50 PROLEGOMENON. 



circulate only through the Earth and are to be received only 

 by coming in contact with the great Mother of all created beings. 



The blessing of the Mountain is, then, the prophecy not 

 yet heard; the glory of the Mountain is the legend of poesy 

 not yet sung ; for the Mountain is the golden age restored : it 

 is the end of the journey of the Queen of Sheba to the King 

 of the Jews, when she received "from his royal bounty all her 

 desires." The Mountain is the great circle of health squared, 

 the philosopher's stone at last found, the elixir of life surely 

 bottled, more miraculous in its overtures of mercy and 

 happiness than the Utopia of More, the Eepublic of Plato, 

 or the Heaven of Mahomet. 



The perfect publication of the body of man in health and 

 strength seems the highest achievement of all science, 

 of all philosophy. 



It comes at last that sound digestion is the " golden key 

 that opes the palace of felicity" sound digestion is Al- 

 Sirat's bridge, sound digestion is the oyster whose shell is 

 the world. Make existence a divine experiment, make the 

 universe a perpetual enchantment, make thy body an 

 instrument of celestial melodies, by looking through eyes 

 that are not turned within upon a stomach that groans, 

 like the Titan of old, "pain ever, forever." That cancer 

 of the pylorus is a ghastly joke ; that mania from drink is a 

 bitter mockery of the Lord, the tragedy of the soul lost ; 

 inflammation and ulceration of mucous membranes are fear- 

 ful accomplishments of the fire-eater. Alas that this should 

 ever be ! for have not those evil days most surely come 

 when love of money, love of eating and drinking, love of 

 excitement from the nether flames, are the vultures that 

 devour the liver of this fierce-rushing, fire-stealing, heaven- 

 hating, God-defying, Yankee Prometheus ? 



Vicious and insane, long has he wandered far from Nature ; 

 rebellious and ungrateful, he must return again to her 

 charmed influence or perish. The woods and mountains 

 have healing for him : let him flee from the wrath to come. 



The story of the god of the woods is no figment of the 



