through the shining hierarchy of Heaven, until we stop at God, the centre of all life and the sun of all perfection, beyond Whom is nullity. Thus do I believe that man is linked with all animal and vegetable forms below him, and that in each change the higher type takes something from the lower and preserves some characteristics of it, and that man loves God best when he loves all the types below him--the beast, the bird, the insect, the flower, and even the atom. The line from God to the atom, and from the atom to God, seems to me clear and uninterrupted; and thus the whole of this great universe is bound together by clear, though sometimes unseen relations, and radiates from God, its centre. And who knows but that in other planets there are intelligences superior to us, forming more links in this grand chain? When man dies, he goes back to the dust whence he sprang. He mingles with the brook; he blossoms in the flowers of the field; he is crystalized into the mineral; and thus part after part is absorbed, until only the original atom is left, which is the foundation upon which God has built up all this marvelous superstructure. Purified of all the bad qualities of animal and vegetable, and other material organisms, the soul, or what the philosophers call the Ego, only is left, and is only fitted to be in the presence of the Originator of this complex mechanism. Exactly where the soul comes in, in tracing the changes from type to type, I confess, is a difficult matter to solve. The physical peculiarities are easily defined, but the spiritual developments are very subtle. I am free to confess to you that I don't believe man has a monopoly of all the soul there is in the world. I am prepared to admit that some men don't have souls at all, but only instincts. The common saying, "This man hasn't the soul of a louse," I think may be literally true. Some animals, I solemnly believe, have larger, better and truer souls than some men. All the learned arguments in the world would never convince me that the faithful horse, who is diligent in business, who understands what is said to him, and who stands there weeping big tears out of his eyes, and uttering a mournful cry under the lash of the brute who is driving him, has not a soul, and more than that, a better and bigger soul than his driver. The mental acumen of all the schools would never convince me that the faithful dog who loses his master, searches for him day and night, only to find his grave, and, lying upon that grave, refuses food and drink, and, moaning piteously, dies upon his master's sleeping place, has not a soul. Did you ever look directly into the eyes of the ox, and not see the soul of the animal looking out at you in those soft and expressive orbs? To my mind, blind old Homer never said a finer thing than when he called the mother of the gods, "Ox-eyed Juno," although I think it was an injustice to the animal, because Juno was