If in reading Dante the divine drama is portrayed upon your vision with the distinct and wonderful differences in spiritual states; if you have sympathy with those in darkness, with those in purgatory; if you have with those in paradise tasted the light of immortality, then remember that by that divine and sacred image, Beatrice, he led you through the vision of paradise that he might give the lessons of his triumph to the world.

So are you admitted to the sanctuary of the greatest genius - divine and exalted love. That is more than the portrayal, more than the language of suffering, more than the darkness of purgatory, more than the light of paradise - it is heaven itself. And remember that whatever value there may be to the written poem on earth, it falls to lifeless clay compared to the image of that soul that could create the poem, understand the scenes of spiritual and angelic states, and exalt the White Rose of Love to the sanctity of heaven.

Geniuses ! Yes, their work is to mold the human thoughts and souls, and make them fittingly to be the temples of immortal life. Geniuses - not Michael Angelo in Rome, picturing the image of St. Peters, whose dome was to rest among the clouds while the foundation rested upon the earth - but Michael Angelo in the spheres of Truth and Love, exalting human thoughts and cares to be portions of the goodly temple of humanity and of immortal life; carving out of the dull material of human dross the divine forms, the thought and aspiration that are to make whole and complete this temple of humanity. Images of beauty portrayed in human lives, aspirations kindled in sluggish hearts, longings to labor for humanity in the lives of the selfish, and the vanquishment of passion, hatred and scorn. Methinks this is better art than St. Peters. The pyramids of Egypt finally give way to the vanquishment of time, and the splendors of the ancient cities are past and forgotten, but humanity lives in the strongholds of the spirit, fastened and secured by prophecy and genius, fulfilled in the greater part by the work and thought of their lives.

So the genius of the inventors, gliding behind the mere mechanical structure of the universe, express their thoughts forward for humanity; perceive the motor powers that are still further to uplift you from the dull tread-mill of toil, light the beacon fires that are to illumine the darkened places of earth.

If one has genius for invention, not only is the principle of that invention perceived in spiritual states, but the application also. It only remains for earthly minds to be exalted to receive the impressions of the mechanical structure before the structure is complete on earth. It is not necessary that the spiritual inventor, or the one in spirit life, shall see any tangible form or fulfillment of his invention, because lhe knows, by the perception of the principle, that it will be correct. It is only when you approach inventions from the material side, from the side of experiment, from the side of bungling construction, that you are obliged to test their capacity.

As mathematics was the sure hey to the construction of the solar system, and long before his telescope was fashioned that could enable him to see the planet that he had discovered, Herschel knew it was there by the law of mathematics, just so the inventor, perceiving the principle correctly, is not obliged to stumble and blunder in his application when he perceives it from the spiritual side of life. Just as surely did Edison perceive the principle of electricity in the nature of the experiments he was to fashion, but could not perfect the idea except in conformity of the method now employed; while knowing the principle correct, was obliged to test through the bungling process of human experiment that which was certainty in his thought.

After a time, when you turn more distinctly to the spiritual source of your inventions; when you believe more that they are directly intended, instead of the result of accident; when you comprehend more that man does not make his discoveries, but that they are waiting for him; when you realize that all that is possible to attain in the way of science is waiting in the atmosphere above and around you, you will then realize that geniuses in spirit-life have but to perceive the truth - not to make it; but to discover where the law is - not to alter it. That is the only work of geniuses in the universe.

Poets do not make poetry; they simply arrive at the state wherein the poems of the universe are written in the soul. Inventors do not make machinery; they simply arrive at that portion of the great universal soul where the principles of life exist, and the language or alphabet for their expression in human form is the machinery that finally is applied to human uses.

The philosophers of the ancient days were not so far out of the way after all, since they found that he who discovers the true principle of life is above all external application of it. And why not? The greatest conquest of the martyrs was not simply to know the truth and be willing to express it, but if needs be, to be willing to die for it. For what is human life in the physical compared to the truth that is immortal V Both ways - the utility of the modern thought and the grandeur of the ancient philosophy - might clasp hands; for as labor is exalted by genius, so those who are in the trammels of labor come to understand the meaning of genius, and live in an atmosphere that is not so dependent upon the daily need. As he who can think of nothing else but food must needs have food more frequently, so he who lives in another atmosphere only can feed his body for the uses of the soul.

Genius, therefore, is employed in spirit-life in perceiving its own; in dwelling in the atmosphere which is adapted to its expression, and in imparting that atmosphere toothers. It is not the imparting of a distinct method that constitutes the true discovery and the true inspiration of earth. You do not want formulas so much as ideas; you are not in need so much of mechanism as of principles. The mechanism will follow when the principles are perceived.