PLATONISM.
"I commit to your faithful credence, the eternal memory of our everlasting friendship, the inviolable memory of our unspotted friendship, the sacred memory of our vowed friendship." -- Thus wrote Spencer to his friend Harvey -- nor was this a sexual attachment: Go then ye base defamers -- ye who avow that male and female are requisite to consummate a tender, a warm, an ardent passion -- go ye thus who argue -- go and learn wisdom of the bards of other times. -- Here was an intercourse steady as the sunshine of pure unabating love could render it -- its source, its progress, and its maturity was wholly intellectual. -- Celestial beings, from their bright Elysium, look down with pleasure, and regard with benign complacency the sons and daughters of amity -- Hail ye pure spirits -- all hail ye happy, ye distinguished souls -- ye who wear the silken bandage, and are capable of the joys of friendship -- this globe hath not felicity more rational or refined to bestow, and you are constantly pointing each other to that abode, where alone your happiness can be augmented -- in the beatified world indeed, a total deprivation of evil; and a perfection of knowledge, must place you upon the summit of bliss inessable. Mean time -- doth humanity induce a fault, with genuine delicacy it will be pointed out, or with amiable tenderness it will be but barely hinted -- disguised perhaps under the veil of metaphor, or, if otherwise, proposed almost as a virtue, and by such gentle methods, improvement, and even reformation will be obtained. How rationally do sentimental friends pass their lives -- a constant succession of intellectual pleasures wing their hours. Now the labours of ancient bards feast their delighted spirits -- soon the grave historian dignifies, informs, and enlarges their views -- alternately they read, write, and converse -- conversation expands their souls, and their grateful tongues dwell upon past, present, and expected good -- If the name of JESUS hath vibrated sweetly upon their ear -- then will our EMMANUEL become the basis, the cement, and the divine author of their most aspiring hopes -- and, exalted by the merits of their adorable head, they will look forward to a residence in the paradise of their GOD.