1.16 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
analysis, and are states or conditions self-induced to 
accord with the symbols which exist outwardly; as posi¬ 
tive electricity always generates in the body with which 
it comes in contact a negative fluid, in order to restore 
the harmony between them. 
To the soul, virtue is aboriginal; self-existent, not 
induced. It perceives and appreciates there and then, 
without weighing and estimating what pertains to itself; 
and plucks its own fruit where it stands, if there the 
fruit be. It is independent of experience, and does not 
perceive its objects in any relation as to time. In what 
bosom soever it abides, it sheds fragrance and music, as 
though flowers were blooming there, and angelic fingers 
were sweeping the tough fibres of the heart, to make 
them overflow with melody. Every scene and home of 
life is made sacred by it; and Nature, conscious of its 
high relations to the Most High God, always heralds the 
great phases of its doom. 
The tendency of the age is to sensualism on the one 
hand, and to extreme intellectualism on the other. But 
Iiowever grand and imposing the achievements of the 
intellect, in the wonders of the laboratory or the engine- 
house, that alone is insufficient. We care too much for 
algebra, and chemistry, and the affairs of the household, 
and too little for that of the church; nay, every house¬ 
hold should become a church, where the pervading spirit 
of all loveliness may sit enshrined, and where her votaries 
may kneel with fervent hearts to worship and offer sacri¬ 
fice. It is our consuming folly to view all things in the 
cold light of the intellect, and to judge by the acquisition 
of facts, rather than by the enlargement of the highest 
