our deep responsibility to one another not to suffer the intents and purposes of a bad mind to psychologize the world with our wickedness. We must remember that our magnetism is always going forth, and always influencing some other life, besides writing its record of ourselves. I conclude, therefore, this discourse, with charging upon all those who are endeavouring to investigate this occult science of soul to start from its basis stones,-magnetism and psychology. Like physics which form the base of the column of which metaphysics is the apex, animal magnetism is the base and spiritualism the apex of the column of this great science of soul. Animal magnetism is the evidence of the power and action of embodied mind upon matter; spiritual magnetism, the inspiration through which the higher realms of being act on this mundane world. I have in other discourses attempted to shew that animal or human magnetism is the one great curative agent of the world; it is the power of life, and, as all disease originates in a disturbance of the life-currents, so all help is to be found in the return of perfect equilibrium in the life-currents. I have spoken as yet only of the power of the operator. Permit me briefly to add in closing, that there are some powers belonging to the subject as well as to the operator, for if the operator can temporarily control his subject, yet he cannot usurp or extinguish his individuality, and in that the subject may by will repel his operator's power. Despite all the bonds and obstacles that hinder us in matter, the spirit still is free, and all may assert that freedom if they only recognize its right, and understandingly can use it. One nation may be psychologically bound by the power of another, but when it recalls itself-its honour and its selfhood-it breaks its bonds, revolts and frees itself from its tyrant's yoke; so of a people, so of individuals. Whilst we claim therefore that the subtle power of psychology is upon us all, whilst all are the subjects of each other's will, and unconsciously rejoice and suffer from the joys and sorrows of the race-never forget we are a power to humanity as much as it is to us. Remember even you can become the psychologist as well as the subject, you never can yield to aught which is beneath yourself. If, indeed, your own soul is below the operator who acts upon you, you can but hope that a higher psychology will be exerted to draw you upwards, but you must be beneath your operator ere you yield. Magnetically, you may be more powerless than he; spiritually, you never can be, unless he can affect your spirit; therefore the plea of psychology as an excuse for crime avails not. Man as an individual may be pure and good in the midst of a criminal age, or criminal nation, and he ever possesses a sovereign individuality which he can always call into action by knowledge, effort, and counter powers of resistance. And therefore it is that all the munitions of evil that appeal to us from the base psychology of the evil men with whom we live, should only serve to arouse within us the powers of our own souls, and compel us in turn for evil influences to be psychologists for good. Cultivate then to the very utmost the dormant powers of this mysterious" psyche" within. We know not how grand is the human soul-how vast its powers. Now and then we gaze upon earth's mighty ones who hold the destiny of nations in their grasp; now and then we look upon those shining stars of mind that glitter on the mountain tops before us, great hearts that have pressed on-that have fought and won in life's fierce conflict; but oh, how seldom do we realize that we can follow themhow seldom do we try! We may be great in any direction that we choose. Stand thou alone, O soul, and let the world rush on as it will about thee; let the psychology of the base and vile strive to drag thee down in vain. Stand thou alone, O soul, and never forget that there is a grand magnet ever drawing thee up. Lean on that, and brace thyself against the Infinite. In His strength thou canst not stand forsaken, though alone with God. Study psychology, learn how far matter can act on mind. Our present grain of knowledge on this mighty subject will yet become a science. "Up then, thou man of reason," up viewless soul, God is on thy side. The ages are fighting with thee; the marching intellect advances to the realm of spirit, and this is the day of the noble science of mind. The gates are opening wide,-enter, oh struggling soul, and be thou the first to lead the fearful on; or if thou must stand alone, forsaken of thy kind in thy bold quest for spiritual light and knowledge, remember thou art led on by Him who cries for ever down the ages "Let there be light!" and lo! there shall be light. WHITTIER ON CREEDS.-Having been interrogated as to his religious faith-a common impertinence in these latter daysthe poet Whittier, feeling himself called on to make a correction of public statements in which the interrogatory was implied and included, remarked:-"I regard Christianity as a life rather than a creed; and, in judging of my fellow men, I can use no other standard than that which our Lord and Master has given us: By their fruits you shall know them.' The only orthodoxy that I am specially interested in, is that of life and practice. On the awful and solemn theme of human destiny dare not dogmatize; but wait for the unfolding of the great. mystery in the firm faith that, whatever may be our particular allotment, God will do the best that is possible for all." N.S.-I. 2 B "SECULARISM," AS SEEN IN THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA. By THOMAS BREVIOR. I point thee to the life its millions drag,- To hide their nakedness: gaunt men, driven mad By hunger and oppression, to these sad And dreary shades fleeing for refuge from This hell on earth: pale woman, loathe to add More wretched things to life's slow martyrdom, Strangling, remorselessly, the fruit of her own womb! THOMAS COOPER's Purgatory of Suicides. CIVILIZATION is dual-moral and material; spiritual and physical; religious and secular. It is conservative and progressive; it has ideas and institutions, an inner life, and a corresponding outward form. We cannot say of it what Sydney Smith said of corporations: it has a soul that may be damned, as well as a body that may be kicked. And every civilization, like every individual, has a soul of its own, differing in some respects from every other;-the natural development of the special genius of each particular race. Each has its own part to play in the great drama of humanity, has its "mission," as the stump orators say. To the Oriental, religion; to the Roman, law; to the Greek, art; to one, the conquest of nature; to another, the empire of ideas; to a third, the cultivation of the æsthetic. And there is a close correspondence between the religion of a people and its institutions -the one is the seed of which the other is in great part the product: the one, the impelling force; the other, the outwrought result; that is, so far as the distinctive and native character of a people is concerned, and apart from influences of a purely physical kind. The diverse civilizations of Athens and of Rome in ancient times, and of the countrymen of Voltaire and of John Knox in modern times, are illustrations of this truth; to exhibit it at large would be to write the history of civilization, though on principles different to those of the late Mr. Buckle. To one point only I would now draw attention, namely, that the decline of religious faith of a people is coincident, or nearly so, with the decline of its greatness, its strength, its civilization. It at once arrests its progress, and is the forerunner of its decay. Egypt, India, Palestine, Greece, Rome, might each in turn be cited as evidence for this truth. Where the spiritual nature of a people is withered from neglect, corrupted by a low wordliness and sensual life, struck with spiritual blindness and a paralysis of the active and highest powers of the soul, that vital force in which its civilization had birth and growth, and which is necessary to its sustenance and development, is well-nigh spent ; such a people may linger in the shadow of their past strength, and, if subject to no violent shock, retain awhile its place among the nations; but it can make no new conquests, and in the battle of existence, it yields to some more fresh, vigorous race, with a fuller life, and more robust faith. Without a living faith in spiritual realities there can be no high or progressive civilization. A people whose spiritual life is at its lowest point may attain mechanical skill and administrative capacity; may inherit good maxims for the regulation of manners; but their conceptions of life, their estimate of human nature, their poetry and art, their laws, institutions, and general character, will be poor and mean, formal, traditional, stationary if not retrogressive; they can have no lofty ideal, are incapable of heroic self-denying virtue; with few or none of those generous aspirations which urge to the performance and are the pledge of better things, their present is ignoble, and they can look forward to no redeeming future. History furnishes no instance of a civilized people entirely destitute of religion; but perhaps in no community is it at so low an ebb, and has it so slight an influence on the character and life as in the great empire of China. Its people are not atheists, as from their disregard to religion, it has by some been inferred; but they are strictly Secularists, engrossed with the present life and material pursuits. Confucius, whose system is predominant, had no religious doctrine, and very faint conceptions of a future life; his fundamental dogma-the basis of his theory of duty, that of filial obligation, did not have reference to another life and a higher being, but to this life and to earthly relations; he never lifted himself above this world to behold the spiritual grace which enfolds and illumines it. The education, the philosophy, the institutions of China, are all based upon this teaching. And what has been the result of this "positive philosophy," which some of our wise men of this western hemisphere have discovered is the one thing needful to regenerate our modern society? The Chinese are not suffering under the nightmare of our theologic method," they "jump the life to come;" they live pretty nearly without God in their thoughts, and without hope or care as to the future. The secular theory has by them been brought to the test of experience on the largest scale; and they have given it ample trial; for their empire is the largest, and their civilization the most ancient now extant. Are they then in the full enjoyment of liberty, equality, and fraternity? Do they exhibit a glorious example of that "unbounded progress," which we are told must result from entire devotion to worldly affairs and material interests? Have they realized Utopia? Are they in the midst of the true social millennium? Is theirs a แ new moral world," the admiration and envy of the outer barbarians who still absurdly allow some weight to religious considerations, believing that the spiritual and immortal life is of nearer concern than earthly gain? An essay in the Nation, based upon a recent treatise by Louis Auguste Martin, entitled La Morale chez les Chinois, throws some light on these questions; and his conclusions are strongly fortified by the testimony of those who have availed themselves of ample opportunities for observation among them. The writer remarks," At a time like the present, when the spirit of philosophical inquiry is so wide-spread, it is interesting to observe what success a nation so cultivated and so ancient as the Chinese has had in attempting to get on with morality instead of religion; for with no other people, we may add, have the eternal laws of goodness and justice and truth been so completely developed in practical formulas, of which the little treatise of M. Martin furnishes a compendious statement." After giving an account of the "dominant cult" in China, based, as is the whole system of Chinese society, upon the teachings of Confucius, he concludes: "Thus, under the influence of this teaching, the character of the Chinese, has become substantially positive. They seek the satisfaction of material interests only. Inaccessible to theories, they are content with their ancient discoveries, because these discoveries afford them the means to gratify all their wants. Having lifted themselves very early by their inventions into a position superior to that of other nations, they have ceased to progress, because the necessities of their earthly nature having been once appeased, they have no motive to purify or exalt it by the study of a higher ideal, of which they have no conception. Thus, as M. Martin says, the Chinese civilization resembles the figures on their vases, which are remarkable for the fineness of their lines and their brilliant colouring, but express no sentiment or passion. "And thus it is that the Chinese philosophers have no knowledge of love transcending sex, because their conception of life does not go beyond its materialism; and they seldom speak of the relations of the sexes except with great reserve, for woman was something apart from man, partaking rather of the character of the animal creation. The birth of a daughter was a misfortune, as it is to-day in China a malediction. Is a son born? says one of the ancient books, he is laid upon a bed and wrapped |