60(J The Spirit-Seeker. [Dec. 



" Then I applied to those who were said to have communion with 

 them, and I journeyed to far off lands in hopes of knowing their secrets. 

 I saw withered sybils and hoary magicians, I knew studious monks and 

 learned Jews, and I became familiar with the most famous scholars of 

 all nations, and the wisest priests of all religions ; I asked them to 

 impart their knowledge to one who would use it well. I offered them 

 gold and much treasure ; they accepted my gifts, and I became their 

 pupil. But I soon fovmd, after a short sojourn with them all, that their 

 knowledge was that of a fool, and their learning that of a child. They 

 were liars, imposters, and cheats, who lived upon the credulity of the 

 human race; and I cursed them in the bitterness of my heart, as I 

 shook off the dust from my feet in leaving the secret places in which 

 they dwell. — Now, said I, do I know of a verity, that all men are fools 

 — a superstitious race, who for two thousand years and more have lived 

 in a vain fear and a foolish belief. 



" Do we not die and are buried, or rot on the face of the earth, while 

 the wind dries and the sun bleaches our bones till they are calcined into 

 dust, and we mingle again with the earth from which we came ? Are 

 we not born more helpless than the worm we crush beneath our feet ; 

 and those who are so unfortunate as to last to an old age — do they not live 

 more miserable than the vilest thing on earth ? continually complaining 

 with unnatural peevishness, and yet not possessing sufficient resolution 

 to rid themselves of a burthen they have not the courage to bear 

 resignedly. Do we not perish like the beasts of the field, and the fowls 

 of the air ? and in a few shoit years our names are obliterated from the 

 earth, that none may know of what fashion we were bom. — Such is our 

 being and existence, and such our dissolution. 



" When we die, we die utterly and everlastingly. The fire passes 

 from the clay which it warmed, and the mass crumbles away into utter 

 nothingness ; and yet for many generations, there have been knaves to 

 assert, and fools to believe, that the senseless dust possesses a revivifying 

 power which shall start again into being at some indefinite period — that 

 the spark which animated the living frame, continues to reside in the 

 ashes, which is the residue of the crucible of existence ; and that this 

 spirit, in an untangible and incorporeal form, wanders about the earth, 

 occasionally visible to the fear-struck gaze of the living, or may be 

 commanded to appear by those who are sufficiently fearless to invoke 

 them in solitary places — 



-where graves give up their dead. 



And churchyards yawn.' 



" Oh ! degenerate race ! so credulous and easily deceived — of what 

 use is that reason of which you vaunt ; where is that intellect of which 

 you are so proud ! The beasts that toil in the field expect not an Eden 

 of rest when the butcher has led them to the shambles, and the savage 

 ones of the forest dream not of a Paradise beyond their green savannahs 

 and the liquid clearness of their refreshing streams. Wherefore shouldst 

 thou, O man ! puff thyself up Avith a vain-glory, and hug to thy breast 

 a cloud for an imperishable hope .^ Wherefore shouldst thou carve 

 for thyself immortality, and sentence all nature to be cast in the 

 unfathomable ocean of oblivion ? O, man — man ! obdurate and proud 

 of heart, there shall come a time when thou shalt awake from thy sleep. 



