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From these cabalistic essays of the ancient Hebrew divines, we derive the following very curious, and to some no doubt, valuable and pleasing theistical information. That there may be a gleam of truth here, and there is true enough; but it is a miserable ha'p'orth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack. From the "Sepher Jezirah," the student obtains this schedule of Deity's manifestation. A, God in the abstract—B, God entering into form or manifestation— C, God in form, from whence is derived all subsequent original realities. The ten numerals represent these realities, and the FORM is manifested by the twenty-two letters which constitute the alphabet; thus language is the FORM in which the spiritual is made apparent and the connecting medium between the spiritual and the material.

The Hebrew scriptures do certainly say, that the material word of Deity has been given in a definite form, as the Alpha and Omega of eternal wisdom, because "a word" is the material incarnation of thought, but the misconcepts of these theologians arose from their false philosophy of the human mind. We are informed that God created the world by thirty-two paths, and as "ten" is the sacred number of perfection, then by ten sefiroth or emanations, which recur everywhere, divine goodness revolves in triads, consisting of two opposites emanating from a superior triad, until the divine unity is reunited. These ten sefiroths are met with everywhere: in Deity, in man, and in the world. At the head of all is God manifest, as the Memra, Logos, or divine word. The twenty-two letters constitute the form of creation, and the ten sefiroth the material; thus God has made the soul of everything by employing these letters, and ten sefiroth, to express in a material and definite form his ideas.

The other cabalistic treatise, the Sohar, teaches us that the Logos, Memra, or throne is at the head of every manifestation of Deity, appearing in the world as a spirit, in God as the angel of his presence, and in the man as the Adam Kadmon.

To mankind God remains unknown even in the form

revealed, but the rabbins were favoured with actual knowledge, for God was said to sit on fire shining 100,000 miles, and that from his head 13,000 myriads of worlds annually distilled, and a peculiar dew to quicken the dead to new life, and for the manna or food of the highest saints in heaven, also upon the field of holy fruits or college of the cabalistic students. The length of this dew-distilling face is equal to 370,000 myriads of worlds. By his "attributes" only can God be known, before this manifestation he is not himself. In revealing himself God first produced sefirah number one. From number one was produced number two, and this two produced the third. From this triad all others were evolved in turn. Each sefiroth has its proper name. The first sepirah, or crown, is the source whence issues infinite light, called "Boundless " indicating the supreme cause, which has neither form nor shape. This is the source of all wisdom, or the second sefirah, hence the supreme cause is termed the wise God. Then wisdom, or sefirah number two, constructed an immence receptacle like the sea, called understanding, or sefirah number three. These three, crown, wisdom, and understanding, are the first triad. Then follow mercy, judgment, beauty, triumph, glory, foundation, and kingdom in the shape of seven rivulets or sefiroth, together constituting the full revelation of God known as the Adam Kadmon, or celestial man, of which the terrestrial man is the duplicated

copy.

The speciality of sex was held to be as essential in soul as in body, and existed in the sefiroth which are male and female, as imparting and receiving, wisdom being male, and understanding (or formation?) being female, These sefiroth are one in the ancient of ancients, who is represented with three heads.

Is it accident that the Hindoo Trimurt is represented by the same three-headed symbol? There is a scintillation of truth in these traditions, but it is very faint. The discourse is that of a man stuttering from the congress of cosmopolitan theologians at the tower of Babblement.

But to continue. From the divine triad above, there pro

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ceed two sefiroth, one being the male grace, and the other the female judgment, which are united in the middle as beauty. The male souls proceed from grace, and the female from judgment. Then follow two sefiroth, the male triumph and the female glory, united into the basis of the last sefirah or kingdom, the shechinah, which is the harmony of all the attributes, and their government over the world.

This trigonometrical survey is mapped out into various forms. In one it constitutes three pillars, the male one being grace, the female judgment, and the middle one beauty, which last, as most important, is called holy king, and shechinah, as above. When the king, and queen, or beauty, and this shechinah are united, the fruit of their conjugal union is the descent of a soul, or its return to God.

This programme of celestial performances is corroborated by the Kabbalah, which instructs us that the souls of men are not created with their bodies, but are pre-existent, being stored up in the female understanding. If the soul is to be a male it then passes through the male sefirah grace, but if female, through that of judgment, and before it comes into the world, the king comes to the queen in an act, which is to the soul, what conception is to the body. When the soul's mission has been fulfilled, and if worthy of return to God, the king and queen meet once more, and by their union the soul ascends. Without this royal pair the material world could not exist, for it depends upon this essential difference of sex, which is necessary for continued existence, and may be traced upward to the highest orders of beings.

The Kabbalah says, that matter without God is sin, and the purely material is essentially evil. Nothing can perish absolutely, it must sink into a place where everything is strict justice, and feminine in character, nothing being masculine. The old worlds have become the place where vice is punished, and their ruins have given birth to the devil and his angels, who are called "husks."

Everything except sin, which is the purely material, is an emanation from God, by means of successive evolutions or developments, of which matter is the lowest form.

Thus

creation was made out of nothing, that is, out of the original nought.

This is a fair sample of the awful muddle theologians invariably make of cosmology, where they insist upon the wide separation of mind and matter, and hypothesize the existence of evil. Butler's philosopher in Hudibras was a savan of this erudite class.

"As he professed,

He had first matter seen undressed,
He took her naked, all alone

Before one rag of form was on!"

By and bye, however, these Cabalistic pundits unsay all that they have so dogmatically laid down about the existence of evil, and they assert that Satan himself will ultimately be reclaimed from his sinful courses, and everything will return, both body and soul, to the principle and root whence they issued. Sakya, the founder of the oriental mendicants, said something like this, and orthodox spouters of religion howl him down as an atheist; at the same time they ignore King Solomon's statement in the Hebrew canonical scriptures, where he says of man's decease in Eccl. xii, 7, "Dust "to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave "it."

Cabalistic cosmology insists upon three worlds of sefiroth, called Olams. The first is Olam Azilah, or the world of emanation, whence flows number two, or Olam Beriah, the world of creation or of pure spirits, and Olam Jezirah the world of formation, or of angels, and last of all, there comes a fourth, the Olam Assijah, the world of action.

The angels are divided into ten classes, they watch over the movements of the earth, moon, seasons, and growth of planets.

All pure or inert matter, and its personification, Samael the angel of poison, together with his angels, occupy the fourth or more distant worlds. These devils, or husks, are further arranged into ten classes of degradation.

Samael is the angel of death, and the evil inclination, and

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Satan is the accuser or serpent which seduced the first parents, Satan's wife is termed the harlot, and together they are represented as the beast.

This tradition is referred to in the Apocalypse.

Man created after the image of the Adam Kadmon, derives his chief dignity from the spiritual part within him, but his material frame bears close analogy to celestial things. Man's spiritual nature consists of three faculties, derived respectively from the three triads scheduled in a former trigonometrical survey of Deity. Man's three

faculties are the intellect; the soul, or seat of good and evil; and spirit, the link of communication between the immaterial and the material. Both soul and even the type of the body are pre-existent, and descend under fixed laws. Before birth, when the soul is about to leave its heavenly abode, it appears before the heavenly king arrayed in a glorious shape, and with the lineaments which it is to bear on earth. Souls are unwilling to leave heaven, but are obliged to descend for the elevation of matter, thus death is the happy release of imprisoned souls. Souls are either male or female. One complete soul including both sexes, which if the parties prove themselves worthy, will be re-united by marriage upon earth, that is to say, all souls before entering this world, consist of male and female, which are joined into one being, so when they descend to earth they separate into halves and animate different bodies. When a marriage is contracted, the holy and blessed one joins them on earth as they had formerly been united, and thus again they constitute one soul; but this connection depends upon the conduct of men, and to enable them to acquire either merit or guilt, God has put within them a good and an evil inclination. Those who sin upon earth had previously commenced their apostacy in heaven. To expiate guilt, and prepare for final return to God, souls have to migrate, thus the transmigration of souls is a sure doctrine! The soul of Abel, for instance, successively wandered into Shem, and then into Moses, the constituent consonant of whose name in Hebrew are H. for Hebel, or Abel, Sh. for Shem, and M. for Moses.