If human life be a trial, if it be a period during which we are preparing for a new and happier existence, there is no need to look beyond that truth for an explanation of why we are on the earth, why we are living to-day rather than to-morrow, and in one latitude of our globe rather than in another; there is no need to ask why we are born in the earth, and not in Mercury, Saturn, or Mars. Whether we are living now, or are to live later, whether we have been born in the earth, in Mercury, or in Mars, whether we inhabit Europe or Africa,--all these things are utterly unimportant to our destiny. We are undergoing a period of preparation indispensably necessary to be accomplished before we pass into the superhuman condition; and the place, the moment of our transit, the country in which we sojourn, the planet which is assigned to us as the scene of this trial, are without any importance in the part which we have to play in accordance with the intentions of nature. We are making an immense journey through the worlds, and a short sojourn on the Earth makes a part of our vast itinerary. Whatever may be the corner of the universe in which we find ourselves we cannot escape the trial imposed upon us by God, a trial by strife and suffering, a period of moral and physical pain to which we must submit before we can be promoted in the hierarchy of creatures. The time, the place, the good or evil moral conditions ought therefore to be indifferent to us. What is needful for us is a brief sojourn on a planet in which this trial may be accomplished, and it may be accomplished on the Earth, or in Mars, or in Mercury, and on any spot of the Earth's surface one chooses to think of.