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 24 in a state not inaptly termed quandary. A recent evolution from dust, what can he know, or what language can he speak? He is like a babe, without speech or knowledge, and, therefore, without identity; so that with Daniel, when he acquires speech, he can say, "I set my face toward the earth, and I was dumb."

What then remains for the establishment in these resurrected men and women of a consciousness of having existed as members of human society three thousand years, more or less, before? All that remains is that, like Daniel, their lips be touched with the lightning of divine power—"He touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake." This magic and enlightening touch restored to him the consciousness he had lost on falling into the deep sleep, in which all his vigour was turned in him into corruption, and he retained no strength. The electrical vibrations of his former self, by that potent touch upon his lips, were flashed upon his brain; and he was enabled to give an account of himself as affected by the vision before he slept. And so with the just and the unjust in general. Their histories will be flashed upon their brains, being transferred thither by Almighty power from the divine and electrical page upon which they are all inscribed. So that truly of the dead it may be said, "they all live to Him" (Luke xx. 38).

The analogy of nature is often referred to in the Scripture in illustration of the deep things of the Spirit. It is reasonable that the one should be laid under contribution in expounding the other; because the beings to be taught are natural beings; and the exponent is the Creator of them all. The explanation I have given of the manner in which consciousness of identity is impressed upon newly-created beings, was suggested by the remarkable effect of lightning recently observed upon the bodies of a man and his son, killed by a flash while sheltering under a tree. A perfect likeness of the tree was flashed upon them. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is the light." The lines and shadows of the tree had been imparted to the subtle fluid, so that, when it touched their bodies, it flashed upon them a likeness identical with the original; and thus the likeness was transferred from the lightning to the bodies. All that is required in resurrection is, identity of form or image, arid identity of likeness: so that the intellectual and moral likeness of a pre-resurrectional man be not flashed upon the post-resurrectional image of a woman. This would be confusion.

From this view of the development of identity, it will be seen how futile are all human efforts to circumvent resurrection. The enemies of the saints in various ages have thought to prevent their resurrection by burning their bodies, and scattering their dust to