The Creation of Fowls and Fishes.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : and God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day." Gen. i. 20-23.

The first three days of the creation, as we saw in our lectures on those days, describe the development of the natural degree of mans life, which prepares him for the opening of the spiritual degree. In this process he had light, but it was not the direct light of the sun, moon, and stars. These were to be set in the firmament, or spiritual degree. And hence the next step in the process, or the fourth day, placed them there to give light upon the earth. In the process of spiritual development light, or truth, is seen and experienced under two distinct aspects. That which is seen in the earlier stages of a religious life is quite different from that which is experienced in more advanced states. In our earlier experience we think we see truths, and do good of ourselves. Hence nothing but inanimate things are produced. All truth and all good are from the Lord, who alone is truth and goodness; and it is only as we reach that state in which we can see and acknowledge that every good and perfect gift cometh down from Him that we can have true love for Him, a true faith in Him, and true ideas or intelligence in spiritual things. And these we saw in the lecture on the fourth day were symbolized by the sun, moon, and stars. This perception is in the internal man which is called the firmament of heaven ; and on this day, or state, these lights are said to be placed in the firmament. With these in the firmament, the earth is prepared for the productions of the fifth day, which we now proceed to consider.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly, the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. It will be observed that it is the waters that are commanded to bring forth the moving creature that hath life. It will be remembered that we have demonstrated in former lectures that by waters are signified religious truths in the mind, and by the sea, as the general receptacle of all waters, is signified the general memory as the receptacle of all such truths. It will be observed that it is not the sea, but the waters, which are to produce the living creatures. In confirmation of the proposition that by waters are meant, in the Word, religious truths, I will refer you, in addition to the demonstrations of former lectures, to the conversation of the Lord with the woman of Samaria in the fourteenth verse of the fourth chapter of John, where He says, Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. In this passage it is plain that natural water is not meant by the Lord, but the knowledge of religious truth which rises up in the mind from the acknowledgment of and faith in the Lord.

In the forty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel the prophet describes a vision of holy waters issuing from the sanctuary, which rose up first to his ankles, then to his knees, then to his loins, and became a river that could not be passed over, clearly indicating the successive increase of the knowledge of religious truth which proceeds from the sanctuary or Divine Word. For if you will refer to the chapter you will see at a glance that it is not natural water that is meant.

In the one hundred and fourth Psalm is a glorification of the Lord, in which it is said, Who layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds His chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: who maketh His angels spirits; His ministers a flaming fire. I cannot, of course, stop to unfold this sublimely beautiful text; but all can see that it is not alone in natural waters that God lays the beams of His chambers. His chambers signify the interior principles of His church, and the beams thereof signify their strength. These are laid in the waters because they rest and have their sure foundation only in the genuine truths of His Word, which waters symbolize. Hence also in the Revelation, the Word itself is described as a pure river of water of life.

The will-faculty in man, as we have seen in former lectures, embraces all of his affections and constitutes his internal, or heaven. When the sun, moon, and stars, which we have seen are love, faith, and a knowledge of religious truths, are set in this heaven, or the affections of the internal man, and begin to impart their light and warmth to the external man, enabling him to think and to act from these higher and purer principles, then all things of the external man begin to pulsate with spiritual life. He may not indeed change his outward conduct to the perception of others, for he may have lived an orderly moral life before, but the motives that move him to act will be wholly different. And it is the motive that gives character to the act as well as to the actor. A man may induce on himself the genuine character of, and in fact be spiritually, a murderer, a thief, an adulterer, or criminal of any other degree, without ever committing in outward act the deeds implied by these terms. The fear of the law may restrain him from taking life. But the Lord says that whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And so, also, Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And so of all other evils. The same law obtains in the performance of the common charities and even the employments of life. A man may give largely to objects of benevolence, and yet may do it wholly from selfish motives, having no interior affection for the cause he so ostentatiously supports. Thus before these luminaries are set up in the affections, man regards the truths he learns and the good he does as the results of his own efforts, and there is a tinge of selfishness in them, because he does not refer them wholly to the Lord, who alone is the source of all spiritual light and life. This was the necessary result of his previous day, or state, and while that state lasted his knowledge of spiritual things could not bring forth that which is really alive. He could only bring forth grass, herbs, and fruit-trees, which, however good and useful, were still but inanimate things. But when he is enlightened by genuine love and faith, then his knowledges become the medium for the development of spiritual life, and he proceeds to bring forth from these knowledges, or waters, the living creatures that have life. Hence it is that the productions of his preceding states are indicated by things of the vegetable kingdom, and those of his succeeding and superior ones by objects of animated nature.

But he has not yet reached his highest state, and hence what is brought forth on this day are the moving things of the waters, which are fishes of various kinds, and the fowls of the air. Fishes, as is well known, are among the lowest orders of animated nature, and they represent the first moving of the affections after genuine good when warmed into spiritual life by the heat and light of this state or day. Waters, as we have seen, mean truths, and the sea the general memory in which are stored all the knowledges of the mind, whether true or false, and fishes are those knowledges vivified and made alive by the purified affections.

That fishes have this signification is susceptible of abundant proof from the Word. I will refer you to the remarkable vision of the prophet in the forty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, a portion of which I shall quote. The quotation is a long one, but it is so remarkable as confirming the explanation I have been giving of the meaning of the waters, the sea, the fishes, and various other symbols that I am sure it must strike you with peculiar force and beauty. The prophet is in captivity beyond the Euphrates, and the vision is of the city of Jerusalem restored, which was shown to him by a man whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, who had a flaxen line in his hand and a measuring-reed. This strange man measured the city, and the prophet describes it, the description occupying some eight chapters. Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house: and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward : for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar. Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto the outer gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side. And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and lie brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through ; the waters were to the loins. Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over : for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of the river. Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and everything shall live, whither the river cometh. And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many. But the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt. And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed : it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.

In the literal sense this passage teaches us absolutely nothing. And without the science of correspondences who could give even a plausible guess at its meaning? To call it figurative language serves but to embarrass the mind, for those who call it so have no clue to the meaning of the figures. But whole volumes would not suffice to unfold the infinite things contained in the spiritual sense. Every single word in it is a symbol with a meaning as exact as the terms of any natural science, and with a fulness that will unfold forever until it becomes in very deed a river that cannot be crossed over, for it is the Divine wisdom which can never be fully exhausted by finite minds. I can only refer, and that briefly, to the symbols of this fifth day of creation which we are considering.

The house from under whose threshold the waters issued is the Lords church, or the internal of the regenerating man in whom the church is. The sanctuary, or sanctified thing in the house, is the Divine Word. The waters that issued out are the truths of the Word. To measure anything is to know its quality. A thousand measures or cubits means all there is, for a thousand is a multiple of ten, and that is the signification of ten in the Word, as might be proved by a thousand quotations. Everything is in its fulness in its ultimates. The whole strength and force of the body is ultimated in the hands, and hence the hands mean power in the Word. But the hands themselves are ultimated in the ten fingers. We count therefore by tens. That is all there is of us. When we have counted ten we stop, and count until ten times ten makes a hundred, and ten times a hundred makes a thousand. But the essence or quality of a thing is the same in its least as in its greatest parts, and hence the signification of a number is the same in the multiples of that number. A thousand in the Word has the same signification as ten or a tenth, and ten means the fulness or completeness of the subject to which it refers. Hence there are ten commandments, embracing all the duties of man. Abraham gave tenths to Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God, in acknowledgment that he owed all to Him. The Jews were required to dedicate the tenth of all their products to the Lord for a like reason. There are ten beatitudes in the Lards sermon on the mount. The Lord says the kingdom of heaven is like ten virgins; and John saw ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands of the redeemed.

The measures recorded by Ezekiel and the resulting waters are, you will observe, the days of creation that we are considering. He measured a thousand and the waters were to the ankles. The feet and ankles are the lowest extreme of the body, and represent the lowest degree of the perception of the literal requirements of the Word, the faint light of the first day. He measured a second thousand and the waters rose to the knees. The knees being the means of conjoining the feet with the higher regions of the body, represent a nobler state: that state in which man feels that being free to choose he ought to do the things he sees to be right and obligatory upon him, which is the second day, or state. He measured a third thousand and the waters rose to the loins. As the ankles and the knees can effect nothing by way of progress until the loins put them in motion, the loins mean that state in which the truths seen on the first day, and acknowledged on the second, are put into practical use in the life on the third. And hence you will remember it was not until the third day that the Lord required the earth to do, or produce anything. On that day, however, the earth was required to bring forth grass, herbs, and fruit-trees. This it could not do until the waters rose to the loins. It marks the full development of the natural degree, and the preparation for the opening of the spiritual.

And now the prophet continues: Afterward he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. This is the fourth day, or state, the state in which the spiritual degree of the mind is opened, and the sun, moon, and stars are set in the firmament. In this state the truth of the Word becomes indeed a river of waters that the mind may swim or bathe in but can never cross over, for they are the infinite love and wisdom of the Lord, which the finite mind can never exhaust.

And now follows the work of the fifth day. On this day is said in our text in Genesis, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And the prophet continues in the passage I have read, Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. We have seen that these waters are the genuine truths of the Word, and the sea is the general memory or faculty of the mind where all its knowledges, whether true or false, are collected. These spiritual waters from this river, issuing out from the sanctuary, heal the waters of this sea when they enter into it, for the genuine truths of the Word, when seen and loved and obeyed, will correct whatever of error we may have imbibed from the appearances of things, and will sanctify all our knowledges, even of natural truths, signified by the sea. And when the sea is so healed by these waters it is prepared to obey the Divine command, and bring forth abundantly the things that have life. For the prophet continues, And it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and everything shall live whither the river cometh. It is the moving creature that the waters are to bring forth.

I have not time further to illustrate this vision of the prophet. That the rivers seen by him are the same rivers that are described in Genesis as having their sources in the garden of Eden, and that John describes again in the Revelation as issuing from the throne of God in heaven, is manifest. And that the trees of the garden, and those which the prophet saw upon the banks of the river, and those described by John in the Revelation are the same is equally apparent. As it is plain that both the things seen by the prophet and those seen by John refer to spiritual waters and living creatures, it is equally clear that the things mentioned in Genesis have a like reference.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : and God saw that it was good.

It will at once be seen that there is a difference between the fishes and birds, like that between the sea and the firmament; that fishes represent affections for literal, natural truth which points out the natural duties of man, and birds the more sensitive and nobler affections for spiritual truth, truth relating to spiritual life, to heaven, and to the Lord. The term whales includes many great sea-beasts, among them whales, which are the largest of all living creatures. They represent affections for general principles in the mind, as the smaller fishes on which they feed represent affections for particular truths therein. To these creatures of the sea we shall in this lecture give our attention.

It is said that God created, although the water brought the creatures forth, for although the mind, from the truths or facts in the memory or sea, forms the general principles of its life, yet as the power to do so comes from God alone He is said to create them. But as these principles may be either true or false, according to mans state, whales have, like everything else named in the Word, two significations, a good and an evil one. Hence when the mind is in true order the Psalmist says the whales praise God; and many such passages might be quoted. That whales mean general principles in the mind, either good or perverted to evil, may be clearly seen by turning to the second verse of the thirty-second chapter of Ezekiel, which reads: Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas: and thou earnest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers. This is certainly a, very strange statement in the letter; but it would require volumes to unfold its signification, every word of which is a symbol referring to things in the mind and the church. Egypt everywhere in the Word represents the natural degree of man and the natural things or knowledges of the mind. Every people Come to have a peculiar genius or character. And as by the name of anything in the Word is meant the quality of the thing named, the name itself comes to stand for that quality. Egypt in its good sense signifies the natural degree of the mind regenerated and brought into order, while in the opposite sense it means the natural degree perverted and evil. Every place or country named in the Word has also a symbolical meaning in both senses. Thus Egypt, Assyria, and Israel are mentioned together in many instances, and in every case Egypt means the natural degree of the mind, Assyria the spiritual or rational degree, and Israel the celestial. I have not time to give the reasons for these significations. But that they have this meaning in both the good and evil sense I will quote, out of many, a single passage of each kind in confirmation.

If you will turn to the nineteenth chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet in vision is depicting the glories of a true church, you read: In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt, and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance. Day, as we have seen, means state, and when the church, or the regenerating man, comes into that state, then there will be a highway from Egypt into Assyria. Way, in the Word, means truth which guides, and the Lord is the way, and the truth. This highway will lead from the natural degree, which is Egypt, to the spiritual degree, which is Assyria, and the truths of both degrees will go into and serve the celestial degree, which is Israel, and the Lord will bless the mind or the church in this state, when Egypt will be His people, Assyria the work of His hands, and Israel His inheritance. This, in brief, is the correspondence of Egypt, Assyria, and Israel when the church is in its purity. That they have the same signification in an evil sense when the church is consummated will be seen by this quotation from the Revelation, where John is describing the state of the church in its apostasy, when it makes war upon and kills the two witnesses. He says: And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Here Sodom, Egypt, and Jerusalem, the place of our Lords crucifixion, are connected in an evil sense, as Egypt, Assyria, and Israel were before by the prophet in a good sense. The meaning is that when the church, whose doctrines are symbolized by a great city, has killed the two witnesses, which are the spiritual and celestial senses of the Word, by denying them, their dead body, or the mere letter, lies in her streets; and she rejoices over the death of the witnesses whose testimony tormented her.

From this long digression we come back to the words of the prophet: Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations.” We have seen that Egypt means the natural degree of the mind with all its natural or scientific acquirements. This is said to be like a young lion of the nations. Nations and peoples are often named together, nations meaning things of the will, and peoples, things of the understanding; and a lion means their strength. That a lion in the Word means strength is evident, for the Lord Himself is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah because He prevailed to open the book, which no one else in heaven or earth could do. And in an evil sense, or to show the strength of evil, the devil is called a roaring lion. The prophet continues, still addressing Pharaoh, or Egypt: “Thou art as a whale in the seas : and thou earnest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers.” Whales and other great creatures of the water, as we have seen, are affections for the general principles of the mind or church. This monster comes out of the rivers of Egypt, and is the ruling principle, therefore, of the natural degree of the mind. But that principle here being a false and evil one it troubles the waters of the sea with its feet. Feet represent the lowest degree of the merely natural mind, and when this forms its principles of life from the lowest of sensuous things, then indeed it troubles the waters of the sea with its feet Waters, we have seen, are the knowledges in the mind or memory, and the prophet, addressing this Egyptian monster, says: Thou earnest forth not out of, but with thy rivers . . . and fouledst their rivers.

That is to say, when the ruling principle of the mind is evil and sensual it will be a monster in the rivers, not only troubling the waters with its feet, or making what truths are in the mind obscure and filthy like muddy water, but will also foul the rivers of the nations; that is, it will pervert and defile the affections as well as the intellect.

For one other example of the spiritual meaning of the great sea-monsters, turn to the story of Jonah. This narrative we perhaps may never understand as a literal history, but it is full of spiritual instruction. A prophet is one who teaches Divine truth, and abstractly the truth itself. Thus, we speak of the prophets, meaning thereby the writings of the prophets, and more abstractly still, the Divine truths in those writings. By a prophet, therefore, in the Word is meant Divine truth; and as all symbols have reference to things in the mind, by a prophet is meant Divine truth in the mind. By a whale we have seen is meant a general principle in the mind, framed from the particular things therein, as all general principles are necessarily made up of particulars and control them. But this general and controlling principle may be either true or false. When it is false and swallows up for the time being all the particular things in the mind, even the truth that is there, then the whale swallows the prophet. And the prophet will remain in the whales belly just three days. For we have seen that day means state, and three a perfect measure, or all there is of the thing referred to. So that while the mind remains in that state in which the false principle controls it, the truth it may have had will be swallowed up in it. But Divine truth cannot be used by a false principle so as to become a part of its organic structure, nor can the truth perish. And, therefore, the whale, although it swallowed the prophet in the story, could not digest him nor could the prophet perish ; but it vomited him up, just as a false principle gives up whatever of Divine truth it may have seized upon, and lets it go, like the prophet, on its mission.

If you want to find proof of the truth of this story you need not search history, geography, or commentaries. You will not find it there. But you will find it in the internal sense of the Word. And as that treats of the internal states of the minds of men in all ages and countries, if you look within yourselves, and those around you, you will see, as a terrible fact, whales swallowing prophets here, and to-day.

This fifth day, then, produced great whales, and moving things of the sea that had life. We have seen what great whales mean both in a good and in an evil sense. Here they are meant in a good sense, because man is described as in the process of regeneration. And with them were created all the moving creatures of the sea; that is, all innocent affections for learning natural truth for the sake of use. They are moving creatures and have life, because they are animated by love and love is life.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. You have all observed, in reading the Word, that it is full of terms joined together that seem to have the same meaning. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of such instances occur. It would seem that to be fruitful and to multiply was tautology, but it is not so. Man has two faculties, as I have often had occasion to repeat,—the will and the understanding; and in every instance where two words are so connected one refers to things of the will or the affections, and the other to the understanding or the thoughts. Thus, you will find brother and companion, poor and needy, wilderness and desert, vacuity and emptiness, foe and enemy, sin and iniquity, anger and wrath, nation and people, joy and gladness, mourning and weeping, justice and judgment, image and likeness, devil and satan, and, in our text, Be fruitful, and multiply. In all the instances named the first word of the couplet is predicated of the will-faculty, and the good or evil affections therein, while the second term is predicated of the understanding and the truths or falses therein.

To be fruitful, therefore, is to develop more and more in the love of what is good, and to multiply is to increase in the knowledge of what is true; and to fill the waters in the sea and the earth also is to have both the will and the understanding imbued with the principles of goodness and truth. Such a mind the Lord will ever bless, not by pronouncing words of blessing, but by the influx of His Divine life. This He is ever giving to all, even to the evil and the unthankful, but it can only be enjoyed by those who receive it in true order. The whole work of redemption is the effort not to reconcile an angry God, but to restore disordered man to that state in which he can receive and enjoy the blessedness that God is ever willing to bestow; and regeneration is the only process by which man can be so restored.

As this world is the correspondent of the spiritual world, there is some process in it that corresponds to every process in the spiritual world. The sun, we have seen, represents in the natural world, the Lord in the spiritual world. The heat and light of the sun represent in the natural world the love and wisdom of the Lord in the spiritual; and mans bodily eye is adapted to the heat and light of the sun in the natural world, as his understanding is to the Lords Divine truth in the spiritual. When mans bodily eye is in health or order, the highest, blessing it can enjoy is light. But if the organization of the eye becomes affected by inflammation or otherwise, nothing can be more painful to it than light. It must hide itself from the light as from the source of its pain. But the physician would hardly be considered wise at this day who should declare that the trouble was in the sun, and that nothing could be done in the way of relief unless an absolute change could be effected in the sun itself, and should go to work by some kind of incantation to effect that change. A wise physician, it seems to me, would not employ his incantations to change the sun so as not to hurt the disordered eye, but would rather seek to restore the eye to that state in which it could again enjoy the light of the sun.

Applying the same reasoning in spiritual things, it seems to me irrational to suppose that God is fierce with anger and inflicts pain to gratify His wrath, and that to escape suffering a change must be effected in God by inducing Him in some way to cease torturing us. His tender mercies are over all His works. His Divine love and life, like the light of the sun, come alike to the evil and the good. But those who have perverted their faculties, which is in fact to derange their spiritual forms, are in a state of spiritual disease, and, like the diseased eye, cannot endure the Lords Divine influx. The only way to relieve them, therefore, is not to attempt by prayers or supplications to change the unchangeable Jehovah, or to appease His supposed wrath, but to come into that state of Divine order in which goodness and truth, or love and wisdom, which emanate from the Lord, will give happiness and not pain. The change that is to bring us into harmony with the Lords universal Providence and secure our eternal felicity must be wrought in us and not in God. This is the work of regeneration described in the days of creation.

I think it cannot fail to be seen that the terms used here, in what has been supposed to be an account of the natural creation, have the same spiritual significance that the like terms have in the prophets, the Psalms, and the New Testament, and that throughout the Word they refer primarily to the regeneration of man. This interpretation not only shows the Bible to be a book of inexhaustible wisdom, applicable to all men and all times, but it avoids all the insurmountable difficulties that beset those who seek to make of it a mere natural history.

On our principle of interpretation, as far as we become wise enough to understand it, the Bible is seen to be all clear, all rational, all profoundly philosophical, all instructive in the highest degree, all of universal application to all men, at all times, and in all worlds. There are no conflicting statements to reconcile, no inconsistencies to explain away, no unmeaning declarations to be evaded, no vague figures of speech to be guessed at, no mistakes in natural science to be apologized for. There is no fear of new discoveries in science coming in conflict with the Bible, for every possible development of true science is and forever must be a confirmation of its truth, for it is written according to the most exact of all sciences,the science of correspondences, which is the relation between causes and their effects. As there can be no effect without a producing cause, every possible advance in any science will widen our knowledge of the science of correspondences, and will, therefore, enable us to see still deeper wisdom in the Word. It does not demand an unreasoning belief on mere authority, but appeals to the highest exercise of reason. Is not the subject worthy of your investigation ? And is it not strange that those who accept the Bible as a Divine book, but who are embarrassed at almost every chapter they read, will not so far abate their prejudices as to give the subject even the slightest consideration? And is it not equally strange that those who, because of the irrationality of the interpretations that have prevailed have put the book aside as an imposture will voluntarily disinherit themselves rather than look into their Fathers will for themselves, and even deny that they have a Father, because what purports to be His will has been absurdly expounded by others? Here is a fountain opened that will satisfy the highest aspirations of the affections and the intellects of the most cultured, as well as of the humblest. And to its Divine beatitudes, the Spirit and the Bride say, Come; whoever has drunk of the fountains says, Come; and whosoever will, may come and partake freely.