“’The thick film is breaking; the ages have long been circling.  Fellow-men! if we live hereafter, it will not be in lyrics; nor shall we yawn, and our shadows lengthen, while the eternal cycles are revolving.  To live at all, is a high vocation; to live forever, and run parallel with Oro, may truly appall us.  Toil we not here? and shall we be forever slothful elsewhere?  Other worlds differ not much from this, but in degree.  Doubtless, a pebble is a fair specimen of the universe.

“’We point at random.  Peradventure at this instant, there are beings gazing up to this very world as their future heaven.  But the universe is all over a heaven:  nothing but stars on stars, throughout infinities of expansion.  All we see are but a cluster.  Could we get to Bootes, we would be no nearer Oro, than now he hath no place; but is here.  Already, in its unimaginable roamings, our system may have dragged us through and through the spaces, where we plant cities of beryl and jasper.  Even now, we may be inhaling the ether, which we fancy seraphic wings are fanning.  But look round.  There is much to be seen here, and now.  Do the archangels survey aught more glorious than the constellations we nightly behold?  Continually we slight the wonders, we deem in reserve.  We await the present.  With marvels we are glutted, till we hold them no marvels at all.  But had these eyes first opened upon all the prodigies in the Revelation of the Dreamer, long familiarity would have made them appear, even as these things we see.  Now, now, the page is out-spread:  to the simple, easy as a primer; to the wise, more puzzling than hieroglyphics.  The eternity to come, is but a prolongation of time present:  and the beginning may be more wonderful than the end.

“’Then let us be wise.  But much of the knowledge we seek, already we have in our cores.  Yet so simple it is, we despise it; so bold, we fear it.

“’In solitude, let us exhume our ingots.  Let us hear our own thoughts.  The soul needs no mentor, but Oro; and Oro, without proxy.  Wanting Him, it is both the teacher and the taught.  Undeniably, reason was the first revelation; and so far as it tests all others, it has precedence over them.  It comes direct to us, without suppression or interpolation; and with Oro’s indisputable imprimatur.  But inspiration though it be, it is not so arrogant as some think.  Nay, far too humble, at times it submits to the grossest indignities.  Though in its best estate, not infallible; so far as it goes, for us, it is reliable.  When at fault, it stands still.  We speak not of visionaries.  But if this our first revelation stops short of the uttermost, so with all others.  If, often, it only perplexes:  much more the rest.  They leave much unexpounded; and disclosing new mysteries, add to the enigma.  Fellow-men; the ocean we would sound is unfathomable; and however much we add to our line, when it is out, we feel not the bottom.  Let us be truly lowly, then; not lifted up with a Pharisaic humility.  We crawl not like worms; nor wear we the liveries of angels.