this mighty subject, many glimmerings of the truth were seen, but they were glimmerings only. By-and-by came Plato upon the stage of the world's theater. He produced 'Phasdo'—a great work, considering the times in which it first saw the light. It still remains so; and yet, so acute is the logical faculty of the people of the present era, that even that work fails of convincing. It is, viewed by the modern light, far, very far from being a satisfactory performance, considering the immense importance and sublimity of the theme it professes to treat; yet, nevertheless, Plato did succeed in convincing many of the people of the by-gone ages, as well as of the present, that he had indeed struck the golden vein at the bottom of which the wondrous jewel lies, and in establishing a crude conviction of that great truth, which the present century will doubtless have the supreme honor of perfectly demonstrating. In the final conclusion, to which the world will shortly come, the author of these pages firmly believes that the elements herein given will enter as integers—as a portion and part absolutely essential to the perfect structure.
Plato, not unlike many of our modern savans, seems to have been sorely troubled—not so much in proving the immortality of the soul, as in assigning it a proper habitation after death. But the soul, like the body, must have a home, he thought, and so he concluded to locate that home within the boundaries of the 'New Atlantis Isle,' situated, nobody, not even the great thinker himself, knew where. The same difficulty presents itself to-day; a thousand theories, or, more properly speaking, hypotheses, are now afloat on the surface of the general mind, concerning the locality of the Divine City of Spirits—the home of departed souls.
