The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1872-06-02

~, oooAiug 20 p0nctr0te one after inc 0tnoH ~.
the mysteries Of nature. There, bending over
MS glowing furnaces, surrounded with rotorts
and crucibles of strange shapes, filed with
metals in state Of fusion, by all sorts Of IN.
interronat-d matter and demanded the mystery
b; he to, tore it with red-hot pinaers he melted it.
. sSs s.ow,1g nfes Of hia furnaces ne mac. maze
accompanying it hundred times in u hundred
dinerent ways. He tortured 1t, as does tue
lawyer the prisoner at the bar, that he may
wiring from him his most hidden secrets.
Matter, thus pursued by the iudefatigable
aichemist. had revealed more than one of its
n,Ysterions lays, which he had made useful in
q bis SO that n?
however, In his labors he sought not the good
OF bis fellow-men, but the barren satisfaction
OF the passion which was consuming him, me
secrets Of the most high God. The promise Of
the ten'pter to our first parents. Z" You shall be
as gods, knowing good and evil" had pene-
trated bis soul and he desired to plant 10 his
OF our race stretched ont their guilty hands
Like his ancestor Jacob, he wrestled with Je-
hovah.
One can readily understand that the old
man, absorbed in this gigantic struggle, was
dead to all vanity, 30 far as men were concern.
ed. He had reached such dizzy heights that
he had almost lost sight Ct them. To him
his path he believed them to be of an inferior
nature to him, who had been gifted with such
vast genius-such indefatigable industry. His
hing thoughts were not for such miserable
pignies.
Sometimes seating himself in dreamy mood
in his garden, at the foot of grand old cedar,
his favolite seat, and taking in his hand
plunged in profound meditation.
What makes this q "body," thought he.
This "body" is brown, heavy, hard, square, or
has many other properties which come under
m M Rnt 10 aviA mt hat Mir arfl ,a
color, weight, cohesion nor form constitute its
essence. They are in it's manner of bcings-not
it's being. If I modify. it, destroy it even, it
all, have only attacked its manner of being !;
theeessence which heretofore has always es-
capped me-the soul of tho body, if may say So
will have suffered no change. 1t is as if l were
would still be the same man. l must dis
cover the substance quod sub stat; in the first
place, what causes this to be; in the second
what makes it this particular body which
hold in my hand and not another.
The problem was formidable; it was the
mystery of the omnipotence of the God who
known Prometheus shrank not from the task,
and fattered himself he could wiring from Gre
ated matter the secrets of its Creator
In bis experiepce Ben-Ha-Zelah bad started
with the axiom that all bodies were formed
from certain elements which were invariable,
but combined in different ways. Moreover, his
researches had proved to him that many ele-
composed of different elements into which they
might again be readily resolved. So that see
ing their number decrease as his investiga-
tons became more abstruse and his analysis
More delicate, he had arrived at the conclusion
that there existed an original aud absolute
substance of which all bodies, even those up
parently the most different, were but variations.
He afhrmed the identity Of the base under
substance which he considered as co-eternal
with God, was, he Thought, that on which
Jehovah breathed in the beginning, and in his
that the Almighty had combined the, atoms of
matter in SO wondrously complex q manner
only to con ceal from man the secret of it's Gre
Zslah would be able to battle the precautions
of the Almighty, and by analysis after analy-
sis, Mt length succeed in finding the simple pri-
mary substance from which all things were
Such were the thoughts which continually
filled his mind, such the gigantic plan he had
conceived. Again and again he said to him
the other, it's contingent qualities, as one takes
the bark from nut, he would succeed ut length
in penetrating its most hidden depths, to that
matter essence from which was made, as he be-
lieved all that existed in the universe.
He had inscribed on the door of his labora-
tory Materia, mater. And as soon as he should
be able TO imprison in his alembics this primary
tain forms, make it turn Gfsnze, stone, wood
or gold. Nay, more, he hoped to surprise with
the same blow the mystery Of life-and then,
thought he, in his impious pride, ! shall be
creator. like unto Him before whom every
knee bends in alteration. shall be God! -
The old man, lost in the vain search for the
absolute basis of matter, little suspected that
the final word of all science is, "The essence
of matter is immaterial."s
However, heSdeyotod himself most zealously
to the great work he had undertaken, and
passed night after night in'the recesses of his
laboratory which would have reminded one of
the entrance to tho informal regions but for the
sweet presence Of the young and lovely Rachel,
who glided in and out, bringing order out of
confusion, and in the evening beguiled the long
hours by singing to her father snatches of the
Did Hebrew songs of which such touching and
fragments have come down to us.
One night, Ben-Ha-Zelah, regardless of
fatigue was. still bending over his glowing
furnaces. For more thana week he had allow
cd himself no sleep, nor had he permitted his
eyes to wander from the vast crucibe which
had been heated to white heat for six consecu-
tive months. He had discovered phenomena
unknown, His bony hands clutched
the handle of the bellows, and
his eager, care-worn face was iliumined with q