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HAROLD’S DISCUSSIONS. 
Who says the laws of nature came by chance, 
Without an author and without design, 
When all of human wisdom can not make 
A worm, nor vest the simplest form with life ? 
Who says the mystery of life is solved 
By autogenesis ? 
Man, like all animated things, began 
A pregnant atom made of dust, and doomed 
To suffer and to die; but in that dust 
A spirit dwells no other creature knows. 
Sole image of a life-creating Power 
Which conquers death, and rebegotten man 
By death is born again to endless life. 
Each age improves the last 
And strikes still higher planes upon the scale 
Of human thought. All grosser forms cast off, 
Man rises to conditions new and strange; 
He finds himself endowed with attributes 
Inspired by wisdom, and a longing soul 
To know the source of that all-loving Power 
Which gave the fruitful earth for man’s domain. 
Enriched her mountain chains with veins of gold, 
And sprinkled deserts wild with precious gems. 
Long ages ere primeval man was born. 
Unnumbered species in the lower forms 
Of animated life, had each its own 
Beginning, ran its course and disappeared; 
Yet nothing e’er began, without some cause 
