also caused the musical lakes to pour their refreshing streams into the sick chamber-there to act in the twofold capacity of a physician and a medical reformer!

The earth's inhabitants have known the time, when the electric fire played frantically, and wholly uncontrolled, through the heavens, now and then leaping from some lofty peak to the peasant's door, strewing its eccentric pathway with dying birds, and beasts, and men; but the human MIND has chained the lightning, now keeps it imprisoned in canisters, and when occasion requires, permits it to perform the duties of an errand boy, in a three-minutes' trip across the continent! When I contemplate what the human MIND has already accomplished with the wood, stone, and physical elements of nature,-when I think of Italy with its clustering palaces and terraced garders, with its stately convents and insurmountable fortresses-when I think: of Egypt with its pyramid-of the architectural magnificer ce of Rome-of the cities that are springing up in our midst, with thois innumerable possessions of art and evidences of human skil,--I can not but be surprised that the conservative and popular theologian has the courage (or ignorance, perhaps) to insist upon man's innate inability to transcend all obstacles which lie between him and the attainment of future happiness and universal liberty!

The world of science is replete with the evidence of the superiority of the human mind over the gross materials of nature. Man exercises an unlimited control and proprietorship over all below his exalted position; and he is the governor, director, and lord of all subordinate creations; because he is the highest and most perfect combination of all elements and essences which exist in the lower departments and kingdoms of nature. In this sense, man pervades all beneath him. He psychologically impresses the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, that he is their lord and superior. Every thing learns instinctively to concede this suprerny to man;

because the invisible mind is the source of his sublime powers and abilities, and every thing seems impressed with the consciousness that he is thus exalted and thus endowed.

But need I inform you that man is himself yet ignorant of his latent motive powers-that he does not know how far his mission and powers extend over nature? When I contemplate the mighty works which man is certain to accomplish in the future, on this earth, I start back with the overpowering conviction that he will appear more God-like than human.

The hot deserts of Arabia, now merely seas of sand and desolation, will yet appear, under the well-directed mechanical treatment and skill of man, like the undulating valleys of Italy. Man will yet learn how to create and preserve an equilibrium between the soil and the atmosphere. He will be enabled to instigate, control, and direct the fall of rain over such portions of the land as need moisture; and thus he will elevate much parsimonious soil to the height of richness and abundance and to the bringing forth of pure productions. He will spread civilization over the dominion of the heathen; he will convert the darkest forests into gardens of beauty; and the disagreeable vegetable and animal forms, that now disfigure the face of nature, will be banished; and the lion and lamb will lie down together. The lightning, that now performs the duties. of a courier, and which sometimes ventures to declare itself independent of man's power, will yet be the chief agent of mechanical locomotion—it will drive the engine more rapidly than ever, and bring states into the most intimate relations; because it will almost destroy the time and space which now divide the interests of the people that inhabit the different portions of the land. And electricity will yet be the means (under man's direction) of conducting away from unhealthy localities, the pestilential miasm which generates disease among men; and meanwhile, in its concentric gyrations through the broad tracery of conductors in the air, the light

ning will emit the most sweet æolian music which the mind can

possibly imagine.

And then the Winds will no longer retard the flight of the aerial steamer across the hemisphere, because man shall have mastered the tempest; shall direct the tides of the atmosphere; and shall have arisen far above the meager obstructions which now impede his progress. Man has the power to ascend higher and higher in the scale of knowledge; he possesses the concentrated qualities and properties of motion, life, sensation, and intelligence within himself; consequently, he can and will put all enemies (to his happiness and progression) beneath his feet, and yet he will never transcend, reverse, or arrest the immutable laws of nature, which are the will of Deity.

All mankind, when mental cultivation and intellectual philosophy become universal, will participate alike in the rich blessings and advantages of improved machinery, and other applications of physical knowledge. And then it will be discovered that there is a very intimate and sympathetic connection between the sciences of the mind and its moral altitudes. Indeed, I feel impressed to affirm, that man's external condition is so closely and inseparably connected with his internal condition, that, by improving the one, he improves the other. Intellectual progress has uniformly kept pace with all improvements in the art of education. That knowledge which gives man almost unlimited control over the elements of nature, will yet inform him of his more interior and moral powers, and this will lead him directly to true theology and to true religion.

LECTURE II.

THE MISSION OF MIND, CONSIDERED AS A MORAL

POWER.

MATTER, in all its strange, grotesque, and harmonious arrangements, discourses profoundly upon the attributes of mind. Here I employ the word mind in its most extensive application; comprehending the soul, spirit, love, passions, reason, and understanding which characterize human beings—all of which terms I use synonymously with mind. You will, therefore, remember that I am not speaking of any one particular faculty or attribute of the soul; but of that entire combination of faculties and principles in the spirit of man, which combination I am impressed to term

MIND.

It has been shown that mind is the master of the physical creation-the conqueror and disposer of the imponderable elements, and the great harmonizing plenipotentiary of the earth and atmosphere. That innate power which enables man to comprehend the laws, and control, harmonially, the phenomena of the world of matter, has a higher claim upon our consideration than any other terrestrial possession. When the mind is exercised exercised upon the superior planes of thought, then all material forms are invested with an unusual significance-every thing has a deep and sacred meaning the external world is full of divinity. Whilst that mind which is buried in the world of sensuality and materialism, can see nothing of those harmonious breathings of the Divine Principle, which adorns nature with its diversified manifestations and attributes. He alone who feels within himself the workings of an im

mortal spirit, can perfectly sympathize with, and in some measure comprehend, the kindred intelligence and love that emanate from the material forms which people the external world of effects. Such a mind is typical of a class of minds whose mission, in the moral department of life, I am about to consider.

It is a clearly-written fact in human history, that all scientific discoveries and the primary application of all scientific principles have been accomplished and made by a FEW minds. But the masses, having familiarized themselves with the philosophy of those principles, soon widen the sphere of their application. So in the world of thought. A LORD BACON comes forth from his retreat, and shows the world how to succeed in the acquisition of knowledge-how the observation and comparison of facts and phenomena constitute the only certain means of obtaining demonstrative information. So a NEWTON goes from his seat under the apple-tree into his chamber, abandons his strong sympathies and intellectual powers to the teachings of nature, and soon holds up before the world a stupendous conception of planetary harmony. And when the cultivated classes read and digest his explanation, forthwith the principles are incorporated in all the affairs of life. Days and nights, weeks and years, are thereby determined; the Yankee makes his clock, the astrologer arranges his almanac, and the mariner leaves the port, all in harmony with the profound and demonstrative teachings of astronomy.

The midnight dream of the mechanic suggested the steamengine, and a few additional dreams made it the potential agent it is of transporting millions of human beings from place to place over the earth. Thus the ideal begets the actual-the principles of mind incarnate themselves in physical structures. But before. mind can display its creative and disposing powers in the higher regions of thought, it must have a broad substratum of scientific knowledge as a basis of more exalted and useful superstructures.