Perhaps in this connection we may present to you certain points from which you will feel obliged to dissent. They may seem like vague theories and wild speculations, yet they are truths which you are yet to realize in your eternal experience,--truths which this one of whom we speak will present to you in repetition to-night. There is a power in man which is closely connected with the things of external life, and draws inspiration from nature and the associations of his fellow-men. There is a power, also, in every human being superior to the spirit, and that is the soul, or innermost life--which is a divine and indestructible principle. When, therefore, the garment of flesh is laid aside,--when the mortal puts on its immortality,--the spirit goes forth precisely as it is. If it has been under the influence of ungoverned passion; if it has striven, through mad ambition, to attain to some cherished ideal, still does it feel that impetus, and its earthly longings and aspirations must pass away through a gradual transformation. You may dissent from this, but the change of the earthly garment does not effect a radical change in the spirit. And thus, as the spirit of Edgar A. Poe started forth on its celestial journey, all that bound him to earth still held a certain degree of influence over him. “Life is one eternal progress,” and only by progression and the gradual development of his nobler nature could he outlive that bondage. In many respects he had loved life and the things of earth. In his intercourse with men he could not free himself from “the sins which did so easily beset him.” Neither could he restrain that sensitiveness and irritability of nature which so often destroyed the peace of his outer and inner life, and therefore he must necessarily outgrow that in higher conditions, and under more favorable influences. As he gradually attained to a sublimer consciousness of the beautiful and true, much of the wild and fitful fire peculiar to his genius departed from him, and there came in its stead a majestic flow of inspiration, solemn and grand as the music of the spheres. He saw that there were harmonious relations awaiting him; and as his soul was rich in sympathy and love, he aspired to those conditions, and he could not rest until he had attained unto them. The hinderance to his perfect peace was in his own spirit, and he realized it. It was for him the commencement of a mighty struggle,-- “When the golden bowl,--life’s token,-- Into shining shards was broken.”