The Recognition of Friends in Heaven, by the Bishop of Ripon [And Others, Ed. by J.W.].

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1866 Excerpt: ... that there are higher orders of intelligences above him. While we find every department of nature which we have explored instinct with life, and crowded with animate existences, we cannot suppose that man constitutes the boundary line on the ascending scale. From the investigations and discoveries of modern science, we learn that even far below the last range of beings visible to the naked eye, there are countless myriads of animalcule, more than a million of which find ample accommodation in a single drop of water. Indeed, we are told, what is hardly conceivable, that, within the narrow space of a grain of mustard seed, eight millions of living, active creatures can exist, all richly endowed with the organs and faculties of animal life. In taking one, and subjecting it to a careful microscopic examination, it displays a nice and complicated organisation, consisting of bones, muscles, sinews, lungs, and all the parts of a perfect and active being. Within this little form are found the sensibilities, emotions, instincts, and desires, that belong to higher orders of animate existence. Those that inhabit, as myriads do, delicate flowers, are environed with beauties and splendours, that to them constitute a glorious paradise. If, with so lavish a hand, the Creator has thus crowded every leaf, flower, and drop of water with sportive and happy beings, can we suppose that the formation of man has exhausted His power, and that in regions above, there are vast moral wasets which were never occupied by higher orders of intelligences? Is there given to these minute insects a paradise of the richest lustre and variegated splendour;--is every flower a world, with its costly architure, its beautiful scenery, and its various orders of busy inhabitants;--while in God's m...