that conflict will go on, but 
 the result will be the constant uplifting of the 
 masses. 
 
 The tendency to centralization in wealth keeps 
 up a constant conflict with the masses of the 
 people. In a government like ours this conflict is 
 to be dreaded by the nation ; for where the great 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 69 
 
 political parties are so nearly balanced the parties 
 may be corrupted by the money power and the 
 state suffer great loss ; already the shadows are on 
 the wall, and coming events are near at hand. 
 
 Labor must be better protected, monopolies 
 must be better guarded, and personal aggrandize- 
 ment at the expense of honest toil must be cor- 
 rected, or all hope of adjudication may as well be 
 abandoned. The men who work must receive their 
 share of the profits of their own skill and labor ; 
 their rights must be made secure or the seeds of 
 revolution will grow, and strikes and mobs and 
 lawless outbreaks will continue, till capital will be 
 compelled to surrender for its own protection. 
 
 Public opinion is a bodiless spirit and cannot be 
 controlled ; it becomes incarnate in the crowd and 
 walks the street with fearful tread, armed with club 
 and faggot, and in moments of excitement often 
 reduces years of toil to smouldering ash heaps. 
 
 The remedy for this dread evil will not be found 
 in the dreams of socialists or the inflammatory 
 harangues of demagogues. 
 
 The real point of adjustment is the division of 
 profits. The state needs a fixed standard by which 
 to divide the profits between labor and capital by 
 
70 E VOL UTION THROUGH S UFFERING. 
 
 the law of equivalency ; this is the pith of the 
 problem. There is a master mind needed in the 
 field of political economy ; the man who will show 
 the world some universal principle by which to 
 determine the ratio of capital to labor, will be the 
 peer of any of the world's great benefactors and 
 be able to put to rest this dangerous question. 
 
 We have conflicts of religious opinions that lie 
 deeper below the surface, but as real as the first 
 rumbling of the earthquake or the trembling of the 
 volcano. The time is approaching when the Ameri- 
 can people at least will protest, against any foreign 
 power dictating in the affairs of our nation. 
 
 But a greater conflict stares us in the face ; it is 
 the legalized liquor traffic. The thought is humili- 
 ating, that a great government like ours, complain- 
 ing of a surplus in her treasury ; a government that 
 has made such costly sacrifices to maintain the prin- 
 ciples of liberty, should be a party to the collection 
 of revenue from the nefarious liquor traffic. 
 
 A nation that has spent a billion of dollars and 
 has sacrificed a million of her citizens in the 
 defense of liberty, has consented to furnish the 
 shackels and the authority of law to bind her own 
 people in a worse bondage than bodily servitude ; 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 71 
 
 a bondage which means separation of husband and 
 wife, parents and children, and confiscation of 
 property without any prospect of compensation. 
 
 For a government to legalize such a traffic, is to 
 surrender its most sacred powers committed to it by 
 its own people, to poison its own ballot-box, to cor- 
 rupt the fountain of good citizenship, and to usurp 
 the authority delegated to it by its own citizens. 
 
 A traffic, worse than the slave trade, filling 
 asylums and prison cells ; ruling society with all 
 the terror of a despot ; outstripping the savage in 
 his most fiendish acts of barbarism ; sapping the 
 vitality of the nation, and if not checked it will 
 shake the very foundation of the mightiest republic. 
 It is opposed to liberty of thought, to culture and 
 refinement, and to all moral and religious develop- 
 ment ; its influence extends from one extremity of 
 the nation to the other, a withering curse, blighting 
 the hopes of the future. 
 
 To save our flag and keep it floating among the 
 nations ; to save our sons and daughters from dis- 
 grace and ruin, the appeal must be to legal, consti- 
 tutional prohibition, to Congress, to state legis- 
 latures, to every party and church creed, and more 
 than all and above all, to the God of nations. 
 
72 EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 
 
 Cato desired that he might die when he antici- 
 pated the death of Borne ; the wisest and best 
 men are alarmed at the social monsters of the nine- 
 teenth century. This whiskey monster is not a 
 dream, not a prophecy, but a fact, a real monster ; 
 not an apocalyptic vision, but a live, enormous, 
 modern megatherium, with appetite enough to 
 swallow the nation and destroy the race. 
 
 Constitutional prohibition must march to the 
 field of conflict ; this divine law of antagonism is 
 the only remedy ; the nation's safety demands it, 
 and the people will sustain it ; the old flag must 
 be preserved, and the sons and daughters of the 
 nation must be protected from this prince among 
 the destroyers. 
 
 SUFFERING PERSONAL SACRIFICE IS A METHOD OF 
 THE HIGHEST DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 Personal suffering has ever been the great 
 problem of the sages, and philosophy has failed to 
 solve it. Is there a key ? Among some of the 
 highest order of genius it is still an open question. 
 
 Goethe, in his "Faust," gives it up, sells out life 
 to the fiends, lives in sense, and emigrates to 
 Pandemonium. 
 
 Shelley, in his immortal "Prometheus," sends 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 73 
 
 Misery to the market to buy bread. " Festus," the 
 most marvelous among the recent poems, gives all 
 meii a second chance in another world. Job, the 
 broadest and most philosophic of all the poets of the 
 race, makes compensation, or the law of equiva- 
 lence, the solution of the problem of suffering. 
 
 That suffering is one of the Divine methods of 
 evolution, and that the law of equivalence is a 
 Divine law, seem to be true, and may solve the 
 moral side of the problem ; but the present en- 
 vironment is an essential factor and must be 
 included in order to meet the whole question. 
 
 The death of animals can have nothing to do with 
 "Prometheus" or Pandemonium; animals lived 
 and died for the benefit of man ; and the compen- 
 sation, by the law of equivalence, is seen in the 
 rich soils that are formed out of their remains, to 
 be transmuted into bread for civilized man. The 
 poisons concentrated by chemical forces to form 
 tho brilliant colors of the beautiful flowers that 
 bloom and perish in a day, are not wasted, but 
 recompounded by the tireless butterfly and happy 
 humming-bird into matchless motions and extatic 
 delights. Earthquake, volcano, tornado and cyclone 
 are but safety-valves to prevent the earth from 
 
7 i E VOL UTION THRO UGH SUFFERING. 
 
 rending in pieces and becoming uninhabitable ; a 
 Divine method of restoring the equilibrium in the 
 imperfect condition of the globe. 
 
 Famine, born of drouth is but the prophecy of 
 plenty that will come in due time by the law of 
 equivalence. 
 
 Epidemics, when understood are but lessons in 
 the laws of health that will result in greater happi- 
 ness ; the very best that is possible in the present 
 condition of things. 
 
 Freaks in nature and in human nature may still 
 lie outside our knowledge of physical and spiritual 
 laws, but they also are under the general law of 
 equivalence. 
 
 The gnarly oak, the deformed horse and the 
 idiotie child now lead to the more astute study and 
 extensive exploration of the laws of matter and 
 life, and the results are evidences of compensation. 
 Moral laws are more complicated than physical or 
 intellectual, for the spiritual universe is not within 
 the range of scalpel, or microscope, or laboratory ; 
 and revelation, from which man may expect per- 
 fection, seems to be full of imperfections and is no 
 exception to other phenomena ; but the law of 
 equivalence is found in the facts revealed, that the 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 75 
 
 most exalted characters of history have been im- 
 perfect, so that man must look beyond for the 
 perfect Ideal-Man. 
 
 Creeds are the outgrowth of imperfect character, 
 but their antagonistic force has lifted the race 
 higher at every movement. Modern Europe, built 
 on priestcraft and caste, swung backward to skepti- 
 cism and spiritual death, but the noble spirits 
 struggling for free thought and a higher manhood, 
 sailed west in the Mayflower, and built a new nation, 
 and opened the way for the higher civilization. 
 
 The Jews were the best developed and best disci- 
 plined among all the nations ; they were the product 
 of the best stocks and long years of suffering ; they 
 furnished the world with a class of teachers, law- 
 givers, statesmen, historians and poets, unequaled 
 in the history of the race ; they still maintain 
 their racehood ; their character is the result of the 
 momentum obtained from their spiritual training. 
 
 Eeligious forces and antagonistic faiths are only 
 means to ends ; even the most extreme notions are 
 methods of the higher development of man, and 
 factors in the greater evolution of truth. 
 
 When Borne became corrupt, a Yoltaire set all 
 Europe ablaze with his magic pen, and skepticism 
 
76 EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 
 
 became an epidemic. But Luther wrote a thesis 
 that revolutionized the thought of the century, and 
 the pendulum swung back and left Europe on 
 higher spiritual ground. 
 
 An Ingersoll, with the powers of his musical 
 voice may attack Christianity in the public halls of 
 the nation and get the ear of the crowd, but the 
 great law of antagonism will give birth to some 
 Father Gleason, who throttles his adversary with 
 a giant grasp, and the platform gives way before 
 the pen, and the people are lifted upward by the 
 battle of free thought. Materialism drives all 
 spiritual being out of the universe, but spiritualism 
 opens the doors and 
 
 " Thousands of spirits walk the earth, both when we sleep and wake," 
 
 Honest strugglings are the only stair-ways to a 
 higher life ; every good man suffers for his fellows, 
 for men are evolved as statues from the block, by 
 mallet and chisel. Could we analyze the great and 
 good, we would find two great factors, self-denial 
 and personal sacrifice, united by a spiritual force. 
 The best men suffer most, for suffering is a 
 necessity to the highest development. The death 
 of Lucretia expels the Tarquins from Homo ; the 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 77 
 
 sacrifice of Virginia by her own father overthrew 
 the Decemviri ; if truth lives, a Socrates must drink 
 the hemlock ; if the Gospel be planted in the 
 household of the Caesars, Paul must be beheaded ; 
 if liberty be proclaimed to the captives, the presi- 
 dent must die a martyr. 
 
 The law of equivalence pervades all life, and the 
 price of the evolution of character is suffering. 
 
 Jesus was made perfect through suffering, and is 
 no exception to this great law which is universal. 
 The greatest power of Jesus is not in his wonderful 
 teachings or his miraculous works, but in the 
 purity of his life, his love for the race as seen in 
 his voluntary sacrifices. Gethsemane, the court of 
 Caiphas, Pilate's hall, and the Cross on Calvary, 
 are the birthplaces of his power. The law is uni- 
 versal perfection through suffering. 
 
 MEDICAL SCIENCE AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 As man began to multiply upon the earth and 
 diseases and sickness began to prevail, a knowledge 
 of the science of medicine and skill in healing be- 
 came necessary for the better preservation of life 
 and health ; this necessity gave birth to medical 
 schools and developed skill in the profession. 
 
 Medicine, the healing art, is older than the tables 
 
78 EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 
 
 of stone, and stands side by side with the Ten 
 Commandments in the preservation and evolution 
 of man. As the race multiplied upon the earth 
 disease and sickness prevailed ; the effort of human 
 genius to relieve suffering and prolong life resulted 
 in the development of the science of medicine. 
 The great school at Heliopolis had its medical 
 department, centuries before Moses received the 
 Law. .ZEsculapius was born at Epidaurus and 
 educated at Chiron, where he was instructed in the 
 healing art. He visited the school at Heliopolis, 
 then returned to Athens full of zeal and inspira- 
 tion, where he lectured and practiced medicine for 
 many years, classifying and naming the various 
 diseases. After his death they erected a temple at 
 Athens to his memory ; hung up in the temple, in 
 tabulated form, were the names of the various 
 diseases he had classified ; any who were sick went 
 into the temple, pointed their finger to the name 
 of the disease, raised their hand, invoked the 
 departed spirit of the inspired healer, and were 
 cured. The Greeks believed he was divinely in- 
 spired and could raise the dead. 
 
 About six hundred years later Hypocrates, 
 called the father of medicine, was the head of 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 79 
 
 the medical school at Coan ; here medical knowledge 
 began to crystalize in scientific form ; the light from 
 the classic hills of Greece began to shine, and many 
 of his writings are still found in our old libraries. 
 
 About six centuries afterward Galen was born at 
 Pergamos; he developed as a star of the first 
 magnitude ; at the age of seventeen he became a 
 devout student of medicine and finally established 
 himself at Home ; he was an ardent disciple of 
 Hypocrates, and his teachings held almost universal 
 sway till about the middle of the seventeenth cent- 
 ury. Medical science soon began to take root 
 in Germany, France and England ; in due time 
 America became the equal of any nation both in 
 medical science and medical literature. Colleges 
 have been established, lectureships endowed, and 
 men of great learning and intellectual force have 
 crystalized the medical thought of the world into 
 a science. Medical science has pushed its way 
 into Japan, Australia and India, until the science 
 circles the globe to bless man physically, mentally 
 and morally. It furnishes an example of develop- 
 ment through suffering. The great law of evolu- 
 tion again comes to the front. The suffering of the 
 race evolved the science of medicine, which in turn 
 relieved the suffering race, prolonged life and in- 
 
80 EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 
 
 creased the mental and moral possibilities of man ; 
 this is the Divine method in the development of 
 mankind. 
 
 SLAVERY, EMANCIPATION AND DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 The law of evolution through suffering and 
 through antagonistic forces is most emphatic in 
 the African problem ; here the elevation and 
 development of a race of despised people is to be 
 accomplished by the same Divine process, the law 
 of compensation ; suffering is the one method of 
 emancipation. As the centuries of toil and hard- 
 ship made Israel the most complete and compact 
 nation among men, so American slavery under the 
 Divine Superintendent will raise the entire African 
 race to a higher plain. It was the active operation 
 of this law that brought the thousands of Africa's 
 sons to till the soil of America. Though held as 
 bondmen and bought and sold as cattle in the 
 market, their condition was at least no worse than 
 in their own native land, dwelling in darkness and 
 superstition. To be a slave is not worse than to be 
 a savage. For more than a century they have been 
 schooled in industry ; they have worked in the 
 very shadow of free thought ; the arts and sciences 
 have been their companions in the cotton fields ; 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 81 
 
 they have breathed the atmosphere of human free- 
 dom and enjoyed to some extent the blessings of 
 Christianity ; they have had a home training in 
 the best government in the world ; and this system 
 of slavery, that has been so much abused, will prove 
 by the law of compensation to be the greatest 
 blessing to the African and to Africa, that God 
 could devise. They are emancipated just at the 
 proper time, by a law of evolution ; antagonistic 
 forces are developed and let loose, and emancipa- 
 tion becomes a political necessity ; politics and 
 and morals coincide at least once in a century 
 "The Dark Continent" was explored by the im- 
 mortal Livingstone and Stanley, and the curtains 
 of the future raised, just at the time when students 
 in the colleges of the Freedmen are being educated 
 by the thousands. Sitting under the trees of the 
 college campus are the future railroad kings and 
 merchant princes, bankers, educators, evangelists, 
 and civil engineers and legislators of " The Dark 
 Continent." 
 
 The antagonism between the races will soon 
 colonize the American negro in his own land and 
 among his own people, to lift a continent of savages 
 to the highest civilization. These bondmen of the 
 
82 E VOL UTION THROUGH S UFFERINQ. 
 
 past will go as freedmen of the present, not naked 
 savages, but cultivated men ; educated by the same 
 nation that enslaved them, by this law of compen- 
 sation under Divine direction. 
 
 They will take with them the principles of free 
 government and the arts and sciences, and the 
 Christian religion, and through these agencies a 
 republican nation of free men will be evolved 
 from a benighted Paganism ; Africa is destined to 
 become one of the great nations of the world. 
 
 As the brightest and purest diamonds are found 
 in Africa, so will the brightest and purest minds be 
 found among the sons of Ham, who once taught 
 and ruled the world. America will be proud in 
 the near future of her dark sons she has educated 
 and sent forth to plant a new nation. 
 
 The United States is a stronger and better govern- 
 ment than would have been possible had slavery 
 not existed. The emancipation of the negro was 
 the emancipation of the nation. Our national 
 influence, power and prosperity are without a 
 parallel in the history of the race. Evolution 
 through suffering is the eternal law. 
 
 The Divine plan for the development of man 
 may be seen not only in the physical changes 
 
EVOLUTION THROUGH SUFFERING. 83 
 
 going on in the earth, but in the growth of modern 
 nations and the more recent forms of religions 
 thought and scientific development among men. 
 
 In the wide range of religious opinions which lie 
 between Catholicism and Protestantism, though 
 often in apparent conflict, yet the outcome of all 
 the antagonisms is, progress and human develop- 
 ment ; even spiritualism and the Salvation Army, 
 extremes among the extremest, are but factors in 
 the problem of race-development. Error serves to 
 better define truth, and discord is but a form of 
 revolution to lift man to a higher plain. 
 
 While perfection is not yet attained, there is 
 constant progress, and Jehovah is doing the very 
 best possible with the physical environments that 
 set limits to the development of the wonderful 
 powers of the race. When creeds and religious 
 notions become illumined by Divine truth, and 
 love takes the place of selfishness, the world will 
 move forward with untold progress and man be 
 elevated in accordance with a Divine plan. 
 
 Modern nations will be at peace, the Jews will 
 return to Jerusalem, and there will yet be a Holy 
 Land worthy of the name; the Temple and the 
 Holy City will be rebuilt, and the chosen people of 
 
84 EVOL UTION THR OUGH S UFFERINO . 
 
 God, after centuries of suffering, will reach a 
 higher state of perfection than would have been 
 possible without these long years of training. 
 
 Discipline is essential for the nation and the indi- 
 vidual; both must be schooled in the hard facts called 
 history. History is a record of the Divine processes 
 of elevating man in accordance with a fixed plan. 
 
 The process seems slow ; but the on-going years 
 of God are not to be measured by man's chronome- 
 ters. Progress cannot be estimated by the almanac. 
 
 Sometimes centuries pass with but little, apparent 
 progress ; then a nation is born in a day. History 
 is neither an arithmetical nor a geometrical pro- 
 gression ; its movement onward is ethical. 
 
 Man's progress depends upon two independent 
 factors man's environment, which is the constant 
 force exerted, and man's will, which is the ever 
 varying factor in character. 
 
 The events of the past cast their shadows into the 
 future ; the law is the same, hence history ever 
 repeats itself. 
 
 Arabia will receive new light, and the dark 
 places of the oriental world will be illuminated, 
 love bind the race in one universal brotherhood, 
 and God be all in all. 
 
III. 
 it lite 
 
 The mysteries of the antagonistic forces in the 
 world's history have never yet been satisfactorily 
 unraveled ; the distinction between antecedent and 
 cause, consequent and effect, has not been recog- 
 nized by many theorists ; though the terms are 
 intimately related, the difference between them is 
 very great. How are physical phenomena related 
 to moral causes ? Is there a key to this mystery ? 
 
 The great revolutions in public opinion, the 
 moral upheavals of history, the rise and fall of 
 empires that make up the biography of a nation's 
 life, and the physical cataclysms in the geological 
 world, are not the product of moral causes, but the 
 results of physical environment ; results that follow 
 as consequents and not as effects ; the design of 
 these results by the Moral Governor is to produce 
 
86 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 moral development, and the tendency of all this 
 mysterious phenomena is, to develop the highest 
 powers of man. 
 
 It is difficult to root out an old prejudice, which 
 has been honored and petrified for ages, when error 
 is so nearly related to truth. If man's physical 
 environment will best account for his present con- 
 dition ; and disaster and violence, which are written 
 upon the rocks and experienced by nations and 
 individuals, should prove to be God's method of 
 human evolution and moral development, instead of 
 consequences of personal transgression ; then what 
 would be lost by the rejection of an old theory ? 
 
 Is the song of Milton, that introduced 
 
 "Death into the world and all our woe," 
 
 to continue to rule the faith and mould all the 
 generations ? Grant that man was created upright 
 and pure, a free moral agent with only a test of his 
 loyalty needed to complete his character ; and sup- 
 pose he should fail and suffer the dreadful penalty, 
 does it follow that all the revolutions and catastro- 
 phes of earth, volcanoes, cyclones and earthquakes, 
 ruin and devastation and destruction of life are the 
 results 
 
 " Of that forbidden tree " ? 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 87 
 
 The earth was made for the children of men, 
 according to a Divine plan ; there is no such thing 
 as accident or chance, and how could the mere 
 creature upset all the plans of the Creator which 
 had been matured for ages before man made his 
 advent ? 
 
 If man was pure, then why should he commit so 
 terrible a deed ? Grant that man is free and subject 
 to temptation, and peccable ; he can only be free 
 within the limits of the laws of freedom. 
 
 For God to create a being equal to himself is 
 absurd ; this were to duplicate himself, which is 
 self-destruction. Man must be a limited moral 
 agent under the direction of the Creator ; for the 
 facts of revealed history are the best expositions of 
 the secret, mysterious laws of spiritual being, and 
 they show that God does interfere with man's moral 
 agency. For if the Divine Governor could harden 
 Pharaoh's heart in harmony with human freedom, 
 why not restrain man from committing so direful 
 a deed ? Man was without experience, and needed 
 help ; why was it withheld ? Does not this solu- 
 tion of the problem of suffering and violence lay 
 the blame upon God rather than man ? 
 
 But suppose it to be true, what have the unborn 
 
88 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 millions to do with the disobedience of Eden ? 
 They were not there, and could not be parties to 
 the transaction. Whatever may be the beliefs of 
 men, the facts remain ; there is at least some other 
 disturbing factor needed to account for the physical 
 and moral history of the earth. 
 
 "Why debate the question, which wave washed 
 the shell upon the beach ? Does opinion change 
 the character of the strange beauty or the place it 
 shall occupy in the cabinet ? A phenomenon is 
 not always the result of a cause ; it may be a 
 method of development. 
 
 The true key to the mystery of suffering and vio- 
 lence must accord with all the facts, and make God 
 supreme and good, and place man at the head of 
 creation as the great climax of God's plans. 
 
 Man is a creature of environments ; earth, his 
 present home, is a spiritual gymnasium, the train- 
 ing school for a higher state of being. Suffering 
 and toil, disappointment and death, are not penal- 
 ties, but the Divine methods of spiritual develop- 
 ment. 
 
 The revolutions in the early history of the globe, 
 the devastation and death of plants and animals, 
 are but God's methods of preparing a home for 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 89 
 
 man ; the seas, lakes and river systems ; the mount- 
 ain ranges, the great valleys and distribution of the 
 continents, all show a wise plan and unity of design, 
 all in the interests of man. Facts prove that there 
 has been more happiness and enjoyment than 
 misery and suffering. So that the Supreme Being 
 is both wise and benevolent. The structure of the 
 earth, and all the plants and animals that have 
 appeared in the distant past, in their structural 
 forms, rising higher and higher in grades, have been 
 both prophecy and prelude of the coming man. 
 
 The decomposition of rocks is not simply a 
 chemical death, but a prelude of a higher life ; the 
 elements are reduced to soils in order to enter into 
 higher combinations in living plants, which in turn 
 are to furnish food for the higher orders in the 
 animal kingdom. 
 
 The elevation and depression, the disruption and 
 contortion ; the vast overturnings and apparent con- 
 fusion are but exhibitions of the Divinest order 
 and benevolent purpose ; the wealth of the world 
 which had been forming for ages was thus made 
 accessible to man. 
 
 The formation of valleys is the prophecy of the 
 highest civilization ; were man compelled to live 
 
90 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 in the mountains, he must forever remain a savage. 
 The storms and wild winds that howled through the 
 forgotten centuries, and the gloomy, glacial rivers 
 that triturated the mountains and smoothed their 
 sides and formed the soils for the homes of the 
 grasses and forests ; these forests were buried alive 
 and slept in their tombs for ages, to be packed in a 
 small compass for the uses of man. 
 
 When all was ready, man made his advent as the 
 head of creation, the fulfillment of all the promises 
 of the past. He could not have appeared sooner ; 
 he could not have lived in the coal period without 
 lungs so constructed as to breath carbonic acid 
 gas ; nor in the age of the saurians unless he were 
 a salamander. 
 
 Earth must cool off, the climate must change 
 and the atmosphere become purified ; this could 
 only be done through ages of mighty revolu- 
 tions ; deaths and burials and resurrections are 
 but processes of developments, not consequents of 
 transgressions. 
 
 This globe was not twisted and contorted and 
 thrown into spasms by any event that took place in 
 Eden. The earth is related to other systems of 
 planets, and her great physical revolutions are 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 91 
 
 literal catastrophes ; events related to the stars ; 
 antagonistic forces, born in the starry worlds, hav9 
 produced the great convulsions which threw the 
 old seas out of their beds and lifted the great 
 mountain systems^ from their former homes. The 
 movement of the equinoctial points seems to be the 
 method of the Great Architect in producing these 
 changes. 
 
 The revolution of the equinox once in twenty-six 
 thousand years, giving birth to great tides once in 
 ten thousand years, by which all the water was 
 lifted to one side of the globe, and the extremes of 
 heat and cold, are alone sufficient to account for the 
 general cataclysms ; among all the generalizations 
 of the facts within the range of the human mind, 
 this seems the most rational. 
 
 It is an astronomical fact that man made his 
 advent when the earth began its equinoctial cycle, 
 and that he could not have lived upon the earth 
 sooner, is demonstrable. 
 
 That the earth was unfit for the home of man 
 sooner, and that the earth is still unfit for his 
 highest development, may be shown by the fact 
 that man is now limited by certain geographical 
 lines. 
 
92 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 Man and tke dog may live in almost any climate 
 now known upon the earth. But man can only be 
 developed between fixed lines of latitude. The 
 most complete men and highest civilizations are 
 limited to the best climates. Nations began in, 
 and were limited to, the valleys ; they moved west, 
 but were bounded by a narrow belt of latitude, for 
 it was impossible for man to be developed north 
 or south of fixed lines. A Plato could not have 
 been born in Patagonia, nor a Bacon have been 
 produced among the Bushmen. 
 
 The highest civilization, the philosopher, prophet 
 and poet, are limited to geographical lines ; mind 
 kas its zones, the spiritual powers are accelerated 
 or retarded by the influences that flow into the soul 
 from all sides ; the relation of matter to mind is 
 not one of cause and effect, but of antecedent and 
 consequent, of action and reaction; a Divine 
 method of the development of man. 
 
 Mind both east and west has been colored by the 
 climate ; it is seen in the songs of the poets, the 
 formula of the philosopher, and the metaphors of 
 the prophet. Homer revealed a world of beauty 
 in terms of the landscape ; the literature of a 
 people is the key to the influence that nature has 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 93 
 
 over mind ; tneither Solon nor Socrates, David nor 
 Milton, were possible south of the equator ;\the 
 richest sayings of Hugh Miller are but soul-pictures 
 photographed by the stony hills of Cromarty. 
 
 "The banks and braes and streams around the castle of Montgomery" 
 
 inspired Burns to sing of his " Highland Mary" 
 in notes as sweet and fragrant as " the hawthorn 
 blossom." 
 
 The sweetest songs of our own Bryant are but 
 children of the woods, and fragrant with the odors 
 of the forests of Berkshire. The weird " Poet of the 
 Sierras" must be a Californian. yThe great teachers 
 were all neighbors ; Brahma and Buddha, Confu- 
 cius and the oriental masters, Moses, Plato and 
 Paul, were all born and developed in the same 
 climate. \ 
 
 (Therefore, material conditions are essential to 
 human development. The highest civilization and 
 the most complete specimens of manhood are not 
 yet possible. \ The earth is still unmatured ; three 
 hundred volcanoes, desolating tornadoes, mysteri- 
 ous epidemics, are evidences of its incompleteness. ] 
 If God took ages to fit the earth to produce a blade 
 of grass, are not long years needed to perfect the 
 
94 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VA ULT. 
 
 highest being ? Man is the last order of being 
 and the highest possible, but is not yet complete. 
 Then why expect peace on earth and good will 
 to men in this unfinished state of things ? 
 
 The distance between the masses and the models 
 of the race is still very great, and the distance 
 between the best models of the race and the 
 Ideal-Man is still greater ; but God has a method 
 to shorten that distance by a change of environ- 
 ment. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND ENVIKONMENT. 
 
 The environments of man set limits to his de- 
 velopment and make necessities seem imperfections. 
 The immature condition of the earth, the birthplace 
 and present abode of man, is not the cause but the 
 occasion of all the apparent defects in his history. 
 
 The slow development of vegetable and animal 
 life is linked with the slow development of the 
 earth in the history of the past. Life could not 
 advance faster than the adaptation of the climate, 
 which was essential to the various forms of being. 
 The character of the crust of the earth was the 
 special condition of all life, and the climate fixed 
 the grade of being, and the soil and climate still 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET FAULT. 95 
 
 fix the bounds of civilization and the limits to 
 human development. 
 
 The earth is still undergoing changes ; many 
 forms of life have perished ; the extinct races 
 could no more live to-day than man could have 
 existed in the long-forgotten ages ; the swamps are 
 still a laboratory of diseases, the air is full of pesti- 
 lence and dreadful epidemics ; the sun has its 
 spots and the solar system is but struggling into 
 harmonious being, necessary to the higher develop- 
 ment of man. 
 
 Creation is a Divine process, moving onward by 
 a fixed law, according to a perfect plan ; man must 
 wait till God completes his work, before he can 
 either interpret or criticize his plans ; each man 
 should be God's coadjutor in carrying forward 
 this Divine scheme of human perfection. Man 
 has reached his greatest perfection during the 
 present century, chiefly because his environment 
 has been the most favorable. 
 
 But perfection is impossible in a world like this, 
 and in due time changes will come which will create 
 a great epoch in human history. This earth is but 
 a laboratory where the Divine Chemist is com- 
 pleting his methods concerning man ; antagonistic 
 
96 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 elements will destroy the earth by spontaneous 
 combustion, but man, with a new and more com. 
 plete organization than is possible to a world of 
 gross matter, will live in a state of eternal pro- 
 gression toward the perfection of Deity. 
 
 Man is a citizen of the universe ; he is not 
 limited to one planet or one system of suns. He is 
 limited only by his environment; he is endowed 
 with capabilities to become a partaker of the Divine 
 nature. Perfection belongs to God alone, but man 
 is created in his image. The Gospel and science 
 are progressive systems of truth to meet the wants 
 of men in all ages. The evolution of truth keeps 
 pace with the evolutions of worlds. Eternal pro- 
 gression is the plan of God. 
 
 As the history of the evolution of nations shows 
 development in a special direction, so the limits 
 of progress were fixed by their environment. 
 Egypt in its intellectual development drifted 
 toward science ; Greece toward art and literature ; 
 Borne toward law ; and Israel toward religion. 
 Their environments were different, hence thought 
 developed in these different directions. The en- 
 vironments of this age could produce none of the 
 old civilizations. The progressive drift of man has 
 
THE KE F TO 'THE SECRET VA ULT. 97 
 
 been in the realm of spiritual truth, which, like the 
 tides of the equinox, have ebbed and flowed as they 
 were related to the changes going on in the planet- 
 ary systems of which man is an important factor. 
 
 Israel is the father of our present civilization. 
 The inspiration of David's immortal lyre still 
 thrills the soul of this century ; the glories of 
 Solomon will never again be duplicated by any 
 people ; this pilgrim nation fills the nooks and 
 corners of the earth, but retains its character. 
 
 The Catholic Church was organized with Christ 
 as the head, and retained the doctrines and teach- 
 ings of the Apostles, and crystalized truth into 
 ecclesiastical forms. This Church was filled with 
 the missionary spirit, and their heroes have never 
 been surpassed ; they took possession of every 
 land, and by voluntary sacrifices planted the cross 
 in the uttermost parts of the earth. This organi- 
 zation is the most complete ever known upon the 
 earth, and has its mission among men. But mind, 
 like climate, changes ; some new thought turns 
 whole generations, as a pebble turns the coarse 
 of the stream. 
 
 Environments gave birth to a Luther. The 
 Eeformation was a great, forward, spiritual move- 
 
98 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 ment, a great moral force which threw itself 
 against the mightiest of organizations. 
 
 Luther was the spiritual incarnation of his age ; 
 he represented a new generation of free thought ; 
 and his collision with Catholicism was the collision 
 of the century with the organized centuries of the 
 past. 
 
 Who can estimate the results of the shock ? It 
 was a mighty spiritual revolution, doing for mind 
 what geological revolutions did for soils and 
 precious metals ; it brought great possibilities in 
 the range of all civilized men. It broke the doc- 
 trine of centralization of power into fragments; 
 decentralization built up organizations of a hundred 
 creeds, and the race moved up by the law of antago- 
 nistic forces to a higher plain. 
 
 Deity rallies all the forces and makes nations 
 and churches and leaders of men all his co- 
 laborers, and progress is as rapid as the environ- 
 ment will permit ; but the progress leaves behind 
 the gross and material, and the advance is toward 
 the spiritual. As the planet becomes more perfect, 
 the race will improve. Who can estimate the evolu- 
 tion of mind and the development of men and nations 
 and churches, in the coming centuries ? Onward ! 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT: 90 
 
 upward, is the law of the race as it moves forward 
 toward the millennium, and a matured earth. 
 
 Then shall physical catastrophes cease and moral 
 reforms be accomplished ; then the volcano and 
 earthquake, the cyclone and the pitiless storm 
 shall be unknown ; epidemic and pestilence will 
 cease with the extremes of temperature and a 
 purified atmosphere ; the vegetable and animal 
 life will be more complete. Intemperance, re- 
 venge, treachery and selfishness, the moral dis- 
 eases of the race, will flee before the reformer, 
 as pestilence and epidemics flee before a maturing 
 planet. Creeds, social problems, political plat- 
 forms, will find a common ground of adjustment, 
 and peace and good-will prevail. The cause that 
 will produce the millennium glory, the golden age 
 so long looked for, is the Supreme Superintendent 
 of all the forces of the earth, adjusting them all in 
 the highest interests of man. But the occasion of 
 peace on earth and good- will to men, is the result of 
 the change of man's environment ; the Divine 
 maturing and perfecting the physical world, by 
 which only such a result becomes possible ; this 
 is the only, rational solution of the great, unsolved 
 problem of suffering and wrong. 
 
100 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL IN SLEEP. 
 
 " We are such stuff 
 
 As dreams are made of, and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep." SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Dream-land has not been completely explored ; 
 the survey has been but partial and the field notes 
 imperfect. 
 
 The value of sleep to man is spiritual rather 
 than physical ; it is more than bodily rest, it is 
 spiritual development, an evolution of the soul, or 
 highest man. 
 
 Sleep is a spiritual mystery ; a phenomenon of 
 all kinds of life, from the anxious man to the rest- 
 less fish, all have their times for sleep ; even the 
 flowers seem to close their petals and retire from 
 the din and bustle of this noisy world. Sleep 
 involves the relation of the physical to the spiritual. 
 
 The spiritual withdraws itself from the outer 
 world and takes up its abode in the nerve centers, 
 where it is nourished and fed from the innumera- 
 ble, little protoplastic cells which contain all the 
 vital forces of the body ; sleep, then, is the spiritual 
 nature retiring from the activities of the body for 
 its own refreshment. 
 
 In this state the soul is cut off from the material 
 
TRE KE Y TO THE SECRET VA ULT. 1Q1 
 
 world and permitted to explore unfettered, the 
 spiritual world, and often feeds on sunlight ad- 
 ministered by angel hands. 
 
 All voluntary action with the outer world is sus- 
 pended ; the senses are closed, and all objective 
 life ceases; the soul retreats into the subjective 
 world, a realm of unconsciousness to our waking 
 state ; but mind is never so fully awake as when 
 in sleep. "I slept, but my heart was waking," is 
 the highest formulation of this mysterious phe- 
 nomenon of life. 
 
 There is a background to our being ; a realm of 
 mystery from whence comes strange thoughts, 
 formulated in images and symbols, which often 
 are untranslatable and unlawful to utter. A sen- 
 sorium of the invisible ; a higher consciousness ; 
 an opening up of the powers of the understanding ; 
 revelations of the soul expressed in enigmatical 
 symbols. Dreams indicate the moral state of the 
 soul, and have an ethical value ; here man's 
 character is often revealed in the presence of his 
 higher self. Sleeping, and dreaming, and visions, 
 are keys to the invisible working of the soul, when 
 it is cut off from the physical body a method of 
 spiritual evolution and personal development. 
 
102 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VA ULT. 
 
 DEATH A SPIEITUAL EVOLUTION. 
 
 Death is a part of the great plan of Jehovah, a 
 great factor in the evolution and perfection of 
 the spiritual man ; an event necessary in the for- 
 ward march of the centuries and the final develop- 
 ment of the race. Man could not become perfect, 
 as the image of his Creator, so long as he was 
 related to gross matter ; if he were to live in a 
 physical world for the purpose of discipline, then 
 he must have a physical body suited to his con- 
 dition ; but perfection could not be attained while 
 the spiritual man was fettered by the physical 
 body. 
 
 As his material environment changed and became 
 more complete, the generations were more and more 
 developed ; but the greatest possible /advance must 
 come through the preservation of the best speci- 
 mens produced ; so death was essential as a part 
 of the history of man upon the earth ; the lowest 
 forms of character must be developed, while the 
 highest must be perpetuated ; but death has its 
 compensation by the law of equivalence in another 
 life. 
 
 What is death ? It is a spiritual evolution by 
 which the soul is released from all material 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VA ULT. ia3 
 
 environments and united with a spiritual body, for 
 the purpose of a complete perfection by an eternal 
 progression toward the Deity, in a spiritual world. 
 
 When the protoplasm has been impoverished 
 and is unable to supply the wants of the spiritual 
 principle, separation takes place between matter 
 and spirit, in which gross matter is left, and there 
 is elaborated from the spiritual organization the 
 inner soul essence which distinguishes man from 
 the animal. 
 
 Hence death is that change of environment, when 
 the soul drops gross matter and, united with a 
 spiritual body, becomes a more perfect organiza- 
 tion, fitted for a spiritual environment, for the 
 spirit leaves the gross matter and takes on an inde- 
 pendent existence, and is guided by the inner soul 
 essence in the higher spiritual spheres. 
 
 What, then, is immortality ? The essence of the 
 soul is identical with the Divine Spirit, and man 
 becomes a partaker of the Divine nature ; it is this 
 nature that gives man immortality ; the conscious 
 relationship with the Divine Spirit. This spiritual 
 body or environment of the soul, is what Paul 
 recognizes when he says, there is a" natural body 
 and a spiritual body ; the soul, then, has a spirit- 
 
104 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 ual, historical evolution in death by the antago- 
 nistic force of a Divine law. Man looses by 
 this evolution his physical nature, circulation, 
 digestion, reproduction and sex. He retains all 
 his spiritual nature, reason, responsibility, con- 
 sciousness and conscience, personality and personal 
 identity. 
 
 This ethereal being becomes an inhabitant of 
 the spiritual universe, but is subject to the great 
 law of environment. Perfect order prevails, and 
 development follows the same mathematical law in 
 both worlds. 
 
 This development of the soul through the spirit- 
 ual organization, is the crowning work of Deity on 
 this planet. All agencies and forces center in the 
 spiritual development of man. It is the only true 
 philosophy of the existence and wonderful phe- 
 nomena of vegetable and animal life ; and the 
 marvelous history of nations and of men. The 
 past is but a partial revelation of the Divine plan ; 
 only stations in the forward movements for the 
 development of man, and the final evolution of the 
 human soul. This new organization makes man 
 immortal by his very structure, being a partaker of 
 the Divine nature. 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 105 
 
 EVOLUTION AFTER DEATH. 
 
 Death is the Key to the Secret Vault. Man's 
 treasure depends upon his conduct in this life. 
 His environment and the character he has formed 
 by his own acts not only determines his condition 
 here, but also the place in the sphere which he 
 enters upon in another life, according to the law of 
 equivalence. 
 
 Death is but a passport to a higher state of 
 being, but the condition of the soul in the world 
 beyond is fixed by the law of equivalence ; there 
 man enters into a sphere of being which he has 
 made for himself by his conduct in this life ; for 
 the measure of character in all worlds is by the 
 universal rule "According to his works." 
 
 Life here is not a vain pursuit after the 
 treasures that lie beyond death, treasures locked 
 up in that Secret Vault ; but all real effort is a 
 method of development. 
 
 THE LAW OF EQUIVALENCE IS THE LAW OF THE 
 SPIRIT-WORLD. 
 
 This world is but little more than a dream of 
 happiness and the pursuit of shadows, that ever 
 
106 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 elude our grasp and mock our best efforts of energy 
 and skill. 
 
 Wealth, fame and pleasure, when obtained can 
 not be transmuted into happiness ; for happiness 
 depends on character, and character is related to 
 the life-beyond. While man's environments here 
 have much to do in the development of his life, 
 his innate powers and capabilities, when properly 
 used, are factors in modifying his condition and 
 determining his character, and often change his 
 surroundings. Man is accountable in all condi- 
 tions of being, for the use or abuse of the talents 
 God has committed to his trust ; no responsible 
 being can stand justified short of doing his whole 
 duty, which is determined by obedience to an 
 enlightened conscience ; for duty to God and duty 
 to man are identical. 
 
 Wealth, is presumed by the majority of the race 
 to be the Key to the Secret Vault. The pursuit of 
 wealth is our age-characteristic. We are a race of 
 gold-hunters ; culture and scholarship, art and 
 religion and science, ambition, and even pleasure, 
 are all sacrificed for wealth ; business before 
 pleasure, has become a proverb. 
 
 The mercantile spirit is the spirit of the century ; 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET FAULT. 107 
 
 our material prosperity has outstripped all the 
 peoples of the past, and our grandest enterprises 
 are but the incarnation of this spirit of the age ; 
 time and talent, home and heaven, are sacrificed to 
 the goddess of wealth. She is presumed to possess 
 the Key to the Secret Vault. Money may be trans- 
 muted into magnificent grounds, palatial residences, 
 elegant appointments and splendid equipages, but 
 alas ! how often disappointment and despair inhabit 
 these homes of luxury, and wealth becomes a curse 
 instead of a blessing. When fortunes are made in 
 a day by dishonest methods, and man sacrifices 
 manhood for a treasure that rust will devour and 
 thieves steal, wealth is an allurement and self- 
 destructive. Stock-boards and professional gamb- 
 ling, and lottery schemes, and real estate booms, 
 are all methods of double dealing. Fortunes ob- 
 tained by fraud and falsehood are not only a curse 
 but a crime ; not a treasure laid up in the Secret 
 Vault, but the despoiling of the most valuable 
 goods ever entrusted to man by the Proprietor of 
 the universe ; it is overdrawing the account of the 
 future, by the extravagant and criminal expendi- 
 ture of talent, which ought to have been wisely 
 invested in the present for future use ; it is a per- 
 
108 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VA ULT. 
 
 version of capabilities and a misuse of the powers 
 of being, powers and endowments which are the 
 chief capital to be invested in the spirit- world ; 
 such a misuse of capabilities as compel the soul 
 to enter a lower place in the sphere of being, beg- 
 gared and poor indeed ; with infinite obligations 
 and nothing with which to pay. The real wealth 
 of all worlds is character ; this is the treasure that 
 never fades, the reserve fund, locked up in the 
 Secret Vault of the spirit-world. 
 
 Ambition, dreams of this key to happiness and 
 fame offers to open the treasure-house, but the 
 price demanded also overdraws the accounts of 
 the future ; this investment is also a dangerous 
 risk, a deception, and the proposal is a wicked, 
 heartless fraud. The glory of earthly crowns and 
 the blasonry of the victor on the battle-field; 
 triumphant arches, and the shouts of admiring 
 multitudes, and monuments of marble, are not 
 marketable in the spirit-world, where manhood is 
 the standard of values. By the law of equivalence, 
 which is the same for all states of being, the 
 proudest and most victorious despot may sur- 
 render himself to the wine-cup and cancel all his 
 glory by the perversion of his own powers. The 
 
TEE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 109 
 
 dreams of the man of destiny may be defeated by a 
 rain-storm, and a single night may be the hinge on 
 which may turn the future centuries ; the historic 
 field of Waterloo can only be interpreted by the 
 dreary solitudes of St. Helena. The immortal 
 victories which filled Borne with the treasures of 
 the world's spoiler, are linked with the bloody 
 assassination of the mightiest chieftain. 
 
 Dom Pedro may retire at night with imperial 
 pride and apparent safety, and the treasure of 
 empire at command ; but to-morrow his kingdom 
 is gone, and the king himself becomes an exile in 
 a day ; his defenses are his weaknesses ; his guards 
 his enemies ; his treasures are gone and he a bank- 
 rupt ; but if the exile be a man, and character 
 remain undimmed, then all the treasures of the 
 Secret Vault are his, and he is rich beyond measure, 
 though he be the synonym of poverty. 
 
 Moral worth excels all earthly thoughts of 
 treasure, as eternity excels the fleeting movements 
 of time. 
 
 "Lay up treasures in heaven," is the instruction 
 of the Divine Teacher, with an emphasis that rings 
 through the ages, setting forth the importance of 
 moral values. What is moral wealth but the fruits 
 
110 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 of a willing obedience to an enlightened con- 
 science ? The fruits of the voluntary acts of kind- 
 ness and charity to our fellow-man. Acts of mercy, 
 kindness, charity and spontaneous deeds, spring- 
 ing from unselfish motives, are the treasures that 
 never grow old, and that are deposited in the 
 Secret Vault, where they bear interest forever. 
 
 Deeds are the exponents of character ; the real 
 wealth of the soul ; deposits made for the future ; 
 not notions, beliefs, resolutions or professions, but 
 unselfish, spontaneous action in the interest of 
 others. These are the permanent investments, 
 secured by the immutable word of the Proprietor 
 of the universe. 
 
 A standard of morality is an essential in the 
 development of the race, and the formation of 
 personal character. The state, the church and 
 the home are responsible for the instruction and 
 example that shall shape the moral character of 
 the coming generations. The Ten Commandments, 
 the Sermon on the Mount, the rest day, and the 
 doctrines of love and mercy, truth and charity, are 
 universal truths, that are the common heritage of 
 the race, and of all men alike ; they are inalienable, 
 and must not be interfered with by church or state, 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. HI 
 
 Protestant, Catholic, or skeptic ; for the perpetuity 
 of the nation, and the future inheritance of all men 
 alike, depend upon moral character, which is the 
 result of moral training. 
 
 The great majority of the children of the state get 
 no moral discipline at home, hence the duty of the 
 state is to fix a moral standard and provide moral 
 instruction for the future citizen ; the state is the 
 guardian of the constitutional rights of the citizen, 
 and all the machinery of the government should 
 be in the interests of the individual. The doctrine 
 of the Kepublic is, man is greater than the consti- 
 tution and greater than the state ; the individual 
 right of the citizen is the foundation of all good 
 government; but the citizen has moral rights as 
 well as political privileges, and the nation is 
 * organized to secure these rights ; for the perpe- 
 tuity and usefulness of the government depends on 
 the rectitude and character of her citizens. The 
 nation should have a conscience and a moral code, 
 as well as a constitution, in order to meet all the 
 wants of the citizen. 
 
 The American citizen is supposed to believe in 
 " the Supreme Judge of the world. " No man should 
 be eligible to any office in the gift of the people, who 
 
112 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 does not appeal to "the Supreme Judge of the 
 world" for the rectitude of his intentions. The 
 nation is supposed to believe in a personal God, 
 who superintends the affairs of the world and 
 watches over the interests of the state with a 
 Providential care, and hence proclamations for days 
 of thanksgiving and public worship. The nation 
 believes in prayer, and has made provision for 
 chaplains both in the army and halls of legisla- 
 tion ; she believes in the Christian Sabbath, and has 
 set apart one day in seven in which all are relieved 
 from the duties of public offices ; and the Ameri- 
 can Sabbath is a day in which no legal work can 
 be done by the state, and on which every American 
 citizen is entitled to rest from all secular employ- 
 ment. 
 
 The nation believes in the Bible ; and adminis- 
 ters the oath of office to the President and Supreme 
 Judges, and others, with the hand resting upon it. 
 Therefore, it is not only the right, but the sacred 
 duty for the nation to see that the rising genera- 
 tions be instructed in the morals of the state, and 
 Congressional action should make provision for the 
 moral instruction of the future citizen of the state, 
 in her public schools and colleges. The state has 
 
T RE RET TO THE SECRET V'A ULT. H3 
 
 the same right to provide a text- book in morals, as 
 in arithmetic or grammar ; and she is culpable if 
 she does not discharge this sacred duty ; for intelli- 
 gence without morality is a political evil, that 
 sooner or later will destroy the best civilization 
 and transmute the citizen into the savage. 
 
 PROGRESSION THE DIVINE METHOD OF EVOLUTION 
 IN THE FUTURE. 
 
 Whatever may have been man's defects, the 
 history of the race has been one of progression. 
 The history of the future life will be the same, for 
 man by his endowment and environment is a 
 progressive being. The future is not a second 
 probation or a test of character by trials, but a 
 development of innate powers under more favor- 
 able opportunities ; neither is it a world where 
 man is to be purified by punishment ; though 
 penalties are essential to the administration of 
 good government and for the higher development 
 of man, suffering with moral beings must be volun- 
 tary, and hence cannot partake of the nature of 
 punishment ; but is a Divine method of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 The future affords to man a mot favorable 
 
114 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 environment ; being clothed with a spiritual body, 
 and being released from the embarrassment of 
 gross matter ; so that under the Divine Superin- 
 tendency every man moves forward forever, from 
 the grade in which death leaves him, through vast 
 cycles of being toward the perfection of Deity. 
 But the condition in which man enters the future 
 at death, depends upon the use he has made of his 
 powers and the character he formed in his physical 
 environment; so that any loss sustained in this 
 world by failure of duty dwarfs the powers and is 
 eternal loss in all worlds ; the law of progress and 
 perfection is immutable no individual progress 
 without personal effort ; so that each determines 
 for himself his grade in the spirit- world. 
 
 Work, activity, using the powers with which God 
 has endowed us, is the only method of develop- 
 ment, or law of progression. Those that entered 
 the spirit-life in infancy and youth, are to be 
 developed in this new sphere of being without 
 loss ; the law of equivalence provides for all 
 apparent disadvantages. 
 
 The work of the spirit-land is a ministration of 
 love ; the strong help the weak, the wise instruct 
 the ignorant, the good assist the bad ; they are all 
 
THE KEY TO THE SECRET VA ULT. 115 
 
 ministering spirits. There seems to be universal 
 sympathy existing among all grades of spiritual 
 being; a fellowship expressing itself in works of 
 benevolence, and methods of helping each other. 
 
 Works of mercy are the highest expression of 
 pure, spiritual life known in the highest realms of 
 being ; helping others is the chief employment of 
 spiritual beings in all worlds, and the only law of 
 progress revealed. Some are sent from the higher 
 spheres and far-off worlds of light, who have spent 
 ages in this Divine method of progression ; they 
 come to lift their fellows to greater hights, and by 
 this process lift themselves. As in mathematics, 
 so in morals, development is in the ratio of duty ; 
 light, attraction, chemical combinations and morals 
 are all governed by mathematical law. The same 
 law of evolution is true for all spheres, develop- 
 ment by antagonisms ; progress is in the ratio of 
 improved opportunities, and the law of compensa- 
 tion where there has been a lack of opportunity ; 
 thus man moves on and on ! forward and upward, 
 from sphere to sphere, through countless worlds of 
 light, ever progressing toward the infinite per- 
 fection of God. Eternal evolution, by the Divine 
 method, is the immutable law of all worlds. 
 
116 THK TO THE SECRET 
 
 SELFISHNESS, THE ACTIVE, OUTWAKD EXPRESSION OF 
 THE LAW OF ANTAGONISM. 
 
 Selfishness is not the opposing force in the 
 spiritual universe ; the opposite pole and counter 
 current of all good. It is the natural instinct of all 
 created being, born in us, and is a part of our 
 natural endowment. 
 
 Each being is the chief object of interest to its 
 own self ; the grand center about which all else is 
 presumed to revolve. 
 
 This great law seems to cast its shadow on all 
 existences ; the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
 are exponents of the law. The strong oppress 
 the weak ; the cruel, armed with weapons of 
 destruction, slay the defenseless ; the powerful are 
 merciless, and the wise and cunning outwit the 
 simple and stupid ; self is the ruling passion of all 
 the animal world. 
 
 The history of the animal kingdom is but an 
 exposition of selfish instincts ; birds and beasts, 
 reptiles and insects, are demonstrations of the law. 
 
 The shadow falls on the vegetable world. The 
 poisonous plants emit their noxious exhalations 
 and destroy all their neighbors. 
 
 The deadly Upas lives alone, because it lives for 
 
THE KRY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 11? 
 
 self ; within the range of its poisonous influence, 
 nothing can exist. 
 
 The Canada thistle asserts its right to the soil 
 and is more difficult to dispose of than the Irish 
 land question. 
 
 The May weed claims the sunny South for its home 
 and dwells among the aristocrats in the streets of the 
 chief cities ; the gympson has squatted as sovereign 
 of the West, and the mission mustard refuses to 
 surrender in the best valleys of Santa Clara. 
 
 When this law expresses itself in man, it is more 
 emphatic and is often called depravity. 
 
 Volumes have been written on the origin of 
 thorns and thistles and human meanness ; and 
 volumes more on the remedies for these supposed 
 moral diseases ; but selfishness is part of our- 
 selves ; it is an inheritance, as the color of the 
 hair; man is not responsible for this trait, and 
 nobody is to blame. 
 
 There is implanted in man, an antagonistic 
 principle which under the power of the will may 
 cancel selfishness ; and here is the basis of man's 
 responsibility. Every man may rise higher and 
 higher by his own effort till the race reaches the 
 Golden Kule\ 
 
118 THE KEY TO THE SECRET VAULT. 
 
 This rule is the great, spiritual climax of human 
 attainment ; the objective point of the nation and 
 the individual. 
 
 That man may attain this high moral elevation, 
 is demonstrated by the life of Jesus, the complete 
 model man and the only unselfish Being that ever 
 trod the earth. He lived for others, and taught 
 others how to live. 
 
 Selfishness crops out in innocent childhood, in 
 church creeds, in the denominational spirit, and in 
 every phase of human life. 
 
 The atmosphere of love is the only remedy for 
 selfishness. Jesus was love incarnate ; when he 
 was reviled, he reviled not again. Selfishness had 
 no place in his spirit, hence it never manifested 
 itself in his personal history among the worst of 
 men. 
 
 Love is the supreme law of all pure spirits, as 
 gravity is the supreme law of all gross matter. 
 
 God is love. Love is the fulfilling of the law. 
 
THE CAPITOL OF THE UNIVEKSE, OE 
 HOME OF DEITY. 
 
 Where is Our Father's house of many mansions ? 
 Thought pushes the question to the farthest limits 
 of imagination; all healthy mind demands an 
 answer. Is there not some place in the great uni- 
 verse, some grand center among the systems of 
 worlds ; some capital city, the abode of Deity, 
 from which he superintends all the work of his 
 hands ? 
 
 Man can have no conception of God without form 
 and place, for he made man after his own image. 
 
 Science and discovery have extended the bounda- 
 ries of the universe, until earth is but a mere speck 
 among the infinite worlds, which move in the 
 measureless domain of Deity. 
 
 This throne of the Omnipotent is certainly not 
 in the bounds of our solar system. There are 
 eighteen millions of suns and solar systems revolv- 
 ing round a common center, somewhere in the 
 infinite depths of space, (Warren). 
 
 There are single stars which have more attractive 
 force than all the known matter in the universe 
 could account for. Sirius and Vega and other 
 
130 THE CAPITOL OF 1 THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 stars are white with the inconceivable velocity at 
 which they are moving through space. Job named 
 this group Chimah, a beautiful Chaldaic word 
 which is the Divine key to the influence of these 
 stars upon the earth. The word means, pivot or 
 axle, the central point of turning. 
 
 It is now an astronomical fact, demonstrated by 
 a series of independent calculations, confirming 
 the revelation of Job and the poetic insight of the 
 Greeks, that Alcyone, the brightest star in the 
 group, is the great center or axle around which 
 our earth is revolving. M. Madler is the best 
 interpreter of Job ; for he has mathematically 
 demonstrated Alcyone to be the luminous hinge in 
 the heavens, on which is turning the solar system. 
 Earth and all her sister planets are moving with a 
 velocity of four hundred and twenty-two thousand 
 miles a day, in an orbit that it will require ages to 
 complete. Man has traveled through space since 
 the days of Eden, and yet he is still among the 
 same stars that Adam saw ; for we have not moved 
 through one second of the great arc of the solar 
 system since the world began. Yet Alcyone is not 
 the center of the universe of worlds. 
 
 The analysis of the light from these more distant 
 
THE CAPITOL OF THE UNIVERSE. 121 
 
 worlds proves that they all belong to one great 
 system. A ray of light from the star Yega would 
 require forty-five years to reach the earth ; a star 
 of the twelfth magnitude could not send a ray of 
 light to earth in less than four thousand years ; 
 remoter stars, measured by the velocity of light 
 are six thousand years distant from us. Had a 
 photographer set his camera in one of these remote 
 worlds, to take the garden of Eden in its pristine 
 glory, he must wait till the twentieth century 
 before he could get an impression. Wonderful 
 universe ! Yet the spectrum analysis shows, that 
 the laws of light, motion and gravity are the same 
 in all worlds, and that all the sun-systems are a 
 unit. We are flying through space in a tempera- 
 ture two hundred degrees below zero, yet our 
 velocity is so great that our climate is comfortable. 
 Man, by the help of instruments of his own 
 invention, measures stars billions of miles away ; 
 thus aided by science, thought moves on in the 
 illimitable space, till imagination with tired wing 
 rests in the unsurveyed territory, in the center of 
 eighteen millions of sun-systems, where Jehovah, 
 the Superintendent of the universe, dwells ; here 
 is the capitol of the King in his glory ; the council 
 
122 THE CAPITOL OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 chamber of God; here Jehovah dwells in light 
 which no man can approach unto ; the attributes 
 of truth and love, justice and goodness radiate from 
 his brow, and the golden light floods the universe. 
 He holds the mightiest and remotest stars in his 
 hand, watches the motions of the millions of sys- 
 tems he has created; suns with their planetary 
 hosts.; worlds upon worlds flying through trackless 
 space, and vast, unbounded solitudes, each obedient 
 to his will ; every planet coming to its meridian 
 without the loss of a thousandth part of a second 
 in ten thousand years ; yet this God is the Father 
 of man. Our Father ! so mindful of all his 
 creatures, that he hears the young ravens when 
 they cry, and not a sparrow falls to the ground 
 without his notice. He hears the softest whisper 
 of his own children. Here, he who was without 
 beginning first began his work ; here he dwells in 
 person, superintending and upholding all things 
 by the word of his power. In the highest heaven, 
 amid the seven golden candlesticks, and the seven 
 churches, and the seven trumpets, he sitteth in the 
 circle of the heavens ; he speaketh to all his 
 children, saying 
 
 ALL MINE IS THINE ! 
 
KECAPITULATION. 
 
 1. God created matter out of what was not 
 matter, according to our test, or measurement- 
 trie seen came out of the unseen. 
 
 2. Creation and planet-formation were neces- 
 sary, that Deity might give expression to his 
 thoughts and emotions. 
 
 3. Earth must take its place in a system of 
 planets before it could be endowed with any life- 
 giving properties. 
 
 4. The force, called gravity, was necessary to 
 keep the sun from robbing the earth of all vitality 
 and productive power. 
 
 5. This unlimited force, called gravity, is the 
 persistent will power of Deity. 
 
 6. All mineral, vegetable and animal evolution 
 is governed by mathematical law ; all chemical 
 forms, musical harmony, planetary motions, moral 
 and spiritual development, are all governed by this 
 universal law ; the basic principle of mathematics 
 is truth, and truth is an attribute of God. 
 
124 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 7. All the apparent failures we see in the world 
 are due to a partially and imperfectly developed 
 planet, in its relation to our solar system, which 
 affects its environments. 
 
 8. All vegetable and animal life, the evolution 
 of national and personal character, are determined 
 by their environments. 
 
 9. Man never fell from a higher state of per- 
 fection, but his history has ever been one of 
 progress according to a Divine plan. 
 
 10. The advance of science, the development of 
 man and the progress of civilization have been in 
 exact ratio of the maturity of the earth and their 
 environment. 
 
 11. The law of antagonism is the Divine method 
 of operation in all nature for the purpose of de- 
 velopment ; it determines the law of equivalence 
 or compensation, which is universal. 
 
 12. Man's spiritual nature is development from 
 gross matter, under special Divine superintendence. 
 
 13. There is developed from man's spiritual 
 being, by a law of evolution, an inner, soul essence, 
 which distinguishes man from the lower animals. 
 In this inner soul of man God manifests himself 
 and holds communion with his children. 
 
RECAPITULATION. 125 
 
 14. All men as well as animals are under 
 Divine law, and are therefore limited, free 
 agents. 
 
 15. All the sciences and religious creeds are but 
 agencies under the Divine management in the de- 
 velopment of the race. 
 
 16. God has given man a perfect pattern, a rule 
 of life, in Jesus the Ideal-Man. 
 
 17. The Divine incarnation is not limited to 
 Jesus, for God dwells in all his children. 
 
 18. The distribution of rewards and punish- 
 ments is in accordance with the law of exact equiva- 
 lence. 
 
 19. There is in the universe of nature a cen- 
 tral unit of intelligence and power from which 
 emanates all the wisdom and force that are mani- 
 fested. 
 
 20. This great center of intelligence and power 
 is God, in whose image and likeness man was 
 created. 
 
 21. This center of Divine Intelligence is not 
 located within our solar system, but in the midst 
 of the sun-systems of the universe. 
 
 22. The earth and our solar system is but a 
 colony of yesterday's planting, when compared 
 
126 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 with the eternity of the fixed stars and other sun- 
 systems, in the midst of which Deity dwells. 
 
 23. Man's spiritual nature is organized upon 
 the principle of eternal progression in knowledge 
 and character. 
 
 24. Man retains his identity and recognizes his 
 fellow man in the spirit-world. 
 
 25. God could not have done any more for man 
 than he has done. 
 
 26. Earth is continually changing from gross 
 matter into ethereal essences and spiritual intelli- 
 gences. 
 
 27. God is manifest both in the truth of science 
 and religion, for religion and science are but one. 
 
 28. All the power and intelligence manifested 
 in this world are but the expressions of the Divine 
 thought. 
 
 29. All the forces in nature are expressed 
 through the law of antagonism, between solar 
 attraction and gravity of the earth. 
 
 30. What we call Selfishness is but an active, 
 outward expression of the law of antagonism ; it is 
 universal and Divine in its origin. 
 
 31. No force in nature is lost, but is either used 
 directly or is transmuted into electric agencies and 
 
RECAPITULATION. 127 
 
 used in the development of vegetable and animal 
 life, which in man assumes the forms of intelli- 
 gence, individuality and personality. 
 
 32. Man, in all the events of history, and 
 forward movements of civilization and personal 
 development, is a co-worker with God. 
 
 33. Relatively, all men are equal, but positively 
 there is no such thing as equality existing among 
 men. Equality is impossible until all environ- 
 ments are the same. 
 
 34 The Key to the Secret Vault is death ; and 
 our treasure there is just what we have made it, 
 the results of the acts in this life. 
 
 35. An enlightened conscience, illuminated by 
 Divine truth, is the safest guide to the highest 
 plain of life. 
 
THE AUTHOE'S VISION. 
 
 Being weary, I laid me down upon my lounge in 
 the office and fell into a kind of sleep. In a half 
 waking condition, I thought I was walking in a 
 beautiful garden, through nice, grassy lawns richly 
 embowered and ornamented with beautiful flowers 
 of the most delicate hue and exquisite fragrance. 
 
 This garden seemed alive with most beautiful 
 birds of the richest plumage, and while their 
 melodious notes of heavenly music swept through 
 the groves and mingled with the rich, mellow light 
 that made the place sacred and filled every nook 
 with a silent awe. My path led to the foot of a 
 little mound some six or eight feet high ; there 
 I was attracted by a spring of water, clear as 
 crystal, in the form of a circle, about six feet in 
 diameter ; the water flowed out beneath my feet 
 among the grass ; while I stood reflecting and 
 admiring the sparkling fountain, I beheld a 
 beautiful silver trumpet, about eighteen inches 
 long, floating about upon the glassy bosom of the 
 enchanting water. 
 
 While wondering at this strange sight, a most 
 
THE AUTHOR'S VISION. 129 
 
 beautiful woman, clad in a pure white robe, with 
 long golden hair playing with the breeze, appeared 
 before me. 
 
 With graceful movement she stooped and took 
 up the silver trumpet, and blew one long, loud 
 blast, that was answered by the neighboring hills ; 
 at the echo of this strange and beautiful note, 
 innumerable little fish, white as snow and almost 
 transparent, came to the surface of the spring ; 
 from thair mouths came forth in great numbers, 
 the most beautiful prismatic gems, which floated 
 about and formed themselves in wreaths and 
 crowns of most exquisite beauty, quivering in the 
 light as if filled with spiritual life. 
 
 Astounded and charmed by the enchanting beauty, 
 I asked, " What does all this mean ? " The beauti- 
 ful being that blew the trumpet spoke in gentle 
 tones, and said, "This spring of clear water is 
 the symbol of our spiritual life. The trumpet 
 you saw floating upon the water represents our 
 conscience; the white fish that answered to the 
 call of the trumpet, represent acts of kindness and 
 charity to our fellow man ; the pearls and gems 
 which formed themselves into wreaths and crowns, 
 are but the legitimate results or fruits of the acts 
 
130 THE A UTHOR'S VISION. 
 
 of kindness and charity, which are to deck and 
 crown man in the spirit- world." 
 
 I then asked, " Who is this angelic form that 
 stands before me ? " With an accent clear and 
 soft, and in rich and impressive tones, never to be 
 forgotten, she replied, "Ah, I am the symbol of 
 Love, that heavenly, spiritual principle that flows 
 down from Our Heavenly Father, speaking to us 
 through our conscience, and assuring us if we obey 
 our conscience in all things we will be rewarded 
 with a crown in the spirit- world." 
 
 I then asked if our conscience was the highest 
 authority and best guide to govern us in this 
 world. She paused a moment, then answered, 
 "Yes, an enlightened conscience, with the light 
 that comes from Divine truth, is the surest guide 
 we have in a world like this." 
 
 FINIS. 
 
TO TORICS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prefatory, i 
 
 The Book of Nature, ---... 1 
 
 Origin and Law of Matter Forms, .... 3 
 
 Life an Endowment, 6 
 
 The Process of Development in Vegetable and Animal 
 
 Life, 9 
 
 The Key to the Law of Evolution, .... 15 
 
 The Great Law of Evolution, 23 
 
 The Advent of Man, 29 
 
 Man's Historical Evolution, 32 
 
 The Factors that Make Up a Nation, ... 35 
 
 The World's Great Convention Dispersed, 37 
 
 The Great Kace Monuments, 37 
 
 The Influence of Nature in the Evolution of a People, - 44 
 
 The Complex Forces in the Formation of Nations, - 49 
 
 The Evolution of Personal Character, .... 53 
 
 Evolution Through Suffering, 62 
 
 Suffering, a Method of Highest Development, - - 72 
 
 Medical Science and Evolution, .... 77 
 
 Slavery and Emancipation a Method of Development, 80 
 
 The Key to the Secret Vault, 85 
 
INDEX TO TOPICS. 
 
 Evolution and Environment, ----- 94 
 
 The Evolution of the Soul in Sleep, ... 100 
 
 Death a Spiritual Evolution, ----- 102 
 
 Evolution After Death, 105 
 
 The Law of Equivalence in the Spirit- World, - - 105 
 Progression The Divine Method of Evolution in the 
 
 _ Future, 113 
 
 The Capitol of the Universe, 119 
 
 Eecapitulation, -------- 
 
 The Author's Vision, - - - - - - - 128 
 
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