able antiquity. They assert that it is of divine origin; that it was known to Adam and Abraham, both of whom were animated by the same soul; that the latter taught it by means of his concubines to his children; and that he wore round his neck a precious stone, the bare sight of which cured every disease. We have thus sufficient authority for saying that the Jews were at a very early period addicted to the magical arts.

Lightfoot has proved that the Jews, after their return from Babylon, having entirely forsaken idolatry, and being no longer favoured with the gift of prophecy, gradually abandoned themselves before the coming of our Saviour, to sorcery and divination. The Talmud, which they still regard with a reverence bordering on idolatry, abounds with instructions for the due observance of superstitious rites. After the destruction of their city and temple, many Israelitish necromancers were highly esteemed for their skill in magic. Many rabbins were quite as well versed in the school of Zoroaster as in that of Moses. They prescribed all kinds of conjuration, some for the cure of wounds, some against the dreaded bite of serpents, and others against thefts and enchantments. Like the Magi, they boasted that by means of their art, they held an intercourse with superior beings. Thus Bath-kool, daughter of the voice, is the name given by them to the echo: they regarded it as an oracle, which in the second temple was destined to supply the defect of the Urim and Thummim, the mysterious oracles of the first.

The divinations of the Israelites were founded on the influence of the stars, and on the operations of spirits: that singular people did not, indeed, like the Chaldeans and Magi, regard the heavenly bodies as gods, and genii; but they ascribed to them a great power over the actions and opinions of men. Hence the common proverb, "such a one may be thankful to his stars," when spoken of any person distinguished for his wealth, power, or wisdom. The mazzal-tool was the happy, and the mazzal-ra the malignant influence; and the fate of every one was supposed to be regulated by either one or the other. Like the notions from which their opinions were derived, the Jews constructed horoscopes, and predicted the fate of every one from his birth. Thus if any one were born under the sun, it was prognosticated that he would be fair, generous, open-hearted, and capricious; under Venus, rich and wanton; under Mercury, witty, and of a retentive memory; under the Moon, sickly, and inconstant; under Saturn, unfortunate; under Jupiter, just, and under Mars, quarrelsome.

As to the spirits whose agency was so often employed in divinanation, we have full information from Manasseh, Ben Israel, and others. "Of wicked spirits," says the author, "there are several varieties, of which some are intelligent and cunning, others ignorant and stupid. The former flying from one extent of the earth to the other, become acquainted with the general cause of human events, both past and present, and sometimes with those of the future. Hence many mortals conjure these spirits, by whose assistance they effect wonderful things. The books of the cabalists, and of some other writers, contain the names of the spirits usually invoked, and a particular account of the ceremonies are accompanied. If these spirits appear to one man alone, they portend no good; if to two persons together, they presage no evil : they were never known to appear to three mortals assembled together."

The magical rites of the Jews were, and indeed are still, chiefly performed on various important occasions, as on the birth of a child, a marriage, &c. On such occasions the evil spirits are believed to be peculiarly active in their malignity, which can only be counteracted by certain enchantments. Thus Tobit, according to the directions of the angel Raphael, exorcised the demon Asmodeus, whom he compelled, by means of the perfume of the heart and liver of a fish, to fly into upper Egypt.

Josephus does not think magic so ancient as many writers of this nation do; he makes Solomon the first who practised an art which is so powerful against demons; and the knowledge of which, he asserts, was communicated to that prince by immediate inspiration.. The latter, continues the historian, invented and transmitted to posterity in his writings, certain incantations, for the cure of diseases, and for the expulsion and perpetual banishment of wicked spirits from the bodies of the possessed. This mode of cure, he further observes, is very prevalent in our nation. It consisted, according to his description, in the use of a certain root, which was sealed up, and held under the nose of the person

possessed; the name of Solomon, with the words prescribed by him, was then pronounced, and the demon forced immediately to retire. He does not even hesitate to assert, that he himself has been an eye-witness of such an effect produced on a person named Eleazer, in presence of the emperor Vespasian and his sons.

On the great day of propitiations, the Jews of the sixteenth century, in order to avert the angel of Samuel, endeavoured to appease him by presents. On that day, and on no other throughout the year, they believed that power was given him to accuse them. They aimed, therefore, to prevent their grand enemy from carrying accusations against them, by rendering it impossible for him to know the appointed day. For this purpose they used a somewhat singular stratagem; in reading the usual portion of the law, they were careful to leave out the beginning and the end,— an omission which the fiend was by no means prepared to expect on so important an occasion.

The cabal is chiefly conversant with enchantments, which are effected by a certain number of characters. It gives directions how to select and combine some passages and proper names of Scripture, which are believed both to render supernatural beings visible, and to produce many wonderful and surprising effects. In this manner the Malcha-sheva, (the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon), has often been invoked, and as often made to appear. But the most famous wonders have been effected by the name of the sacred word Jehovah, which is, when read with points, multiplied by the Jewish doctors into twelve, forty-two, and seventy-two letters, of which words are composed that possess miraculous energy. By these Moses slew the Egyptians; by these Israel was preserved from the destroying angel of the Wilderness, and by these Elijah separated the waters of the river, to open a passage for himself and Elisha. The name of the archfiend is likewise used in magical devices. The five Hebrew letters of which that name is composed, exactly constitute the number 364, one less than the days in the whole year. Now the Jews stated, that owing to the wonderful virtue of the number comprised in the name of Satan, he is prevented from accusing them for an equal number of days: hence the stratagem of which we have before spoken, for depriving him of the power to injure them on the only day in which that power is granted him.

THE MYSTERIOUS MONK OF

¡ST. PETERSBURGH.

The Emperor of Russia has within his dominions at the present time one of the most extraordinary men of the age, and who has attained a longevity which renders even his existence a prodigy. He is an old Russian monk recently from Jerusalem, and has communicated to the Emperor some startling predictions of the future destinies of Europe. This monk is stated to be the very same who, from Catherine to Alexander, always warned the Russian sovereigns of the fatal catastrophes which have befallen them. On his first mission, he came to St. Petersburgh, asked to speak to the Empress Catherine, and was repulsed by the palace people. He persisted in his application, but was again rejected. Unable to obtain access to the Empress, he stationed himself on a road through which he knew she sometimes passed, and watched an opportunity of addressing her. When he saw her, he approached her, and extended his hand to her, to prevent her Majesty's suite from driving away a religious mendicant. The Empress gave him some money, and he, after thanking her, said to the wife of Peter III., "Madam, never go alone to any place, for a misfortune will befal you." The Empress looked at the bold beggar, and taking his simple looks for a sign of mental derangement, ordered him to be conveyed to a state prison. Three months after, Catherine was found dead of apoplexy, in a place which M. de Chateaubriand has ventured to name aloud in the French academy, whilst dwelling on the history of one of the emperors of Rome, but which we cannot designate; all that we can say is, that she had been to it alone, in despite of the wizard's warning. On the demise of the Empress, Paul I., remembering the monk who had foreseen the death of Catherine, sent for him, and told him that he might come to the palace whenever he had occasion to speak to the emperor. "I have nothing to say to him just now," replied the necromancer, "but I may have something later." He returned to his convent, and was not heard of for four years after. He then made his appearance again at the palace, solicited an audience, in compliance with the Emperor's former promise, and when he was in the presence of Paul I., said to him "Your subjects are discontented; and God tells me, that if yon do not alter your conduct, you will be strangled." The prophet's audacity irritated the Emperor to such a degree, that by his commands the monk was once more thrown into a dungeon. The wizard had been clear-sighted enough; in 1801, Paul I. was strangled. This is not all. Alexander succeeded Paul 1. Struck at the coincidence of the death of Catherine, and his father with the monk's predictions, he restored him to his convent. After a lapse of two years the prophet again made his appearance at the Imperial Palace. When his arrival was announced to Alexander, the latter ordered him to be brought in. "What hast thou to predict to me?" asked the Emperor. Is it another violent death?" "It is not the death of a man, sir, replied his inauspicious visitor, "it is that of a great city-yes, one of the most splendid and richest cities of the empire will shortly perish. The French will penetrate into Moscow, and Moscow will vanish in smoke, like a handful of straw, or dry leaves.' "Madman," exclaimed Alexander," go thou and pray God to cure thy poor head. Begone to Archangel, its air is wholesome to the insane!" A convent of Archangel did therefore receive the monk, whose strange fate was to quit a convent for a prison, and a prison for a convent. The year 1812 beheld the accomplishment of his prophecy, when Alexander recalled the diviner, to whom he offered a conpensation for his captivities. The monk only asked for a sum of money to enable him to proceed to Jerusalem, where he wished to visit the holy places. The money was given, and he took his departure; and at this moment there is in the fortress a monk who has come back from Palestine, and who is the acknowledged prophet of 1796.

FRAGMENTS FOR THE FANCIFUL.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE FUTURE.-He who first breathed the principle of existence into the human body, never intended that the grandest of his earthly mysteries should be withheld from

human understanding. It is idle to allege that because we do not understand that we should not. Man, the noblest of God's creation, has not been gifted with powers, comparatively with the rest of the creatures that inhabit this earth, supernatural, for the mere end of blindly sitting down to behold the glories that surround him, without striving to withdraw the veil that seems to hang over them.

THE BELIEVERS AND THE SCEPTICS.-Sir Isaac Newton was a firm believer in judicial astrology; he who first calculated the distance of the stars, and revealed the laws of motion by which the Supreme Being organises and keeps in their orbits unnumbered worlds; he who had revealed the mysteries of the stars themselves. Dryden, Sir Isaac Newton's contemporary, believed in the same Hobbes, who wrote the "Leviathan," a deist in creed, had a most extraordinary belief in spirits and apparitions. Locke, the philosopher, the matter-of-fact Locke, who wrote, and in fact established the decision of things by the rule of right reason, laying down the rule itself-he delighted in studying the occult sciences. Cardinal Richelieu, the minister of a great

celestial art.

empire, believed in the calculation of nativities. Tasso believed in his good angel, and was often observed to converse with what he fancied was a spirit or demon, which he declared he saw. Dr. Samuel Johnson was notoriously addicted to the observance of omens and fortunate days. Sir Christopher Wren, who built St. Paul's Cathedral, was a believer in dreams. He had a pleurisy once, being in Paris, and dreamed that he was in a place where palm trees grew, and that a woman in a romantic dress gave him some dates. The next day he sent for some dates, in the full belief of their revealed virtues, and they cured him. Dr. Halley had the same belief. Melancthon believed in dreams or apparitions, and used to say that one came to him in his study, and told him to bid Guynæus, his friend, to go away for some time, as the Inquisition sought his life. His friend went away in consequence, and thus really saved his life. It would be an easy task to extend this list of the good and great men who have thus thought and felt, but the above may convince the matter-of-fact philosophers we have at least authority on our side.

FATALITY OF A TITLE. The first prince who bore the title of Duke of York, was Edmund, son of Edward III. The second prince of the same royal house bearing the title was Richard Duke of York, grandson of Edmund, the first Duke, whose pretension to the crown originated the disastrous civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster; he was slain at the battle of Wakefield, in December, 1460, and his head, together with the head of his young son, the Earl of Rutland, was placed over the principal gate of the city of York. His eldest son, Edward Earl of March, succeeded him in the Dukedom, and afterwards became King under the title of Edward IV.; he died in 1488, in the forty-second year of his age, not without strong suspicions of being poisoned by his ambitious and aspiring brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester. Edward IV.'s second son, Richard Duke of York, was, together with his brother King Edward V., barbarously murdered by their uncle, afterwards King Richard III., in the Tower of London. The next prince of the blood royal bearing the title was Henry, son of Henry VII., who, on the death of his elder brother, Prince Arthur, became Prince of Wales, and succeeded to the throne as King Henry VIII. The reign of that despot was marked with cruelty and bloodshed; and although his son, Edward VI., and his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, successively reigned after him, yet, upon the death of the latter, the direct line of Tudor became extinct. The title of Duke of York was not borne by any prince of the blood royal for a period of upwards of one hundred years, when King James I. bestowed that title on his second son, Charles, afterwards the unfortunate Charles I. The fate of this prince is sufficiently well known. His son James, Duke of York, afterwards King James II., was compelled to abdicate the British throne, and died an exile at Paris. The next Duke of York was Edward, the younger brother of King George III., who died at the early age of twenty-seven. Frederick, Duke of York, the second son of George III., was the last prince who bore the title, and neither his life nor death was enviable.Should the title be revived in the person of the prince whose birth has given rise to such expectation, we trust he will be more fortunate than his predecessors.

THE ORACLE OF DESTINY.

In which all Questions from Correspondents are answered gratuitously, in accordance with the true and unerring principles of Astrological Science.

TO OUR QUERISTS.-This department of our work involves the solution of "horary questions," so called from a figure of the heavens being erected for the hour in which the question is asked, and from the indications manifest in which the corresponding answers are derived. It will, therefore, be absolutely necessary for all correspondents to specify the exact hour and day on which they commit the question to paper for our judgment, and the replies will then be given accordingly. As this important feature of the starry science will necessarily occupy considerable time which he is willing to devote, without reward, to benefit the public, THE ASTROLOGER hopes that the liberality of his offer will protect him from the correspondence of those who desire adjudication upon frivolous subjects, or who are merely actuated thereto by motives of idle and foolish curiosity. All subjects on which they may be really anxious, can be solved with absolute certainty; and the election of favourable periods for marriage, speculation, or commencing any new undertaking with advantage, will be cheerfully and readily pointed out from week to week. All communications addressed to "THE ASTROLOGER" will be considered as strictly confidential, and the initials only given in the oracle.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

W. R. (Birmingham)-You had better remain where you now are, but do not marry for another year at least. There is a surprise in store for you.

W. JOY.-Write or apply personally on the 18th of March next, and you will be successful. The child has a good prospect of succeeding in life if he survive the fourth year. The mark appears to be on the right side of the body beneath the shoulder.

F. H. A LEO.-By unremitting attention and bold perseverance you will succeed, but not without an unavoidable delay. Be careful of fire.

A. J. B.-Do not leave your present situation for a month at least. There is an elderly gentleman who will speedily introduce you to a

commercial firm.

FRANCES.-Apply or write on March 15th, in the afternoon, for a situation as housekeeper.

E. W. H. must write. We have repeatedly stated that interviews cannot be granted, except under peculiar circumstances.

B.-The production will be rejected where it now remains, but try another.

CLARA. There are two parties with whom you have been lately intimate, but the one inquired after is infinitely the more honourable, and would make you an affectionate husband. He is not the one, however, destined to be your partner for life.

J. BOARDMAN.-Owing to our correspondent not having followed the instructions given in our former numbers for asking horary questions, we cannot solve the problem with certainty; but from the indication of another scheme, we should say the party inquired after was alive, and that he would speedily return. Canada is pointed out as the place where he now sojourns.

SCEPTIC.-The article shall be inserted, provided the arguments on both sides are temperate and fair. Truth is invariably strengthened by controversy, and from that we shall not shrink. E. F. (Fitzroy-square.)-The question proposed can only be correctly determined from the nativity. The horary figure is pretty accurate, and has good indications of coming prosperity for the querent, Both Zadkiel and Raphael give instructions in the art; for ourselves, we cannot spare the time.

AGNES DE LA ROCHE, KATE BELMONT, AND EMILY MORSON.-Fie! fie! young ladies; would ye attempt to deceive the seer? If we had a Cerberus head, we might attempt an answer; but ask your clever cousin to translate "Tria juncta in uno." Is there no dark-eyed swain in the neighbourhood of Newington-causeway who could resolve your single doubt?

L. H. Y.-Yes; and by the result of a marriage, which, if united with industry, will provide a competency for the querent that another country will receive.

INQUIRENDO.-A delay unforeseen by yourself will protract the period considerably; but you will be-must be-ultimately successful. The acquisition of knowledge is only attained by indefatigable study. We will endeavour to elicit further information for our correspondent by the next number.

L. L. D.-No. You will marry another whom you have not yet seen. Parental objections are the obstacles to this.

G. B. Full instructions will be given in our "Self-instructor." S. J. ASHTON.-Let us have the hour of your birth, and we will respond to your request; but, from present appearances, we should think not. X. Y. Z. (Pimlico.)-Your brother is still living, and will communicate with you in a month. You will be united to him you love before the year has expired; but his resources will be derived from a different source to what he now anticipates.

L. L.-We cannot undertake the casting of nativities merely to "afford much amusement;" we will, however, give him an outline ef his person and character, though we cannot unfold his destiny without

the hour.

"BETSY."-You will soon encounter a change in your destiny which will cause you to travel. Avoid the associations of law. THE MYSTIC INFLUENCES OF LIFE.-In compliance with the wishes of several correspondents, who wish to forward to us their own solutions of the problem proposed in the leading article of our third number. we postpone the conclusion of the arguments there made use of until

our next.

TYRO.-The planet Saturn is now a morning star in the constellation capricorn. You were born under Jupiter, which is now in Pisces, and will pass the meridian at a quarter-past one on the afternoon of Saturday next, the 15th instant. Choose that time and that hour for the undertaking you mention. SPECULATOR is correct in his surmise. Some potent meteoric influence is the cause of this unprecedently protracted winter. Saturn and the moon in aspect always produce cold.

R. S. (York)-Yes; if not taken till April, see future Calendar. THOMASINA. You will remain in the country which gave you birth. GOAT AND SATURN.-First letter answered privately. To the second, the harvest in the midland counties will be plentiful, but hops and wall fruit deficient, both in quantity and quality. The rest will be average crops.

J. D. (Swansea )-Move not, but persevere in thy present position.
LEO. (Bristol.)-Trust not, but let the next fortnight resolve thy doubts.
Your pecuniary hopes will be realised in the beginning of next month.
Write to Zadkiel, near Painswick, Gloucester.

H. S. B.-Your father has changed his residence, and gone further up the country, but he will speedily return. A letter of his is on the passage. You seem to have some trouble of another kind on your mind.

E. S. (Wells-street)-Study the papers now in course of publication. An article on the Rosicrucians will speedily appear; in the meantime read Sir E. L Bulwer's romance of Zanoni 1, choose a mechanical trade; 2, Great Britain; 3. None 4, No. The Conjuror's Column will be resumed occasionally.

CUPID. Think first whether it be prudent to wed at all. Under any circumstances, let the present year, which will be an eventful one to you, pass by. Thanks for suggestion.

JOSEPH HOUGHTON.-You will change your present place, but not your business. In 1845 you will be linked with a partner for life, of your own age and condition, which will still remain the same.

The Self Instructor in Astrology, No. III., is unavoidably excluded in the present number from want of room, but will be resumed in our

next

T. G. (Dublin.)-We cannot undertake the irksome duties of private correspondence, which in this instance, particularly, would be unnecessary. By application to a superior, upon whom you will shortly have it in your power to confer a favour, you will remain. A promotion will slowly though surely follow.

EUDORA-Your accomplishments and your evident amiability of disposition deserve a better fate, but duty compels us to add, you will be unhappy if the engagement at present subsisting is concluded. Could we have the hour of birth?

W A. J.- Continue to work with iron, and prosper.

J. A. A. (Bristol.)-The influence of the "Georgian Sidus," or, as we prefer the appellation, Herschel. Let the royalty succumb to intellect, has elicited much interesting controversy among the learned. We shall duly advert to these opinions when come to speak of the astrological attributes of the planets. Our own experience has tended to prove its beneficial influence, but much depends on its aspects. The complimentary lines forwarded do credit to the writer, but it would savour too much of egotism to give them insertion.

LA FLEUR-It is our earnest wish to elevate, not to degrade the science, and therefore, though we occasionally adopt metaphysical arguments beyond the reach of ordinary apprehensions, we have our reward in the knowledge that a spirit of thought is being diffused, which must purify and ennoble the heart of the most groyelling amongst the worldly minded.

All correspondents whose communications have not Leen responded to in this number, will find their replies in our next.

All letters and communications are requested to be addressed to "The Astrologer," 11, Wellington-street North, Strand, London.

London: Printed by S. TAYLOR, George-yard, Drury.court, strand. Published by G. Vickers; and sold by Strange, Cleave, Berger, Purkess, Clements, Barth, and all Booksellers.

of the universe-can injure or destroy, we have here a still

THE INVOCATION.

sentiments, all sudden and irresistible impulses, are the prophetic promptings of the immortal soul. The innate feeling that impels a man to pursue a life of virtue rather than of vice, is but one ordinary phase in which this secret working of the soul becomes manifest. Our creed, then, resolves itself into this-that the soul is prophetic, and that we have a silent yet ever willing monitor to lead us to future benefits, or to avert from us threatening evils. We would, therefore, exhort all to obey those mysterious impulses to which we have before adverted; and from our own ex perience, as well as from that of others, we guarantee they can never be led astray. As true science advances, we believe that this doctrine will reveal some of the hitherto inexplicable myste ries of that extraordinary Mesmeric state denominated clairvoyance, which, by throwing the merely mental powers into a trance, gives the soul greater freedom and liberty of action. The metaphysical poet, Wordsworth, must have had some conception of this influence when he felt

"A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts-a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls them through all things."

We believe that this is the first time such an idea has been publicly broached, although it may be that at this very instant we are unconsciously enunciating the opinions of another. Well aware, notwithstanding, that the subject is one capable of much more expansion than our limits will at present afford, we have deemed it advisable to reverentially offer this solution, in default of receiving any other satisfactory reply from our correspondents; and with this explanation we most earnestly commend the subject as one deserving every attention from those who would examine the secret springs by which we "live, move, and have our being."

PHILOSOPHY OF OUR FAIRY TALES.-The late well-known invention of weaving from so brittle and apparently intractable a material as glass has now demonstrated not only the possibility, but even the actual feasibility, of the existence of "the little glass slipper," and has removed the incident in the fairy tale of Cinderella from its hitherto assigned position in the region of fancy and improbability, into that of sober truth and practical reality. Is this but another of those mysterious hints of the anterior existence of long since lost and forgotten arts, occasionally to be recognised beneath their shadowy disguise of magic and necromancy, in the ancient popular tales and works of fiction, more especially in those of Eastern origin?-such, for instance, as the indication of the telescope, to be traced with a degree of probability closely bordering on certainty, in the story of the "Magic Tube" of the wonder-searching prince of the Arabian tale, and by the instrumentality of which objects and personages at a distance far beyond the reach of mortal observation were clearly discernible to the eye of the fortunate possessor; or, again, of the former knowledge of steam-locomotives, in the curious details, in another of these oriental tales, of the enchanted wooden horse, or machine, by the aid of which, and "by the mere turning of a peg!"-[could the allusion to the machinery of a steam-locomotive engine well be more explicit under the circumstances ?]-the party seated on the machine could transport himself to any spot, and in any direction he wished?

"The stars dim twinkled through his airy form."-OSSIAN.

The probability that the beings of another world sometimes hold communion with the children of men, is a supposition which the universal idea among all nations, and the tradition of all time, seem to corroborate-mingling in our dreams and in our transitory moments of happiness, and suffusing the heart with those feelings. which were never excited by wealth or power. Let the worshippers of pride and of gold say in their wisdom, "It is a dream"-the wild vision is congenial to my soul. Nor shall the phrenologist stay me with his descant on the organ of "wonder," nor the slave: man's opinion?-even the wisest speaks but from the instinct of! of gold with his calculations on the loss of time. But what is his nature, when his inherent thought is new and if my instinct cower, yet shall my immortal dare the test; and, with the magic. is equal, so are my opinions-and though my mortal part may rites of old, will I evoke the distant and the dead, and bring the spirit from its sphere, or the ghoul from the caverns of the earth, and with a confidence that belongs not to the clay, encircle myself and hold communion with them-not for gold but for knowledgewith those magic symbols whose formation were no doubt traced by" intelligences" of the starry orbs, for the guidance of the Magi of the ancient world.

The young moon shone brightly in the western sky, the light of her golden crescent mingling with the silver beams of that sweet star which mortals dedicate to love and beauty-swelling at intervals through the dark forest, the winds murmur'd their midnight melody-the incense burnt "deeply, darkly, beautifully blue" on the flowing altar-the last invocation died away in echoes which seemed unearthly to my soul-when suddenly all the winds of Heaven appeared to burst from their dwelling in the clouds, and swept from the mountain top with thunder on their wings, bending the trees with a violence that contrasted strangely with the still with shapeless form, majestic, measureless, bright but not shining, and starry night. Riding on the whirlwind, he whom I evoked, dim but yet palpable, stood before me, and with a voice blending the music of the nightingale with the echoes of the roaring seas,

demanded

my will!

"Dread spirit!" I cried, in faltering accents, for like sobs my mortal fears choked the utterance of my soul-" dread spirit," I thy aid to solve some mysteries which curb the aspirations of my cried, in a voice that seem'd unearthly, even to myself" I seek finite mind."

"Hast thou, then" he sternly demanded, "dived the depths of all mortal knowledge? It will be time enough for thee to ask for things beyond thy sphere, when all is known to thee that now dwelleth in living hearts."

"I would then seek of thee the wisdom that would relieve and cure what are called the incurable maladies of our race-the power to stay the fiend Consumption, that feedeth on the young and beautiful, and devoureth the roses of sweet lips, and quencheth the fire of eyes brighter than the stars of Heaven."

"Hast thou, then," he again demanded, some dear one that needs thy aid? or is it fame or gold that seek to mingle their impurities with thy pretended commiseration?"

In the wickedness of our mortal nature I tried to answer, "No;" but my soul bent my recreant body to the dust, as I silently acknowledged the justice of the genii and his power.

"Child of clay," he resumed, "I read thy thoughts-thou wouldst ask me of the eternal and the future-can all the boasted knowledge of thy race produce the humblest flower? Can science resuscitate the withered oak which lightning hath shiver'd?-or bore through the thin covering even of their hollow world?-with all their vaunted engines drag the kraken from his bed of pearl, or quench the volcano's slumbering fire? Can pride or power breathe into the nostrils of the mite or of the elephant the breath of life? When man can do the least of these things, it will then be time enough to doubt whether there be superior powers in infinite pro gression to the Infinite. If thy thoughts could gaze beyond the grave, think of the miseries of the good and the joys of the wicked in this life—of the ebb and flow-of the attraction and repulsion—