The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1875-11-21

metals in . state Of fusion. ~ Ali sorts of in
struments and alembica. old Ben-Ha-zelah In
of its essence he pursued ie from form 70
form, he tore it with red hot pincers he
melted it in the glowing fires Of his furnaces
be made it solid only to reduce it again to
liquid state, accomplishing it . hundred times
in hundred different ways. He tortured it,
rs does the lawyer the prisoner at the bar. that
he may wiring from him his most hidden Sc
crets.
Matter, thus pursued by thesindsfatiga gable
sichemist, bad revealed more than one of its
mysterions laws, which he had made useful in
tne practice of his profession, so that he was
considered in Cairo little less than demi god.
However. in his labors he sought not the good
OF his fsllow-mep, but the barren satisfaction
OF the passion which was consuming him, the
pride Of knoscledge be sought to penetrate the
secrets of the most high God The promise of
the teupter to our FIRST parents Eriis seat DEF.
scssHhs. ., "goa shall be as gods, knoying goSd
desired to plant in his garden that fatal tree
to which the first born of our race stretched
out their guilty hands. Like his ancestor ia
cob, he wrestled with Jehovah.
One can readily understand that the old
| man, absorbed in this gigantic struggle, was
dead TO all vanity, so far as men were concern
ed. He had reached such dizzy heights that
he had almost lost sight of them. To him
they were like the brute beasts which crossed
his path he believed them to be of an inferior
nature TO hiu, who had been gifted with such
vast genius-such interchangeable industry.
HIs ign thoughts were not for such inisera-
BILE pignies. X
Sometimes seating bimsslfin dreamy mood
in bis garden, at the foot Of a grand old cedar,
| his favorite seat, and taking in his hand a
pebble, a blade of grass or a fo.er he was
| plunged in profound meditation:
What makes this "a body" thought he.
Tais body" is brown, heavy, hard, square, or
has many other properties which come under
| my notice. But 1t is evident that neither the
| color, weight, cohesion, nor form constitutes
its essence. They are it's manner of beings
| not Its being. If modify it, destroy it even,
it will still be the same body, aud shall, after
| all! have only attacked it's manner of being /;
| the essence which heretofore has always es-
| capped me-Gte soul Of the body, If may Say 50
will have suffered no change. 1t is as if
were suddenly to become hunchback, laule,
idiotic-I would still be the same man must
discover the substance qGod sub stat; in the
! first place, what causes this TO be; in the
second place, what constitutes it a body and
6nally, 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
| created the world, and nevertheless this M
known Prometheus shrank not from the task,
aud flattered himself he could wiring from
created matter the secrets of its Creator.
| In his experiments Ben Ha Zelah had start
| ed with the axiom that all bodies we're formed
| from certain elements which were invariable
but combined in different ways. Moreover
his researches had proved to him that many
elements, formerly believed to be primary,
| were composed of different elements into which
they might again be readily resolved. So
that seeing their number decrease as his in
| vestigations became more abstruse and his an
alyses more delicate, he had arrived at the
conclusion that there existed an original and
absolute substance of which all bodies, even
! those apparently the most different, were only
| variations.
He affirmed the identity of the base under the
infinite variety of the forms This primary
substance which he considered as coeternal
with God, was, he thought that one which Je-
boyah breathed in the beginning, and in his
Satanic pride he believed two thfngs-Grst
that the Almighty had combined the atoms of
matter in wondrously complex manner
| only to conceal from man the secret of its
creation-aud secondly, that the Rabbit Ben
| Ha- Zelah would be able to bafls the precau-
tions of the Almighty, and by analysis after
analysis, at length succeed in finding the sim
| pie primary Substance from which all things
were originally formed
Such were the thoughts which continually
filed his mind-such the gigantic plan he bad
conceived. Again and again he said to him
self that by taking from body after the
other it's contingent qualities, one takes the
bark from a nut, he would succeed at length
| in penetrating it's 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 MdteriG, mater. And as soon as ne should
| be able to imprson in his alembics this pri-
mary matter he could at will, disposing it after
| certain forms, make in turn bronze, stone,
wood or gold. Nay more, he hoped to sur
prise with the same blow the mystery of life
and then, thought he in his mpious pride
shall be creator, like unto Him before whom
every knee bends in alteration. l shall BE
God! EritiS sicut del.
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 mmateral."
However, he devoted bimself most zealousiy
to the great work he had undertaken, and
passed night after night in the recesses of bis
laboratory which would have remiu ded one o.
the entrance to che internal regions but for the
sweet presence of the young and lovely Rachel
who glided in and out, bringing order out o
confusion, and in the evening beguiled the Ions
hours by singing to her father snatches of thu
old Hebrew songs of which such touching anC
beautiful fragments have come down to US.
".
One night, Ben-HaZelah, regardless of ia
tigue, was still bending over his glowing fur
naces; For more than week he had allowed
himself no sleep, nor had he permitted his eye
to wander from the vast cTncible which hat
been heated to white heat for six consecutive
months. lie had discovered phenomen,
hitherto unknown. His bony hands clutchec
convulsively the handle of the bellows, ant