Married partners in the other life make the nearest approach to perfect unity. But here their very oneness is grounded in their distinctness. The more perfectly one they become, the greater is their distinct, and their sense of distinct, individuality. Their sense of being their own, and their sense of being each other's, increase and strengthen together. They are related to each other like will and understanding; but the more these are discriminated the more they are united.

The spiritual world being within the natural, in a similar manner to that in which the soul is in the body, though perfectly distinct from it, we are, as to our spirits, in the spiritual world while we live in the natural world, and angels and spirits are in the natural world although they live in the spiritual world. The only difference between man and angels is that the seat of their consciousness is different. Our consciousness as men is in the natural mind, their consciousness is in the spiritual. All that is needed to translate us from earth to heaven, supposing we are heavenly minded, is to raise our consciousness from the body into the soul; and the same change introduces us into the opposite place, if our state is the opposite of heavenly.

While we live in the natural world we are therefore as near to heaven or hell as we can be when we take our departure from it, or close our eyes upon it. And angels or demons are as much our companions now as they will be then.

But while we live in this world we are attended both by angelic and by evil spirits. For we are here working out our regeneration. And in the progress of this work we have to fight against evil and to strive to cultivate and do good; but evil spirits are present in our evil inclinations, and angels are in our good affections and desires, each exerting their influence to determine our choice and draw us in the downward or upward course. Evil spirits are attendant even upon the good, for so long as they have evils to overcome, these evils must be excited, and this is the evil use that evil spirits perform. But the law which makes the good subject to the influence of demons brings the evil under the influence of angels. But if the good are potentially in heaven and the evil in hell, even while they are living in the world, how is it that good and evil angels can be present with both? While angels are in heaven and demons are in hell, and while the good on earth are in heaven and the evil on earth are in hell, there is a region of the spiritual world which is neither heaven nor hell, and which is the common channel by which both of them communicate with men on earth, and through which men communicate with them. This is the

intermediate state, the world of spirits.

It is here that all meet.

Both the angels of heaven and the spirits of hell, while they are in immediate personal connection with man, are in the world of spirits. Not that they leave heaven and hell as local habitations. Where there is no space there is no such removal as we make from place to place. The world of spirits, in relation to the Grand Man, corresponds to the memory. The memory is the basis of all things of the mind, both of the will and the understanding. While we, as inhabitants of the natural world, are, as to our affections, either in heaven or hell, we are, as to our memory, in the world of spirits. It is the common region of memory for all men, in heaven, in earth, and in hell. Although men carry the external memory with them into the other world, and it is never abolished, yet it is quiescent, both with the angels of heaven and with the spirits of hell. The angels of heaven and the spirits of hell who are in association with man, do not, however, in coming into the region of the memory, come into the knowledge and use of their own memory; but they come into the knowledge and use of the memory of the person to whom they are adjoined. Spirits know all a man's memory and thoughts, angels all the ends of his life. Indeed, attendant spirits put on the whole of the man's memory, and are in the persuasion that it is their own, that is to say, they so identify themselves with him that they know no other than that what is his is their own. It is from this circumstance, this law which regulates the intercourse of spirits with men, that evil spirits do not infuse into the mind of their subject any evil and falsity of their own, but only excite those which are in the mind of the person with whom they are associated. Evil spirits cannot, therefore, make us any worse than we are. They may stir up our evils, but in doing this they do what we may turn to our own advantage. The stirring up of our evils enables us to see ourselves as we are, and gives us the opportunity of self-correction; or rather, it enables the attendant angels to excite our good thoughts and affections; and thus gives us the opportunity both of weakening the evil and strengthening the good that are in us.

If in coming into the intermediate state, spirits came into the use of their own memory, they would be dangerous, if not fatal attendants. Instead of the spirit putting on the memory of the man, the man would put on the memory of the spirit; so that, instead of merely exciting the thoughts and concupiscences which he found in the mind of the person with whom he was associated, he would infuse his own, and

thus lead him captive at his will. This would be what in the Writings is called obsession. The demoniacal possessions of the New Testament were cases of that condition, and were the last manifestations of that disturbance of the equilibrium between heaven and hell, and between good and evil, which rendered necessary that work of mercy, the redemption of the human race, by which the equilibrium was restored, and without which no flesh could have been saved. Demoniacal possession, as a part of the subject of the connection of the spiritual world with the natural, we reserve for another article, in which we will consider some difficulties connected with it.

EDITOR.

FROM BEYROUT TO BETHLEHEM:

BEING REMINISCENCES OF A RECENT JOURNEY THROUGH THE HOLY LAND

By C. COLLINGWOOD, M.A., etc.

II. BAALBEK.

HAVING reached once more an elevation of 3800 feet, we arrived at the first indications of the renowned Heliopolis, viz. a wely, or Mahommedan tomb of some supposed saint, which in this case is constructed out of the ruins of the ancient temples of Baalbék. It consists of massive but ill-matched shafts of granite and porphyry set up in an irregular circle, and connected by rude architraves, while in the centre is a praying niche. This singular piece of barbarism is interesting when seen before the ruins of Baalbék, but would become grotesque afterwards. The pillars, it may be said in passing, are supposed to have been conveyed from a great distance, probably from Egypt—a surprising idea, doubtless; but a study of the ruins of Baalbék leaves little room to be surprised at anything.

Passing through the modern and somewhat wretched village of about two hundred houses, we enter into a dark tunnel, which runs under the ancient walls, and appears to be the only approach to the beautiful temple built upon the great substructure. Here we give our horses the rein and trust to the information of our guides that there are no pitfalls in the way, for it is quite dark. Later on we explored, with torches, some of the subterranean chambers which could be entered by climbing from the side of the great tunnel. Now, however, we pushed on, being anxious to get to camp. Only one of our

party stumbled and fell in the darkness, and no harm was done; but we were glad to emerge into the light in the midst of magnificent ruins, which we were fain only to glance at, for we were fatigued, and pushed on at once to the great central court, where we found our camp already pitched. For we were to remain here till Monday, and could wander in the meantime at our will among all these splendid relics of the past. It was already getting dusk, and we reserved our rambles till the moon had risen, and the sun next day.

For our first real examination of this City of the Sun was by moonlight, and for its past glory and ruined greatness the bright rays of a full moon were the most suitable illumination. Grand, ghostly, venerable, and weird, did the massive pillars and broken shafts look in the deep shadows and silvery glow of the moonlight. The six vast columns of the Temple of the Sun, crowned with their monolithic architraves, reared themselves up like black giants into the sky; and piles of mutilated capitals, broken friezes, and worn and fractured masses of stone, carved or otherwise, lay heaped about in picturesque and chaotic confusion, giving a mysterious impression of a long past age, a buried history, and an extinct race of wonder-working genii.

Long we gazed upon this wonderful sight, and having satisfied ourselves with gazing and thinking, we looked forward eagerly to the morrow, when we could explore at our leisure these massive remnants of a forgotten past. Then we found that we were encamped in a corner of a large square enceinte, in the walls of which were rectangular recesses, alternating with rounded niches, and all covered with an exuberance of carving, the tops with shells, the sides with garlands of flowers and fruits, etc. This great court has an expanse of 440 feet by 370 feet, and is strewed with broken columns of red granite from the niches, fragments of friezes and entablatures, and of the statues which once ornamented or occupied the niches and recesses. Its eastern end gave exit by the grand portico, raised twenty feet high upon a wall of massive stones, some of them twenty-four feet long; but the steps are gone, the stately columns of the entrance have disappeared, and the whole is in such ruin as to be scarcely recognisable; its defacement being due to the Saracenic military ardour which in the seventh century converted this grand monument into an unsightly fortress. Stones have been reversed, shafts laid endwise, abaci raised on their edges, and thus a patchwork loopholed wall results, which is more curious than artistic, and makes one sorrow over the barbarous hands

of Moslem-Goths, who have done more mischief than Time, the great edax rerum, could have effected in double the number of centuries.

Turn we to the west, where the six columns of the Temple of Baal still defy the destroying hand of man and the slower forces of Nature. There, tower grandly into the sky six out of fifty-four graceful shafts which once formed the magnificent peristyle of the temple. Composed of three pieces, of an average of seven feet in diameter, they rise seventy-five feet high, and bear upon their capital an entablature which reaches from column to column in a single block, fourteen feet in height. How got they there? By what engineering processes were these vast stones raised and fitted in their position? Little more than a century back (1759) an earthquake threw down three of the nine columns then standing-and there they lie, wonderful witnesses of the ingenuity and the might of their builders. Seen upright, and in situ, they appear magnificent and graceful; seen in fractured blocks tumbled confusedly upon the ground, they are simply wonderful, and awe-inspiring from their very hugeness and the vastness of their mass.

The whole area, occupying two acres, of this splendid temple may be easily traced, though nought remains standing save the six grand columns, which, standing on a massive platform thirty feet high, may be seen afar off, the landmark of the City of the Sun. But on the north side there is a beautiful temple of smaller build, and in much more perfect condition, which appears to be of about the same age, and yet was evidently not included in the original plan. The portico, great court, and peristyle of fifty-four columns all form together a grand whole, to which architecturally the Temple of Jupiter is a beautiful excrescence. This very perfect temple, though so much smaller than the great temple, was yet larger than the Parthenon at Athens. It consists of a peristyle of forty-two Corinthian columns, sixty-five feet in height, and of an average of six feet in diameter, containing a cella, 160 feet by eighty-five feet, and most richly ornamented, as is indeed the whole structure. Many of the columns of the peristyle still stand, and one, which fell a century ago against the wall of the cella, still retains its leaning position unbroken. The entablature of these columns is connected with the upper part of the cella by an elaborately sculptured roof, formed of slabs called lacunari, and these, where they have fallen, form a brilliant subject of study, from the wonderful carving with which they are ornamented over every square inch. But the most beautiful and interesting portion of this temple is the grand portal, forty-two feet high and twenty-four