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DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD.

understood. Its next leap is to the prepared ovum, which it only reaches after taking refuge in a hollow, shell, attached to what is called the "head of a spermatozoa," which in itself is the half germ (the ovum being the other) of the physical structure.

Imagine, if you please, a monad just incarnated in many folds. Its color is a pearly white, approaching the hue of pure fire; its bulk, with its investments about one-tenth that of the head of a small pin; without them, about so much less that probably a million might float without contact in a single drop of water. Its envelopes are the very incarnations and condensations of electricity and magnetism; and so possess the power of repelling uncongenialities, and of attracting whatever is essential to its development, during and subsequent to its temporary home at the gestative centre. The essences and life of all that the parent may eat and drink, or breathe—as perfumes, odors, and so forth—are gravitative to the precious point; and so the monad unfolds, and its envelopes grow; the one destined to become a living, active soul—the other, the temple of flesh and blood, in which it will, for three score years and ten, more or less, exercise and improve its faculties and powers. Now, this process is exactly analogous to that whereby God Himself brings humans into being; only that instead of having a female form to shield them (the monads), He made use of matter in other forms—worlds, and substantial things. It is easy to see how the first human being was brought into existence, albeit the full statement thereof belongs to another volume than the present—the first part of the present one merely giving an outline thereof.

Man's body is of the earth, earthy; it serves the