to the irresistible expansion of the truths it appropriated at its inception out of nature’s evolutionary process of social development, viz., the regard for one another, as a guide in all the actions of life, and that hope eternal which spiritualizes and elevates our existence. The coming of your Messiah was less than you have believed, because you have mistaken a personality, in which the genius of advanced and salutary doctrines manifested itself, for a part and presence of the Deity himself. As the promulgation of thoughts that were conceived under the inspiration and pressure of a natural force in the process of social development is less than the awful presence and verbal communication of the Deity, so, in the same degree, was the coming of your Messiah less. But you will have a second coming, my brother, unperverted by the craft of your seers, and uncontaminated with the superstitions of a crude society like the first. It will be of you and a part of you, raising you up to a higher esteem of yourselves, glorifying you as the progenitors of all good, under a divine and irresistible law of betterment. It will relieve you of the evil thoughts that have condemned and degraded you. The new hope, like a newly discovered strength, will push out in all directions, in the exercise of its salutary work. Instead of discourse and exhortation to the lowly and down trodden, with promises as impossible of denial as of verification, it will lift them upon their feet by the strong hand of a better social method. Like the first coming, its symbolic picture will be carved into monuments, reproduced in all the departments of art, and cherished as the chief reminder of your duties and obligations to the Deity. It will be no symbol of anguish and sorrow, like the first, but in place of it THE DIVINE FIGURE OF A STRONG MAN SUPPORTING AND ENCOURAGING A WEAK ONE. Yes, my brother, you will have a s-e-c-o-n-d c-o-m-- * * * * * What is all this? I raise myself upon my couch The sun is an hour up. Through my window I see an enquiring group, marvelling at my tardiness. My cows linger for their milking, and utter their complaints in a gentle lowing. My pet deer stand with their large wondering eyes fixed upon me, and the appearance of my face at the pane has drawn toward me my whole restless and scrabbling flock of poultry, impatient for their morning feed. I look toward the easy chair and it is empty. My celestial visitor has departed. FOOTNOTE: [A] Draper’s Intellectual Development of Europe. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. Archaic spelling which may have been in use at the time of publication has been retained. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man from Mars, by William Simpson