Such thoughts come to those minds, and such questions occupy the hearts of those who have not altogether lost their primal rectitude and virginal purity. And they are so constituted. and natured, that, until they are settled, no other thought, no other object, can divert their attention.

There are those who will say that such thoughts are vain and visionary, and those questionings idle and dangerous; that such a life is a dream, an impossibility; and add, that

"Honest wills at first like thine,
After the faint resistance of an hour,
Yield themselves up half-willing prisoners,
Soon to be won by golden-guileful tongues,
To do blithe service in the cause of Sin."*

We reply, that our

"Faith is large in Time

And that which shapes it to some perfect end.” †

And we would rather go and hide ourselves in the wild and savage forests, and live upon dry roots and water, than profane a soul with its

energies given for noble aims and divine purposes. Rather would we starve here, and die on the spot, than accept what our higher destiny condemns, for is it not better than to lose one's life, to save it dying?

แ "For this losing is true dying;

This is lordly man's down-lying."*

No; we live, and we shall live, in spite of all the powers of hell. And, even after death has spent itself upon us, we shall live for that which is eternal, true, divine!

V.

Continuation.

"I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven

That often meet me here.

I muse on joys that will not cease,

Pure graces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,

Whose odors haunt my dreams."

TENNYSON.

HERE is no doubt that there always has

THERE

been, and is now, a class of minds, and not a small class, of whom the description in the foregoing pages, is most truthful. It is no fancy of ours, but a fact of history, and of man's earliest history, that there are minds so gifted and divinely formed, that they cannot find their happiness in the gratification of sensual appe

tites, nor in the common pursuits and aims of men. It is true that sin has depraved and corrupted man's nature, but not to such an extent as to efface from his mind all idea of God. It is from the indistinct notion that man still retains of God, that the desire for beatitude springs up in the heart; but he has lost the knowledge of the path which leads to his beatitude, to God. This, Mr. Emerson expresses, when he says:

souls.

of men.

Plato mentions in his Republic this class of He divides its citizens into three classes The first of which he compares to iron, the second to silver, and the third to gold. The last he calls the priests of the Race. Plotinus in his treatise "On Intellectual Ideas and Being," gives us a description of the third class, spoken of by Plato. "The first class," he says, "is given to sensual pleasures, the second to social and other political virtues, the third

class is composed of the race of divine men, who, through a more excellent power, and with piercing eyes, acutely perceive supernal light, to the vision of which they raise themselves, above the clouds of darkness, as it were, of this lower world, and there abiding, despise every thing in the region of sense; being no otherwise delighted with its place, which is truly and properly their own, than he who, after many wanderings, is at length restored to his lawful and native land." Some of the most interesting chapters of history are those which give us an account of the several efforts that men have made to realize this divine life. Let us take history, and open her pages, and listen to what she has to tell us on this interesting topic of man's aspirations and efforts after a more spiritual life.

Pythagoras, one of the most celebrated of ancient philosophers, being exiled from Samos, took refuge in Magna Græcia, and found an asylum in the city of Crotona. Preceded by a brilliant reputation, he was received with enthusiasm, and, in a short time, the number of his disciples forced him to forget his native land.