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VII. Libra [?]
"Then day and night are weighed in Libra's scales;
Equal awhile, at last the night prevails.''

Another volve in the spiral, and we reach the grand climax of the soul's journey, within the spiritual world.

The nature of this constellation was, for ages, concealed from all but Initiates; for the reason that, it contains the most important mysteries connected with the human soul. It is the grand transition are between the spiritual world and the astral world; in other words, between ideal conceptions and elemental forms, between the world of design and the realms of force.

One of the chief mysteries of Libra is, that, it is androgyne, or bisexual, in nature. So far the dual soul has evolved within the realms of spirituality; here it stands, in the celestial balance, between the two, giving way to temptation, takes the forbidden fruit and instantly awakes from its purely spiritual state to become surrounded by the illusions of matter. The struggle of the soul with the attracting forces of matter is very clearly expressed in the line:—

In other words, astral and physical darkness bedim the soul's spiritual sight, and, leaving the realms of innocence and bliss, they sink into the vortex of the great astral world.

The celestial state is now forever lost as a realm of angelic innocence. It can only be regained amid trial, sorrow, suffering, and experience, and, when regained, it is as Lord and Master, not as the innocent cherub. But when, having gained or reached the equator of the upward arc of its progress, and, united once more to its missing half, gives expression to that deathless force with which it started from the opposite point, Aries: "I am that I am;'' no longer an em- bryo, but being within the universal soul of being. Before closing this symbolic constellation, we must reveal the mystery of its bi-sexual nature. In the higher or first portion of the sign it is [?], positive to some extent, and masculine. The soul is still within the Garden of Eden and pure, clad in the raiment of God, and is represented by the Chaldean statues of "The Bearded Venus,'' or Venus, the Angel of Libra, as a morning star, bright Lucifer. But in the latter half, after the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (positive and neg-

ative, you see) has been partaken of, bright Lucifer falls. The Sun of the Morning, shorn of his glory, becomes the symbol of night, or Vesper, the evening star, and the symbol is thus [?], and the soul loses its heavenly raiment, or spiritual consciousness, and becomes clothed with matter, the symbol of night.

The sign Libra in the Zodiac, in its astrological aspect, is a very external correspondence of all the foregoing.