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sculpture of the past, and in its solemn dignity is a fit companion to the winged globe of the Egyptian tombs. And he that devised this image was not so shallow as to illustrate therewith a riddle of so easy a solution as this of man on four legs, two legs, and three legs. Sustain the question, after this answer. Say, what is man? and then we have a riddle which comports with the original dignity of the image. The Sphinx, God, propounds the riddle of existence. To know this riddle is to know all things, to possess all power, and be the god of God—the master and destroyer of the Sphinx. Not to know it, is to be swallowed, contained, comprehended by, and subservient to, his being and his purpose. This is the moral: all things must be perfectly subservient, inferior to and dependent on God, or God and all harmony in nature must be broken up and destroyed. The Sphinx still lives, and the story of Oedipus is void of the true significance thereof.

The infinity of knowledge is the destruction of all Gods but one. Truth is one. Two omnisciences melt in one. Two omnipotences melt in one. There can be but one good universal, and good has no difference with itself. And as truth and power forbid a second God, harmony forbids a second independent will.

It will appear no reproach to omnipotence, that it cannot create nor tolerate a second God. On the contrary, the possibility of an equal forbids supremacy. We must not say that every supposition is a possibility with God. It is no reproach to perfection that it cannot be imperfect,—nor to supreme power that it