assign to Truth a position far above individual minds and local circumstances superior to every thing, but God.

If this definition be adopted, then our aspirations after Truth will transcend all men, all books, all creeds, all institutions. If we adopt this view, then we will arise nobly superior to all forms of sectarianism and pursue the golden pathway, which leads the pilgrim eternally upward to the City of the Living God.

I have said that the question "What is Truth ?"—admits of a very simple definition. Let me state the proposition, and see how it will suit your Intuitions.

Truth is the universal relationship of things as they are; error, is the interpretation of things as they are not.

God has unfolded things just as they are; therefore, he is the author of the relationship of things; therefore, He is the Truth. Now it matters not how much or how little I know of this universal relationship of things; for, if I understand only the first particle of the relation of any thing, so far I have infallible Truth. If I comprehend the first principle which binds a piece of iron ore together, then I know something of Truth-and no human authority can make it more true, though a wiser man may conduct me to more Truth, in the same, or in other and higher, departments of Creation.

Now the question arises-how shall we know when we have the Truth? I answer-divest your minds of all local prejudices in favor of this or that sect, of this or that authority—and listen, like a child, to the subdued whisperings of the soul which God has given you. There is nothing more true, than that no man can enter into the kingdom of Truth and happiness, unless he becomes simple-minded, and as a little child. By simple-mindedness I do not mean weakness or imbecility. Far from it. I mean an honest, guileless, uncalculating, truth-loving state-a state which, in the past and present conditions of human society, is about as frequently developed as a Christ is born. No wonder the great mass of the

world regard a naturally developed and harmonious individual as a divine curiosity—as a God-sent messenger; for a good and truthloving soul is no more likely to be born of ignorant parents, or of parents educated in the past and present methods of society, than good cloth is likely to be manufactured by bad machinery, or music to flow from defective instruments.

By willing strongly to see and feel Truth, irrespective of any creed, men, books, or systems, you are certain to get it; or, at least, you will get all you can possibly employ to any advantage. If you seek any thing wonderful or mysterious, then you do not seek the Truth; for Truth is so exceedingly simple that most people pass it by unnoticed. There are myriads of mysteries, but that is not owing to the Truth, but wholly to our ignorance of their nature and relationship. The great standard, it seems to me, is simply this-Facts are things; Truths are Principles. Things exist; when they are rightly related one to the other, the relation is based upon, and is, the Truth. From this relation the music of harmony issues perpetually. Discord issues from error; the relation is wrong. Friends, see well to this doctrine in all the departments of your existence--and now is the time to think, to feel, and to do right! For, by putting off this state till to-morrow, you defraud yourself of immediate happiness and do a similar injury to the neighbor.

It is no part of my plan, friends, to impair your faith in Truth ; I desire, only, to arouse you to a higher appreciation of it. Do not think, with the "poor, benighted heathen," that the Truth is always dependent upon your Idols for its existence; that when your Idols. are demolished, your faith dies with them. But let your understandings expand, and thus obtain reasons for the inward hope. Reject the miracle as the foundation of your faith, and take the principle. For marvels confound and stultify the intellect; but Principles are certain to dignify and expand the whole nature of man.

I come now to the application.

This discourse is upon "the Authority of the Harmonial Philosophy," but it was deemed wisdom to premise thus much in order to bring the whole subject comprehensively before your minds.

I thank God that I am permitted to raise my voice against the deification of individuals-against every species of idolatry and superstition. For I stand before the world in a peculiar position; mainly in a misinterpreted position; and I am thankful, very thankful, that I, at least, can do my part toward accomplishing a correction. I do not think that I stand in any danger of being deified; for I have too much faith in the reasonableness of this age; but I am regarded, by some minds, as the founder of the Harmonial Philosophy; and this idea is what I now desire to correct.

The authority of the Harmonial Philosophy, is Truth; it is not based upon the Revelations of "Davis," but upon the Revelations of Nature. All Truth may be found in Nature, and in the nature of man, because God lives in Nature; therefore, when we study Nature we study God; therefore, too, in proportion as we comprehend Nature, in the same proportion we comprehend God. The terms Revelation and Development are synonymous. Hence when we examine the Developments of Nature, we examine the Revelations of Nature; and when, with the good Paul, we contemplate the sidereal heavens and behold that all stars are glorious, only differing in glory, one having more glory (or divinity) than another, then we behold the "Divine Revelations of Nature." There are persons who have tried to cast ridicule upon the term-"Nature's Divine Revelations ;" which ridicule could only proceed from a lowminded idolater, or an atheist; for if it be believed that God is the source of all life and sensation-the cause of all creation and development-then the tree, and the bird, the flower, and the distant star, are unlike the unfoldings of a Divine Principle! And when

we study these chapters in Nature, then we are studying "Nature's (or God's) Divine Revelations."

Moses, Paul, Fourier, Swedenborg, and other individuals, may have been sufficiently enlightened to read and interpret many of Nature's (or God's) truths; but it is the truthfulness of what they reveal,and not the revelators, themselves,-that constitutes the authority by which those Revelations should be tested and regarded.

One man may be a Poet; another a Philosopher; another a Governor; another a Moralist;-that is to say, one may be a Christ, another a Shakespeare, another a Newton, and another a Plato, but it is not the individual, it is the well-ascertained truthfulness of what they write, that constitutes the true object of affection and reverence.

All books and all men might be swept from the earth at once without in the least impairing aught which is eternally true; yea, the Temple of the Universe might be reduced to an impalpable powder, but Truth would yet stand unmoved and unchanged!

LECTURE XXVII.

CONCERNING THE USES AND

THE ABUSES OF THE

SABBATH IN THIS COUNTRY.

On this occasion, the origin of the institution of the Sabbath, socalled, will not be considered. For at best, such a consideration could be but a matter of historical interest to the ethnologist and antiquarian, being not at all essential to a proper estimate of the DAY as a period of freedom and universal rest.

But I will simply remark that the Sabbath, as you probably all know, is supposed by theologians to have originated with the Deity. It is asserted, and in all possible seriousness too, that, after the fatigues consequent upon the exertion of creating the heavens and the earth, and all that in them is, the Lord rested upon the "Seventh Day," and hallowed it. Hence, we are told, admonished, and commanded to regard this Day, above every other, in honor to the greatest, completest, highest event that ever occurred in the history of the Creation.

In consequence of this mythologic faith, the world is replete with many and various superstitions upon the subject of the Sabbath. All true mental philosophers know, that superstitions always produce two effects upon the human mind-both of which are discordant and injurious: either they impel the mind to do this or that religious act from a sensation of fear, or, the opposite extreme is developed, and the individual becomes skeptical and disregards many things which might be exceedingly happifying and morally beneficial.