luscious pleasure, whatever it might seem by contrast and in the distance, would, in the actual enjoyment, be at first degrading, after that paralysing, and at length insufferable.

We might take even higher ground than this, and say, that a small measure of discomfort was necessary for the enjoyment of the highest gratifications of life. How could food be enjoyed unless there were both hunger and thirst? how could the balmy repose of sleep be welcomed without some measure of fatigue? and how could the holy rest of the Sabbath-day be enjoyed, or even needed, unless both body and spirit felt that their springs of action required for a time to be unbent?

Even pain to some extent would be necessary, else there could be none of those nerves of sensation necessary, by which we are warned of the approach of danger. Pain is a most valuable system of protection against mutilation and destruction. If burning, and cutting, and bruising, gave us no pain, our bodies would not survive a year, unless our attention were kept in a constant state of distressing and exhausting watchfulness, a thousand times more disagreeable than the pain it was intended to supersede.

There could be no dignity or even enjoyment in enterprise where there was no difficulty to be overcome, or experiments to be made; and there could be no interest in, or any need for experiments unless they were occasionally attended with failure and disappointment. The very existence of some faculties enables us to infer some corresponding circumstances: for there would be no need of caution where there was no kind of danger; no benevolence where there was no kind of want; and no conscientiousness where there was no kind of temptation.

Does any one feel as if, in drawing these conclusions,

we were robbing Paradise of its flowers? on the contrary, it is these very things that give them their most delicate fragrance and their brightest hues.

Supposing Adam and his descendants to be an ordinary specimen of the inhabitants of other worlds (and we have already shewn how very likely this is to be the case), we may obtain much insight into their probable constitution in those worlds where sin has never entered.

Although the first pair in each case must come from the hands of their Creator in a state of maturity, the institution of marriage before the fall, and the blessing pronounced upon it, lead us to infer that other worlds are peopled by the propagation of the species. "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it," is in all probability the blessing pronounced upon the patriarchs of many, if not all, of the stars.

It has been argued by men whose orthodoxy has never been called in question, that the institution of marriage implies also the necessary accompaniment of death; because the indefinite propagation of species in a world, however large, would at some time or other produce overpopulation. This is a conclusion, however, which is scarcely warranted by any slender materials within our reach. We cannot tell the numberless resources by which the Creator might have obviated what we suppose a difficulty. Perhaps it was by means of which we have no understanding at present; for, alas! we have had too little experience of the sinless state of our race, and the developments which would have arisen from it; but we may suggest one which would of itself be sufficient to remove the apparent difficulty.

From a consideration of the topics contained in the pre

ceding chapters, it seems more than probable that, after a certain period, a change of constitution takes place, by which, either suddenly and in the twinkling of an eye, or, as is more probable, in a gradual manner, the body undergoes a transformation, so that that which is at first a natural body (owμa vxikov) becomes a spiritual body (σwμa пveνμatikóv), more glorious and more powerful than before. This seems to have been the original and normal constitution of our nature, just as the butterfly is the normal transformation of the caterpillar;* and it is still in all probability the constitution of every unfallen race in the sidereal heavens. If Adam had not sinned, we have reason to suppose that his spiritual nature would have been developed in due time-not by any miraculous interposition of Divine power, but by the operation of natural laws, and that his state of probation would then be completed. In consequence of Adam's sin, however, his constitution became hereditarily deranged,+ so that this capability was destroyed, and man's progress arrested -that is to say, his nature became incapable of rising above the merely animal type.

We find in Scripture that the spiritual body is not peculiar to man in his resurrection state: it appears to be a product of other worlds as well as our own; the only difference is, that, in regard to the angels, it is developed

* "There was no secular subject on which the brave and suffering invalid dwelt with more pleasure, than the evidences of God's wise and merciful design, which the construction of all the creatures of His hands displays. He would forget the pain which speaking occasioned in enlarging upon it to the ladies of his family; and loved to point out the beautiful type and symbol of man's resurrection, which the transformation of insects supplies, dwelling especially on the curious changes which the ant-lion undergoes."-Dr G. Wilson's Life of Dr John Reid, p. 220. ↑ See Appendix K.

in a normal and spontaneous manner, whereas, in our case, it required an exterior influence and a Divine interposition to accomplish the same or a similar result. This is a subject, however, which will present itself for more particular examination in a future chapter: we refer to it here only because of the light which it will shed on our present subject. If the resurrection, or rather the angelic state, be the ultimate development of every unfallen race, and if the ability to pass from one star to another be one of its peculiarities, then may we not suppose that many of the stars are, as it were, the cradle of angelic hosts, from which, it may be, thousands of other stars are peopled; and that these other stars, though they may be incapable of sustaining psychical bodies such as ours, may be even better adapted for the full enjoyment and activity of more spiritual natures?

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CHAPTER XX.

DEATH AND CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS IN THE STARS.

It is very generally supposed that, in our own world before the fall, there was no death among the lower animals, and, consequently, that in the worlds where sin has never entered, all is harmony and peace-every creature being immortal, and no class of animals preying upon its fellows.

Whatever may be the case with other worlds, this notion receives no proof or confirmation from what we know of our own. Before Adam existed there was death, not only among the animals that existed in his day, but among the far back tribes that lived and died thousands of years before him. Among the fossil animals which meet the gaze of the wondering geologist, there are many structures which bear evidence of a constitution according to which the animal subsisted by preying upon the bodies of others: for in the stomachs of some of these carnivorous creatures, there have been found the bones of the animals which had last become their prey.

Those who deny the pre-Adamite succession of tribes and species, and who adhere to the literal meaning of the statement, that in six days God made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, have no choice but to hold to the doctrine of death before the Fall, because it is as necessary to their view as to any other; for if the