222   HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAN.

TWELVE TRIBES.   223

causes which are invisible to us, and so they can warn us of danger, or guide us to the good. Our communion with the angel world takes place through the radiant nerve-force.

We cannot look to decarnate spirits as teachers of general truths. It is evident from their messages that they do not understand the philosophy, the ultimate laws of their own state of existence any better than men here understand this state of being. In all their messages they have not been able to tell us of any spiritual laws which were not already discovered or elaborated by scientific men here.

The spiritual laws are essential elements in our natures now. It is for us to learn and to obey these laws here, if we wish for happiness. And the best possible preparation that we can make for a higher spiritual existence is to live up to the full measure of these spiritual laws in our every day life on this earth. The true use of religion is to live well and happy, not to die well. The Bible salvation confines its promises to man's life on this earth. And a life here can be made more perfect and glorious than any picture or vision man has ever seen of life in supernal spheres. All these have fallen far short of what science declares to be attainable here.

THE GREAT CENTRAL IDEA of the Bible is a

kingdom of universal wisdom, peace and justice. The New Jerusalem was to be its capital city, and this was to have twelve gates and departments. These last were to be occupied by people from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. What was the motive in this? The tribes had been scattered far and wide. Why should they be gathered again? The

answer to this is the key to the plan of the Bible. The twelve tribes represented the various types of character necessary to fill the twelve departments in a model system of government. We accept the Bible account of the tribes as being fairly good history, as good as that which other ancient nations have handed down to us. Beyond this our argument rests upon good scientific evidence, and not upon speculations.

Ancient Israel was an undeveloped type of a new social order. Each tribe was at once a symbol and an embodiment of a truth. For each was marked off from the others by distinct traits of character, by the predominance of a special group of faculties These distinctions are set forth in the blessings pronounced by Jacob on his twelve sons, as given in the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis and in that given by Moses in the thirty-third of Deuteronomy. These traits of the tribes are dwelt upon and emphasized by such eminent Jewish historians as Ewald, Ditto and others.

THE MEASURE OF THE CITY 1s the measure of

a man." Let us lay the plan of the city on the human head as on page 226. Then we shall see each tribe is placed over that group of faculties in the brain which corresponds to the ruling traits of character in that tribe.

Both Ezekiel in the Old and John in the New Testament describe the New Jerusalem as to be occupied by the twelve tribes. In his last chapter Ezekiel tells us where each tribe was to be placed. These places are correctly given in our diagram plan of the city. The page of description faces the plan.

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