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THE JOYS AND GLORIES

words that "breathe and burn" in that celestial atmosphere? can he have lost these powers? If so, then Milton has ceased to be Milton: the mind is the man;—the mind changed, the man is changed: the mind destroyed, the man no longer exists. But it has been already shown, by rational argument, that the death of the body can have no power over the mind, that it cannot affect the mind's essential character, that a bullet or a knife or mortal corruption cannot touch the spirit. If this be true, then it follows that Milton's death, that is, his departure from this material sphere or release from the material body, had no effect on Milton's self, that is, on his essential mind and character. Consequently, he is Milton still; and it must be that he retains the same wide grasp of thought, the same loftiness of conception, the same ardour of soul, and the same love of the beautiful as a clothing for all these,—in a word, all the faculties that he manifested while on earth; only, as before shown, immensely exalted and expanded by his elevation into a purely spiritual sphere of existence. And if he possess those faculties, must he not use them? are there any powers given, to remain unexercised, whether here or hereafter? Then, will he not continue his great productions—only in a style suited to those purer regions into which he has now ascended, and fitted for angelic ears? While here on earth, he wrote of "Paradise Lost;" and well he might, for the present sad condition of the world is such as continually to remind us that Paradise has indeed been lost. But may he not now well write of Paradise Found? Has he not there a subject for his amplest powers, and quite equal to them in their most exalted state? And now, too, will he paint, not from