Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1872-06-07

whereas In fact, We Know az much
about Mind, and perhaps more than
We tl0abOut Matter. We know Moth
Ing Of Matter. except its properties
which as a tangible fraine-work, are
woven around its. intangible essence,
but God has likewise woven an artifi
cial framework around the unseen
aud unscarcllable essence of the
Mind. Man stands as it were, the
tatiSe of the material and
world-as the connecting
link between dust and Deity. The
soul as q spiritual instrument, is
strung with chords of materiality and
constituted as man is, would forever
remain voiceless and silent, uI.less Op-
Grated upon by material agencies;
wherefore materiality seems to have
been designed by OmniScience, to be !
the nurse of the Mind in the days of
its infancy, but when the hidden
spark has been once kindled into life, ii
claims an inherent power. and boasts
a prominence to which matter never
can attain 1t is controlled by laws
which are not only invariable and inn
flexible, but likewise imperishable, |
and SO long as the laws exist and /
continue to exert their power, il is in |
INtostOlC " dCSllON
wherefore the structure of the Mind |
clearly sets forth its indestructibility. |
Every thought that springs from ''the |
countless chamber of the brain" pal
pably and forever stamps its image |
upon the table Of memory.
For years il may slumber unnoticed |
but let eognate idea arise and in ODE
dienee to the laws of association i'm
mediately il emerges from its mystic |
rious hiding place like a star from the
depths of the armament, and claims
again itsOriginal freshness and power.
Resisting. then, the annulling power
of time it will resist times decay and
OH through eternity appear as blot
upon the soul or sparkle as a jewel for
ever. No grave, then, will ever be
dug for the mind, no tombstone set up
! to proclaim that it was but is not.
Matter, on the contrary, claims no
such perpetuity its stability is based
upon the Omnipotence and Omnisci-
fence of the eternal God and when Ee
issues the mandate for abolition IL must
pass away. More than 75.000.000 of
suns each encircled by an attendant
retinue of glittering orbs lie within
the range of our telescopes and per-
haps seveRty-five times 75.00O.OOO
more lie far beyond in regions to
which the pu ance of mind has not
vet dared to wander; but when the
edict for destruction goes forth this
myriad host in burning beauty shall
set ablaze the distant fields of space or
wrapped in midnight's pail roll on
through the long cycles of oblivious
ages as the grand mausoleum of ami
mated nature. The sOmbre silence
that then gathers around materiality
will invest it with an awful sublimity
and that it is to-day possessed of
transcendent granduer is proclaimed
by unnumbered voices and written up
on the broad scroll of heaven in char
acters radiant with a living lustre.
But the material world however grand
| Is only faint evanescent shadow of
| the enduring substance of mind.
| There Is not law that rules in the do
main of matter but finds a counter
! part osintensified power and grandeur
| in the invisible world of mind. Nor
al affinity and the laws of association
| join soul to soul, and thought to
! thought more closely and in more
enduring bond than world is linked to
world and atom to atom, by the great
! laws of gravitation and cohesion. Ma
] terial forces in operation Will contin-
ne to exist and exert their power un-
! til the hand of Deity shall strike mat
ter from existence but q mental force
when once in action is imperishable
continuing to thread its way through
the meshy tissue of social life, the cir
Gle of its influence widens, like wave
upon the smooth surface of the water,
until il embraces the whole human
race and in its results is bounded only
by the limits of the souls existence.
! The influence which you to-day exert
may tell upon the destiny of some
most future child of earth, for when
the echoes of your voice shall have
died away upon the material world
forever they will continue to reverbe-
rate through the intricate avenues of
the mind and like disembOdied spirits
come forth armed with the dialect of
hell TO exert their baleful influence up
on other minds, or with the angel
tones of reproof and love to preserve
the purity aud check the dependency
of the soul. Every sun that flames in
yon, blue ether finds in the moral fir
manent, rival sun far surprising it
in grandeur which continues unceas-
ingly TO send forth its energiZing pow
ers and every evil influence radiating
therefrom, that falls upon the infant
mind fastens an impression there that
is as deathiess as the soul itself. Other
| thoughts, and other feelings for time
may crowd 1t from the view, but in
obedience to the infiexible laws of
mind, like slumbering giant, it is liza
BILE at any moment to awaken and hur-
ry the soul downward to eternal woe.
Such Is the constitution of the mind
that every thought and every feeling
not only may be, but actually is COM
municated to and stamped upon other
souls. Upon each unmarked tablet of
infant Immortality, anegative is taken
by the action of Intellectual and moral
influences from which the moral Inca
ments of that nature are impressed for
all time to come. Every beam that
emanates from each material sun Is not
only met and cancelled by a mental
beam of more vivid Iustre and
more enduring power but every
such beam diminishes the glory
of that sun itself and hastens on |
the time when il shall be blotted out |
forever. But the soul as moral sun |
continues to increase in power, with |
every influence sent forth, it becomes /
more deeply wrapped in the lurid |
shades of vice or beautified and adorn- |
ed with virtues living lustre and tran
seending Times narrow confines as a |
moral assymtote goes on forever APP
proximating the infinite projections of
Jehovah.
. T. NJ. MCCONNELL.