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By Root 16426 0

which is the soul, through the body, which is the earthly, is thus raised, by being an instrument of he heavenly, into a dignified fellowship with it. The Venus Pandemos, who presides over the animal feelings, is then elevated, by the wisdom which is shed abroad upon her from the divine countenance of the Venus Urania, who presides over the intellectual faculties. Therefore, he who devotes the most of his time to the procurement of knowledge, tends, just in that proportion, to perfect his nature, or make his earthly-heavenly — his terrestrial-celestial — more like the wholly celestial. Man is a compound of two opposites — the one life, soul, mind — the other body, or death. He is therefore, a living death. We can now see why knowledge is happiness; because it (assists) the being, who possesses it, to know how to be. It not only prepares us, by showing us how, to die. Thus it is that knowledge is power. Happiness is the result of the perfection of the physical and intellectual nature. The perfection of the physical and intellectual nature consists in the educated richness of the soul in original thought. It prepares the soul for the enjoyment of immortal happiness.

Wisdom is the Endymion who causes, while lying upon the Latmos of this world, the enamoured Angel Virtue — the Diana of Truth — to come down nightly from heaven to enjoy his company. This Diana of Truth, or the Moon of Peace, is the Urania of the soul, who presides over the constellations of the heaven of wisdom, which shine to light us back again into the Jasper-walled and many-gated City of Pure Gold of the Living God.

The Prophet Elijah was a Man preeminent in holiness, who, as a recompense for his fidelity to God, was translated, without tasting the bitterness of death, into the habitations of the righteous to enjoy the beatitudes of heaven. This could not have been, had he not been a perfect Man. The same may be said of Enoch. His perfection, which mad(e) the offering of himself acceptable in the sight of God, consisted in the twofold perfection of his soul and body. He was hailed by a gloriou(s) company of Ministering Angels, from the Golden Hills of Immortali(ty) as he ascended up to heaven in a fiery Chariot through the parting clouds from an astonished world.

St. Paul says, in speaking of the resurrection, that “mortal shall put on immortality.” Before a many can enjoy the felicities of Paradise, or the Scheol of the departed, he must be purified to enter it. This purification consists in the perfection of the physical and intellectual nature. This is done, as Socrates says, by embracing the True Philosophy. This True Philosophy is that heaven-born wisdom which the Son of Mary brought down from heaven with him when he came on earth to humanize mankind. He who walks in the light of the Sun of Righteousness shall fear no darkness — not even the darkness of the Grave; but he shall be conducted by it into the “Pure Earth” of Plato, to hold communion with the ransomed kings of deathless melody — the mighty Sages of immortal thought. Then shall he unite with them in that sublime chorus which Shelley now makes the Patriots of Antiquity sing with him in heaven —

“Drink! be the nectar circling through your veins

The soul of joy, ye Everliving gods!

Till exultation burst in one wide voice,

Like music from Elysian winds!”

Write to me as soon as you receive this, if you have not written before. Direct to Washington, Wilkes County, Ga. I will be in New York soon.

As Fra Paolo Sorpi said of his native land — Esta perpetua — may you live forever.

Your friend forever more,

Thos. H. Chivers.

Edgar A. Poe, Esq.

P. S . — Why do you call your Periodical the “Stylus”? Would not The Sibyl be more poetical? “The Orion” is the most beautiful title for a Periodical that I have ever seen; but it is a Southern constellation, and, therefore, would not do so well for the North. If you will write me in what number of the “Colombian Magazine” your “Mesmeric Revelation” is published, I can get it in Augusta. Can “The Maid of Brittany,” by J. R. Lowell, be sent by Mail? If