To

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH

AND TO

THAT EMBODIMENT OF TRUTH, NAMED

ARIEL,

THIS LITTLE VOLUME PROMPTED BY THEM

Is Dedicated,

WITH THE HOPE THAT THEY ARE NOT HERE DISHONORER

BY THEIR DISCIPLE,

THE AUTHOR.

Soul, dwelling oft in God's infinitude

And sometimes seeming no more part of me —
This me, worms' heritage than that sun can be
Part of the earth he has with warmth imbued,
Whence camest thou? Whither goest thou? I, subdued
With awe of mine own being thus sit still,
Dumb, on the summit of this lonely hill,
Whose dry November grasses dew-bestrewed
Mirror a million suns. That sun so bright,
Passes as thou must pass, Soul, into night.
Art thou afraid who solitary hast trod

A path I know not, from a source to a bourn
Both which I know not? Fearest thou to return
Alone, even as thou camest alone, to God?

D. M. MULOCK.

Insect and reptile, fish and bird and beast,

Cast their worn robes aside, fresh robes to don;

Tree, flower, and moss, put new year's raiments on;
Each natural type, the greatest as the least.
Renews its vesture when its use hath ceased.

How should man's spirit keep in unison

With the world's law of outgrowth, save it won
New robes and ampler as its girth increased?
Quit shrunken creed, and dwarfed philosophy!
Let gently die an art's decaying fire!
Work on the ancient lines, but yet be free

To leave and frame anew, if God inspire!
The planets change their surface as they roll:
The force that binds the spheres must bind the soul.
HENRY G. HEWLETT.

PREFACE.

"THE idea of a transmigration of souls has hitherto remained a dream of the fancy, nor has any one yet succeeded in giving it a higher moral significance for the order of the universe." So writes Hermann Lotze, the German philosopher, in his magnificent 'Microcosm," expressing the common feeling of Christendom. If this little book achieves its purpose it will show the strength and value of that dreamy idea.

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The present perplexity of all Christendom upon the deepest problems of life, the sense of blind fate oppressing mankind, the despairing restlessness of many leading poets, the absence of sublime ideals in art, the prevalence of materialism and agnosticism (if not in philosophy, in the most vital form of practical life), all feed a flood-tide of dissatisfaction which Christianity tries in vain to resist, and indicate that the West deeply needs some new truth. Not only the wavering masses of men, but many of those uncompromising devotees of truth who dare surrender themselves, like St. Christopher, to the mightiest, are yearning after a larger revelation. A portion of this

is contained, we believe, in the doctrine variously termed as Reincarnation, Metempsychosis, Transmigration. By this we do not mean the theories concerning re-birth of men in brute bodies, which are attributed to oriental religions and philosophies because popularly accepted by their followers. These are crude caricatures of the true conception. They represent the reality as absurdly as ordinary life in Europe and America illustrates the teaching of Jesus. But we mean the inner kernel of that husk, which in protean forms has irrepressibly welled up in every great phase of thought, which is an open secret lying all around us and not simply a foreign importation, and which Christendom cannot afford to lose.

For those who are content with the usual creeds this little work will have no attraction. They may be pleased to regard it as a heathen invasion of Christendom. But for truth-seekers it may prove useful, though it claims only to be an earnest investigation of what seems an undemonstrable proposition. Its doctrine was first met as the declaration of the profoundest students of the mysteries enveloping humanity- coming with authority but no proof of weight to most western thinkers. Its violent antagonism to current ideas compelled the writer to dispose of it by independent methods. If true, there must be some confirmation of it such as will impress any candid mind. If false, nothing can force it to live. This led to a careful study of the subject, which was summarized in a brief essay read and published to