Page:The Other Life.djvu/37

 derful things were done away back in the ages of myth and fable. Let them be repeated now, with the necessary modifications, beneath the critical eyes of philosophy and science.

"Let the man to whom this sublime mission shall be entrusted, be fully prepared for it by all good agencies visible and invisible. Let him be a man of great intellectual capacity and of thorough philosophical and scientific culture. Let his character be pure and spotless, and let his catholicity be so broad and beautiful that sectarianism would not only be abhorrent, but impossible to his nature. Let him be superior to all ambitions in Church and State, exempt from all selfish and personal considerations, loving the truth wholly for its own sake. Let him be no poet who will see facts through the medium of fancy, and no metaphysician who will mystify by his abstractions, instead of instructing by his statements. Let him be purehearted, clear-thoughted, truthful, practical and thoroughly trustworthy.

"Let Providence prepare such a man for us, and in the maturity of all his powers open his spiritual sight into that vast spiritual realm which is said to lie unseen around us; as he opened the eyes of Moses to see the glory of God on the mount; as