and explain. It is remarkable, and should be remembered, that positives never essentially marry positives, nor negatives unite with negatives; but each clings only to its exact opposite. And these opposites can truthfully unite only through the harmony of temperament; which, also, I will hereafter explain. The best evidence that opposites are conjugally related, is: that the composing particles of each can not resist the law of Attraction whereby the essence-life of one penetrates and interlocks itself with the essence-life of another, accomplishing a sort of metempsychosis, a mutual but yet unconscious exchange of being. Where this union exists, the twain are ONE inseparably; and begin to resemble each other in body and soul. The children of such are the issues of love; but, notwithstanding this, they would not exhibit Wisdom (or Harmony), unless well-educated and well-situated subsequent to birth.

The particles, for illustration, which emanate from a female rose are the exact introversion of the particles which emanate from a male rose. It is this atomic fitness, so to say, which constitutes the true and virtuous union of love. All unions without such adaptation, are sensual and vicious; and so Nature quickly interposes repulsions and compels divorce.

The exact nature and name of the different kinds and degrees of marriages will be described in the next lecture.

You will observe in botany and zoology, and in every other department of creation, that different organic developments originate different nuptial relations. These relations are pure and proper in their own spheres; but quite the contrary when adopted upon superior planes of life. Thus, among minerals we find bigamy; among vegetables, polygamy; among animals, omnigamy; and monogamy among human kind. Let me define these terms

I. Bigamy is the external union of one with two of opposite sex; as one with two wives or two husbands. In the mineral

kingdom this seems to be the prevailing law. One sulphur mine will periodically impregnate two iron mines. One copper will affect two zinc; and so on, throughout the entire chemical world. I am perfectly well aware, that chemists have not as yet examined compounds conjugally, so to speak; but, when this investigation is fairly entered upon, I am quite certain that even the decisions of Knowledge will support my statement.

II. Polygamy is the external union of one with a plurality of the opposite sex; as one woman with many husbands, or one man with many wives. This law is extensively obeyed in the Vegetable kingdom. Several Greek botanists observed the sexuality of various plants. On many flowers and plants, you may see anthers, suspended by threads called, stamens; and in the centre of the anthers, is the fostering and reproductive organ, the pistil, which receives the fertilizing dust of the stamens, called the pollen. It is remarkable that the pollen of one male plant will impregnate a hundred female organs of reproduction. As this is accomplished through the law of conjugal attraction, we term it polygamy. In order to accomplish this result, nature causes several male plants to grow higher from the ground than the females-permitting, thus, through well-directed electrical currents, (which botanists have called "winds") to convey hundreds of miles the fertilizing pollen to enter the conjugal relation with the female symbols of love.

III. Omnigamy is the universal marriage of each to all: each female is the conjugal external companion of every male, and vice versa; without distinction of complexion or countrywithout limitations, except such as are imposed by different types, which extemporize different attractions. Therefore, different types of animals have attractions, indiscriminate and external, which lead to omnigamy. Other types are polyg amists. There is no especial polygamy, except in the vegetable, bird, and fowl kingdoms. The proud chanticleer in the

barnyard walks, with no sense of wrong or shame, among his twenty or thirty wives. No wealthy resident of Turkey or Utah, with his troupe of human females, can present a finer aspect of "a clear conscience" united to independence. But one can not help the conviction that Polygamy is far more becoming to feathered bipeds in the barnyard than to beings but little lower than the angels! The male goose, the gander, or the "gobbler" among turkeys, may each follow the polygamic law; and various birds may obey it, as they do; and several types of fish also; and the sheep in the pastures; but it appears extremely unwise to justify the human soul by analogous illustrations so far beneath it in the scale of life. The omnigamic law is peculiar to lions, tigers, leopards, wolves, dogs, cats, rats, mice, flies, horses, buffaloes, and a vast number of other types of quadrupeds, and not less to several inferior species of the human order—among all of whom we find no exhibition of interior oneness and harmony.

IV. Monogamy is a union of the essence of one male with one female — or an attraction of two individualized souls; the particles of whose vitality interblend and interpermeate each with and through the other. This law is operative especially in the human kingdom, and in all kingdoms above it. And yet, it is a fixed principle that as the highest comes from, and contains the qualities and properties of, the lowest-even so do we behold the mineral, vegetable, and animal laws of love and marriage translated into, and obeyed by, certain human beings. Such persons we will not denounce as wicked, sensual, and corrupt; but we will say, that such have not outgrown the propensities inherited from their progenitors.

Although in the higher departments of the human world, monogamy, or the union of one man with one woman, is the sovereign Law, yet do we find numerous historical illustrations of higamy, polygamy, and omnigamy, in certain countries, both

ancient and modern. And nature says nothing bitter to these countries; but shows them tenderly that as she progresses they must fall into decay. Shall we, then, misrepresent and condemn those whose natures lead to the lower forms of marriage? While they remain where they are they will obey laws that are proper and natural to them. The elevation of such is by spiritual culture and slow progression.

On the truly human plane we first behold the unity of variety -the many attractions of our nature, the six loves, organized into harmony; each true and permanent in its own way. We look about us and see the monogamic law. We see all the preceding conjugal laws ripening and culminating into the unity of ONENESS! But, the majority of human marriages begin at present on the external or transient plane, and so have a fate or penalty, attached to them; which hereafter we will duly consider. When the loves culminate, and look up into wisdom's eyes for direction, then do we behold, for the first time, promises of eternal unions! "Mars conjugates with Venus" as was said; each sleeping and waking, being and doing, in the other's Life.

So Winter conjugates with Summer; and Spring with Autumn. The seasons undulate like ocean's waves, stirring within each other, in every moment's throb, new essences and new points of life-full of procreative and perpetuative energy -filling earth with intelligent forms of beauty and brightness. So the wheels of Time "fly swiftly round," and the conjugated months take turns in celebrating the Marriage Relation!

LECTURE XII.

THE USES AND UNITY

OF MARRIAGE; OR, THE TRANSIENT AND THE PERMANENT.

NATURE! through whom my soul learns of God, how beautiful and healthful are thy teachings. Parent! whom my soul loveth, thy lessons are my delight. Before the height and depth and breadth and ineffable sublimity of thy instructions, all doubts are fleeing all fears dispersing; light, springing up in darkness, lifts my soul heaven-ward; joy, chasing grief; life, unlocking the grave; like delegates from the eternal courts, Truths come to me; they roll away the stone from Reason's tomb, and the dead in ignorance come forth to endless life; earth recedes, and spirit-worlds open to my view with holy beauty and magnificence; the things of time, the barriers of space, these are as nothing; the creation's eternal whole seems bursting on my soul's perception; it is broad and bright; it is deep and high; it is grand and beautiful; with this clearest and fullest manifestation, my understanding is replenished; through my soul, therefore, an ocean of life is onward rolling; its mighty billows, in calm grandeur, wave round about the citadel of my inmost existence !

Churches, sects, creeds--what atoms they appear! How immense is God-rather, I would say, how omnipresent and omnipotent is INTELLIGENT AND LOVING TRUTH! I would worship this God in his immensity. Throughout eternal ages.