There is a far more intimate connection between terrestrial and super-terrestrial states than most people imagine; and with the rapidly increasing soul-sensitiveness of large numbers of people all over the world, which is a characterizing feature of the incoming year, or new age now dawning, the seeming chasm between the so-called two worlds will be bridged. All may become cognizant of truth, if they will. All may unravel, in a degree, the mysteries of the hidden laws of being. Those only who seek with sincerity and earnestness will be able to partake of the glorious knowledge which comes to those who obey nature's and God's laws, both physical and mental. Man is just emerging from material conditions into soul-life. Materialism is being driven into the last ditch, and its surrender is inevitable.' Man is becoming aware of himself; he is beginning to understand that soul is the only reality, and that matter, as seen in the material universe, is only the manifestation of soul in the various degrees of its unfoldment; that the material avenues of sense are only mediums of rapport between soul - himself - and the material universe. In philosophy the perfect materialist is he who affirms that there is but one thing in the universe, and that that is matter.

Yes, the study of civilization is the most interesting of studies. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, 121, 180 A. D., says: "Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life." A manhood and a womanhood worthy to fill earth's highest, as well as its more lowly places with potent forces that shall be the motive power in directing the course of this generation in all that appertains to its life, its work and its destiny.

The world needs patriots and martyrs to truth. The wheel of progress in its revolutions should crush out the chaff from all teachings, leaving only that kernel which, though buried for centuries, springs into life when permeated by that light which streams forever from the "Inspirer of all Life." The great fact that law governs in the universe of matter and of mind, that from the smallest atom of matter to the largest and most majestic orb in space, each and all are under the eternal and irrecoverable grasp and control of fixed and unalterable laws, from which nothing can possibly escape. Not a sparrow or a mote can fall to the ground and the very hairs of our head are numbered by this. We cannot escape these, turn as we will and do what we may, we are always and forever under the stern and unflinching dominion of law. The soul is the real man. Man is a soul and has a material body, which is merely a temporary garment for momentary use. As a soul, man is in the human form, has brain and heart, eye and hand, and every organ external and internal which belongs to a human being. The body is cast into the moulds of the soul, receives all its power from it, and in every particular is merely an instrument for the service of the soul.

Place an iron nail within two inches of a magnet and in a short time the nail becomes magnetic by molecular transmission. In this case we know molecular action takes place between those two bodies; yet we have no sense telling us of the fact. We only know it by its effects, that is, by the nail having a magnetic quality which it did not have before being placed near the magnet. This nail retains the magnetic quality for some time, no matter to what distance it may be removed from the magnet; its molecules are affected by absorbing part of the magnet; so in healing. It is reasonable to suppose that the connection subsists between the two bodies, so long as the magnetic quality remains in the nail. As we have no sense to recognize the transmission of this quality, we cannot recognize the connection. Soul is the great life on which matter rests, as rests the ponderous globe on the free and fluid ether. Soul impregnates matter. Matter embodies soul. Nature is the revelation of soul in space. History is the revelation of soul in time. Soul sleeps in the stone; grows in the plant; stirs in the animal; wakes in the man, and will work on until the present chaos and old night are taken up into the higher evolution. The mind occupies every corpuscle.

Soul precedes time and space; builds its own structure, and makes its own environment. The psyche is present even in the lowest forms; it exists, but for want of fitting organs it is too dim for our faculties to ken; and increase in mind force only takes place with that of organism. The pebble climbs to a rose and the rose to a soul. Cosmic unity runs on the broad roadway of law through all the world. Man has the planet for his pedestal; the grasses gather to compose his form and the winds hold him in solution. He who would be more scientific, must go on to the study of astronomy where he will learn all about the solar system and the influence of the same upon our earth and upon the minds of men, and then reach out into the stellar regions and become acquainted with the starry heavens, as the work of the great Creator of the universe. Nature inspires us with a love of life, but cannot teach us how to die. Heaven would win us into death, as the sun wins buds into blossoms. Shakespeare makes Hamlet say: "What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!" Man's twofold nature is reflected in history. "He is of earth;" but his thoughts are with the stars; mean and petty his wants and desires, yet they serve a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims; with immortal longings; with thoughts which sweep the heavens and "wander through eternity!" a pigmy standing on the outward crust of this small planet; his far-reaching soul stretches outward to the Infinite, and there alone finds rest.

History is a reflex of man's double life. Every epoch has two aspects, one calm, the other agitated, petty, vehement and confused, looking toward time. Seek not a candle's feeble rays while within thee is the center sun, irradiating the chambers of thy soul, revealing untold wonders of things present and things to come. We may walk through some fair garden at midnight, with the lilies and carnations, the azailias and roses all about us, but unseen and unrecognized, on account of the darkness; and only when here and there a whiter bloom gleams out and sweet, faint odors from unseen sources steal through the dewy stillness, do we feel and know that we are within the garden amid the shrubs and flowers. Now, shall we doubt the existence of the flowers because we cannot see them? So, too, we may sit on some hillside, with the glorious landscape spread all around; yet, owing to the dark pall of night thrown over hill and valley, we can see nothing of nature's widespread loveliness. But it is all there just as real and existent as though a summer's sun were pouring his beams down upon it The mere fact of conditions being such that we do not see or feel a thing does not militate against its reality of existence.

You wake up of a summer's morning and the air is filled with mist and fog and the whole atmosphere about you is distinctly visible; you can see but a little distance through it. But in a short hour it is all gone; everything is clear and all has become invisible! Has anything been lost? Is anything gone? No, only a change of atmospheric conditions! What before was visible, by contact with heat, by attenuation, has become invisible! So, all through the material world, invisibility does not prove non-existence. The word of God speaks of many things about which we doubt and waver simply because in our intellectual and spiritual feebleness we cannot comprehend them! We may lay it down as a fixed fact, that in moral, spiritual and intellectual things, that which has taken place in the past is possible in the present and future. The mind can see without the aid of physical means. Man will always be interested in the problems, the wonders and the speculation of this and the future life. Let us cultivate our thinking faculties; knowledge, both general and spiritual, will grow proportionately.

It is a spiritual gift that enables one to have a clear view of things not apparent to the outer senses - in fact, they can hardly be said to search out the things that are revealed, for these simply come to them.