Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/43

 manipulators of Nature's laboratory, and lo! anew the world and age rejoices, though individuals and communities may mourn. There is truth, therefore, in the doctrine of fore-ordination. But this truth is general always, and not particular, for while the current and area of events are pre-established, still every soul, in any and all its states, has an absolute sphere of self-itivity;—the law of Distinctness permits it to take the utmost advantage of conditions for its own improvement. For instance, take that which constitutes a peach tree, or a rose, give it and its successors the best possible chance to unfold its latent properties, and the rose or peach principle will put forth, in the course of two generations, a forest of beauties, an ocean of perfume, a mine of loveliness, which, judging the plants by what appeared originally, they never contained; and yet nothing is more certain than that every plant, even the prickly pear, the bristling thorn, and unsightly thistle, contain the germs of a beauty too vast to be comprehended by mortal man. In the succeeding pages there is an account of God and Monads which will add much to the needed light on this subject. I cannot express them now for lack of suitable conditions, which can only be had in the midst of religious calm, holy solitude, and beneath a more sunny sky than bends over us at the present writing. As the appearance of my dress faded away, and the truth just faintly limned, flashed across me, I began to realize somewhat of the majesty of the thing called soul; and saw that, while the dress was a mere spectral garb, so also were those of the little girl and the old man—they were illusory—mere will-woven garments,