{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16307/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16307","id":"gutenberg_16307","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16307","summary":null,"tags":["Ascension of the soul","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Soul"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Hutchinson and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ASCENT OF THE SOUL\n\nBY\n\nAMORY H. BRADFORD, D.D.\n\n\nAUTHOR OF\n   \"SPIRIT AND LIFE,\"\n   \"HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS\"\n   \"THE GROWING REVELATION,\"\n   \"THE AGE OF FAITH\"\n   \"MESSAGES OF THE MASTERS,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n\n  NEW YORK\n  THE OUTLOOK COMPANY\n  1902\n\n  Copyright, 1902\n  By The Outlook Company\n\n\n  Mount Pleasant Press\n  J. Horace McFarland Company\n  Harrisburg, Pennsylvania\n\n\n\n\nTo The Memory of My Father\n\n    _That each, who seems a separate whole,\n       Should move his rounds, and fusing all\n       The skirts of self again, should fall\n    Remerging in the general Soul,\n\n    Is faith as vague as all unsweet:\n       Eternal form shall still divide\n       The eternal soul from all beside;\n    And I shall know him when we meet._\n\n                    --_In Memoriam._\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe purpose of the following chapters will be evident to all who may\ncare to peruse them. I have endeavored simply to read the soul of man\nwith something of the care that one reads a book containing a message\nwhich he believes to be of importance.\n\nWhile one class of scientists are seeking to explore the physical\nuniverse, another class, with equal care, are studying the human spirit,\nand, already, startling discoveries have been made. My work is in no\nsense new in kind, but it is such as one whose whole time is devoted to\ndealing with the inner life would naturally give to such a subject. It\nhardly needs to be added that my method is practical rather than\nspeculative. I am more interested in helping the ascent of the soul\nthan in accounting for its origin. In carrying out my plan I have\nconsidered the following subjects: The nature and genesis of the soul,\nits awakening to a consciousness of responsibility, the steps which it\nfirst takes on its upward pathway, the experience of moral failure, its\nsecond awakening, which is to an appreciation that the universe is on\nits side, the part of Christ in promoting its awakening, the sense of\nspiritual companionship by which it is ever attended, the discipline of\nstruggle, and the nurture and culture best fitted to promote its growth.\nI have also sought to read some of the prophecies of the soul, and have\nfound them all pointing toward a continuance of its being beyond the\nevent called death, and toward the fullness of Christ as the goal of\nhumanity. I have found a place for prayers for the departed even among\nProtestants of the strictest sects.\n\nA study of the soul, like a study of history, inspires optimism. It is\nhard to believe that it could have been intended first for perfection\nand then for extinction. It is equally difficult to believe that any\nsoul will, in the end, be \"cast as rubbish to the void.\"\n\nIn these studies I have tried ever to be mindful of my own limitations,\nand not to forget that a fraction of humanity can never hope to\ncomprehend the fullness of truth. Of that side of the spiritual sphere\nwhich has been turned toward me, and of that alone, have I presumed to\nwrite. All that I claim for this book is that it is the contribution of\none, anxious to know what is true, toward a better understanding of a\nsubject which is daily receiving wider recognition and more thorough\nconsideration.\n\nAMORY H. BRADFORD.\n\nMONTCLAIR, NEW JERSEY,\n_August 30, 1902._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS                              Page\n\n\nThe Soul                                 1\n\nThe Awakening of the Soul               25\n\nThe First Steps                         47\n\nHindrances                              71\n\nThe Austere                             97\n\nRe-Awakening                           125\n\nThe Place of Jesus Christ              151\n\nThe Inseparable Companion              181\n\nNurture and Culture                    209\n\nIs Death the End?                      237\n\nPrayers for the Dead                   265\n\nThe Goal                               289\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOUL\n\n\n    It is no spirit who from heaven hath flown\n    And is descending on his embassy;\n    Nor traveler gone from earth the heaven t'espy!\n    'Tis Hesperus--there he stands with glittering crown,\n    First admonition that the sun is down,--\n    For yet it is broad daylight!--clouds pass by;\n    A few are near him still--and now the sky,\n    He hath it to himself--'tis all his own.\n    O most ambitious star! an inquest wrought\n    Within me when I recognized thy light;\n    A moment I was startled at the sight;\n    And, while I gazed, there came to me a thought\n    That even I beyond my natural race\n    Might step as thou dost now:--might one day trace\n    Some ground not mine; and, strong her strength above,\n    My soul, an apparition in the place,\n    Tread there, with steps that no one shall reprove!\n\n                      --Wordsworth.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n_THE SOUL_\n\n\nSubjects which a few years ago were regarded as the exclusive property\nof cultured thinkers, are now common themes of thought and conversation.\nPsychology has been popularized. Materialistic doctrines are at a\ndiscount even in this age of physical science.\n\nIt is difficult to explain the somewhat sudden appearance of intense\ninterest in questions which have to do with the life of the spirit; but,\nwhatever the theory of its genesis, there is no doubt of its presence.\nThis, therefore, is a favorable time for a somewhat extended study of\nthe stages through which we pass in our spiritual growth. I shall\nendeavor to use the inductive method in this inquiry, and trust that I\nam not presumptuous in giving to these essays the title,\n\n    THE ASCENT OF THE SOUL.\n\nThe phrases, \"The Ascent of Man\" and \"The Descent of Man\" are familiar\nto all readers of the literature of modern science. One of the most\neminent of American writers on science and philosophy too soon taken\nfrom his work, if any act of Providence is ever too soon, has made a\nclear distinction between evolution as applied to the body and as\napplied to the spirit. In lucid and luminous pages he has taught us that\nevolution, as a physical process, having culminated in man can go no\nfurther along those lines; that henceforward \"the Cosmic force\" will be\nexpended in the perfection of the spirit, and that that process will\nrequire eternity to complete.\n\nMore perspicuously than any other author, John Fiske has introduced to\nmodern English thought the conception of the ascent of the soul,\nconsidered in its relation to the individual and to the race.\n\nThis subject naturally divides itself into two departments, viz.--the\nascent of each individual soul and, then, the far-off perfecting of\nhumanity. I shall make suggestions along both lines of inquiry. I do not\nknow of any writer who has, in a compact form, presented the results of\nsuch studies, although there have been illustrations, especially in\nliterature, which indicate that many thinkers have had in mind the\nattempt to trace and describe the progress of the soul from its bondage\nto animalism toward its perfection and glory in the freedom of the\nspirit.\n\nGoethe, in \"Faust,\" has made an effort to follow the process by which a\nweak woman and a weaker man, ignorant of the forces struggling within\nthem and susceptible to malign influences from without, through\nterrible mistakes and bitter failure, at length reach the heights of\ncharacter.\n\nThe Trilogy of Dante is a study of the soul in its slow and painful\npassage from hell, through purgatory, to heaven. Perhaps, however, the\nnoblest and truest effort in this direction to be found in the world's\nliterature is \"The Pilgrim's Progress,\" in which a man of glorious\ngenius and vision, but without academic culture, reflecting too much the\ncrude and materialistic theology of his time and condition, follows the\nprogress of a soul in its movement from the City of Destruction to the\nCity Celestial. The City of Destruction is the state of animalism and\nselfishness from which the race has slowly emerged; and the City\nCelestial is not only the Christian's heaven, but also the state of\nthose who, having escaped from earthliness, having conquered animalism\nand risen into the freedom of the spirit, breathe the air and enjoy the\ncompanionship of the sons of God.\n\nIt is my purpose in a different way to attempt to trace some of the\nsteps of what may be called the evolution of the spirit, or, in the\nlight of modern knowledge, the growth of the soul as it moves upward. At\nthe outset I must make it plain that I am speaking of evolution since\nthe time when man as a spirit appeared. Given the spiritual being, what\nare the stages through which he will pass on his way to the goal toward\nwhich he is surely pressing?\n\nJust here we should ask, What do we mean by the soul? The word is used\nin its popular sense, as synonymous with spirit or personality. Man has\na dual nature; one part of his being is of the dust and to the dust it\nreturns; the other part is a mystery; it is known only by what it does.\nMan thinks, loves, chooses, and is conscious of himself as thinking,\nloving, choosing. The unity of this being who thinks, loves, chooses in\na single self-consciousness constitutes him a spirit, or personality;\nand that is what the word soul signifies in its popular usage. There is\nanother technical definition which may be true or false but which is of\nno importance in our study.\n\nThe problem of life is the right adjustment of spirit and body, so that\nthe former shall never be the servant but always the master of the\nlatter.\n\nWe are on this earth, in the midst of darkness, with nothing absolutely\nsure except that in a little while we must die. We are two-fold beings\nin which there is war almost from the cradle to the grave, and that war\nis caused by the effort of the body to rule the soul and of the soul to\nconquer the body.\n\nAt the gates of this mystery we continually do cry, and little light\ncomes from any quarter; indeed, it may be said no light except that of\nthe Christian revelation, and the, as yet, not very pronounced\nprophecies of evolution.\n\nOne of the questions, which in all ages has been most persistently\nasked, concerns the origin of the soul. Perhaps, in reality, that is no\nmore mysterious than the genesis of the body; but the body is material\nand we live in a world of matter, and it is comparatively easy to see\nthat our bodies are from the earth which they inhabit. Our souls,\nhowever, are invisible, immaterial, ethereal. There is no evident\nkinship between a thought and a stone, between love and the soil which\nproduces vegetables, between a heroic choice and the stuff of the earth,\nbetween spirit and matter. Well, then, whence does the soul come?\n\nIt will be interesting at least to recall a few of the many answers\nwhich have been given to this inquiry.\n\nOne theory of the genesis of the soul is called Emanation. That means\nthat in the universe there is really but one source of spiritual being,\none Infinite Spirit, and that all other spiritual beings have proceeded\nfrom Him as the rays of light are flashed from the sun; and that, in\ntime, all will return to Him again and be absorbed in the being from\nwhich they have come. Thus all spirits are supposed to have proceeded\nfrom one source--God. As all natural life in the end is but a\nmanifestation of solar energy, so all human beings are supposed to be\nonly bits of God, for a time imprisoned in bodies, and some time to\nreturn to the Deity and be absorbed in Him, or in it.\n\nAnother answer to the question as to the soul's origin is that of\nPreexistence. This may be called the Oriental theory, for almost the\nwhole Orient holds this view. The substance of the teaching is suggested\nby Wordsworth, in his \"Ode to Immortality,\" in the following lines:\n\n    \"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;\n      The soul that rises with us, our life's star,\n    Hath had elsewhere its setting,\n      And cometh from afar.\"\n\nMany Occidentals have believed in preexistence. One of the most\nintelligent persons whom I have ever known once affirmed that she had\nhad thoughts which she was sure were memories of events which had\noccurred in a previous life. This answer only pushes the question one\nstage further back, and leaves us still inquiring, Where do the souls of\nmen originally come from?\n\nAnother answer to our question affirms that every individual soul is\ncreated by God whenever a body is in readiness to receive it--that when\na body is born a soul is made to order for it. An old poet wrote as\nfollows:\n\n    \"Then God smites His hands together\n    And strikes out a soul as a spark,\n    Into the organized glory of things,\n    From the deeps of the dark.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: W.R. Alger, \"History of the Doctrine of a Future Life,\"\npage 10.]\n\nThe Greek myth of Prometheus is an illustration of this teaching, for\n\"Prometheus is said to have made a human image from the dust of the\nground, and then, by fire stolen from heaven, to have animated it with a\nliving soul.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: W.R. Alger, \"History of the Doctrine of a Future Life,\"\npage 10.]\n\nAnother answer teaches that all human souls have been derived by\nheredity from that of Adam. This is a speculation found in medieval\ntheology, and in the Koran.\n\nA fanciful theory suggests that all souls have been in existence since\nthe universe was formed; that they are floating in space like rays of\nlight; and that when a body comes into being a soul is drawn into it\nwith its first breath, or first nourishment. This is pure imagination,\nbut intelligent and earnest men have believed it to be the true solution\nof the problem.\n\nOne other answer to this question of origin teaches that souls are\npropagated in the same way and at the same time as bodies; that when a\nhuman being appears he is body and spirit; that both are born together,\nboth grow together; and then, some add, both die together, while others\nbelieve that the spirit enters at death on a larger and freer stage of\nexistence.\n\nI have recalled these speculations concerning the soul in order to show\nthat in all ages this question has been eagerly put and reverently\npressed. How could it have been otherwise? And what more convincing\nevidence of the spiritual nature of man could be desired than that he\nasks such questions? Would a figure of clay ask whether it were the\nabode of a higher order of being? Dust asks no questions concerning\npersonality; but intelligence can never be satisfied until it knows the\ncauses of things.\n\nWhat is the teaching of the New Testament concerning this subject? The\nattitude of Jesus toward all the great problems was the practical one.\nHe attempted to shed no light on causes, but ever endeavored to show how\nto make the best of things as they are. Whence came the soul? we may ask\nof Him, but He will tell us that a far more important inquiry is, How\nmay the soul be delivered from imperfection, suffering, and sin, and\nsaved to its noblest uses and loftiest possibilities?\n\nThe reality of spirit is everywhere assumed in the teaching of Jesus,\nbut nowhere does there appear any effort to throw light on the mystery\nof its genesis.\n\nThe distinction between spirit and body is indicated by the\nTransfiguration, the Resurrection, the narratives of the continued\nexistence of Jesus after His Crucifixion, by many references to the\nheavenly life, and by the appeals and invitations of the Gospel which\nare all addressed to intelligence and will. The presence of Jesus in\nhistory is an assertion of the spiritual nature of man. Various\nphilosophers have tried to satisfy the desire for light on the question\nof the origin of personality; but Jesus has told us how, being here, we\nmay break our prison-houses and rise into the full freedom and glory of\nthe children of God. While inquirers have been seeking light, Jesus has\nbrought to them salvation; while they have fruitlessly asked whence they\ncame, Jesus has told them whither they are going.\n\nThe real problem of human life is not one which has to do with our\nbirth, but with our destiny. We know that we think, choose, love; we\nknow that we are self-conscious; we feel that we have kinship with\nsomething higher than the ground on which we walk. The stars attract us\nbecause they are above and have motion, but the earth we tread upon has\nfew fascinations.\n\nJesus has responded to the essential questions: For what have we been\ncreated? What is our true home? What is the goal of personality? By\nwhat path does man move from the bondage of his will, and the limitation\nof his animalism toward the glorious liberty of the children of God, and\ntoward the fullness of his possible being?\n\nWe are thus brought face to face with other questions of deep importance\nWhat part do weakness, limitation, suffering, sorrow, and even sin, play\nin the development of souls? Is it necessary that any should fall in\norder that they may rise? Did John Bunyan truly picture the ascent of\nthe soul? Does its path, of necessity, lead through the Slough of\nDespond, through Vanity Fair, by Castle Dangerous, and into the realm of\nGiant Despair?\n\nMust one pass through hell and purgatory before he may enjoy the\n\"beatific vision?\" Are temptation, sin, sorrow, and even death, angels\nof God sent forth to minister to the perfection of man? or are they\nfiends which, in some foul way, have invaded the otherwise fair regions\nin which we dwell?\n\nThese are some of the questions to which we are to seek answers in the\npages which are to follow. I am persuaded that, as the result of our\nstudies, we shall find that the same beneficent hand which led the\n\"Cosmic process\" for unnumbered ages, until the appearance of man, is\nleading it still, that far more wonderful disclosures are waiting for\nthe children of men as they shall be prepared to receive them, and that\nthe glory of the \"Spiritual Universe,\" as it approaches its\nconsummation, when compared with the finest growths of character yet\nseen, will transcend them as the ordered creation, with its countless\nstars, transcends the primeval chaos.\n\nIn the meantime it is well to remember a few very simple and\nself-evident facts. One of these is that human souls must vary, at\nleast as much as the bodies in which they dwell. Individuality has to do\nwith spirits. We think, love, and choose in ways that differ quite as\nmuch as our bodily appearance. There is no uniformity in the spiritual\nsphere;--this we know from its manifestations in conduct and history.\nOne man is heroic and another tender, one a reformer and another a\nrecluse, one conservative and another radical. The same Bible has\npassages as widely contrasted as the twenty-third and the fifty-eighth\nPsalms, and characters as unlike as Jacob and Jesus. Indeed, may it not\nbe assumed that physical differences are but expressions of still more\nclearly marked differences in spirits? If this is true it will follow\nthat, as we move toward the goal of our being, while all will be under\nthe same good care, we will move along different, though converging,\npaths. There are many roads to the \"Celestial City\" and, possibly, some\nof them do not lead through the Slough of Despond, or go very near to\nthe realms of Giant Despair.\n\nI cannot leave this part of my subject without dwelling for a moment\nupon two thoughts which to me seem to be full of significance.\n\nThis wonderfully complex nature of ours,--this power of thinking,\nchoosing, loving, these mysterious inner depths out of which come\nstrange suggestions, and within which, all the time, processes are\ncarried on which may rise into consciousness and startle with their\nbeauty or shame with their ugliness--does no suggestion come from it\nconcerning its origin and destiny? Until they pass mid-life few men\nrealize the terrible significance of the command of the oracle at\nDelphi, \"Know Thyself.\" Who is not surprised every day at what he finds\nwithin himself? It sometimes seems as if two beings dwelt in every body,\none in the region of consciousness, and one down below consciousness\nsteadily forging the material which, sooner or later, must be forced up\nfor the conscious man to think about.\n\nIn proportion as we know ourselves more accurately it becomes\nincreasingly evident that as spirits we are allied to the great Spirit.\nFew who earnestly think can believe that their power of thought could\nhave grown out of the earth; few when they love can believe that there\nis no fountain of love, unlimited and free; and few, when they choose\none course and refuse another, would be willing to affirm that they are\nwithout the power of choice, and have no destiny but the grave. In other\nwords, is not the fact that we are spirits all the proof that we need to\nhave of the Father of Spirits? Is not a single ray of light all the\nevidence which any one needs of the reality of the sun? Is not the\npresence of one spiritual being a demonstration of a greater Spirit\nsomewhere? Every soul indicates that, whatever the process by which it\nhas reached its present development, it came originally from God. \"In\nthe beginning God\" is a phrase which applies to the spiritual as well as\nto the material universe.\n\nThe soul is not only a witness concerning its own origin, but it is also\na prophecy concerning its destiny. The more thoroughly it is studied the\nmore convincing becomes the evidence that it must some time reach its\nperfected state. The perfection of intelligence, love, and will require\nendless growth. The great words of Pascal can hardly be recalled too\nfrequently:\n\n\"Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. It\nis not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to crush him. A\nbreath of air, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But were the\nuniverse to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which\nkills him, because he knows that he dies; and the universe knows nothing\nof the advantage it has over him.\"\n\nWe can as yet hardly begin to comprehend that for which we were\ncreated;--now we see through a glass darkly. A caterpillar on the earth\ncannot appreciate a butterfly in the air. Jesus was the typical man, as\nwell as the revelation of God. St. Paul has set our thoughts moving\ntoward the \"fullness of Christ\" as the final goal of humanity. We may\nnot, for many milleniums, know all that is contained in that phrase \"the\nfullness of Christ;\" but no one ever attentively listened to the voices\nwhich speak in his own soul, no one has even asked himself the meaning\nof the fact that nothing earthly ever completely satisfies, no one ever\nsaw another in the ripeness of splendid powers growing more intelligent,\nloving, and spiritually beautiful, without feeling that if death were\nreally the end no being is so much to be pitied as man, and no fate so\nmuch to be coveted as a short life in which the mockery may go on.\n\nOur souls themselves assure us that they have come from a fountain of\nspiritual being--that is, from God; and they are also prophecies of a\nperfection which has never yet been realized on the earth and which will\nrequire eternity to complete. But all are not conscious of themselves as\nspiritual beings and children of eternity, and many come slowly to that\nconsciousness. Our next inquiry, therefore, will concern the Soul's\nAwakening.\n\n\n\n\nTHE AWAKENING OF THE SOUL\n\n\n    There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,\n    And a statue watches it from the square,\n    And this story of both do our townsmen tell.\n\n    Ages ago, a lady there,\n    At the farthest window facing the East\n    Asked, Who rides by with the royal air?\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    That selfsame instant, underneath,\n    The Duke rode past in his idle way\n    Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    He looked at her, as a lover can;\n    She looked at him as one who awakes:\n    The past was a sleep, and her life began.\n\n         --_The Statue and the Bust._ Browning\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n_THE AWAKENING OF THE SOUL_\n\n\nThe process of physical awakening is not always sudden or swift. The\npassage from sleep to consciousness is sometimes slow and difficult. The\nsoul's realization of itself is often equally long delayed. The effect\nof eloquence on an audience has often been observed when one by one the\ndormant souls wake up and begin to look out of their windows, the eyes,\nat the speaker who is addressing them. In something the same way the\nsouls of men come to a consciousness of their powers and, with\nclearness, begin to look out on their possibilities and their destiny.\n\nThe prodigal son in the parable of Jesus lived his earlier years without\nan appreciation either of his powers or possibilities. When he came to\nhimself this appreciation flashed upon his will and he turned toward his\nfather.\n\nTwo chapters of this book will have to do with thoughts suggested by\nthis \"pearl of parables,\" viz., the Soul's Awakening and its\nRe-awakening. Before this young man decided to return to his father he\nknew himself as an intelligent and as a responsible being; the power of\nchoice was not given him then for the first time. Long ere this he had\ndecided how he would use his wealth. He knew the difference between\nright and wrong. He was intellectually and morally awake before he saw\nthings in their true relations. \"The wine of the senses\" intoxicated\nhim; the delights of the flesh seemed the only pleasures to be desired.\nAt first he did not discover the essential excellence of virtue or the\nsure results of vice. Later, when he saw things in a clearer light,\ntheir proper proportions and relations appeared, and he came to himself\nand made the wise choice.\n\nIn this chapter we are to study the process of the soul's awakening to a\nconsciousness of its powers, and in a subsequent chapter that\nre-awakening which is so radical as to merit the name it has usually\nreceived, viz., the new birth.\n\nThere is a time when the soul first realizes itself as a personality\nwith definite responsibilities and relations. This experience comes to\nsome earlier, and to some with greater vividness, than to others. So\nlong as we are blind to our powers, responsibilities, relations, we can\nhardly be said to be spiritually awake. He only is awake who knows\nhimself as a personality; who has heard the voice of duty; who, to some\nextent, appreciates the fact that he is dependent on a higher\npersonality or power; and who recognizes that he is surrounded by other\npersonalities who also have their rights, responsibilities, and\nrelations. I think, I choose, I love, I know that I am dependent upon a\nBeing higher than myself. I see that I am related to other personalities\nwith rights as sacred as my own, and, therefore, that I must choose,\nthink, love so as to be acceptable to the One to whom I am responsible,\nand harmonious with those by whom I am surrounded.\n\nThe soul's awakening is primarily a recognition and an appreciation of\nits responsibility. It may think, choose, love, without realizing\nresponsibility, and, therefore, live as if it were the only being in the\nuniverse; but the moment it recognizes responsibility it also discerns a\nhigher Person, and other persons, since responsibility to no one, and\nfor nothing, is inconceivable.\n\nThe soul's awakening, therefore, carries with it the idea of obligation,\nand that includes the recognition of God, of duty, of right and wrong,\nin short, of a moral ideal. I do not mean to insist that every one\nappreciates all that is implied in consciousness of responsibility.\nThere are degrees of alertness, and some men are wide awake and others\nhalf asleep.\n\nHowever it may have come to its self-realization, that is a solemn and\nsublime moment when a human soul understands, ever so dimly, that it is\nfacing in the unseen Being one on whom it knows itself to be dependent;\nand when it discerns the hitherto invisible lines which bind it to other\npersonalities, in all space and time. At that moment life really begins.\nHenceforward, by various ways, over undreamed-of obstacles, assisted by\ninvisible hands, hindered by unseen forces, in spite of foes within and\nenemies without, the course of that soul must ever be toward its true\nhome and goal, in the bosom of God.\n\nThe difficulties in the way of such a faith for the thoughtful and\nsensitive are many and serious. Not all blossoms come to fruitage; not\nall human beings are fit to live; processes of degeneration seem to be\nat work in nature, in society, and in the individual life.\n\nApparently true and time-honored interpretations of Scripture are quoted\nagainst the faith that in some way, and by some kind of discipline, the\nsouls of men will forever approach God; while the belief of the church,\nso far as it has found expression in the creeds is urged in opposition.\nBut when I see how timidly the creeds of the church have been held by\nmany in all ages, how large a number of the most spiritual and morally\nearnest have questioned them at this point, and how often they have been\nrejected in whole, or in part, by those who have dared to trust their\nhearts; when I remember that the Scripture quoted as opposing is\nsusceptible of another interpretation, when I remember that blossoms are\nnot men, and, most of all when I see the God-like possibilities in\nevery human being, I cannot resist the conviction that every soul of man\nis from God, and that, sometime and somehow, it may be by the hard path\nof retribution, possibly through great agonies and by means of austere\nchastisements and severe discipline as well as by loving entreaty, after\nsuffering shall have accomplished all its ministries it will reach a\nblissful goal and the \"beatific vision.\"\n\nThe awakening of the soul is its entrance upon an appreciation of its\npowers, relations, possibilities, and responsibilities.\n\nWhat awakens the soul? The answer to that question is hidden. The wind\nbloweth where it listeth. Elemental processes and forces are all silent\nand viewless. The stillness of the sunrise is like that of the deeps of\nthe sea. No eye ever traced the birth of life, and no sound ever\nattended the awakening of the soul; and yet this subject is not\naltogether mysterious. A few rays of light have fallen upon it. I\nventure suggestions which may help a little toward a rational answer to\nthis question.\n\nThe soul awakens because it grows, and its growth is sure. Everything\nthat is alive must grow; only death is stationary. It is as natural for\nus sometime to know ourselves as having relations both to the seen and\nthe unseen as for our bodies to increase in stature. The Confession of\nAugustine[3] is true of all, \"Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart\nis restless until it repose in Thee.\"\n\n[Footnote 3: Confessions. Book I, 1.]\n\nThe soul turns toward God as naturally as children turn toward their\nparents. I know no other way of explaining the fact that in all ages the\nmajority of the people have had faith in some kind of a deity; and that,\nwidely as they differ as to what is right, all feel that they should\nfollow their convictions of duty. The various ethnic religions, however\nrepulsive, cruel, and vile some of their teachings may be, all indicate\na realization of dependence, and all, in some way, bear witness to man's\nlonging for God. Augustine was right--\"The heart is restless until it\nrepose in Thee.\"\n\nThe healthful soul will always move along the pathway of growth. The\nnext stage in its evolution after its birth is its awakening. Its\nprogress may be hindered, but it cannot be prevented, and it may be\nhastened.\n\nThe means by which a soul comes to its self-realization has been a\nfavorite study with poets, dramatists, and novelists. Marguerite, in\n\"Faust,\" was a simple, sweet, sensuous, traditionally religious girl\nuntil she was rudely startled by the knowledge that she was a great\nsinner; that moment the scales began to fall from her eyes. In her,\nGoethe has shown how one class of persons, and that a large class, come\nto self-realization.\n\nVictor Hugo, in a passage of almost unparalleled pathos, has pictured in\nJean Valjean a kind of big human beast who, when half awake, steals a\nloaf of bread to save others from starving, but who is startled into\nfullness of manhood by the sympathy and consideration of the good Bishop\nwhose silver he had also stolen.\n\nHawthorne, in Donatello, has pictured a beautiful creature fully\nequipped with affections, emotions, passions, but with little\nconsciousness of responsibility, until the fatal moment in which a crime\nilluminates his soul like a flash of lightning.\n\nSuch experiences are not to be compared with those of the prodigal son\nor of Saul. Before the one was reduced to husks, or the light blazed\nupon the other, they felt the obligation to do right. The prodigal chose\npleasure with his eyes wide open and Saul was, mistakenly but truly,\ntrying to do God's will even when he assisted in the stoning of Stephen.\n\nHugo, Goethe, and Hawthorne have accurately delineated single steps in\nthe growth of the soul. They have shown how the process of the soul's\nawakening may be, and often has been, hastened. It may be hindered by\nfalse ideals and a vicious environment, and it may be hastened by lofty\nideals and a holy environment.\n\nDr. Bushnell, in his lectures on Christian Nurture, has said that the\nformative years of every man's life are the first three. Is he correct?\nI am not sure, but there can be no doubt but what with a good\nenvironment the consciousness of moral obligation will be very early\ndeveloped.\n\nThe soul cannot long be imprisoned. The consciousness of \"ought\" and\n\"ought not\" will break all barriers as a growing seed will split a\nrock; and, when that stage of growth appears, the soul knows itself.\n\nWhen the soul is finally awakened, when it realizes that it is\nindissolubly bound to a larger personality in the unseen sphere; when it\nfinds that it is tied to other souls, and that it cannot escape from its\nresponsibility for itself and them,--what then? Then the struggle of\nlife begins. The awakening is to a realization of conflict with the seen\nand unseen environment, with forces within and fascinations without.\nWhen Paul speaks of the law as the minister of death, he simply means\nthat law introduces an ideal, and ideals always start struggles. Law is\nsomething to be obeyed. It is sure to antagonize the animal in man. When\nour possibilities dawn upon us, in that moment there comes the feeling\nthat they should be our masters. Then the lower nature resists and\nbecomes clamorous. Duty calls in one direction and inclination impels\nin another. The period of ignorance has passed. Weakness and\nimperfection remain, but not ignorance. There is a conflict in the soul.\nThe law in the members wars against the law in the mind. We feel that we\nought to move upward, but unseen weights press heavily upon us, and to\nrise seems impossible.\n\nBetween God calling from above and animalism from below the poor soul\nhas a hard time of it. The morally great in all ages have become strong\nby overcoming their fleshly natures. They have risen on their dead\nselves to higher things. The vision of God has reached them even in\ntheir prison-houses; and it has broken their chains and they have begun\nto move toward Him. To the end of the chapter they have had a long\nfight, and not seldom have been sadly worsted. Goethe and Augustine,\nPascal and Coleridge, DeQuincey and Webster--how the list of those who\nhave had to fight bitter battles for spiritual liberty might be extended\nI and many have not been victorious before the shadows have lengthened\nand the day closed. Should they be blamed or pitied? Pitied, surely, and\nfor the rest let us leave them to Him who knoweth all things. \"Vengeance\nis mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.\" Men have nothing to do with\njudgment; the final word concerning any soul will be spoken only by Him\nwhose vision is perfect. \"Steep and craggy is the pathway of the gods,\"\nand steep and craggy is the path by which men rise to spiritual heights.\n\nHe who is sensitive to life can hardly survey this universal human\nstruggle with undimmed eye or with unquestioning faith. The young are\ndriven here and there by heartless and, sometimes, almost furious\npassions; some are weak and fall because they are blind, and others\nbecause they love and trust; and many who desire to do good mistake and\nchoose evil. The strong often try to run away from themselves but can\nfind no solitude in which to hide; and all the time right and truth\nshine in the darkness like stars. What shall we say of these confusing\nconditions? To ignore them is foolish; to insist that the struggle is\nbut a delusion is nonsense. The only sane course is to face facts and\nadjust our theories to them.\n\nThe battle between duty and inclination, between the ideal and the\nactual, will continue as long as life in the body endures. It is not an\nunmixed evil. In the end right is never worsted. The way that leads to\nholiness is long and sometimes bloody; but it always develops strength\nand courage. The fight, for each individual, will be ended only by the\nfull and perfect choice of truth and virtue, which are always the will\nof God. The victory will be secure long before it is fully won. Enough\nfor us to know that conformity to the will of God at last will be the\nend of strife.\n\nIt is not well to be overmuch troubled when we see those whom we love\nfighting a hard battle against inherited tendencies and an evil\nenvironment, for the fight, however fierce, is a good sign. Those alone\nare to be pitied who are drifting, and not resisting. Progress is ever\nby a steep and spiral pathway. Sometimes the face of the ascending soul\nis toward the sun and sometimes it is toward the darkness. No man can\ndeliver his friend from the forces which oppose him. Each must conquer\nfor himself and none can evade the conflict. From the hour when the soul\nawakens to a consciousness of its powers and possibilities, its\nmovement, in spite of all hindrances and difficulties, must be to the\nheights. Those only need cause anxiety who are not yet awake; or who,\nhaving been awake, have turned backward instead of pressing onward.\n\nWe are now face to face with a momentous inquiry. When the soul is\nawake, when it realizes something of its descent from God and of its\nrelation to Him and to other souls, what should be its environment?\nIntelligent and otherwise sane people at this point have been strangely\ninsane and blind. We are always affected by influence more than by\nteaching. Education by atmosphere is quite as effective as education by\nstudy. Involuntarily all become like their ideals. Personalities absorb\ncharacteristics from surroundings as flowers absorb colors from the\nlight. The awakened soul, therefore, from the first should have a\nspiritual environment. Parents and friends should be helps, not\nhindrances, to its progress. I once read a letter from one who had\nchanged an old for a new home. The letter was full of aspiration for the\nbest things, of thoughts about God and the spiritual verities. It was\nnot difficult to see that the new home in its reverence for truth, its\nloyalty to right, its reaching for reality, was providing the same good\ninfluence as the old one. If, in the environment, truth and duty are\nhonored, virtue reverenced, God worshipped sincerely and devoutly,\nmanhood held to be as sacred as deity, the unseen and spiritual never\nspoken of unadvisedly or lightly, courage always found hand in hand with\ncharacter, the soul will never long fight a losing battle.\n\nThe home should be organized to promote, as swiftly as possible, the\nawakening of the souls of the children; and, from the moment of this\nawakening, everything should be planned to help their growth. The books\non the tables should tell the life-stories of those who have bravely\nfought and never faltered. Biographies of men like Wilberforce and\nHoward who have lived to help their fellow-men; and of women like\nFlorence Nightingale and Lady Stanley, who have regarded their social\ngifts and ample wealth as calls to service; histories of charities,\nintellectual development and noble achievement, pictures like Sir\nGalahad and The Light of the World are potent forces in the formation of\ncharacter. The ideal side of life should ever be presented in its most\nattractive form to the awakened soul in its near environment. Because\nthe ideal culminates in the religious, and the feeling of moral\nobligation rests at last upon the conviction that God is, and that He is\nnot far from any one, Jesus, in all the beauty and pathos of His earthly\ncareer, in all the tragic grandeur of His death and glory of His\nResurrection, in all the nearness and helpfulness of His continuing\nministry, should be the subject of frequent, earnest, honest, sane, and\nsympathetic conversation.\n\nThe awakened soul needs first of all an environment which will be\nfavorable to its growth. Its development then will usually be steadily\nand swiftly toward God and conformity to His will. There ought to be no\nneed of any re-awakening. If the soul opens its eyes among those who\nreverence truth and righteousness, who guard virtue and revere love, to\nwhom God is the nearest and most blessed of realities, and Jesus is\nMaster, Saviour, and daily Friend, its growth toward the spiritual goal\nwill be as natural and beautiful as it will also be swift and sure.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST STEPS\n\n\n    No mortal object did these eyes behold\n    When first they met the placid light of thine,\n    And my soul felt her destiny divine,\n    And hope of endless peace in me grew bold:\n    Heaven-born, the soul a heav'nward course must hold;\n    Beyond the visible world she soars to seek\n    (For what delights the sense is false and weak)\n    Ideal form, the universal mould.\n    The wise man, I affirm, can find no rest\n    In that which perishes: nor will he lend\n    His heart to aught which doth on time depend.\n    'Tis sense, unbridled will, and not true love,\n    Which kills the soul: Love betters what is best,\n    Even here below, but more in heaven above.\n\n    --_Sonnet from Michael Angelo._ Wordsworth\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n_THE FIRST STEPS_\n\n\nThe first movements of the awakened soul are difficult to trace.\nObservation, painstaking and long-continued, alone can furnish the\ndesired information. In the attempt to recall our own experiences there\nis always a possibility of inaccuracy. Bias counts for more in\nself-examination than in an examination of others. There is also danger\nof confusing religious preconceptions with what actually transpires.\nWhat we have been led to imagine should be experienced we are very\nlikely to insist has taken place. The truth concerning the Ascent of the\nSoul will be found in the conclusions of many observers in widely\ndifferent conditions.\n\nThe soul awakens to a consciousness of its responsibilities and to a\nknowledge that it is in a moral order from which escape is forever\nimpossible. This is our point of departure in this chapter.\n\nThe new-born child has to become adjusted to its physical environment,\nto learn to use its powers, to breathe, to eat, to allow the various\nsenses to do their work. In like manner the newly awakened soul has to\nbecome adjusted to the moral order. The moral order is the rule of right\nin the sphere of thought, emotion, and choice. It is the government of\nthe soul as the physical order is the government of the body. It may be\nbest explained by analogy. There is a physical order ruled by physical\nlaws. If those laws are obeyed, strength, health, sanity result; but if\nthey are disobeyed, the consequences, which are inevitable and\nself-perpetuating, are weakness, disease, insanity. If one violates\ngravitation he is dashed in pieces; if he trifles with microbes their\ninfinitesimal grasp will be like a shackle of steel. No one can get\noutside the physical universe and the sweep of its laws.\n\nThere is also a right and a wrong way to use thought, emotion, will. The\nmind which has hospitality only for holy thoughts will become clearer,\nand its vision more distinct; but the mind which harbors impure\nthoughts, gradually, but surely, confuses evil with good, obscures its\nvision, and becomes a fountain of moral miasm. If we choose to recall\nand to retain feelings that are animal, and are the relics of animalism,\nthe natural tendency toward bestiality will gather momentum; but if\nemotion is turned toward higher objects, and we are thrilled from above\nrather than lulled from below, the sensibilities become sources of\nenduring joy. The moral order is like the physical order in its\nuniversality and in the remorselessness of the consequences which follow\nchoices.\n\nHow does the soul become adjusted to the moral order? This question is\ndifficult to answer. At the first there is sight enough to see that one\ncourse is right and another wrong, but the vision is indistinct.\nGradually the ability to make accurate discriminations increases, and,\nwith time and other growth, the faculty of vision is enlarged and\nclarified.\n\nThe first step in the Ascent of the Soul is the development of ability\nto discriminate between right and wrong. The powers of the soul are\nenlarged and vivified with the bodily growth, but whether there is any\nnecessary connection between the growth of the one and that of the\nother, we know not. This alone is sure--clearer vision, with\never-increasing distinctness, reveals the certainty that moral laws are\nuniversal and unchangeable. The process of adjustment to the moral\norder is partly voluntary and partly involuntary. It is hastened by the\nhidden forces of vitality, and it may be hindered by its own choices. As\na human being who refuses to eat will starve, so a soul which turns away\nfrom truth will starve. The law in one case is as inexorable as in the\nother. This consciousness of the moral order is sometimes dim even in\nmature years because neglect always deadens appreciation. Paul said that\nthe law is a schoolmaster leading to Christ. By that he intended to\nteach that we must realize that we are under moral law before we can\nknow that its violation will result in a state of ruin needing\nsalvation. First that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.\nThe phrase \"natural law in the spiritual world\" means that the\nconsequences following right and wrong are as inevitable and essential\nin the realm of spirit as in that of matter.\n\nThe progress of the soul is dependent on the realization that there is\na moral quality in thoughts, emotions, choices; that the consequences\nfollowing them grow out of them as flowers from seed, and that they\ndetermine not only the character but the happiness and welfare of the\none exercising them.\n\nThe next step in the upward movement of the soul is the realization of\nits freedom. It is possible for one to know that he is under law,\nwithout at the same time appreciating that he is free to choose whether\nhe will obey. I may see a storm sweeping toward me and know that behind\nit is resistless force, and know, also, that to step outside the track\nof that storm is impossible; and it is conceivable that a soul may know\nitself as able to think, feel, act, and, at the same time, be under the\ndominion of forces before which it is powerless. The practical question,\ntherefore, for all in this human world is not, are there spiritual\nlaws? but, may we choose for ourselves whether we will obey or disobey\nthem? Until the soul knows itself to be free to choose, there will be no\ndeep feeling of obligation, without which there can be no motive\nimpelling toward the heights. Here also we walk in the dark. The genesis\nof the consciousness of freedom has never been observed. DuBois-Reymond\nhas called it one of \"the seven riddles of science.\" We are no nearer\nthe solution of the problem than were our fathers a thousand years ago.\nBut one thing at least we do know: He who believes himself to be a\npuppet in the hands of unseen forces will never fight them. If freedom\nis a fiction the universe is not only unmoral, but immoral. The final\nargument for freedom is consciousness. I know I could have chosen\ndifferently from what I did. But how do I know? The process cannot be\npushed farther back. Consciousness is ultimate and authoritative. But\nwhat then shall be said of heredity? A child when first born is little\nbut a bundle of sensibilities. Its growth seems to be but the unfolding\nof inherited tendencies. Every man is what his ancestors have made him\nplus what he has absorbed from his environment. How can we say then that\nany are free? That man who is surly, uncomfortable, ugly, as hard to\nendure as a March wind, is but the extension of his father. When one\nknows the elder it is difficult to do otherwise than pity the younger.\nHe is but living the tendencies which were born in him and which are an\ninseparable part of his nature. He cannot be genial and urbane. Are not\nsome born moral cripples as others are born with physical deformities?\nAre not some spiritually deaf, dumb, and blind from birth? It cannot be\ndoubted. We are all more or less what our fathers were, but our\nsurroundings do much to modify us. Many men seem to be driven on wings\nof passion, as leaves by tornadoes; and yet we know that we are free,\nand that all life and conduct, individual and social, must be ordered on\nthat hypothesis. Teach men that they are not free, and anarchy and chaos\nwill quickly follow. No freedom? Then there is no obligation. No one\nfeels that he ought to do what he cannot do, and no one will try to do\nwhat he does not feel that he ought to do. If men are but machines,\nmoving only as the power is turned on, there is no moral quality in any\naction. If we live in a moral world, whether we can understand it or\nnot, we must be free to choose for ourselves. The possibility of the\nsoul's expansion depends on its freedom. There is no right and no wrong,\nno truth and no error, if it is a slave to the inheritance with which it\nwas born. What gives to the invitations of Jesus a quality so serious\nand so solemn is the fact that they may be rejected. The power of\nchoice is the most sublime endowment which man possesses. When we have\nlearned to know ourselves as free a long step forward has been taken.\nThe soul grows by a right use of the power of choice.\n\nHow may it be adjusted to this knowledge? It will undoubtedly grow to\nit, but the process will be slow. It may, however, be hastened by a use\nof the experience of others. No man should be allowed to begin the\nbattle of life as ignorant as his father was. Each new soul should have\nthe benefit of the experience of all who have lived before. Children\nshould be taught by example and conversation, in the home and the\nschool, that the beginning of wisdom is a right use of the experience of\nothers. However this lesson may be learned, and however swift may be the\nprocess of growth, the next step in the soul's progress, after its\nrealization that it is in a moral order, must be its adjustment to the\nfact that it is a free agent and sovereign over its own choices.\n\nNo man is ever forced into any course of conduct. Character is the\nresultant of many choices rather than of necessity. The moral law may be\nobeyed or it may be violated. Its seat is, indeed, in the bosom of God.\nIt is the only guarantee of individual progress and social harmony. Its\nsway is without bound and without end. To know how to live in a moral\nworld, and how best to use the gifts of liberty, is a subject for an\neternity of study. That this consciousness of freedom comes slowly is an\nimmense blessing; otherwise the soul would be dazed as, for the first\ntime, it looked around on the solemnities and splendors of the spiritual\nuniverse; and be overwhelmed as it realized, at the very beginning of\nits career, that it was endowed with a sovereignty as mysterious and\npotent as that of God.\n\nThe next step in the upward movement of the soul is appreciation of a\nmoral ideal. That is a solemn and sublime moment when the newly awakened\nsoul realizes that it dwells in a moral order and is free to make its\nown choices. But another moment is equally thrilling--that in which, in\nfaint and scarcely audible accents, it catches the far call of the goal\ntoward which, henceforward and forever, it must move. It now knows not\nonly that there is a difference between right and wrong, but that there\nare mysterious affinities between itself and truth and right. Later the\nsound of that far-away voice will become more distinct. But in its\ninfancy the soul is more or less confused. It hears many sounds and does\nnot always know how to distinguish between siren voices and those which\nprophesy its destiny. It also has to learn to distinguish truth and\nright. The task of making moral discriminations is not easy at any time.\nAmid a babel of noises to detect the one clear call which alone can\nsatisfy is almost impossible. The mistakes, therefore, are many, but\neven by mistakes the soul learns to distinguish the true from the false.\nBut how is it to be taught to appreciate that one voice only in all that\nconfusion of strange sounds should be heeded, and all the rest\ndisregarded? The same answer as before must be given. This knowledge,\nalso, will come in large part with the years. It seems to be the cosmic\npurpose to provide fresh light with every new step of progress. No one\nis ever left in total darkness. As the soul advances it learns to\ndistinguish between the voices which speak to it. The necessity of\ngrowth is the angel of the Lord whose ministries and prophecies are the\nhope and glory of the race. Growth may be hindered, but it can never be\nbanished from the universe. It moved in chaos, and never faltered in its\nmarch, until under its beneficent leading all things were seen to be\ngood. It led the cosmic movement until man appeared; and now it has\ntaken man in hand, with all the vestiges of animalism clinging to him,\nand it will never leave him as he rises toward the perfection and glory\nof God. The law of growth answers most if not all of our questions. The\nsoul of man must grow. With its growth will come vision, strength, and\nprogress toward its goal.\n\nBut growth is not all. The voices to which we choose to give heed will\nsound most distinctly in our ears. Here we face a fact which is often in\nevidence. The earth and animalism will never cease to make appeal to our\nsenses, while at the same time voices from above will call from their\nheights to our spirits. To distinguish between desire and duty, between\ntruth and tradition, between the spiritual and the animal, is a step\nwhich has to be taken, and which is taken whether we appreciate how or\nnot. By the pain which follows wrong choices, or by the intuitions of\nthe spirit, the soul comes to realize that its obligation is always in\none direction; that its choice ought to be in favor of the morally\nexcellent. But how shall it discern the morally excellent? The process\nof learning will be a long one, and never fully completed on the earth.\nThis is a realm that poets and dramatists, who are usually the\nprofoundest and most accurate students of life, have not often tried to\nenter. Such questions can be answered only after careful and\nlong-continued inductive study. Moralists are usually content to stop\nshort of this inquiry. How the soul comes to learn that it is obligated\nto truth and right we may not fully know; but that it does learn, and\nthat no step in all its development is more important, there is no\ndoubt. In His dealing with this question Jesus preserves the same\nattitude as toward all subjects of speculation. I came not to explain\nhow life adjusts itself to its environment, He seems to say, but to give\nlife a richness and a beauty which it never had before; I came not to\nanswer questions, but to save to the best uses that which already\nexists. Nevertheless, the question as to how the soul is taught to\ndistinguish the morally excellent is of serious importance. If we do not\nrecognize the sanctity of truth and right we may not give them\nhospitality; and we may not appreciate their sanctity if we are ignorant\nof what gives them their authority. How, then, does it learn what truth\nand right are? Are there any clearly defined paths by which this\nknowledge may be reached? Is not truth a matter of education? And is\nthere any absolute right? A Hindoo Swami, of the school of the Vedanta,\nlecturing in this country, solemnly assured an intelligent audience\nthat there is no sin; that what is called sin is only the result of\neducation; that what is vice in one place may be virtue in another; and\nthat in the sphere of morals all is relative and nothing absolute. Then\nthere is no wrong, for wrong and sin are closely related; and no right\nbecause if right is not a dream it implies the possibility of an\nopposite. There is little permanent danger from such shallow theories.\nThe peril from confusion is greater than from denial. But even confusion\nat this point is not long necessary because in every soul there is a\nvoice which men call conscience, which never fails to impel toward the\ntrue and the good. Conscience may be likened to a compass whose needle\nalways points toward the north. When it is uninfluenced by distracting\ncauses conscience always shows the way toward truth and right. The\nSpartans believed that lying was a virtue if it was sufficiently\nobscure; and a Hindoo woman who throws her child to the god of the\nGanges does so because she is deeply religious. Are not such persons\nconscientious? Yet they perform acts which are in themselves wrong? Of\nwhat value, then, is conscience? That they are both conscientious and\nreligious I have no doubt. It is their misfortune to be ignorant. The\nlight appears to be colored by the medium through which it passes, and\nyet it is not colored; and conscience seems to approve what is wrong,\nand yet it never does. It always impels toward the right, but men often\nmake serious mistakes because of their ignorance. The needle in the\nmoral compass is deflected by selfishness or false teaching. The Hindoo\nmother might hear and, if she dared to listen to it, would hear a deeper\nvoice than the one calling her to sacrifice her child--even one telling\nher to spare her child. She has not yet learned that it is always safe\nto trust the moral sense. Superstitions are not conscience; they are\nignorance obscuring and deadening conscience. Every man is born with a\nguide within to point him to paths of virtue and truth, and one of the\nmost important lessons which the growing soul has to learn is that when\nit is true to itself it may always trust that guide. The call of his\ndestiny finds every man, and, when he hears it, he asks: How may I reach\nthat goal? It is far away and the path is confused. Then a voice within\nmakes answer, and, if he heeds that, he will make no mistake. That\nvoice, I believe, is the result of no evolutionary process, but is the\nholy God immanent in every soul, making His will known. Evolution\ngradually gives to conscience a larger place, but there is no evidence\nthat it is produced by any physical process. It may be hindered by\nphysical limitations, but it can be destroyed by none. Why are we so\nslow in learning that conscience, being divine, is authoritative and may\nbe trusted? I know no answer except this: We so often confuse ignorance\nwith conscience that at last we conclude that the latter is not\ntrustworthy. But there we mistake. It is trustworthy. It never fails\nthose who heed its message. That realization may now and then come\nearly, but it seldom comes all at once. Nevertheless it is a step to be\ntaken before the progress of the soul can be either swift or sure.\n\nThe moment that the soul realizes that God is not far away, but within;\nthat all the divine voices did not speak in the past, but that many are\nspeaking now; that whosoever will listen may hear within his own being a\nmessage as clear and sacred as any that ever came to prophet or teacher\nin other times, it will begin to realize the luxury of its liberty, and\nsomething of the grandeur of its destiny. Truth and right are not\nfictions of the imagination, they are realities opening before the\ngrowing soul like continents before explorers. They always invite\nentrance and possession. They have horizons full of splendor and beauty\nand music. They alone can satisfy. But the soul has not yet fully\nescaped from the mists and fogs and glooms of the earth. It is\nsurrounded by those who still wallow in animalism, and the sounds of the\nlower world are yet echoing in its ears. But at last its face is toward\nthe light; the far call of its destiny has been heard; it knows itself\nto be in a moral order; it is assured that, however closely the body may\nbe imprisoned, no bolts and no bars can shut in a spirit; that before it\nis a fair and favored land, far off but ever open; and, best of all,\nthat within its own being, impervious to all influences from without, is\na guide which may be implicitly trusted and which will never betray. Why\nnot follow its suggestions at once and press on toward that fair land\nof truth and beauty which so earnestly invites? Ah! why not? Here we are\nface to face with other facts. There are hindrances, many and serious,\nin the pathway of the soul, and they must be met and forced before that\nland can be entered. This is the time for us to consider them.\n\n\n\n\nHINDRANCES\n\n\n    And many, many are the souls\n    Life's movement fascinates, controls;\n    It draws them on, they cannot save\n    Their feet from its alluring wave;\n    They cannot leave it, they must go\n    With its unconquerable flow;\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    They faint, they stagger to and fro,\n    And wandering from the stream they go;\n    In pain, in terror, in distress,\n    They see all round a wilderness.\n\n    --_Epilogue to Lessing's \"Laocoon\"._ Matthew Arnold\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n_HINDRANCES_\n\n\nWhen the soul has heard the far call of its destiny and realizes that it\nmay respond to that call, and that it has, in conscience, a guide which\nwill not fail even in the deepest darkness, it turns in the direction\nfrom which the appeal comes and begins to move toward its goal. Almost\nsimultaneously it realizes that it has to meet and to overcome numerous\nand serious obstacles. To the hindrances in the way of the spirit our\nthought is to be turned in this chapter.\n\nThe moral failure of many men and women of superb intellectual and\nphysical equipment is one of the sad and serious marvels of human\nhistory. What a pathetic and significant roll might be made of those\nwho have been great intellectually and pitiful failures morally! It has\noften been affirmed that Hannibal might have conquered Rome, and been\nthe master of the world except for the fatal winter at Capua. Antony,\npossibly, would have been victor at Actium if it had not been for\nsomething in himself that made him susceptible to the fascination of the\nfair but treacherous Egyptian queen. Achilles was a symbolical as well\nas an historical character. There was one place--with him in the\nheel--where he was vulnerable, and through that he fell. Socrates was\nlike a tornado when inflamed by anger. Napoleon laid Europe waste and\ndesolated more distant lands, but he was an enormous egotist and morally\na blot on civilization.\n\nThe life-history of many of the poets is inexpressibly sad. Chatterton,\nShelley, Byron, Poe--their very names call up facts which those who\nadmire their genius would gladly conceal. Many artists are in the same\ncategory. It explains nothing to ascribe their moral pollution to their\nfiner sensibilities, for finer sensibilities ought to be attended by\nuntarnished characters. It is, perhaps, best not even to mention their\nnames lest, thereby, we dull the appreciation of noble masterpieces\nwhich represent the better moods of the men. One of imperial genius was\na slave to wine, another to lust, another was too envious to detect any\nmerit in the work of others of his craft. There are statesmen of whose\nachievements we speak, but never of the men themselves; and there have\nbeen ministers of the Gospel, unhappily not a few, who have suddenly\ndisappeared and been heard of no more. Into a kindly oblivion they have\ngone, and that is all that any one needs to know. What do such facts\nsignify? That many, or most, of these men have been essentially and\ntotally bad? Or that they are moral failures? They signify only that\nthey have not yet risen above the hindrances which they have found in\ntheir pathways. The world knows of the temporary obscuration of a fair\nfame; it does not see the grief, the tears, the gradual gathering of the\nenergies for a new assault upon the obstacles in the road; and it does\nnot see how tenderly, but faithfully, Providence, through nature, is\ndealing with them. Some time they will be brought to themselves--The\nEternal Goodness is the pledge of that. It is not with this unseen and\nbeneficent ministry of restoration, however, that I am now dealing, but\nwith the awful wrecks and failures which are so common in human history,\nand concerning which most men know something in their own experiences.\nHow shall they be explained?--since to evade them is impossible. In\nother words when a man is awake, when he feels that he is in a moral\norder, is free, and hears the call of his destiny, why is his progress\nso slow and difficult? No one has ever delineated this period in the\nsoul's growth with greater vividness than Bunyan. The Valley of\nHumiliation, the Slough of Despond, Giant Despair, Doubting Castle are\nall pictures of human life taken with photographic accuracy. What are\nsome of these hindrances?\n\nThe soul is free, but its abode is in a limited body. The movement of\nthe soul is swift and unconstrained as thought. It is not limited by\ntime. It may project itself a thousand years into the future or travel a\nthousand years into the past; but it dwells in the body and is more or\nless restrained by it. Bodily limitation narrows experience and compels\nignorance. It makes large acquaintance impossible. The flowers beneath\nthe ice on the Alps are small; the flowers of the tropics have the\nproportions of trees. Thus environment modifies growth. The body cannot\nput fetters on the will, but it may hold in captivity the powers which\nacquire knowledge, withhold from the emotions persons worthy of\naffection, and make the range of objects of choice poor and pitiful. The\nsoul has often been compared to a bird in a cage,--fitted for broad\nhorizons but confined within narrow spaces. This hindrance is a very\nreal one. The man who grows swiftly must be in the open world with\nbeings to love and to serve ever within his reach. Hence the life beyond\ndeath is often called the unhindered life because of its freedom from\nthe body. The old story of \"Rasselas\" is symbolical. In the Happy Valley\na man might be as good, but he could not be as great and wise, as in the\nlarger world. The soul will meet fewer temptations there, but those it\ndoes encounter will be more insistent and harder to escape. He who would\nrespond to a call to service must needs have about him those whom he\nmay serve. Large views are for those who are able to rise to the\nheights. He who lives in a cave may be true to his little light, and\nsurely is responsible for no more, but he will see far less than the one\nwhose home is on the mountaintop. Thus even bodily limitations, to which\nare attached no moral qualities, are hindrances to the growth of the\nbeing, whose destiny is not only purification but expansion:--its\nmovement is not only toward goodness but also toward greatness; not only\ntoward virtue but also toward power.\n\nThe animal entail is one of the greatest mysteries of our mortal life.\nThe soul in its moments of illumination feels that it is related to some\nperson like itself, but far higher, and aspires to it. Sir Joshua\nReynolds' figure of \"Faith\" in the famous window in the chapel of New\nCollege, Oxford, suggests the attitude of the newly awakened soul. In\nfreshness and beauty it is turning toward the light. But in human\nexperience something occurs which Sir Joshua has not tried to depict. A\nclammy hand reaches up from the deeps out of which rise suffocating\nclouds, and that pure spirit finds itself enveloped in darkness and\nfastened to the earth. The humiliation is complete. What has occurred?\nOnly what has happened again and again; and what will continue to happen\nfor no one knows how long. The animal has gotten the better of the\nspirit. The soul has sinned--for sin is little, if anything, but a\nspirit allowing itself to return to the fascinations of the animal\nconditions out of which it has been evolved, and from which it ought to\nhave escaped forever. The animal entail is the chief hindrance to the\naspiring spirit. The animal lives by his senses. He is content when they\nare satisfied. It can hardly be said that animals are ever happy.\nHappiness is a state higher than contentment. Paul said he had learned\nin whatsoever state he was to be content, but even he never said that in\nall states he had learned to be happy. Animals are contented when their\nsenses are gratified and they are savage when their senses are\nclamorous. Lions and bears are dangerous when they are hungry, and cruel\nwhen other desires are obstructed.\n\nWhatever the theory of evolution, from the beginning of its upward\nmovement, the nearest, most potent, and most dangerous hindrance to the\nsoul is this entail of animalism, which it can never escape but which it\nmust some time conquer. The spirit and the body seem to be in endless\nantagonism, and yet the body itself will become the fair servant of the\nsoul when once the question of its supremacy has been determined. The\ntendency to revert to animalism has been vividly depicted by the poets,\nand the clamorous and insistent nature of the passions portrayed by the\nartists.\n\nThe liquor in the enchanted cup of Comus may be called \"the wine of the\nsenses.\" Its effect is thus described by Milton. Comus offers\n\n           ... \"To every weary traveler\n    His orient liquor in a crystal glass,\n    To quench the drought of Phoebus; which, as they taste\n    (For most do taste through fond, intemperate thirst)\n    Soon as the potion works, their human countenance,\n    The express resemblance of the gods, is changed\n    Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,\n    Or ounce or tiger, hog or bearded goat.\"\n\nA famous passage from Ovid's \"Metamorphoses\"[4] represents Actaeon as\nchanged into a stag; but, if I read the fable aright, the glimpse of\nDiana in her bath, while not an intelligent choice, was more than a mere\naccident--it was the uprising of innate sensuality; for even the Greek\ngods were supposed to have had senses.\n\n[Footnote 4: Addison's translation, Book III, pages 188-198.]\n\n    \"Actaeon was the first of all his race,\n    Who grieved his grandsire in his borrowed face;\n    Condemned by stern Diana to bemoan\n    The branching horns and visage not his own;\n    To shun his once-loved dogs, to bound away\n    And from their huntsman to become their prey;\n    And yet consider why the change was wrought;\n    You'll find it his misfortune, not his fault;\n    Or, if a fault it was the fault of chance;\n    For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?\"\n\nThe story of Circe is the common story of those who have yielded to the\nflesh. The companions of Ulysses visited the palace of Circe, were\nallured by her charms, and the result is read in these words:\n\n    \"Before the spacious front, a herd we find\n    Of beasts, the fiercest of the savage kind.\n    Our trembling steps with blandishments they meet\n    And fawn, unlike their species, at our feet.\"\n\nThe strong words of Milton are none too strong:\n\n    \"Their human countenance\n    The express resemblance of the gods, is changed\n    Into some brutish form.\"\n\nA common subject with artists has been the temptations of the saints.\nThey have fled from luxury, and what they supposed to be moral peril,\nbut have found no solitude to which they could go and leave their bodies\nbehind. In the silences faces have appeared to them full of alluring\nentreaty, and more than one anchorite has found to his sorrow that he\ncarried within himself the cause of his danger.\n\nA singularly vivid painting represents one of the saints in the desert,\nand clinging to him, with their arms around his neck, are two figures of\nexquisite physical beauty. Their charms are so near and perilous that\nthe pale and haggard man in desperation has shut his eyes, and in this\nextremity, with his one free hand, is frantically clinging to a cross.\nThe artist has accurately depicted the condition in which the soul finds\nitself as it begins its growth;--its chief enemies are those of its own\nhousehold.\n\nHappy indeed is it for all that none see at the first the obstacles in\ntheir way. Faint and far shines the splendor of the goal; the hindrances\nare reached one by one, and each one, for the moment, seems to be the\nlast.\n\nBut close and persistent as is the animal entail, it is not\nunconquerable. Many a Sir Galahad, and many a woman fair and holy as his\npure sister, have lived on this earth of ours. They were not always so;\nand their beauty and holiness are but the outshining of spiritual\nvictory.\n\nIs this environment of evil necessary to the development of the soul? We\nmay not know; but we do know that it can be conquered, and some time and\nsomehow will be conquered; and that then men, like ourselves, grown from\nthe same stock, evolved from the lower levels, will constitute \"the\ncrowning race.\"\n\n    \"No longer half akin to brute,\n    For all we thought and loved and did,\n    And hoped, and suffered, is but seed\n    Of what in them is flower and fruit.\"\n\nThese are a few samples of the hindrances which the soul must face in\nits progress through \"the thicket of this world.\" But these are not all.\nHardly less serious is the ignorance which clothes it like a garment. It\ncomes it knows not whence; it journeys it knows not whither, and\napparently is attended by no one wiser than itself.\n\nHugo's awful picture of a man in the ocean with the vast and silent\nheavens above, the desolate waves around, the birds like dwellers from\nanother world circling in the evening light, and the poor fellow trying\nto swim, he knows not where, is not so wide of the mark as some\nthoughtless readers might suppose.\n\nThe soul is ignorant and timid, in the vast and void night, with its\nenvironment of ignorance and of other souls also blindly struggling. At\nthe same time there is the consciousness of a duty to do something, of a\nvoice calling it somewhere which ought to be heeded, and of having\nbitterly failed.\n\nThe solitariness of the soul is also one of the most mysterious and\nsolemn of its characteristics. The prophecy which is applied to Jesus\nmight equally be applied to every human being: He trod the wine-press\nalone. In all its deepest experiences the soul is solitary. Craving\ncompanionship, in the very times when it seeks it most it finds it\ndenied. Every crucial choice must at last be individual. When sorrows\nare multiplied there are in them deeps into which no friendly eye can\nlook. When the hour of death comes, even though friends crowd the rooms,\nnot one of them can accompany the soul on its journey. It seems as if\nthis solitariness must hinder its growth. Perhaps were our eyes clearer\nwe should see that what seems to retard in reality hastens progress. But\nto our human sight it seems as if every soul needed companionship and\ncooeperation in all its deep experiences; and that the ancients were not\naltogether wrong in their belief in the presence and protection of\nGuardian Angels. But something more vital and assuring than that faith\nis desired. It is rather the inseparable fellowship of those who are\nfacing the same mysteries and fighting the same battles as ourselves;\nbut even that not infrequently is denied.\n\nIs this all? There is another possibility which observation has never\ndetected and which science is powerless to disprove. Can we be sure that\nno malign spiritual influences hinder and bewilder? We cannot be sure.\nThe common belief of nearly all peoples ought not to be rudely brushed\naside. No one willingly believes in lies nor clings to them when he\nknows that they are lies. Superstitions always have some element of\ntruth in them, and the truth, not the error, wins adherents. The most\nthat we can say, at this point, is that we do not know. It is possible\nthat the common beliefs of many widely separated people have no basis\nin fact, that they are born of dreams and delusions; and, on the other\nhand, it is equally possible that the spaces which we inhabit, but which\nwe cannot fully explore, have other inhabitants than our vision\ndiscerns, and that those beings may help and may hinder us in our\nprogress. It is not wise to dogmatize where we are ignorant. While the\nscales balance we must wait.\n\nAre the hindrances in the path of the soul without any ministry? That\ncannot be; for then they are exceptions to the universal law, that\nnothing which exists is without a purpose of benefit.\n\nAll the analogies of nature indicate that human limitations are intended\nto serve some good end, since, so far as observation has yet extended,\nit has found nothing which is caused by chance. Emerson says, \"As the\nSandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he\nkills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptations we\nresist;\"[5] and St. Bernard says, \"Nothing can work me damage except\nmyself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a\nreal sufferer but by my own fault.\"[6]\n\n[Footnote 5: Essay on Compensation.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Quoted by Emerson in Essay on Compensation.]\n\nAnd St. John says, \"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the\ntree of life.\"[7]\n\n[Footnote 7: Revelation 2:7.]\n\nThe mission of the austere is the development of strength. Concerning\nthis suggestion we shall inquire later. The souls which have reached the\nserene summits have ever been those which have most resolutely faced the\nobstacles in their pathways. Even apparent hindrances always exercise a\nbeneficent ministry. As Jesus was made perfect by the things which He\nsuffered, so, in the Cosmic plan, all souls must come to strength and\nperfection by the difficulties which they overcome and the enemies which\nthey subdue.\n\nWhat should be the attitude of the soul in view of the hindrances by\nwhich it is environed? It should be taught to fight them at every point.\nNowhere is the kindness of nature more evident than in the patience and\npersistence with which this instruction is conveyed.\n\nNature withholds her favors until they are earned. New light comes only\nto those who have used-the light they had. Strength is developed by\nresistance. Growth is for those who place themselves where growth is\npossible. Nature gives the soul nothing, but she always waits to\ncooeperate with it. This lesson was impressed long ago. It ought never to\nrequire new emphasis. Let the younger study the experiences of their\nelders. They will be saved many failures and much pain. The soul can\nnever be coerced, but it may be taught. Milton has enforced this great\nlesson in Comus:\n\n          \"Against the threats\n    Of malice or of sorcery, of that power\n    Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm--\n    Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt,\n    Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled;\n    Yet, even that which mischief meant most harm,\n    Shall in the happy trial prove most glory;\n    But evil on itself shall back recoil,\n    And mix no more with goodness, when at last\n    Gathered like a scum, and settled to itself,\n    It shall be in eternal restless change\n    Self-fed, and self-consumed; if this fail\n    The pillar'd firmament is rottenness\n    And earth's base built on stubble.\"\n\nNo one should believe, after all the growth of the ages, that the soul\nwas made to be imprisoned in a fleshly prison. It was intended that it\nshould burst its barriers and press toward the light. There is an\neternal enmity between the serpent and the soul, and the serpent's head\nmust be bruised, but the soul resisting all the forces and fascinations\nof the flesh, rising on that which has been cast down to higher things,\nslowly but surely, painfully but with ever added strength moves toward\nthe ideal humanity which has never been better defined than as \"the\nfullness of Christ.\"\n\nMeanwhile it is well to reinforce our faith by remembering that it is\nwritten in the nature of things that truth and goodness must prevail.\n\nThis is a moral universe. Error never can be victorious. It may be\nexalted for a time, but that will be only in order that it may be sunk\nto deeper depths. Evil and error are doomed and always have been. Evil\nis moral disease, and disease always tends toward death, while life\nalways and of necessity presses toward larger, more beautiful, and more\nbeneficent being.\n\nHere let us rest. Many things are dark and impossible of explanation,\nbut we have already been taught a few lessons of superlative importance.\nWe have learned that the soul is made for the light; that it can be\nsatisfied only with love and truth; that every hindrance may be\novercome; that the animal was made to be the servant of the spirit; that\nthe body makes a good servant but a poor master; that strength comes to\nthose who refuse to submit to the clamors of appetite: thus we have been\nled to see something of the way along which the soul has moved from\nanimalism toward freedom and victory.\n\nAnd we have learned one thing more, viz., that the Over-soul is not a\ndream, but a reality; that the individual may be in correspondence with\nthe Over-soul and from it be continually reinforced. Or, to put our\nfaith in sweeter and simpler form, we have learned by experience which\ncannot be gainsaid that God is a personal spirit, interested in all that\nconcerns His children, and anxious for their growth; and that He can no\nmore allow His love for them to be defeated than He could allow the\nsuns and planets to break from their orbits. How much more is a man\nthan a sun! Therefore, since God is in His heaven, all must be right\nwith the world and with man, and some time all the hindrances will be\nchanged into helps, all obstacles be converted into strength, and \"all\nhells into benefit.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE AUSTERE\n\n\n    We cannot kindle when we will\n    The fire which in the heart resides;\n    The Spirit bloweth and is still,\n    In mystery our soul abides.\n    But tasks in hours of insight will'd\n    Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.\n\n    With aching hands and bleeding feet\n    We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;\n    We bear the burden and the heat\n    Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.\n    Not till the hours of light return,\n    All we have built do we discern.\n\n    --_Morality._ Matthew Arnold.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n_THE AUSTERE_\n\n\nThe soul has discovered that it is in a moral order, that it is a free\nagent, and that it has mysterious affinities with truth and right. It\nhas taken a few steps, and with them has learned that its upward\nmovement will not be easy.\n\nIt next discovers that it has no isolated existence, but that it is\nsurrounded by countless other similar beings all indissolubly bound\ntogether and having mutual relations. With the dawn of intelligence\ncomes the realization of relations. This realization is dim at the\nfirst, but it is very real. Soon the soul learns that the relations\nbetween it and other souls are so intimate that the interest of one is\nthe interest of all. Appreciation of relations is a long advance in the\nmovement upward, and it necessitates other knowledge. The realization of\nrelations leads, necessarily and swiftly, to the consciousness of\nresponsibility. The process of this growth cannot be described in\ndetail, but the path is clearly marked and its milestones may be\nnumbered. Each soul is always in a society of souls. Each one,\ntherefore, affects others, and is affected by them. It is free and,\ntherefore, responsible for the influence which it exerts. Moreover, it\nis bound to other souls by love, and love always carries with it the\npossibility of sorrow; for sorrow is usually only love thwarted. It is\nnot far from the truth to say that when there is no love there is no\nsorrow, and that the possibilities of sorrow are always increased in\nproportion to the perfection of being.\n\nIn time the soul finds itself not only one among myriads of souls, but\nit realizes that its relations to some are more intimate than to\nothers. It needs not to seek the causes of this fact, since it cannot\nescape from the reality. Thus it finds itself in families, in tribes, in\nnations, in social groups where the bonds are strong and enduring.\n\nSome souls, more capacious than others, have a richer and more varied\nexperience, and thus inevitably become teachers. The process goes on,\nand, with both teachers and scholars, the horizon expands and the\nstrength increases with each new day. The soul has found that it is not\na solitary being dazed and saddened by the consciousness of its powers,\nbut that it is in a society in which all are similarly endowed, and that\nall are pressing toward the same goal. It has discovered that its growth\nis hastened, or hindered, by its environment; and that the spiritual\nenvironment is ever the nearest and most potent.\n\nEach new step in this pilgrim's progress reveals something more\nwonderful than the opening of a continent. It is an entrance into a\nlarger and more complex world. A strange fact now emerges. Every\nenlargement of being, either of faculty or capacity, is attended by pain\neither physical or mental. \"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,\" seems\nto be a universal law rather than an isolated text. All life is\nstrenuous because it is always attended by growth. The soul moves not\nonly onward but upward, and climbing is always a difficult process.\n\nBefore a second step is taken the soul begins to experience suffering\nand sorrow; and as its growth advances it never afterward, so far as\nhuman sight has penetrated, escapes from them. Why are they allowed? and\nwhat purpose do they serve?\n\nThe soul exists in a body, and the body is the seat of sensations. Those\nsensations, whether pleasing or painful, belong to the physical organs,\nbut they affect the spirit, and escape from them is impossible. Pain has\na perceptible effect on the soul, even though the latter has no other\nrelation to the body than that of tenant to a house. It suffers because\nof the intimate relations which it sustains to the organs through which\nit works.\n\nThe individual soul is related to other souls. Therefore it has plans\nand purposes concerning them, and it has affinities which are\ninseparable from existence in society. Those purposes and affinities may\nbe gratified or thwarted. The soul sometimes finds a response from the\none whom it seeks and sometimes it does not. Pain belongs to the body,\nand sorrow is an experience of the soul.\n\nThe body is in constant limitations, subject to diseases and accidents,\nand the soul is affected by all that the body feels. Because of these\nintimate relationships the soul is limited by ignorance, and defeated in\nits purposes. It becomes attached to other souls, and those attachments\nare either rudely shattered or roughly repulsed, and, consequently, the\nlife of the soul is as full of sorrow as is a summer day of clouds.\n\nIt faces its hindrances and rises by overcoming them. It finds pain\nbesetting nearly every step of its advance, and the constant shadow of\nits existence is sorrow. Along such a pathway it moves in its ascent\nand, in spite of all opposition, it is never permanently hindered; while\nsorrow and suffering continually add to its strength. The austere\nexperiences through which all pass hasten their spiritual growth. They\nare ever ministers of blessing; they pay no visits without leaving some\nfair gifts behind.\n\nQuestions arise here which it is difficult to answer. Why are such\nministries needed? Why could not the ascent of the spirit be along an\neasier pathway? Why should it be necessary to write its history in tears\nand blood? Inquiries like these are insistent. Optimism assumes that the\nend always justifies the means, even when we are in the dark as to why\nother means were not used; and that it is better to comfort ourselves\nwith the beneficent fact than to refuse to be comforted because we may\nnot penetrate the depths of the Cosmic process. The emphasis of thought\nmay well rest here. The austere is never merely the severe. What seems\nto human sight to be evil and only evil, always has a side of benefit.\nThe soul is purified and strengthened as it rises above animalism; it is\nmade courageous by bodily pain; tears clarify its vision. Even Jesus is\nsaid to have been made perfect by the things which He suffered. The\nuniversal characteristic of life is growth, and growth ever reaches out\nof old and narrow toward new, larger and better environment.\n\nThe soul needs strength, vision, sympathy, faith. These qualities are\nthe fruit of experience. Muscle is converted into strength by use; and\nits use is possible only as it finds something to overcome. Vision is\nlargely the fruit of training. The man on the lookout discovers a ship\nahead long before the passenger on the deck. That fine accuracy of sight\nhas come to him as he has battled with the tempests, and learned to\ndistinguish between the whiteness of flying foam and the sunlight on a\nsail. Clearness of spiritual vision is acquired in the same way. He who\ncan see even to \"the far-off interest of tears\" has been taught his\ndiscernment by reading the meaning of nearer events.\n\nSympathy is the art of suffering with another without the definite\nchoice to do so. One soul spontaneously enters into the condition of\nanother and bears his pains and griefs as though they were his own; that\nis sympathy. But who ever bore the griefs of another before he himself\nhad felt sadness? Sympathy is a fruit that grows on the tree of sorrow.\nSo intensely is this felt that even kindly words in hours of deep trial\nare ungrateful if they come from one who had had no hard experience of\nhis own. In proportion as one has borne his own griefs he is presumed to\nbe able to bear the griefs of others. He who has passed through the\nvalley of the shadow, and who knows the way, is the only one whose hand\nis sought by another approaching the same valley. No human\ncharacteristic is more beautiful, or more appreciated, than sympathy;\nbut its genuineness is seldom trusted unless the one offering it is\nknown to have suffered himself.\n\nJesus is said to have been a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,\nand, therefore, has led the long procession of the broken-hearted\ntoward hope and peace. There is no other place known among men for the\ncultivation of sympathy except the school of suffering.\n\nIf possible, faith even more than sympathy is dependent on struggle.\nThere is no other conceivable means by which it can be acquired. It\ncannot be imparted. No multiplying of words increases faith. If one has\nbeen in the blackest darkness and some way, he knows not how, has been\nled out into light, it will be easier for him to think that the same\nexperience may be realized again. If every sorrow has had in it some\nhidden seed of blessing; if the overcoming of hindrances has ever\nincreased strength; if at the very moment that calamity seemed ready to\ndestroy the storm has blown around, and this has occurred again and\nagain, it is impossible to refrain from expecting, or at least hoping,\nthat behind the darkness an unseen hand is making things to work for\ngood. Faith is essential to courage. He never cares to struggle who\nknows that failure is just ahead. Courage is required as the soul\nprogresses, and becomes more deeply conscious of the mysteries and\nenemies by which it is surrounded. Faith results from the experience of\nbeneficent leading. If one has been guided by love through many periods,\nand if that love has always been found waiting for its object on every\ncorner of life, it will, ere long, be expected, watched for, and\ntrusted.\n\nStrength, vision, sympathy, courage, the fair attributes of the soul,\nall appear as it overcomes difficulties, fights doubts, goes deep into\nsorrow, and thus learns to realize that it is being led. It is easy to\nsee how sorrow, pain, and death in the older legends and poetry were so\noften spoken of as beneficent angels. They are like those Sisters of\nCharity who hide beneath their long black bonnets serene and angelic\nfaces. The austere in human life has never yet been explained, but it\nhas been justified millions of times, and will be justified every time a\nhuman soul rises toward the goal for which all were created and toward\nwhich all, slowly or swiftly, are moving.\n\nThese conclusions have many confirmations, and with some of them it will\nbe worth while to spend a little time. Every thinking man's experience\nassures him that he grows by overcoming. Emerson has finely said that we\nhave occasion to thank our faults, by which he means limitations; and he\nhas also reminded us that the oyster mends its broken shell with pearl.\n\nWe do not like overmuch to read with care our own experiences; but, when\nwe are honest, we see that every struggle has left a residuum of added\nstrength, that every loss has been a gain, that every calamity has\nopened doors into a larger world, and that what has been dreaded most\nhas really most enriched us. Experience is a wise teacher.\n\nHistory confirms the witness of experience. The strong man has always\ngained strength by struggle. The story of a few of the preeminent\nteachers is impressive reading. Mahomet knew the bitter pangs of\npoverty; Epictetus was a slave; Socrates was regarded as a fanatic, if\nnot a lunatic, by most of the people of Athens; Siddhartha is said to\nhave been a useless and luxurious young man until, wearied with the\nmonotony of his father's palace, he ventured into the larger world and\nsaw wherever he went poverty, sickness, death. He was startled into\nactivity by the want, woe, and misery through which his pathway led.\n\nNearly all moral and spiritual leaders have had to suffer and thus grow\nstrong. Mere genius has done little for human progress. It has made\nphysical discoveries, but seldom touched the sphere of the soul. Elijah\nheard the voice of God in the midst of the terrors of the wilderness in\nwhich he was ready to die; Isaiah shared the usual fate of reformers and\nspoke his message into the ears of those who returned insult for\nwarning. The story of Job is a long tragedy,--the world's tragedy, the\ntragedy of the soul in all ages. What deeps of anguish Dante fathomed\nbefore he could begin to write! Who can read the story of \"Faust,\" as\nGoethe has interpreted it, without feeling that in it he has given the\nworld in thin disguise much of his own life-story? Shakespeare alone, of\nmen of genius of the first rank, seems to have learned comparatively few\nof his lessons in the school of suffering. But, possibly, if more were\nknown of Shakespeare, it would be found that Lear, Macbeth, and Hamlet\nare but the expressions of lessons learned as he fought life's battle.\n\nThe \"In Memoriam\" of Tennyson, the \"De Profundis\" of Mrs. Browning, and\nthe rich and glorious music of Robert Browning could have come only from\nsouls which had been profoundly moved by grief and pain. All men listen\nmost attentively to those who have gone farthest into the dark shadows.\n\nThe austere in human experience always accomplishes a purpose of\nblessing; and the soul comes into such an environment, not for the\npurpose of being humiliated, but in order that its strength may be\ndeveloped, its sight clarified, and its powers perfected.\n\nThus we reach a rational basis for optimism. It has been said that\noptimism must not only show that beneficent results are being\naccomplished in human life, but it must also justify the means by which\nsuch results are achieved. It is not enough to show that all will be\nwell in the end; it must be shown that even grief, pain, loss, and\ndeath are ordained to be the servants of man. This is evident to all who\nallow themselves to reach to the deeper meanings of their limitations\nand sufferings.\n\nOpposite conclusions have been reached by some of those who have studied\nthe hard and harsh phenomena of human life. The dreamy Hindu mind at\nfirst seemed to discern the truth that suffering is but the under side\nof blessing, and the hymns of the Vedas are full of hope and\nanticipation of better times; but, under the stress of prolonged\ndisappointment and measureless calamities, bewildered in his attempt to\nexplain the mystery of suffering, the Hindu at last came to deny its\nreality. But no bitter trials can be escaped by denial, and in India,\nto-day, disappointment and calamity are no less frequent than in elder\nages. Refusal to believe in darkness effects no change in a midnight.\nThe negation of precipices makes the ascent of a mountain no easier,\nand the denial of sickness, sorrow, and death deliver none from their\npresence. On the other hand, the very rocks that are the most difficult\nto scale will lift the climber toward an ampler horizon; and he who\nplaces his feet upon his temptations and sorrows will see in his own\nlife the increasing purpose that widens with the suns.\n\nSlowly, and over many obstacles, the soul rises from its humiliation and\npresses toward the heights, and every forest passed and every mountain\nscaled adds to its stature, to the swiftness of its advance, and to the\nglory of its vision.\n\nThe teaching of Jesus concerning the ministry of the austere has greatly\nchanged the popular estimate of the value of many of the experiences\nthrough which men pass. Sorrow, pain, and death were formerly regarded\nas enemies, and only enemies, and they are still so regarded where the\nfull force of His message is either not welcomed or not understood. The\ncommon opinion in many quarters, even to this day, is that suffering is\neither a hideous mistake in the universe, an awful nightmare, or a cruel\nmockery. Paul, using language as men used it in his time, spoke of death\nas an enemy. That he was speaking popularly, rather than technically, is\nevident because he also said that the sting of death--that which made it\ndreaded--is sin. Jesus, however, justified the method by which men are\nperfected; and His teaching harmonizes with what may be learned by a\nreverent scrutiny of the nature of things. The more carefully \"the\nCosmic process\" is studied, the clearer it becomes that events are so\nordered that, sooner or later, everything helps toward richer and better\nconditions. A tidal wave or a pestilence may seem to be inexplicable,\nbut even pestilence teaches men habits of thrift and cleanliness, and\ntidal waves warn them of their points of danger.\n\nWhat has made the average of human life so much longer than it was\nformerly? That very mysterious pestilence has turned attention toward\nits causes, and thus the race has been made cleaner, purer, more fit to\nendure. Why do men live in houses with scientific plumbing, fresh air,\nand have well-cooked food? Because that fierce teacher, pestilence, has\ntaught them that any other course means weakness and death. Whom nature\nloveth she chasteneth is a truth as clearly written in human history as\n\"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth\" is written in the Bible. The true\nattitude toward the austere, for a philosophic as for a Christian mind,\nis one of complacency. Every severity is intended for benefit. By wars\nthe enormity of war is made evident. By disease the necessity for\nobservation of the laws of health is emphasized. Even death, in the\norder of things, at last is a blessing, for one generation must give\nplace to another, or the evils that Malthus feared would be quickly\nreached. Moreover death, in its proper time, is only nature's way of\ngiving the soul its freedom. Hindrances in its path do not indicate the\npresence of an enemy but of a friend who discovers the only sure way of\nsecuring its finest development. The cultivation of the philosophic and\nChristian temper, which are practically the same, would make this a\nhappier world. We could endure trials with more courage if we would but\nremember that they are as necessary to our growth as the cutting of a\ndiamond is necessary to the revelation of the treasury of light which it\nholds.\n\nThe heights of character are slowly reached, and, usually, only by the\nministry of the austere; but once they are reached the horizon expands,\nand the soul finds in the clearer light peace if not joy.\n\nThis course of reasoning does not make the mistake of regarding sin as\nless than dreadful. Every sin has hidden in its heart a blessing; but\nsin as such is never a blessing. It may be necessary for Providence to\nallow a spirit to sink again into animalism in order that it may be\ntaught its danger, and made to realize that only through struggle can\nits goal be reached--but the animalism in itself is never beneficent.\n\nWhen we say that the process by which a man rises may be justified, we\ndo not mean that all his choices are justifiable. The process of his\ngrowth provides for his fall, if he will learn in no other way, but it\ndoes not necessitate his fall; that is ever because of his own choice. A\nspirit may choose to return to the slime from which it has emerged. That\nchoice is sin, but it can never be made without the protests of\nconscience which will not be silenced, and it is by those protests that\na man is impelled upward again, and never by the sin in itself. No one\nwas ever helped by his sin, but millions, when they have sinned, have\nfound that the misery was greater than the joy, and this perpetual\nconnection of sin and suffering is the blessed fact. Sin is never\nanything but hideous. The more unique the genius the more awful and\ninexcusable his fall. Even out of their sins men do rise, but that is\nbecause there sounds in the deeps of the soul a voice which becomes more\npathetic in its warning and entreaty, the more it is disregarded. Those\nwho desire to justify sin say that it is the cause of the rising. It may\nbe the occasion, but it is never the cause. The occasion includes the\ntime, place, environment,--but the cause is the impelling force; and sin\nnever impels toward virtue. Satan has not yet turned evangelist.\n\nBecause in the past the soul has risen, one need not be unduly\noptimistic to presume that, in spite of opposition, it will meet no\nenemies which it will not conquer, and find no heights which it will not\nbe able to scale. Prophecy is the art of reading history forward. The\nspirit having come thus far, it is not possible to believe that it can\never permanently revert to the conditions from which it has emerged;\nneither can we believe that it will fail of reaching that development of\nwhich its every power and faculty is so distinct a prophecy.\n\nNo light has ever yet penetrated far into the mystery of human\nsuffering, sorrow, and sin. Why they need to be at all, has been often\nasked, but no one has furnished a reply which satisfies many people.\nWith the old insistent and pathetic earnestness millions are still\n\"knocking at nature's door\" and asking wherefore they were born. Hosts\nof others are looking out on desolation and grief, thinking of the tears\nwhich have fallen and the sobs which are sure to sound in the future,\nand asking with eager and pleading intensity, why such things need be.\nOut of the heavens above, or out of the earth beneath, no clear answer\nhas come.\n\nAs we wonder and study, still deeper grows the mystery. Three courses\nare open to those who are sensitive to the hard, sad facts of the human\ncondition. One is to say that all things in their essence are just as\nthey seem; that sorrow, sin, death none can escape, that they are evils,\nand that a world in which they exist is the worst of possible worlds,\nand that there is neither God nor good anywhere. Then let us eat and\ndrink, for to-morrow we die, and the quicker the end the sweeter the\ndoom.\n\nAnother way is simply to confess ignorance. Out of the darkness no\nvoice has come. The veil over the statue of the god of the future has\nnever been lifted, and inquiry concerning such subjects is folly. To\nthis I reply agnosticism is consistent, but it is not wise. Because it\ncannot explain all things it turns from the clues which may yet lead out\nof the labyrinth.\n\nThe other course, and the wiser, is to use all the light that has yet\nbeen given and from what is known to draw rational conclusions\nconcerning what has not yet been fully revealed. Deep in the heart of\nthings is a beneficent and universal law. In accordance with that law\nhindrances are made to minister to the soul's growth, the opposition of\nenemies is transmuted into strength, and moral evil resisted becomes a\nmeans of spiritual expansion and enlightenment.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RE-AWAKENING\n\n\n          I, Galahad, saw the Grail,\n    The Holy Grail, descend upon the Shrine:\n    I saw the fiery face as of a child\n    That smote itself into the bread, and went;\n    And hither am I come; and never yet\n    Hath what my sister taught me first to see,\n    This Holy Thing, fail'd from my side, nor come\n    Cover'd, but moving with me night and day,\n    Fainter by day, but always in the night....\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n          And in the strength of this I rode,\n    Shattering all evil customs everywhere,\n    And past thro' Pagan realms, and made them mine,\n    And clash'd with Pagan hordes, and bore them down,\n    And broke thro' all, and in the strength of this\n    Come victor.\n\n    --_The Holy Grail._ Tennyson.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n_THE RE-AWAKENING_\n\n\nAs despondency and a feeling of failure comes to every soul with the\nrealization of its mistakes and sins, so there will some time come to\nall a period of Re-awakening. This statement is the expression of a hope\nwhich is cherished in the face of much opposing evidence. Nevertheless,\nthat this hope is cherished by so many persons of all classes is a\ncredit to humanity. It is difficult to believe that in the end an\ninfinitely wise and good God will fail of the achievement of His purpose\nin regard to a single one of His creatures.\n\nThe saddest fact in the ascent of the soul is sin. However it may be\naccounted for, it cannot be evaded, but must be honestly and resolutely\nfaced. Sin is the deliberate choice to return to animalism, for a\nlonger or shorter time, by a being who realizes that he is in a moral\norder, that he is free, and who has heard the far-off call of a\nspiritual destiny. It is the choice, by a spirit, of the condition from\nwhich it ought to have forever escaped. Imperfection and ignorance are\nnot, in themselves, blameworthy and should never be classified as sins.\nWeakness always palliates a wrong choice. An evil condition is a\nmisfortune; it does not justify condemnation. Sin always implies a\nvoluntary act. That all men have sinned is a contention not without\nabundant justification. The better the man the more intensely he is\nhumiliated by the consciousness of moral failure.\n\nAfter long-continued discipline, after much progress has been made, the\nsoul again and again chooses evil; and, after it ought to have moved far\non its upward career, it is found to be a bond-slave of tendencies\nwhich should have been forever left behind. This is the solemn fact\nwhich faces every student of human life. It is not a doctrine of an\neffete theology but a continuous human experience. The consciousness of\nmoral failure is terrible and universal. This consciousness requires\nneither definition nor illustration. Experience is a sufficient witness.\nWho has been able exhaustively to delineate the soul's humiliation?\nAEschylus and Sophocles, Shakespeare and Goethe, Shelley, Tennyson, and\nBrowning have but skimmed the surface of the great tragedy of human\nlife. Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Faust, and Wilhelm Meister, Beatrice Cenci,\nthe sad, sad story of Guinevere, and the awful shadows of the Ring and\nthe Book--how luridly realistic are all these studies of the downfall of\nsouls and the desolation of character! If they had expressed all there\nis of life it would be only a long, repulsive tragedy; but happily\nthere is another side. To that brighter phase of the growth of the soul\nwe turn in this chapter.\n\nWhat is the difference between the awakening of the soul and its\nre-awakening? Are they two experiences? or different phases of the same\nexperience? The awakening is nearly simultaneous with the dawn of\nconsciousness. It is the adjustment of the soul to its environment--the\nrealization of its self-consciousness as free, as in a moral order, and\nas possessing mysterious affinities with truth and right. This\nrealization is followed by a period of growth, during which many\nhindrances are overcome, and in which the ministries of environment,\nboth kindly and austere, help to free it from its limitations and to\npromote its advance along the spiritual pathway. But while the soul\ndimly hears voices from above it has not yet, altogether, escaped from\nthe influence of animalism. It dwells in a body whose desires clamor to\nbe gratified. It is like a bird trying to rise into the air when it has\nnot yet acquired the use of its wings. Malign influences are still about\nit, and earthly attractions are ever drawing it downward. It falls many\ntimes. I do not mean that it is compelled to fall, but that, as a matter\nof fact, its lapses are frequent and discouraging. In the midst of this\npainful movement upward, there sometime comes to the soul a realization\nof a presence of which it has scarcely dreamed before. It begins to\nunderstand that it is never alone, that its struggle is never hopeless\nbecause God and the universe, equally with itself, are concerned for its\nprogress. It is humiliated by its failures, but it has learned that,\nhowever many times it may fail and however bitter its disappointment, in\nthe end it must be victorious because neither principalities nor powers,\nneither things on the earth nor beyond the earth, can forever resist\nGod. Thus hope is born, and he who one moment cries, Who shall deliver\nfrom this body of death? the next moment with exultation exclaims, I\nthank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.\n\nThe light which shines into the soul from Jesus Christ is the revelation\nof the cooeperation of the Deity, and of the forces of the universe, with\nevery man who is moving upward. The realization that, however deep the\ndarkness, humiliating the moral failure, constant and imperious the\nsolicitations of animalism, \"the nature of things\" and the everlasting\nlove are on the side of the soul is its re-awakening.\n\nIt now not only knows that it is free, in a moral order, and that voices\nfrom a far-off goal are calling it, but also that those who are with it\nare more than those who can be against it. Thus hope, confidence, power\nto resist, and faith even in the midst of failure dawn, and will never\nbe permanently eclipsed. The re-awakening of the soul is now complete.\n\nThis experience is traditionally called conversion. It is usually\nassociated with an appropriation of the teaching of Jesus Christ, and\ninevitably follows an appreciation of His words and His work. But all\nthe revelations of the Christ have not been through the historic Jesus.\nIn every land, and in every age, souls have come to this new\nconsciousness. It was said of Isaiah that he saw the Lord; and of\nMelchizedek that he was the priest of the most high God. The former was\na Hebrew, but the latter was not in what was to be the chosen line of\nsuccession. The assurance that they are never alone has found many in\nwhat has seemed impenetrable darkness, and they have risen and moved\nupward. Instances of this kind are not limited to Christian lands,\nalthough they are most common where the Christian revelation is known.\nI cannot doubt that those who have not had this vision on the earth will\nhave it some time and somewhere. The Divine power and purpose to save,\nand to save to the utter-most, are revealed with perfect clearness in\nthe teachings of Jesus Christ. Nothing could be more explicit than His\nmessage that God loves all men, and that it is His will that all should\nrepent and come to the knowledge of the truth.\n\nThis stage of advance may be called the crisis in the ascent of the\nsoul. Before this it has moved slowly and with faltering steps.\nHenceforth it will move more confidently and swiftly. But that does not\nmean that it will find that hindrances are all removed, or that no\nunseen hand will draw it downward. Some of the bitterest hours are to\nfollow--days and, possibly, longer periods of spiritual obscuration;\ndarkness like that of Jesus in which He cried, \"My God, my God, why hast\nThou forsaken me.\" Who can explain the appalling humiliation of a man\nwhen, as if a star had fallen from heaven, he sinks into awful and\ninexplicable selfishness or sensuality? It is not necessary that we\nexplain, but we should remember that the goodness of God has so ordered\nthings that even disgrace may lead to stronger faith, clearer vision,\nand tenderer sympathy.\n\nAustere ministries are still needed; only fire will consume the dross.\nThe re-awakening of a soul is not its perfecting; but it is its\nrealization that the process of perfecting must go on, and will go on,\nif need be along a pathway of shame and agony, until all that attracts\nto the earth and sensuality has disappeared, and the spirit, like a bird\nreleased, rises toward the heavens.\n\nThe law that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap will never be\ntranscended, and if an enlightened spirit ever chooses to sink once more\ninto the slime it may do so; but it will at the same time be taught\nwith terrible intensity the moral bearing of the physical law that what\nfalls from the loftiest height will sink to the deepest depth.\n\nAt last the soul realizes that it is in the hands of a sympathetic,\nholy, and loving Person, a Being who cannot be defeated, and who, in His\nown time and way, will accomplish His own purposes. That vision of God\nis the re-awakening, an inevitable and glorious reality in spiritual\nprogress.\n\nWhat are the causes of this re-awakening? The causes are many and can be\nstated only in a general way. Moreover, spiritual experiences are\nindividual, and the answer which would apply to one might not to\nanother.\n\nThe shock which attends some terrible moral failure, not infrequently,\nis the proximate cause of the re-awakening of the soul. There is a deep\npsychological truth in the old phrase, \"conviction of sin.\" Men are\nthus convicted. Some act of appalling wrong-doing reveals to them the\ndepths of their hearts and forces them in their extremity to look\nupward. Hawthorne, in his story, \"The Scarlet Letter,\" has depicted the\nagony of a soul, in the consciousness of its guilt, finding no peace\nuntil it dared to do right and to trust God. In the \"Marble Faun,\" in\nthe character of Donatello, the same author has furnished an\nillustration of one who was startled into a consciousness of manhood and\nresponsibility by his crime. It is the revelation of a soul to itself,\nnot of God to the soul. In Donatello we see a soul awakened to\nself-consciousness and responsibility, but in \"The Scarlet Letter\" we\nhave the example of a man inspired to do his duty by the revelation of\nGod. Adoniram Judson was brought to himself by hearing the groans of a\ndying man in a room adjoining his own in a New England hotel. Luther\nwas forced to serious thought by a flash of lightning which blinded and\ncame near killing him. Pascal was returning to his home at midnight when\nhis carriage halted on the brink of a precipice, and the narrowness of\nhis escape aroused him to a realization of his dependence upon God. The\nsense of mortality, and the wonder as to what the consequences of\nwrong-doing in \"the dim unknown\" may be, have been potent forces in the\nre-awakening of souls.\n\nStill others have been given new and gracious visions of \"the beauty of\nholiness.\" They have seen the excellence of virtue, and in its light\nhave learned to hate the causes of their humiliation, and to press\nforward with courage and hope.\n\nSpeculations concerning the causes of this spiritual change are easy,\nbut they are of little value. Observation has never yet collected facts\nenough to adequately account for the phenomena. Probably the most\ncomplete and satisfactory answer that was ever given to such questions\nwas that of Jesus when He was treating of this very subject: \"The wind\nbloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not\ntell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.\"\n\nThe mystery of the soul's re-awakening has never been fathomed.\nSometimes there has been flashed upon conscience, apparently without a\ncause, a deep and awful sense of guilt. Whence did it come? What caused\nit? Calamities many times sweep through a life as a tornado sweeps over\na field of wheat, and when they have passed there is more than an\nappreciation of loss; there is a vision of the soul's unworthiness and\nhumiliation. Again death comes exceedingly near, and, in a single hour,\nthe solemnities of eternity become vivid, and the soul sees itself in\nthe light of God. And again, the essential glory of goodness is so\nvividly manifest that the soul instinctively rises out of its sin, and\npresses upward, as a man wakens from a hideous nightmare. The more such\nphenomena are studied, the more distinct and significant do they appear\nand the more impossible becomes the effort to explain them. They may be\nverified, but they can never be explained. They are the results of the\naction of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man. Is this answer\nrejected as fanciful or superstitious? Then some of the most brilliant\nand significant events in the history of humanity are inexplicable.\n\nWhat caused the revolution in the character of Augustine by which the\nsensualist became a saint? Was it the study of Plato? or the prayers of\nMonica? or the preaching of Ambrose? We know not; rather let us say it\nwas the Spirit of God. Who can define the process by which Wilberforce\nwas changed from the pet of fashionable society to one of the heroes in\nthe world's great crusade against injustice and oppression? Such\ninquiries are more easily started than settled. I repeat, the only\nrational and convincing word that was ever spoken on this subject is\nthat of Jesus. The Spirit of God, whose ministry is as still as the\nsunlight, as mysterious as the wind, and as potent as gravitation, was\nthe One to whom He pointed.\n\nHow has this epoch in the ascent of the soul been treated in literature?\nI refer with frequency to the literary treatment of spiritual subjects\nbecause poets, dramatists, and writers of fiction, more than any other\nclass of authors, have studied the soul in its depths, in its\ninspirations, and in the process by which it rises and presses toward\nits goal.\n\nThe illustrations of this subject in the Scriptures are almost idyllic\nin their simplicity and beauty. There is more than flippancy in the\nremark that Adam's fall was a fall upward. The statement is literally\ntrue. The fall was no fiction, but a condition of enlightenment and\ngrowth. The exit from Eden was the beginning of the long, hard climb\ntoward the City of God.\n\nThe very moment when Isaiah saw Uzziah, the king, stricken with leprosy,\nhe saw the Lord.\n\nThe classical delineation of a soul attaining the higher knowledge is\nthat of the prodigal son, who, when he came to himself, saw clearly that\nhis father was waiting to welcome him.\n\nThe \"Idylls of the King\" are a kind of \"Pilgrim's Progress.\" In various\nways they trace, and with matchless music rehearse, the growth of souls\nand their victories over spiritual enemies. One of the most pathetic\nstories ever told is that of the beautiful Queen Guinevere, who by shame\nand agony learned that \"we needs must love the highest when we see it;\"\nand who never appreciated the great love in which she was enfolded\nuntil Arthur, \"moving ghost-like to his doom,\" had gone to fight his\nlast great battle in the west.\n\nThe world owes George MacDonald gratitude it will never repay;--such\nspiritual souls are never paid in the coin of this world. In \"Robert\nFalconer,\" he taught his time with a lucidity and sweetness that none\nbut Tennyson and Browning have equaled, and that not even they have\nsurpassed, that a \"loving worm within its clod were lovelier than a\nloveless God upon his Throne,\" and in \"Thomas Wingfold\" he has traced\nwith epic fidelity the growth of a soul from moral insensibility to\nmanly strength and vision. The description of the process by which\nWingfold is brought to see that he, a teacher in the church, is a fraud\nand a hypocrite, and by which he is then lifted up and made worthy of\nhis vocation as a minister of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God is\na wonderful piece of spiritual delineation.\n\nWith Guinevere the external humiliation was an essential stage in her\nsoul's development; but with Wingfold there was no public\ndisgrace,--only the not less poignant shame of a man who, looking into\nhis own heart, finds nothing but selfishness and duplicity. His\ncondition was a matter between himself, his friend, and his God; but\nnone the less the humiliation was the means by which his soul's eyes\nwere opened and his heart fired with a passion for reality.\n\nOne result of the soul's re-awakening is the realization that it has\nrelations to God and that they are at once the nearest, the most vital,\nand the most enduring of all its relations. Before, it had felt the call\nof duty and had recognized that it had affinities with truth and right;\nbut now it has come into the consciousness of sonship. God is not\ndistant and unrelated, but near and personally helpful. In a very real\nsense He is Father. He is interested in the welfare of His children; and\nHis will has now become the law of their lives. The first awakening is\nto the consciousness of a moral order and of freedom; the second\nawakening is to the consciousness of God and of a near and vital\nrelation with Him. The path of progress is still full of obstacles;\nthere are still attractions for the senses in animalism and\nsolicitations from something malign outside; but never again will the\nsoul be without the realization that it is in the hands of a\ncompassionate, as well as a just, God. I am inclined to think that the\nelder Calvinists were right in their contention that when the soul has\nonce come to this saving knowledge of God it can never again \"fall from\ngrace,\" or from the consciousness of its relation to the One mighty to\nsave. This does not mean that there may not be repeated and awful moral\nlapses. The soul's realization of God does not imply that it has become\nperfected. It has taken a long step in its ascent; it is now conscious\nof its destiny, and of the power which is working in its behalf; but far\naway stretch the spiritual heights and, before they can be reached, many\na cliff must be scaled and many a glacier passed; and few reach those\naltitudes without many a savage fall, and without frequent hours of\nweariness, doubt, and despair. The sufferings and the chastisements of\nthose who have come to this altitude often increase as the vision\nbecomes clearer.\n\nThe difference between the former condition and the present is this: in\nthe former there was growth toward God without the conscious choice of\nGod; but in the latter the soul sees and chooses for itself that toward\nwhich it has, heretofore, been impelled by the \"cosmic process.\"\n\nThat is a solemn and glad moment when, in the midst of the confusion,\nthe soul hears faint and far the call of its destiny; but the one in\nwhich it realizes that it is related to God, and chooses His will for\nits law, is far more glad and solemn. That consciousness may be\nobscured, but never again will it utterly fail. The soul that knows that\nit came from God, and is moving toward God, never can lose that\nknowledge, nor long cease to feel the power of that divine attraction.\n\nA practical question at this stage of our inquiry concerns the relation\nof one soul to another. May those who have realized this experience help\nothers to attain to it so that the process may be hastened and made\neasier? Must those who have been enlightened wait for those who are dear\nto them to be awfully humiliated by sin, or terribly crushed by sorrow,\nbefore the light can fall upon their pathway? Is there no way by which\na soul may be brought to the knowledge of God except by bitter trials?\n\nOne individual may help another to acquire other knowledge,--must it\nmake an exception of things spiritual? That cannot be. What one has\nlearned, in part at least, it may communicate to another, and the\nconstant and growing passion with those who know God is to tell others\nof Him. All plans of education should include the communication of the\nhighest knowledge. He who seeks the physical or mental development of\nhis boy and cares not to crown his work by helping him to a realization\nthat he is a child of God, and a subject of His love, has sadly\nmisconceived the privilege of education. All curricula should move\ntoward this consciousness as their consummation and culmination.\nGeology, biology, physiology, the languages, philosophy, the science of\nsociety should be so studied as to lead directly to Him in whom all\nlive and move and have their being. The home, the school, the church\nshould be organized so as to obviate, in great measure, the necessity of\nlearning the deepest truths in the school of suffering.\n\nNo holier privilege is given to one human soul than that of whispering\nits secret into the ears of another who has not yet attained the wisdom\nwhich comes only by living.\n\nGod be merciful to the parent who is anxious about the mental culture of\nhis child and never tells him of the deeper possibilities of his life,\nor never repeats to him the messages which he has heard in silent and\nlonely hours. The growth of a soul in the knowledge of God may be\nmeasured by the intensity of its desire to help other souls to the same\nknowledge.\n\nWhat will the re-awakened soul do? It will be as individual and\ndistinctive in its action as before. The divine life in the souls of\nmen manifests itself in ways as various and numerous as solar energy is\nmanifested in nature. Variety in unity is the law of the spirit. Every\nperson will be led to do those things, to hold those beliefs, and to\nminister in the ways for which he has been prepared.\n\nThe experience of one can never be made the model for another, and the\nmessage which the Spirit speaks in the ears of one may never be spoken\nin the ears of another. Uniformity is neither to be expected nor to be\ndesired. The soul which realizes that it belongs to God will choose to\nlive for Him, and in its own way will forever move toward Him.\nHenceforward His will will be its law. This is all we know and all we\nneed to know.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PLACE OF JESUS CHRIST\n\n\n    I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ\n    Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee\n    All questions in the earth and out of it,\n    And has so far advanced thee to be wise.\n\n    --_A Death in the Desert._ Browning.\n\n\n    'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh that I seek\n    In the God-head! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be\n    A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,\n    Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand\n    Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!\n\n    --_Saul._ Browning.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n_THE PLACE OF JESUS CHRIST_\n\n\nIn the ascent of the soul do light and power come to its assistance from\noutside and from above? Is evolution alone a sufficient guarantee that\nit will some time reach its goal? These are not so much questions of\ntheory as of fact, and as such will be treated in this chapter.\n\nLight and power have come to the race in its struggles upward from one\nsource as from no other. In history one figure appears colossal and\nunique. Whether we classify Jesus Christ with men, or regard Him as a\nspecial divine manifestation is of little consequence in our inquiry. If\nHe is the consummate flower of the evolutionary process, then, because\nof some unexplained influence, that process reached a degree of\nperfection in Him that it has reached in no other. If it pleased God in\na single instance to hasten the process, the result is not less\ninspiring and illuminating than it would have been if the divine purpose\nhad been directly and instantly accomplished. The teachers and leaders\nhave ever been helpers of their fellow-men. In evolution, as in the race\nof life, some always move more swiftly than others; and those who are\nfar in advance may, if they choose, become the servants of those who\nmove more slowly. One Being has appeared in the midst of the ages who is\nso far superior to all others that He may be regarded as the revelation\nof the soul's true goal, but who is, at the same time, so unlike others\nas to convince many, at least, that He is also the revelation in\nhumanity of a higher power which is cooperating with the soul in its\nascent.\n\nIn this chapter no attempt will be made to meet the various questions\nthat the formal theologians have raised. I cannot feel that such\nsubjects as \"satisfaction,\" \"expiation,\" \"plan of salvation\" are of any\npractical importance, and I leave them to those who care for them. In\nthe meantime let us ask, What aid does the soul need in its passage\nthrough its life on the earth? It needs light and power. We do not\nmeditate long on the soul's advance without realizing that it has been\nconstantly reinforced from outside itself. This phase of our subject\nwill be considered in the chapter on \"The Inseparable Companion.\"\n\nIt may, I think, be said that what the soul needs more than anything\nelse is light, and that all necessary light has been furnished. Jesus\nsaid, \"I am the Light of the World.\" That statement is literally true.\nThere may be room for perplexity as to the credibility of parts of the\nNew Testament, and as to what is called the miraculous element in\nhistory. There is also room for difference of opinion as to the nature\nof the person of Jesus, and as to His supernatural mission; but few\nwould deny that, if they could feel sure that He was actually from\nabove, they would accept His message because it contains all the ethical\nand spiritual knowledge that men need in their earthly lives.\n\nA single assumption is made at the beginning of our study. It is as\nfollows: What satisfies our minds and hearts, in their hours of deepest\nneed and brightest illumination, should always be accepted as true until\nit is proven to be false.\n\nThe profoundest subjects of thought and life are illuminated by the\nministry and the teaching of Jesus Christ. The last word concerning\nthese subjects has not yet been spoken. Even our Bible is but a\ncollection of scattered rays of the true light. What vaster revelations\nmay come to men in future ages no one can predict. As growth goes on,\nthe soul will be fitted to receive messages which it could not now\nunderstand; but all that men need to know in their present stage of\ndevelopment is clearly revealed in the teaching, and the example, of the\nMan of Nazareth and Calvary. He is the brightest light on the deepest\nand darkest problems.\n\nLet us try to understand and define the place of Jesus Christ in the\nascent of the soul.\n\nJesus Christ has given the world a rational and satisfying doctrine of\nGod. Other teachers have tried to answer the inquiry, Does God exist?\nJesus treated that question as an astronomer treats the sun. No sane\nscientist would fill his pages with speculations as to the reality of\nthe sun. It moves and shines in the heavens; beginning with that fact,\nthe astronomer asks concerning the function which the sun performs in\nthe solar system and in the universe.\n\nJesus discarded speculation and found the key to the doctrine of God in\nthe family, the simplest and most elemental of human institutions. There\nmay be wide differences concerning the nature of government, the\nsanctions of law, etc., but there is no room for debate concerning the\nmeaning of the parental relation. It interprets itself. Tell a child\nthat a man is his father, and he can be told no more. The name\ninterprets the relation. In earlier times the vastness of the creation\nwas but dimly appreciated, and then the idea of God was equally\ncontracted. Jesus taught that the Deity, whether the conception of Him\nwas small or large, was to be interpreted in terms of fatherhood. What\nan ideal father is to his family God is to the race and to the universe.\nThat meant one thing when the father was little more than the protector\nof a tribe; it means something greater, but not essentially different\nnow. The conception of the universe is one of the most revolutionary\nthat ever entered the human mind. The conception of a tribe is larger\nthan that of a family; of a nation larger than that of a tribe; of the\nrace larger than that of the nation; but the conception of the universe,\nwith its myriads of worlds and possible multiplicity of races, is the\namazing contribution which science has made to the thought of to-day.\nWhile the conception of the Deity has been enlarged the principle of\ninterpretation remains unchanged. Are we thinking of Jehovah the God of\nIsrael? He is the Father of the tribe. Has our idea expanded so as to\ninclude all the nations? God is the Father not of a limited number but\nof all that dwell upon the earth. Has the horizon been lifted to take in\nheavenly heights? Are we now thinking of immensities, eternities, and\nthe cosmic process? The teaching of Jesus is not transcended; we still\ncontinue to interpret in terms of fatherhood, and say all time, all\nspace, all men, all purposes and processes in the infinities and\neternities are in the hands of the Father. But when we have ascended to\nsuch a height what does the word Father mean? Exactly the same in\nessence that it meant in the humblest of Judean households among which\nJesus moved. The father there was the one who made the home, sustained\nit, defended it, watched over it by day and by night; in exactly the\nsame way the followers of Jesus think of the Spirit who pervades all\nthings. He creates, He cares for, He defends, He provides, He loves, He\ncauses all processes to work for blessing to the intelligent beings who\nare His children.\n\nJesus in a peculiar way identified himself with the Deity. That does\nnot mean that all the divine omnipotence and glory were in that Man of\nNazareth, but it does mean that all of the Deity that could be expressed\nin terms of humanity were visible in Him, so that those who saw Jesus\nsaw God as far as He could be manifested in the flesh. Beyond that veil\nwere abysses and heights of being which could not be expressed in human\nterms; but in all the spaces we may dare to believe that there is\nnothing essentially different from what was revealed in that unique Man.\nA bay makes a curve in the Atlantic seaboard; its shallow waters are all\nfrom the deeps of the sea. Tides that move along all the seas, and\nforces which reach to the stars, fill that basin among the hills. The\nbay is the ocean, but not all of it; for if we were to sail around the\nearth we should find the same body of water reaching out to vaster\nspaces.\n\nEven so the person of Jesus included all of God that humanity can\ncontain, but Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Gethsemane and Calvary were to the\nDeity as some land-locked harbor to the immensities of the universe. In\nHim love reached to enemies, to the outcast, to those who had been\ncalled refuse and rubbish, to men of all classes in all the ages, to\nlepers, beggars, criminals, lunatics, harlots, thieves, little children;\nthose who appreciated and those who hated alike were all included in the\ninfinite purpose of blessing.\n\nThose who have seen the love of Jesus, and its ministries, have seen the\nFather; but beyond the love of Galilee and Calvary reach depths of love\nwhich even the cross is powerless to express. Divine sympathy and divine\naffection bind all men in a universal family; this we know, and this is\nall we know.\n\nThat teaching is so simple that a child can understand it; so profound\nthat no philosopher has ever transcended it; and so satisfying that\nneither child nor philosopher would have it changed either as to its\nsimplicity or its fullness.\n\nJesus furnishes the light which the soul needs on the nature of man.\nWonderfully has Holman Hunt elaborated this truth in his picture \"The\nLight of the World.\" The ideal humanity never had more beautiful\nexpression than in that great sermon in color. The poise of the figure\nof Jesus indicates strength and self-control; the thorns on the brow\ntell their story of sorrow and pain; the hand at the door shows that one\nman at least is mindful of the welfare of His brother; the radiance on\nthe face and the inspiration in the eyes are the outshining of the\ngoodness which dwells within; while the light from the whole person,\nwhich reaches far into the gloom, shows that the more nearly perfect the\nbeing the more beneficent and beautiful his influence must be. Is Jesus\nChrist the brightness of the Father's glory? He reveals also the beauty\nand helpfulness, the love and the service of the ideal man. He is the\npattern of our common humanity. Are we in the midst of a process of\nevolution? And is the man that is to be still far in the distance? When\nhe shall walk this earth he will be the spiritual reproduction of Jesus,\nchanged only to meet the requirements of other times and new conditions.\n\nThe revelation of the ideal humanity was hardly less revolutionary than\nthat of the enlarged universe. Formerly men were regarded as things,\ncommodities to be bought and sold, creatures without souls, objects to\nbe used. But Jesus taught that all men are children of God; therefore\nthat they have the very life of God; therefore that they are created for\nHis eternity, and will forever approach His perfection. This vision of\nthe perfected race has been at work changing national boundaries,\ndestroying hoary institutions, undermining thrones, and making a new\nworld. A glance shows the revolutionary quality of His teaching. Slavery\nwas the curse of every land. With force on the one side and weakness on\nthe other oppression was inevitable. Jesus taught that even weakness may\nbe divine, and lo! from every civilized land slavery has already gone,\nand from the world it is fast disappearing.\n\nAccording to the orthodox economic doctrine, supply and demand was the\nlaw that should govern the relation between employer and employee. The\nlargest profit and the smallest wages was the watchword. As the teaching\nof Jesus has penetrated further into the dealings of man with man\nemployers are beginning to realize that labor has to do with human\nbeings; that manhood is enduring and that conditions are ephemeral; and\nthat whosoever oppresses his brother, even in the name of economic law,\nat last will have to reckon with the Almighty. Thus a new and more\nbeneficent social order is slowly but surely emerging.\n\nThe doctrine of the survival of the fittest is, even now, applied to men\nwhere the teaching of Jesus that Providence has made a way for the\nsurvival of the unfit is unknown or ignored. In all lands the revelation\nin Jesus of the ideal manhood, and of the destiny toward which all men\nare moving is changing and glorifying human society. He is the one whom\n\"the low-browed beggar,\" and the criminal with a vicious heredity, are\nsome time to approach. Is it difficult to select the one phrase of all\nhuman utterances which has exerted the largest influence in ameliorating\nthe human condition? Would it not be,--\"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one\nof the least of these, ye did it unto Me.\" The identification of\nhumanity with Deity, the revelation of the divine in the human, the\nsolemn truth that no one can injure or neglect his brother without, at\nthe same time, violating all that is sacred and holy in the universe is\nthe culminating point in the revelation of man to himself. In the light\nwhich Jesus sheds on humanity all men appear in their enduring rather\nthan their transitory relations.\n\nThe life and teaching of Jesus make the awful and insoluble mystery of\nsuffering endurable. He satisfies no curiosity on this subject. Why\nsuffering is permitted He does not tell us. He never allowed himself to\nbe diverted from His one purpose, which was not to solve problems but to\nimprove conditions. If any one approaches the New Testament expecting to\nfind an answer to his speculative questions he will be disappointed; but\nif he asks, How may I so use the conditions in which I am placed that\nthey will minister to my spiritual purification and power? he will\nreceive a definite and satisfying reply. Why need sorrow, suffering,\nsin, and death invade the fair realm into which man has been born? Other\nteachers seek to answer this question but Jesus is silent. How may\nsorrow, suffering, and even moral evil be made ministers of an upward\nmovement? On this subject Jesus speaks with a tone of authority. Among\nthe world's teachers He was the first to declare that while austere\nexperiences are not good in themselves they may, uniformly, become means\nof moral and spiritual progress. The sweet may always be found in the\nbitter. Sorrow may always be made a blessing. Tears never need be\nwasted. Struggle always adds to strength; and sympathy is multiplied\nwhen one bears the grief and carries the burden of another.\n\nDo not brood over what you are called to endure, but seek for the\nsecret of spiritual help which is hidden within, and you will find that\non every grief and every pain you may rise, as on stepping-stones, to\nhigher things.\n\nJesus was the supreme optimist. Those who study life and history in the\nlight which shines from Him see that no human being walks with aimless\nfeet. They do not think of men as unrelated units, but as bound by love\nto one another, and as living under the eye and in the strength of God.\nIn that light sorrow and pain may be justified, even though in\nthemselves they are hateful. The poison which destroys life, if rightly\nused, will save life.\n\nApart from God and His purpose of love, nothing is more to be dreaded\nthan pain; but in His hands pain becomes the servant and not the master\nof men.\n\nI can think of nothing more dreary than the study of human life and\nhistory apart from the interpretations put upon them by Jesus. Then one\ngeneration seems to follow another, and the long procession, even though\nthe character of those composing it steadily improves, always ends at\nthe same goal,--the grave. Millions live and die like the beasts that\nperish. They aspire, struggle, and are determined to rise, but just when\nthey are fitted to endure, and to enter upon ampler spheres of service,\nthe curtain falls on the tragedy, the stage scenery is changed, a new\ncompany of players takes their places, and the farce, for it is a farce\nas well as a tragedy, goes on from century to century, and there is no\nmeaning in anything. If that were the true interpretation of life, on\nearth's loftiest mountain there might well be raised a temple in honor\nof death; and around it all the races of men be invited to join in the\nchorus, \"Happy is the next one who dies!\"\n\nBut a better interpretation of human life's mystery has been given.\nJesus looked over its apparent desolation and confusion and poured upon\nit divine light. He taught that it is not the Father's will that even\none should perish. Men are not being ground in an infinite mill, but\nthey are being refined and purified by the only processes which will\ndevelop in them both strength and beauty. Out of confusion harmony will\ncome, and out of the battle of the elements peace will dawn at last.\n\nTo those who know that pain and sorrow are ministers of strength and\nsympathy, that by them narrow horizons are widened and deserts made to\nblossom, human life does not seem so confused and terrible as it has\nsometimes been pictured. Jesus makes evident the upward movement of the\nrace, and shows, let me repeat, that it is \"under the eye and in the\nstrength of God.\" He was made perfect through suffering. The thorns on\nHis brow tell their own pathetic story. The passion vine above His head,\nand beneath His feet, indicate that even His sufferings are not without\na purpose of blessing, and therefore are fully justified.\n\nAnd now we approach the saddest of all the dark experiences through\nwhich the soul passes,--the mystery of sin. Of its enormity I have\nalready spoken; but what about its origin, its uses, and its\ncontinuance? The question of its origin Jesus does not even mention. It\nis not recognized as having any uses. It may be made an occasion of\ngood, but it is never ordained in order that good may come. Hardly any\nother subject occupies so large a place in the teachings of Jesus. It\nwas said of Him, \"His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His\npeople from their sins;\" and of Him Paul wrote, \"God commendeth His love\ntoward us in that when we were yet sinners Christ died for us.\"\n\nThe terrible blight of moral evil, whatever its genesis, cannot be\nexplained away. Jesus passed by all other questions and devoted the\nlargest part of His ministry, as a teacher, to showing how the soul may\nescape from the power, and be delivered from the bondage, of sin. This\nis the practical problem. As one surveys the race the imperative inquiry\nconcerns deliverance. What light does Jesus shed upon this mystery? He\nshows that sin is an incident in the ascent of the soul, and not an end;\nthat it is hateful and unnatural; and that all the strength and goodness\nof God are pledged to its removal. The soul will be allowed to be in\nbondage only so long as is necessary for its complete emancipation.\nMoral evil is tolerated at all not because it is a good in itself, but\nin order that the soul may learn that its safety and strength are to be\nfound only in conformity to the will of God.\n\nJesus reveals the way of escape and thus confers upon the race the\ngreatest of possible blessings. This he does by the revelation of the\nFatherhood of God, which is not only compassionate but also holy.\nBecause God is the Father of all souls, when any one ceases to do evil\nand begins to do well, or in other words repents, he finds a welcome and\nhelp waiting for him. And Jesus clearly indicates, also, that in the\nconstitution of the soul, and in the inexorableness of moral law, there\nis a deep remedial agency which is ever active, giving no individual\nrest until it finds it in God. The tragedy of the cross was preeminently\na revelation. The cross is the manifestation, in terms of human life, of\nthe passion of the universe and of God. There must be suffering in all\nwho are good, until sin disappears.\n\nThe cross is the revelation of the Eternal God in sacrifice for the\nredemption of souls in bondage to selfishness and animalism. Jesus\ntaught that sin is to be abolished. By means of the revelations of\nholiness, the sacrifices of love, the remedial agency in the universe,\nand by His own new life the forces of evil are to be broken, and the\nsoul allowed to enter into its freedom as a child of God. This is not a\nsubject for definition and dogmatism. The greatest things cannot be\ndefined, but they may be appropriated. The light, the air, gravitation\nand all elemental forces transcend definition. The love of God revealed\non the cross is too holy and too transcendent for \"scheme and plan.\" It\nmay be accepted in a spirit of worship, but it can be comprehended no\nmore than the process by which rain and soil are transmuted into\nnourishment, and light into physical strength and beauty. The cross is\nthe pledge of the redemption of the soul through the love and power of\nGod; and beyond that we have no knowledge except that wherever that\ncross has been lifted up men have been drawn unto truth and virtue, love\nand brotherhood.\n\nMore than poetry and sentiment has found expression in a popular hymn\nwhich thrills with a power which has been verified again and again in\nhuman history:\n\n    \"In the cross of Christ I glory,\n        Towering o'er the wrecks of time\n     All the light of sacred story\n        Gathers round its head sublime.\"\n\nJesus has furnished no clew to the origin of moral evil, but He has\ngiven to the hope that it is to be overcome in the individual, the race,\nand the universe, the testimony of His teaching and the emphasis of His\ndeath.\n\nWhich is the greater mystery, life or death? A satisfying answer is\nimpossible, since we cannot think of one without thinking of its\nopposite. What is life? Whence is it? Why is it? Such are some of the\nquestions which arise and elicit no response when one meditates upon the\nmystery of living. What is death? What purpose does it serve? Is it an\nend or a beginning? Such are some of the inquiries which cannot be\nescaped when one, for even a few moments, looks, as all some time must\nlook, on the still and peaceful face of one who has ceased to breathe.\nWho shall answer our questions? Of all who have attempted to fathom\nthese depths One alone has brought a message which is satisfying both to\nthe minds and hearts of those who think. Does any light from Jesus\npenetrate the mystery of death? What others have groped after he has\ndeclared. He taught that the universe is like a house of many rooms, and\nthat dying is but passing from one room to another. In His own\nexperience He illustrated His teachings. He ministered to His\ndisciples; He communed with those whom He loved until their hearts\nburned within them. Then He disappeared and has been seen no more. But\nwhy did He appear at all after death? Was it not to confirm the message\nof the Transfiguration that those who seem to die only change the mode\nof their existence, and continue their companionships and ministries\neven after they have laid aside their bodies?\n\nIn the passage in the Gospel of Matthew, which may be called the parable\nof the judgment, Jesus taught that the moral order is not changed by the\ntransition from bodily to disembodied existence. The thoughts which men\nthink, and the actions which they perform, affect the substance of the\nsoul. Evil works misery and virtue leads to happiness beyond the grave\nas well as here. Seed sown on the earth may grow to its harvest in the\nages that lie beyond.\n\nThis is all the light on this subject that we need now. Death removes\nno one beyond the watch and care of the infinite love. In the home of\nthe Heavenly Father His children pass from place to place, as He calls.\nJesus appeared to those who loved Him, and was recognized by them, and\nthat indicates that, whatever the changes of the future, the spiritual\nbody will be recognized by all who love.\n\nThe moral order is universal, and no change will touch the everlasting\ndistinctions between right and wrong, or diminish the obligation to\nchoose the right and refuse the wrong.\n\nThese are some of the lessons which are impressed upon us as we meditate\nupon the life and teachings of Jesus and their relation to the ascent of\nthe soul.\n\nHe is the light of all souls. Into the darkness His glory has been\nextending and expanding from His own time until now. If we may judge\nthe future from the past, it is easy to believe that this radiance will\nnot fail from among men until all realize that life and death, time and\neternity, humanity and history, are beset behind and before by the\nDivine Fatherhood; that the goal of the race is the fullness of Christ;\nthat the severest experiences sometimes achieve the best results; that\nsin will not forever darken the history of humanity; that death is a\npassage not an abyss; an opening not a closing; a beginning not an\nending; and that beyond stretch opportunities of limitless life and\nimmortal growth.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INSEPARABLE COMPANION\n\n\n    The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed,\n    If Thou the Spirit give by which I pray:\n    My unassisted heart is barren clay,\n    Which of its native self can nothing feed:\n    Of good and pious works Thou art the seed,\n    Which quickens only where Thou say'st it may\n    Unless Thou show to us Thine own true way,\n    No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.\n    Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind\n    By which such virtue may in me be bred\n    That in Thy holy footsteps I may tread;\n    The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,\n    That I may have the power to sing of Thee,\n    And sound Thy praises everlastingly.\n\n    --_Sonnet from Michael Angelo._ Wordsworth.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n_THE INSEPARABLE COMPANION_\n\n\nAs the soul moves along its upward pathway it gradually becomes\nconscious of many inspiring truths. Among the most delightful and\nhelpful of these is the fact that it is never alone, but is one of a\ngreat company all pressing toward the same goal and all passing through\nsubstantially the same experiences. In the midst of these\ncompanionships, which are variable, and of these experiences which can\nseldom be predicted, it slowly becomes aware that there is one\ncompanionship which is constant, beneficent, and singularly\nilluminating. The realization of this fellowship is intensely\nindividual. Of it others may speak, but concerning it they can give\nlittle information. The full consciousness is always a personal one.\nHaving once enjoyed communion with the Over-soul it is difficult to\nimagine that any are ever without this supreme spiritual privilege.\nSometimes the sense of spiritual cooeperation is so vivid and continuous,\nso compassionate and helpful, as to be almost startling--in those\nmoments when it seems to beset us behind and before. The process by\nwhich a soul becomes conscious that it is forever attended by a\ncompanion, whose one object seems to be to help it toward the spiritual\nheights, will repay the most careful examination. To that delightful and\ndifficult study we will now turn.\n\nBefore it has advanced far on its pathway the soul becomes painfully\naware of the dangers by which it is surrounded and of the obstacles\nwhich it must overcome. The road before it seems to be infested with\nenemies. Its defeats are frequent and humiliating. It learns much by\nexperience; but the more it learns the clearer it seems to discern the\ndifficulties which it must meet. In the midst of the confusion and\nfailure it slowly becomes aware that warning voices are speaking, and\nthat they are loudest when moral peril is near. This is one of those\nsimple facts which may be verified by every thoughtful man, but which no\nthoughtful man would ever dream of trying to explain. So simple and\nelemental is this truth that it may best be enforced by commonplace\nillustrations, and by something like a personal appeal.\n\nA very distinguished man was one day walking with a friend along a\nstreet in Edinburgh, when they came to one of the numerous wynds which\nlead from the main thoroughfare into the midst of huge and gloomy\nbuildings. There the man stopped and asked to be excused while he\nentered the wynd. Returning, after a moment, he explained his act by\nsaying that, in his young manhood, he had been tempted to do something\nwhich would have wrecked his life. Just as he came to the place that he\nhad visited there sounded in his ears such a vivid warning as made it\nmorally impossible for him to proceed on his course of wrong-doing. He\nfelt sure that that voice was from above, for his whole nature, until\nthat instant, seemed to have been set on what would have led to moral\nruin.\n\nAnother person testified that he was once on the verge of doing what\nwould have brought him undying disgrace when, as if she had been drawn\nout of the air, his mother stood before him, looking reproachfully at\nhim. Thus the fascination of temptation was broken by what he always\nbelieved to have been a veritable spiritual presence.\n\nAnother experience is perfectly attested. A man in a distinguished\nposition did wrong, and was in peril of still greater wrong when\nsomething, he could not have explained what, not only warned him but\nkept warning him and following him so that he could not escape. If he\nclosed his eyes his danger became more vivid; if he stopped his ears\nvoices of reproach found their way in. He loved his wrong and would move\ntoward it, but then invisible hands seemed to hold him back until the\ntime of danger was past, and he was confirmed in right ways. Such\nexperiences are too numerous and varied to be doubted. No facts are\nbetter attested. It may be said that they are only the usual warnings of\nconscience. Be it so. Then what is conscience? The factors in the\nproblem are not materially changed, for the phenomena of conscience are\nas remarkable, constant, and verifiable as light and heat. Most men who\nhave recorded their experiences, and who have observed with care the\nworkings of their own faculties, have been conscious of being attended\nby some invisible presence warning them against evil. The explanation of\nthis phenomenon may be left for later consideration.\n\nClosely allied to warnings against moral danger, which are so vivid as\nsometimes to be almost audible, are the evidences of what may be called\nspiritual protection. The idea of guardian angels and tutelary deities\narose naturally and inevitably. Many who have been astonishingly\ndelivered from spiritual peril have been able to find no other\nexplanation of their escape. Those who receive the confidences of their\nfellow-men have little difficulty in believing such a story as was once\nconfided to me. An able and prominent man who had, resolutely as he\nthought, turned from a course of conduct which threatened disaster,\nfound himself drawn toward the evil from which he supposed that he had\nbeen forever delivered. The attraction seemed to be resistless. Again\nand again he was on the verge of falling when the fall would have been\nruin. Then something made it morally impossible for him to enter upon\nthe path which he had determined to follow. The means used to dissuade\nhim were various. Sometimes a friend would call, then a duty would\nintervene, then some obligation would press until, to use his own way of\nphrasing it,--\"it seemed as if some unseen person who could read my\nthoughts and desires was walking by my side and, as fast as I was in\ndanger of yielding to evil, ordering events so as to prevent me from\ndoing what I wanted to do.\"\n\nFew men who are trying to live on spiritual levels would hesitate to\nacknowledge that they have been the subjects of similar protection. The\npeculiar feature about it all is that the agents used are so often\nentirely unconscious of the influence which they are exerting. An\nunseen hand seems to be guiding our moves on the chess-board of life, so\nas to check us every time that we are inclined to play falsely. I do not\nmean that all are persuaded toward virtue, but I do mean that enough are\nprotected from moral evil and spiritual peril to justify the belief that\nsuch ministries are around all; and that those who choose to do wrong do\nso in the face of spiritual appeals which, if they would but give them\nheed, would make resistance of evil easy and successful. If any one who\nreads these words doubts my conclusions, let him study his own life,\nwith a little care, and learn for himself whether there are not many\nhours in which he is almost persuaded to accept the ancient doctrine of\nguardian angels.\n\nThis phase of the spiritual experience is rendered still more vivid when\nwe remember that the souls of men are perpetually dissatisfied with\npresent attainments, and ever eager in their efforts to explore the\nunseen. The history of human thought, if it could be written, would show\nthat the mind has never been satisfied with what it has possessed, and\nthat each new glimpse of truth has stimulated still more ardent inquiry.\nThe more it is pondered the more impressive this fact becomes. The soul\nseems to have had just before it, in all the stages of its development,\na spiritual forerunner opening a way into larger and fairer realms. This\nconsciousness is not akin to a passion for wealth. A man with enormous\nriches often ceases to acquire, and devotes himself to the enjoyment of\nwhat he possesses; but who ever heard of a thoughtful man who felt that\nhe might cease investigating and devote himself to the pleasures of\nknowledge? Such instances there may have been, but they are not numerous\nand have never been recorded.\n\nOf course there are many, who in no true sense can be called seekers\nafter truth, who do not trouble themselves with questions about the\nUnseen. They chew the cud of custom with all the placidity of\ngood-natured oxen. They do not live,--they simply exist. It is possible\nfor any man to shut his eyes to the light, but that does not banish the\nlight. It envelops him, and pours its splendors around him, regardless\nof his wilful blindness. Millions are so engrossed with selfishness, or\nanimalism, that they catch the accents of no spiritual message, but\nthose appeals are never hushed. The deafness of the multitudes who will\nnot hear does not prove that no voices are calling.\n\nIn some way men have been kept dissatisfied with their ignorance and\npersistent in their search for truth. I make no distinction between\nsacred and secular here because all truth is sacred. Scientist and\ntheologian alike have to do with reality. Whether we examine the tracks\nof an extinct animal on ancient rocks, or bow our heads in prayer, we\nare facing a real world which is steadily enlarging. For centuries men\nhave sought the causes of things; they have been made to feel that they\nought to do right, and then have been inspired with a passion to\ndiscover the right. This is very wonderful. The being who has almost\nlimitless powers of physical enjoyment, whose senses are exquisitely\nfitted for pleasure, is not satisfied with pleasure, but, in obedience\nto unseen attractions, ever seeks for higher things. Whence does this\neagerness come? Is it from man himself? Then our problem is great\nindeed, for, at one and the same time, something within himself impels\nhim upward, and another something drags him downward. But the point for\nspecial consideration now is that the soul is never satisfied with\nanything but truth, that the history of thought is the record of the\nsearch for truth, that every new discovery has acted as a stimulus to\nstill more ardent exploration, and that the search is always for\nelemental realities, the causes of phenomena, for \"things as they are.\"\nThe promise of Jesus was fulfilled long before it was spoken. Some one,\nin all the ages, has been leading into truth and showing things to come;\nand the process was never more evident than after all these years of\nintellectual and spiritual progress. I say some one has led. By that I\nmean a personal spirit, unseen, but ever present; for how could he whose\nhome is in the mire be supposed, steadily and unwaveringly, to reach\ntoward the skies unless there was some attraction in the skies? The only\nattraction for one spirit is another spirit. This age-long, unwavering\npassion for truth and progress, the wisest of men have believed to have\nbeen inspired by Providence or God or by guardian angels--which after\nall are only other ways of stating the doctrine of Jesus concerning the\nHoly Spirit.\n\nAnother phase of this subject is the power, which has seemed to come\nfrom outside the soul, to sustain and help those who have been called to\nendure bitter and long-continued sorrow and pain. Those who feel\nthemselves to be weak as water under the stress of severe trial, almost\nwithout previous suggestion, assume the proportions of heroes. They\nendure and suffer with patience what would crush those who are only\nphysically brave and strong. A woman who seemed to have few resources in\nherself, suddenly lost four children. In speaking of it, she very simply\nbut forcefully, said: \"I could never have endured it myself.\" She\nbelieved that her fragility had been reinforced by one stronger than\nherself. Exceptional physical courage will account for deeds of amazing\nheroism like that displayed at the sinking of the Merrimac in the\nharbor of Santiago. Some persons are thus gifted by nature, as others\nhave a poetic temperament. But exhibitions of physical valor, stimulated\nby the consciousness of world-wide applause, are very different from the\npatience with which weak persons accept heavy burdens without a murmur,\nand carry them apparently without assistance, sustained only by the\nconsciousness of being right.\n\nHow shall we explain the singular devotion of Monica to Augustine? By\nmother-love? But mother-love might have been content with the greatness\nof her son, and his regard for her. She bore on her heart \"the salvation\nof his soul,\" and would not cease in her quest for his spiritual\nwelfare. A profligate father, the degraded ideals which justified vice,\ndistances which seemed to be almost world-wide, did not daunt her.\nWithout haste and without rest she sought to bring her gifted son to\nhis Saviour. He had fame, and at least all the wealth that he needed,\nbut Monica never faltered in her prayers, or in her service, until her\nson bowed before the cross, albeit for years she carried a heavy heart.\n\nThe age of martyrdom has passed but not the age in which men of vision\nand strength have to serve their fellow-men with neither pecuniary\ncompensation nor expressed approval. And yet the number is steadily\nincreasing who quietly undertake herculean tasks for their fellow-men,\nknowing that they will be neither appreciated nor understood, but,\ninstead, will have to suffer social ostracism, which is sometimes quite\nas hard to endure as physical martyrdom. When a strong and earnest man\nundertakes a service in which he must be misunderstood, and seldom if\never applauded, when he chooses suffering with joy in order that he may\nserve others, when he is willing to accept discomfort, social hunger,\nphysical pain, and without complaint continue in such a path, although\nopportunities of worldly emolument and honor make their appeals to him,\nit is difficult to explain the phenomena by simply saying that he is\nfinding strength in some hitherto unknown chamber of his own\npersonality. It would be easy to make a list of illustrations, long and\npathetic, of those who have patiently endured tribulation, who have\naccepted heavy burdens and carried them without flinching that others\nmight be relieved, who have had physical deformity, depression of mind,\nand pain of body, and yet who have never faltered as to their duty even\nwhen the way was dark. The world's noblest heroes are to be found among\nthose who suffer but still endure and aspire in the night and silence,\nclinging to duty when no one understands, and much less approves. Such\nheroisms need explanation, and they have it in the inspiration and the\nregeneration which are mediated by the Inseparable Spiritual Companion.\n\nPhenomena like those of which I have thus far been speaking have been\nobserved in every age and every land. Some like Socrates have felt\nthemselves warned against evil courses; others like Augustine have been\nprotected from moral and spiritual death; others like Sakya-Muni have\nbeen led to give up wealth and power for truth and service; others, who\ncould draw upon no hidden source of strength, have been sustained in the\nmidst of trials which have seemed heavy enough to crush; and, most\nwonderful of all, in spite of all vices and crimes, all darkness and\nignorance, all bondage to ignoble ideals and slavery to commercialism\nand pleasure, the race of man has never been content with things as they\nhave been. As the moon draws the tides by unseen attractions, so by\nunseen attractions the souls of men have been made dissatisfied, and\ndrawn toward truth and beauty, love and holiness; and this desire for\nsome better country has never been absent. The passage from Egypt to the\npromised land is the eternal parable of humanity, which is always\ngetting out of some Egypt, with its slavery and tyranny, and pressing\ntoward some intellectual and spiritual Canaan. This is one of the most\nmarvelous facts in the history of our race--its discontent with things\nas they are, its faith in something better, and the perfect confidence\nwith which it embarks on unknown seas in its search for ampler and\nfairer worlds.\n\nThe history of the past is the record of the weak receiving strength, of\nthe wicked being made uncomfortable in their wickedness, of limited and\nprovincial creatures reaching out to broad and high horizons, of\nweakness, suffering, agony, willingly endured in the confidence that\nrelief and blessing will come at last, though far off, to all.\n\nMoreover, there is no indication of any cessation of such phenomena. In\nthese days, when we say that no man should be asked to affirm anything\nwhich he cannot verify, voices of warning and entreaty are vivid, the\nconsciousness of protection is distinct, support in trial is frequent,\nand the evidence that some force, or some person, is steadily leading\nhumanity toward truth and righteousness is as convincing and constant as\never.\n\nWhat shall be said of these facts which are so numerous and so evident\nas to make an effort at classification and explanation imperative?\n\nFour answers to this inquiry are possible. Is the old doctrine of\nGuardian Angels true? Possibly we may be, individually, under the care\nof spiritual beings who are appointed for that service. That conviction\noften prevails, although so far as I have observed, not usually in\nassociation with perfect sanity. A man of noble bearing and grave and\nsolemn manner who was talking about using the telephone for\ntrans-Atlantic communication, once declared that all men living now are\nunder the leadership of those who have gone, and that the great of other\ntimes are continuing their work through those now on earth. He added: \"I\nam confident of my success for I am the representative in these days of\nSir Isaac Newton.\" Subsequent events proved that Sir Isaac Newton must\nhave lost most of his common sense since his departure from the earth,\nor he would have chosen a more rational representative.\n\nThis theory in no way solves the problem before us, but rather\ncomplicates it, because it does not explain how the relation of souls is\nadjusted. That there may be some truth in this speculation may be freely\ngranted. One text at least appears to give it a little confirmation:\n\"Are not their angels ministering spirits sent forth to minister to such\nas shall be the heirs of salvation.\" That seems to teach that some who\nhave never dwelt in earthly bodies are the appointed ministers of those\nwho live on the earth.\n\nMany other persons dismiss this subject by saying that all souls, like\nall objects in nature and events in history, are parts of an everlasting\nand universal process, and that speculation is useless and a weariness\nto the flesh. That is the easiest way out of the difficulty, but it can\nbe taken only by ignoring the facts. Are all ideas concerning spiritual\nministry delusions? Then how shall we account for the imagination which\nis capable of giving birth to such magnificent dreams? And we may\nventure to ask also--Who started this movement in which we are all\ninvolved? How comes it that in this cosmic loom such a wondrous fabric\nis being woven, if there is no pattern, and no weaver, and will be no\none to enjoy the work when it is finished?\n\nPossibly no one is warned against sin, impelled toward virtue, supported\nin sorrow, led into larger visions of truth; and, possibly, truth and\nright are also dreams, and the mind itself a delusion; and, possibly,\nthere is nothing but delusion. Then all study and struggle are useless;\nlet us go to sleep. But, some one else says, perhaps the phenomena of\nwhich you speak are, in one sense, realities but caused by reactions of\nthe soul on itself. First it imagines that some spiritual leadership is\ndesirable, and then it concludes that that leadership is discernible. In\nother words, sorrow, sin, relief, joy, truth, right, are only\nimaginations born of other imaginations. If any are satisfied with such\nreasoning the task of enlightening them is hopeless.\n\nThere is another explanation of the sublime, ancient, and world-wide\nfacts which are before us. It is the answer of Jesus, which is simple,\nprofound, rational, and satisfying. He told His disciples, when they\nwere grieving that they should see Him no more, that they would always\nhave with them the Spirit of Truth who would convict of sin, show things\nto come, and lead into all truth. That Spirit in the Scriptures is\ncalled by one of the sweetest and dearest names in the languages of\nmen--the Comforter. Some have wrongly imagined that the New Testament\nteaches that the presence of the Comforter is a new event in human\nhistory. Not so. The Spirit of Truth inspired and sustained the Apostles\nand Martyrs as He had sustained the Patriarchs and Prophets and the same\nSpirit which is represented as descending upon Jesus at His baptism\nbrooded upon the face of the waters when the earth was without form and\nvoid.\n\nJesus teaches that God, as a Spirit, has never been absent from His\ncreation and never out of touch with the spirits of men. In the\nbeginning He created; later He inspired, supported, taught, comforted;\nand always and everywhere He is present to sustain, to lead, to comfort,\nto help, to save, and to bless. How simple, rational, and satisfying is\nthis interpretation of the phenomena of human history!\n\nWe study our own spiritual experiences and discover that when we have\nbeen in danger of being contented with moral failure we have been made\nashamed and disgusted by it; that when we have been on the verge of\nyielding to temptation we have been strangely and almost preternaturally\nprotected; that when sorrows have come which would have crushed our\nunaided strength we have experienced strange peace and have had\nundreamed-of strength; and that never for a moment have we found rest or\npeace except as they have come to us in hand with truth and right. A\nwider study shows us that our experiences are in harmony with the common\nhuman experience. All forces and all events, in all ages, have been\nworking for the welfare of individuals, society, the whole world. A\nsteady, unfailing, universal attraction has been drawing the human race\naway from animalism, error, sorrow, war, separation and division, toward\nrighteousness, truth, love, brotherhood, the life of the Spirit, and the\nunity and happiness of the children of God.\n\nThat attraction is interpreted by Jesus in a simple and beautiful way.\nHe has taught us that the same Being who created the universe, and who\nhas revealed and is revealing Himself in creation, in history, and in\nthe earthly ministry of the Christ, is now, always has been, and always\nwill be in the most intimate, personal, and loving relations with men.\nHe warns them against evil, protects them in danger, comforts them in\nsorrow, lifts their thoughts and desires toward the true, the beautiful,\nand the good; and what He is doing for individuals He is also doing for\nhumanity and the universe. This is the culmination of the Christian\nRevelation. This is to be the consummation and splendor of the Kingdom\nof God. All the disciples of Jesus are followers of the Spirit of Truth.\nThe Spirit of Truth is the inspiration of all that is vital and enduring\nin literature, art, government, society; and each individual, and \"the\nwhole cosmic process\" are being led by Him toward the beatitude of the\nChildren of God.\n\n\n\n\nNURTURE AND CULTURE\n\n\n    O happy house! whose little ones are given\n       Early to Thee, in faith and prayer,--\n    To Thee, their Friend, who from the heights of heaven\n       Guards them with more than mother's care.\n    O happy house! where little voices\n       Their glad hosannas love to raise,\n    And childhood's lisping tongue rejoices\n       To bring new songs of love and praise.\n\n    O happy house! and happy servitude!\n       Where all alike one Master own;\n    Where daily duty, in Thy strength pursued,\n       Is never hard nor toilsome known;\n    Where each one serves Thee, meek and lowly,\n       Whatever thine appointments be,\n    Till common tasks seem great and holy,\n       When they are done as unto Thee.\n\n    --_O Happy House._ Karl J.P. Spitta.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n_NURTURE AND CULTURE_\n\n\nIn the ascent of the soul two forces are ever at work: one is internal\nand the other external. The internal is that which promotes growth; it\nis resident within the soul, and, while it may be modified by\nconditions, it is in no sense dependent on them. But environment is a\npotent factor in all progress. Life necessitates growth, but environment\ndetermines the end toward which it will move. Environment in large part\nis composed of the circumstances into which we are born, of the\nspiritual companionship from which none can escape, and of the training\nwhich is provided by parents and friends. So much of the environment as\nis furnished by others we will call nurture, and those influences and\ninstruments of advancement which the soul chooses for itself we will\ncall culture. This discrimination is not entirely accurate, but it is\nsufficiently so for our present purpose. It at least indicates the lines\nalong which our thought will move. According to this definition nurture\nhas to do with that period of our existence when we are not able wisely\nto make choices for ourselves. It is for those persons who are in\ninfancy and early youth, and also for those whose normal development has\nbeen thwarted or hindered. The influences of the home, and of the church\nso far as they are related to its younger members, are in the line of\nnurture rather than of culture.\n\nCulture, on the other hand, is something which a responsible being seeks\nfor himself, to the end that his power may be increased and his\nfaculties have harmonious development.\n\nThe soul grows according to its innate tendencies; it is also subject\nto attractions from without. All souls are bound together; and all,\nwhether they wish or not, vitally and permanently affect those by whom\nthey are surrounded. Hence nurture and culture alike are both conscious\nand unconscious.\n\nThe growth of the soul is largely affected by the nurture which it\nreceives. This is usually provided for it by parents, or by those who\ntake the places of the parents; and, where possible, their unwearying\nefforts should be to remove all obstacles from the pathway of their\nchildren, to surround them with a pure and helpful environment, and to\nprovide them with such training as will make their progress inevitable\nand easy. The importance of wholesome domestic influences cannot be\nexaggerated. Their part in the formation of character is greater than\nthat of all others, because they touch the powers and faculties of the\nchild during those years in which it is most plastic. Neither the\nschool nor the university can ever entirely counteract the effect of the\nhome. The whole period of childhood is one in which the soul is under\ntutelage, and in which more is done for it by others than by itself. It\ncan no more select its own environment than it could have chosen its\nparents, or the time and place of its birth. For a few years it is\nutterly dependent. The question as to how its growth may most wisely be\npromoted is, therefore, one of surpassing importance.\n\nThe object of nurture is to provide an unhindered path along which the\nsoul may move, to bring into full and free exercise all the powers which\nit possesses, and to secure for them development and harmony. To insure\nfor each individual soul in the struggle of life a fair opportunity to\nbe itself is the end of nurture. Emerson has said that at birth every\nchild is loaded with bias, and that the purpose of culture is to remove\nall impediment and bias, and to secure a balance among the faculties so\nas to leave nothing but pure power. The same may be said as to the\nobject of nurture. Since impediment and bias are never a part of the\nessence of the soul, the statement that the aim of nurture is to furnish\na full and free opportunity for each individual to secure a normal\ndevelopment is, practically, identical with what Emerson has said of\nculture.\n\nWhat are the agencies which have most to do with promoting the ascent of\nthe soul? The first is atmosphere. In a bright, clear, sunshiny\natmosphere the body attains its most healthful growth. So with the soul.\nAtmosphere is one of those intangible things that every one understands\nand no one can easily define. It is composed of a thousand different\nelements. The atmosphere of a household is the spirit by which it is\npervaded. Are all reverent, earnest, cheerful, optimistic? Do love and\nmutual helpfulness prevail? Do the members of the family live as if God\nwere a near and blessed reality, and right and duty were more sacred\nthan life? Then there will be an atmosphere of hopefulness, devotion,\nservice, reverence, pure religion, which will affect all as sunlight and\nair, unconsciously but evidently, grow into the beauty and fruitfulness\nof meadows and gardens. The rare spirituality, the urbane manner, the\nexquisite regard for others, the dignity and deference which are found\nin some persons have no explanation except that they have been absorbed\nfrom the households in which their early lives were passed. Nurture is\nchiefly a matter of mental and spiritual atmosphere. Attraction is\nalways stronger than compulsion. A child born into conditions in which\nlove prevails, where truth, duty, honor, are reverenced, and where all\ndwelling together seek the highest things, will need neither instruction\nin morals nor motives in religion. It will naturally turn toward truth\nand righteousness. It will revere virtue and worship God as inevitably\nand spontaneously as it breathes. We are all influenced more by the\nwords which we hear and the examples which we see than by the lessons\ngiven us to learn, by the spirit of a man, or an institution, rather\nthan by rules. Persons show the conditions in which they have been\nreared by their choice of words, their bearing, the subjects of their\nconversation, by their mental and spiritual attitude. Reverence is\nseldom found except in an atmosphere of reverence, and sincerity grows\namong those who are sincere. It is a moral necessity that some men\nshould be earnest and enthusiastic, and impossible for their neighbors\nto be other than cringing and mean. The largest element in environment\nis atmosphere, and in the development of character environment is quite\nas potent as heredity. Indeed, in the sphere of the spirit, as in that\nof the body, heredity is always modified by environment. The chief\nfactor in nurture, therefore, is atmosphere. If that is healthful,\ngrowth will be toward beauty and strength; if that is malarial, no\nantiseptic force but the grace of God will be able to counteract its\ninfluence.\n\nNext to atmosphere as an element in nurture I place ideals. For these\nchildren are usually dependent on their elders. They reverence what they\nare taught to revere. Ideals are placed before them by example and by\nprecept. Children grow like those whose deeds attract them, and they\nseek those ideals toward which they are most wisely directed. Laws are\nnever as potent in the formation of character as examples. Men are made\nbrave by the sight of bravery, and honorable by contact with those who\nwill swear to their own hurt and change not. There is deep philosophy in\nthe saying that the songs of a people influence their institutions and\nhistory more than legal enactments, for songs are usually of bravery, of\nlove, of victory. They create ideals; they excite enthusiasm. The\nMarseillaise and The Watch on the Rhine send thrills through the blood\nof those who hear them because in the most vivid way they suggest\npatriotism and heroism. A good man inspires goodness. Philanthropy makes\nothers philanthropic. One courageous act sometimes makes heroes of a\nhundred common men. If a father would have his son physically brave, and\nhe is a wise parent, he will not waste time in urging him to undertake\nsome forlorn hope, but he will read to him the story of the Greeks at\nThermopylae, of Marshal Ney at Waterloo, of Nathan Hale and his holy\nmartyrdom, of Nelson at Trafalgar. If he would have that son a helper\nand servant of his fellow-men he will tell him the story of Pastor\nFliedner and his work at Kaiserwerth, of Florence Nightingale at the\nCrimea, of Wilberforce and Buxton, Whittier and Garrison in their\nefforts to awaken their fellow-men to the enormity of human slavery. The\nstrongest force for making a young man brave and generous, honorable and\nChristian, is the example of a father possessing such qualities. Men are\nusually like their ideals, and their ideals in large part are created by\nthe examples of those who are most admired and loved.\n\nBut example is not all. Training also does much. Conduct is but the\nexpression of thought. If one can determine what shall be the subject of\nanother's thinking, he will have gone a long way toward fixing his\ncharacter. This is a fact which deserves more attention than it has yet\nreceived in plans for the education of the people. Parents have no\nholier privilege than that of directing the thought of their children.\nBy their own conversation, by the friends whom they invite to their\nhomes, by the books which are given a place on their tables, by the\namusements to which they take their families, they determine for them\nthe channels in which their minds shall run. As a man thinketh in his\nheart so is he. Boys usually dwell upon the same subjects as their\nfathers, unless the fathers by skilful conversation are able to hide the\nsubjects to which they give most time. Children usually admire what\ntheir parents admire, and shun what they shun. The organic unity of the\nhousehold is a large factor in individual and social progress. Both by\ndirect effort, and by the indirect operation of example, it furnishes\nsubjects for the youthful mind. The personality, whose seat is in the\nwill, is never determined, but it is very largely influenced both by the\nexample of those who are admired and by the thoughts which they\nsuggest.\n\nEnvironment in large part is composed of atmosphere, example, and\nideals. All these are provided for the growing child by others. He has\nlittle or no voice in saying what they shall be. And environment has\nmore to do with the progress of the soul toward full and free\nself-expression even than what is called education. Education is more by\natmosphere, example, and mental suggestion than by teachers and\ntext-books. When we speak of nurture we usually think of the period of\ndiscipline in school and church; but we often make the mistake of not\ntaking into account the fact that the most effective training is seldom\nthat which comes directly from teachers. It is rather that which is\nderived indirectly from the atmosphere, example, and ideals by which the\nchild is surrounded in his home. If I could determine those for a child\nI should dread very little any malign force in the shape of an\nincompetent teacher. Schools, in reality, are only for the unfinished\nwork of the homes. They may make the child better than his home, and\nthey may undo the good work which it has done; but, usually, what the\nhome is the child will be some time.\n\nThe agencies of nurture, by which a soul is helped on its upward\npathway, are atmosphere, example, ideals, and direct training. Of these\nthe least important is the last, although the value of that is\nself-evident. By the intellectual and spiritual air that we breathe, by\nthe sight of heroic and consecrated service, by the possibilities of\nnoble achievement the best that is in a man or a boy is usually drawn\nout. Afterward the teacher may take him in hand and, by training, remove\nthe impediment and bias and thus make a balance in the faculties, or\ntake out of his way the obstacles which oppose his progress; but he\nseldom does very much toward determining the direction in which the\nchild will move. That is decided by others in the years which are most\nplastic. The soul naturally, and inevitably, grows toward truth and God.\nHow could it be otherwise, since its being is derived from Him? But a\npart of the mystery of growth is the influence of environment, and early\nenvironment is almost altogether composed of the circumstances and\ninfluences into which one is born.\n\nThe question of nurture, therefore, is of vital importance. What shall\none generation do for those which are to come after it? Each soul may\nhinder or help the growth of countless other souls. The influence of\nthose nearest is always most potent for good or ill. Impediment is\nincreased, and bias exaggerated, by evil example. The effort to rise\nbecomes easy when the way is seen to be full of those whom we love and\nhonor going before us toward the heights, and it is difficult when no\nfamiliar face is seen. Nurture is not so much a matter of teacher and\ntext-book, of church and catechism, as of atmosphere, example, and\ninspiration. It is the effect of the contact of one pure and noble soul\nupon another; it is something which father, mother, and friends give to\nthe child; it is the result of the spirit in which they impart\ninstruction and of the reverence and consecration which shine from their\nlives.\n\nThe best and only enduring nurture is that of a sweet, serene,\noptimistic, and thoroughly Christian environment. With that, inherited\ntendencies toward weakness and evil will go of themselves,--indeed will\nseem never to have had existence.\n\nBut all too soon the time comes in which the soul faces its own\nresponsibility, and realizes that it must choose for itself what its\ncourse shall be. It has learned, if it has observed, that there is ever\nwith it an unseen leadership, and it has heard, faint and far, the call\nof a noble destiny. What shall it now do for itself? Shall it choose\nsimply to exist? Shall it yield to the limitations and solicitations of\nthe body? or, shall it seek to prepare itself by discipline, and the\ncultivation of right choices, for the goal whose intimations it has\nheard? Nurture, if it has been wise, has been the forerunner of culture.\nAtmosphere and example have inspired lofty ideals, but those ideals, if\nthey are to be realized, will require training. Matthew Arnold, quoting\nBishop Wilson, has said that culture \"is a study of perfection.\" In\nother words, it is the means which are used for the perfection of the\nsoul. Shall we choose to leave ourselves to grow like trees in a forest,\nhowever they may, or shall we seek those conditions which will make\nprogress sure and swift? Culture is always a matter of choice; and it is\nvastly more than anything which can be taught in the college or\nuniversity. The cultured man is he who has learned so to use the forces\nand conditions of life as to make them minister to his perfection. The\none most cultured may come out of a factory, and the man of least\nculture may be found in a university. Indeed colleges and universities,\nnot infrequently, are haunts of provincialism and of dread of\nenthusiasm. The object of culture is the perfection of the spirit to the\nend that all that hinders, or limits, may disappear and only pure power,\nclear vision, and full self-realization remain. Those whose growth is\nmost evident are ever eager to use all experiences as means of progress.\nThey study books in order that they may better understand what others\nhave thought concerning the mystery of existence; they discipline their\nminds in order that they may the better serve their fellow-men; they\nseek fineness of manner and beauty of expression to the end that their\nutterance of truth may be more persuasive and convincing. Culture and\nthe discipline of life are identical. Consequently, the wise man chooses\nto put himself where he will best be taught by the events through which\nhe passes, by what he sees, and by what he may learn from others. It\nmatters little who have been the teachers, or what have been the\nschools,--the real teacher is always life, and the real university is\nthe human experience.\n\nI do not make light of the benefit which may be derived from books and\ninstitutions of learning, but I do insist on the recognition of the\ndeeper fact that the lessons which no one can afford to neglect are\nthose which can be taught only by overcoming obstacles. We can learn how\nto live only in the school of life. The most vital books are always\nthose which tell us what others have done, and of the paths by which\nthey have been led to power. What shall the soul do for itself in order\nthat it may promote its own growth? It must first recognize where the\nsources of knowledge and strength are to be found, and then put itself\nwhere it will feel the touch of the vitality which can come only from\nother souls. Quickly enough every man reaches the time in which he may\ndetermine his own environment. When we are young others choose our\ncircumstances for us, but when we become older we select them for\nourselves. That means much. No monarch is mighty enough to compel me to\nassociate with those who will hinder my progress. He only is a slave\nwhose mind and will are in bondage. My body may be with boors but, at\nthe same time, my spirit may be holding companionship with seers and\nsages. I may be compelled to work in a mine like John the Apostle, but\nI, too, like him may hear One speaking whose voice is as the sound of\nmany waters, and whose eyes are like a flame of fire. Our real\nassociates are ever our spiritual companions; and no one can force\nanother to hold fellowship with those who are either intellectually or\nspiritually uncongenial.\n\nAnd we also select our own subjects of thought. Who can govern the\nthinking of another? At the very moment when one, who is stronger, is\nrejoicing in what seems his supremacy, our thoughts may be ranging\nthrough the spaces, and finding companionships among the stars. And we\nchoose our own examples. In youth they were put before us according to\nthe will of others, but later our heroes come to us at our bidding, and\nno one can shut the gates against them. Whom shall we admire? Let them\nbe men of the spirit, who have sought truth and hated lies, \"who have\nfought their doubts and gathered strength,\" who would rather suffer\nwrong than do wrong. The perfection of being is the end of effort,\ntherefore we will read what will best help our growth in vision, in\nmoral earnestness, in spiritual sensibility; therefore our books shall\ntreat of subjects which will ennoble; our amusements shall be pure and\nclean; and our chief companionships shall be with the prophets and\nmasters, the noble and the good, because by associating with them we\nshall become like them.\n\nIntellectual acuteness, mastery of faculty, elegance of expression, are\nsomething very different from insight into the meaning of life. The\ncultured man is he who has learned his relations to his fellow-men, who\nrecognizes his obligations toward them; and his relations to the unseen\nand his duty toward it.\n\nDiscipline which will produce such results will ever be sought by the\nawakened soul. It will be satisfied with nothing less.\n\nThe relation of nurture and culture to the ascent of the soul is now\nevident. Both are the agencies by which all impediment and bias are to\nbe removed, and by which the soul is to come to the realization of pure\npower. They are the means by which complete self-realization is to be\nattained; they are the study of perfection. Nurture is what is done for\nthe soul by parents and friends in its plastic years; culture is the\nmeans which the soul chooses in order that its growth may be hastened.\nNurture is chiefly promoted by lofty examples, noble ideals,--in short,\nby beneficent environment; but culture is attained by the conscious\neffort of the individual, by his own choice of healthful environment,\nworthy example, inspiring companionships, and, perhaps still more, by\nlong and patient study of the facts of our mortal life, of the\nrevelations which have come from the unseen, and of the prophecies of\nthe future which are within the soul. There is a deep and almost\nterrible significance in the text, \"No man liveth to himself.\" Every\nperson is independent and free and yet is bound to every other. Most\ndelicate and vital of all human relations is that of parent and child.\nHow far one may be responsible for the other may be difficult to decide,\nbut that the one influences the other, inevitably and forever, is beyond\nquestion. In many ways the child is what he is made by the parent.\nTherefore the welfare of the child as a spirit, and not merely as a\nbody, should be a continual study. He who has dared to become a parent\ncan never honorably shirk the duty of nurture. The connection between\nsouls is a great mystery, but the mystery does not lessen the\nobligation. We are responsible not only for the existence of our\nchildren, but equally for their growth. It is the parent's privilege to\nmake sure that they start on the journey of life properly equipped, and\nwith no undue obstacles in their pathway--to make them realize that they\nare not only his children but also children of God; and that they are to\nlive not only in time but in eternity.\n\nThe training of the body is needful, and that of the mind still more so,\nbut that of the spirit is absolutely essential to its welfare. Therefore\nplans and provisions for nurture first, last, and always should be to\nthe end that the soul may realize that it is from God, and that its goal\nand glory are union with Him.\n\nAnd those who realize that they are free, that they are in a moral\norder, that a noble destiny awaits them, should make everything in\nthought, in study, in association, in companionship, bend toward the\nperfection of being, the development of power, and the realization of\nthe life of the spirit. Nurture does much for every man, his parents\nand friends also do much but, at last, when all mysteries are disclosed\nand self-revelation is complete, it may be found that each one does\nquite as much for himself as any one else, or every one else, does for\nhim.\n\n\n\n\nIS DEATH THE END?\n\n\n    It's wiser being good than bad;\n       It's safer being meek than fierce;\n    It's fitter being sane than mad.\n       My own hope is, a sun will pierce\n    The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;\n       That after Last, returns the First,\n    Though a wide compass round be fetched;\n       That what began best, can't end worst,\n       Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.\n\n    --_Apparent Failure._ Browning.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n_IS DEATH THE END?_\n\n\nWe have been studying the ascent of the soul in the successive stages of\nits development, from the dawn of consciousness to the measure of\nprogress which our race has now attained. But a dark shadow falls across\nthat history. No one has yet lived who has reached what all have\nbelieved to be the fullness of his possible development. At a certain\nperiod in physical history what we call death intervenes, and we are\nleft wondering as to whether that is the end of all, or whether the soul\npersists and continues its advance unhindered by bodily limitations.\nThat death is the end of the body, in its present form, no one doubts;\nbut whether the relations of the soul to the body are so intimate and\nenduring that what vitally affects one affects the other is a subject\nconcerning which there has been eager and constant inquiry, and but\nlittle real knowledge. Job's question, \"If a man die shall he live\nagain?\" is the common question of humanity. The importance of the\nsubject is attested by the prominence which it has always had in human\nthought. Philosophers have given it foremost place in their\nspeculations. Science, while seeking to explore every part of the\nphysical universe, never escapes from the fascination of this question.\nIs the death of the body the end of the spirit? Or, if we have not\nsufficient material for a positive statement, is there enough to make a\nstrong affirmation of probability? We are facing the deepest mystery\nwhich is ever presented to thinking men. Heretofore we have been trying\nto follow a history clearly marked in the progress of humanity; now we\ncan only balance probabilities. But all that has been learned concerning\nthe nature and development of the spirit of man not only warrants, but\ncompels, the belief that death is not the end of the soul; and that to\nassert that it is, is to deny the revelations of the universe, and to\ninsist that there is nothing but irony and mockery where there ought to\nbe reason and wisdom. In treating this subject I can but repeat thoughts\nwhich have been emphasized again and again; but it is so vital, and so\nnear to the welfare of all, that old arguments become new, and interest\nin them increases, the more frequently they are emphasized.\n\nOn what do we base our faith that the soul exists after death? That it\ndoes is clearly the faith not only of religious teachers but of many of\nthe latest and most eminent scientists. Many expounders of evolutionary\nphilosophy unite in telling us that \"the cosmic process\" having reached\nman, a spiritual being, can go no further in the physical order; that\nevolution will never produce a higher being than a spirit, but that the\n\"cosmic\" force will still persist and be utilized in the expansion and\nperfection of spirits.\n\nIn treating this subject little attention will be given to the\nscriptural argument, for there is little if any difference of opinion\nconcerning the teaching of Jesus and that of the writers of the New\nTestament. They are united and consistent in assuming the persistence of\nbeing. That belief underlies all their appeals to the solemn sanctions\nof the moral law which they derived from the future life. Jesus himself\nsaid, \"If it were not so, I would have told you;\" and nearly, if not\nquite all the Apostles base their warnings and their invitations on\nmotives which reach beyond the death of the body. The masters of other\nreligions have been equally positive. In some form or other they have\nasserted the continued existence of the spiritual nature in man.\n\nBut we turn, for the moment, from these and consider such evidence as\nmay be derived from the soul itself, and from what is known of its\nprogress.\n\nThere is no evidence that when the body dies the soul dies with it. It\nmay not be possible to prove the reverse; all that we know is that the\nvital functions cease, and that the body decays. No eye ever saw the\nsoul, and no dissection ever discovered the place of its dwelling. Is\nthat ethereal something which we call soul simply the result of the\norganization of atoms? Or is the body like a house in which a spiritual\ntenant dwells? At least this may be affirmed: No one has yet been able\nto prove that the soul and body die together. Then there is no\nreasonable presumption against the continuance of being. No spirit, so\nfar as we know, has returned to the earth in visible form, and spoken\nits message; and yet, for aught we know, we may be surrounded every day\nby spiritual beings, moving unseen along the avenues upon which we walk,\nand entering without invitation the houses which we inhabit. At this\npoint it is enough simply to grant that presumptions are, perhaps,\nevenly balanced. If one asks for proof that the spirit persists, the\nonly reply must be a Socratic one--Can you prove that it is vitally\nconnected with the body?\n\nBelief in the existence of the soul after death seems to be an innate\nbelief. It has been ascribed to the influence of the superstition about\nghosts; but that superstition is only an unscientific form of the larger\nfaith in the persistence of being. Where did this conviction originate?\nWe think only of such things as have been experienced. No thought is\never entirely original. Even imagination cannot create anything\nabsolutely unlike anything which ever existed. All the fabled beings\nwho, according to the ancient mythology, filled the spaces and waters,\nwere but human creatures adapted to imaginary environments. Faith in the\nexistence of the soul after death could not have originated in the soul\nitself; to believe that would be to contradict the laws of thought. It\nseems to have been born with the soul, and yet not to be a part of it.\n\nThe common conviction of continuance of being can be explained only on\nthe assumption that it is an innate idea. That this assumption starts,\nperhaps, quite as many questions as it settles may be granted.\nNevertheless, it is the only way in which this fact in mental and\nspiritual history can be accounted for.\n\nNot only is belief in persistence of being innate, but it is also\nuniversal. It has been found in every land, in every time, in every\nreligion. Dr. Matthewson has finely argued that the savage worships a\nfetish because he is seeking something which does not change[8]. He\nknows that he dies; he worships that which he thinks does not die. A\npiece of wood or a stone, at first, seems to him more enduring than a\nman; therefore he worships the fetish. Gradually his eyes are opened and\nhe realizes that the man is more enduring than the thing. Then the\nobject of his worship is lifted from something material to a spiritual\nbeing. The belief in immortality is coterminous with belief in the\nDeity; the two forms of faith are always found together. The cultured\nGreek, the mystic Egyptian, the idealistic Indian, the savage who\ninhabits the forests of Africa, or who formerly dwelt in the forests of\nAmerica, alike have believed in some land of spirits to which their\nloved ones have gone and to which they themselves, in turn, will also\ngo. Every age and every time, alike, have borne witness to the strength\nand vitality of this faith.\n\n[Footnote 8: Distinctive Messages of the Old Religions, p. 9.]\n\nBut still more convincing to me than any of the suggestions which have\ngone before, is the fact that it is irrational to suppose that the soul\ndies with the body. If that were true, how could we account for the\nenormous waste in discipline and culture, in education and affection?\nWhat is the meaning of the love that binds human beings together, if\nafter a short \"three-score-and-ten career\" it utterly ceases to be, and\nbeing and affection alike go into oblivion? How can our systems of\neducation be justified, if the soul is perfected only to be destroyed?\nOn everything else man spends time, labor, affection in proportion to\nthe possibility of its endurance. He never seeks that which he knows\nwill be taken from him and destroyed as soon as it is perfected. An\nartist would not spend a lifetime on a picture, or a sculptor in\nfinishing a statue, if he knew that when his work was completed it would\nbe instantly sunk in the depths of the sea. We devote a large part of\nour lives to education; we cultivate our minds; our affections are\ndisciplined; we spend time, money, labor for years for the culture of\nour children; can it be that all this preparation is for something which\nnever can be realized? In the midst of the loftiest manifestations of\nthe soul's power the body ceases to be. With indescribable bravery a\nwarrior lays down his life, a fireman rescues a child from a burning\nbuilding, a life-boatman goes through the surf to a sinking ship, and,\nat that very moment when he proves himself best fitted to live, death\ncomes and he is seen no more. It cannot be proven that this is not the\nend, but it is not reasonable to believe that this is the end. If it is,\nhuman life is utterly without significance, and he is most to be\ncommended who quickest escapes from its misery and mockery.\n\nMoreover the inequalities of the human condition are strangely\nprophetic. Much has been made of this argument in the past,--Job and\nSocrates both felt its force.\n\nThe value of it has often been discredited, but without reason. How\nshall the bitter injustice which is frequently found on the earth be\nexplained? Some have an abundance of wealth, some have literally\nnothing. Some enjoy the best of health and strength all their days,\nwhile others pass their years in suffering and trial. Some are\nsurrounded by families and fairly revel in love and friendship, and\nothers lead lonely lives toward a welcome end. Some are strong and\nbrave, and able to act a part in the drama of life; others are weak,\nobscure, unknown, and, for aught that they or we can see, might as well\nhave never been. The law of heredity sweeps down from the past and\nbrings a terrible legacy to many who spend all their days in trying to\nescape from what has been forced upon them. What shall we say concerning\nthose who are born in lust and must live in the midst of the vice of a\ngreat city, and who, in turn, give birth to a lustful and vicious brood?\nHave they had a fair chance? Will their children have? Such questions\nhave puzzled the most earnest thinkers of all time, and there has seemed\nto be but one explanation. Job seemed to be in darkness, until at last\nthere flashed upon his mind this question, which is also a modified\naffirmation, \"If a man die shall he live again?\" If he live again, then\nit is possible that what seems to be unjust may be righted; and those\nwho have known only suffering and pain during their dwelling in the\nflesh, may some time enter into the fruition of their discipline in the\njoy and victory of the endless life. The more this argument is pondered\nthe stronger its force becomes. It carries conviction to all who are\ndeeply sensitive to the common human experience, and who at all\nunderstand the misery and the suffering of human existence. One in the\nfullness of his physical strength may think little about it, but that\ndeformed girl who asked her mother after service one Easter Day,\n\"Mother, is it true that in heaven I shall be as straight as you and\nfather?\" is a type of millions of others. Some suffer in body and some\nin mind; some have a heredity of insanity or vice--they are born with\nshackles on their faculties. If they ever have a fair chance to grow\nnoble and beautiful, morally and spiritually, it must be after their\nbodies have been laid aside. It cannot be said that they do not now\ndesire benefit and blessing, but it is evident that it is impossible for\ntheir longing to be gratified. The conviction that this is a moral and\nrational universe compels us to believe that some time and somewhere\nthose who suffer will escape from their pain, that those who are\nburdened with the evil that has been inherited from past generations\nwill rise above it, and that the soul will be given an unhindered\nopportunity for growth and advancement. The inequalities in the human\ncondition almost compel us to believe that the death of the body cannot\nbe the end of the spirit.\n\nA little light on this subject comes from the faith of the world's\ngreatest teachers. As there are, now and then, those who see farther\nthan others with the physical eye, so there have been a few teachers who\nhave been rightly called seers, because their eyes have penetrated\nfarther into the mysteries of the universe than have those of their\nfellow-men. Among the seers of the ages, I think that the two whom all\nwould recognize as being preeminent are Socrates and Jesus--the one the\nfinest flower of the intellectual development of Greece, and the other\nthe consummation of the hopes and visions of the most spiritual people\nthat the world has ever known. Both Socrates and Jesus believed in God,\nand both have taught the world, with no uncertain sound, of their faith\nin immortal life. The latter was clearly an axiom with Jesus, for He\nsaid to His disciples in effect, \"If there had been any question about\nit I would have told you;\" and almost with his last breath Socrates\ncompelled his disciples to think of him as immortal, for he told them\nthat, though his body might be buried anywhere, he defied both friend\nand foe to catch his soul. Socrates and Jesus represent the belief of\nthe world's greatest seers.\n\nThe deep and abiding confidence of the teachers, who increasingly\ncommand our admiration as the years go by, is not to be entirely\ndisregarded. We may care little what those tell us who walk by our sides\nin the dark valleys or on the dusty plains; but there are others who\nhave climbed to the crests of the loftiest mountains, and who have\nlooked into a world of which we have only dreamed. When they come down\nwe listen because we know that they have had visions. Even so it is in\nour intellectual life. A few men have risen above the common levels of\nhumanity, as the Alps above the plains of Lombardy. They have spoken\nconcerning what they have seen. They have had glimpses of God--the soul\nof the universe, and of the persistence of individuals in the realm that\nlies beyond the grave. I might not let my faith be determined by their\ntestimony alone, but when what they say is confirmed by many other\nvoices speaking in the soul, and sounding through the history of the\nworld, it is easy to believe that they have spoken of things which have\nbeen revealed to them.\n\nAnother confirmation of our conviction of the reality of life after\ndeath may be stated as follows: It is not possible for us to think of\nthe heroes and singers of the ages as having less endurance than the\nwords which they have uttered and the deeds which they have performed.\nMilton's and Shakespeare's bodies have long been dead. The great\ndramatist has recorded a dire curse on any one who should move his\nbones. In the chancel of the Church of the Holy Trinity at\nStratford-on-Avon those bones are supposed to rest. But the plays that\nShakespeare wrote are still the wonder of the world, and the glory of\nthe English race. Is it possible to believe that the man was less\nenduring than his work? Is it possible to believe that Shakespeare's\nplays and Milton's epic will exist, perhaps, for a thousand years, while\nthe dramatist himself has utterly ceased to be? You open a neglected\ndrawer of your desk and come suddenly upon a letter written by a friend\nof half a century ago; the paper is a little soiled, but as firm as\never; the ink is hardly faded; the words are all clearly formed and full\nof inspiration; and you hold that letter in your hand and ask yourself,\n\"Was the man who penned these lines less enduring than the paper on\nwhich he wrote, or than the ink with which he wrote?\" Such questions are\nnot arguments, and yet they have the force of arguments. It is not\npossible in our better moments to feel that the great and good, by whom\nthis world has been lifted to its present condition, have gone entirely\ninto nothingness.\n\nIt was said of our Lord, \"It was not possible that such a man should be\nholden of death.\" And it is not possible for us to believe, in our\ninmost souls, that those who become a part of our being, whose love is\nof more value to us than our own lives, whose memory is the dearest\ntreasure that we possess, by some accident, a taint in the food or the\nwater, can utterly pass from existence. If it were possible to believe\nthat, then the most miserable creature on the earth would be man, for he\nwould know of his greatness, and know also that his greatness is a\nmockery and a sham. In hours of doubt, let us lean hard upon the\nquestion, \"Is it possible that those with whom we have walked and\nworked, conversed and communed, and by whom we have been helped and\nblessed, should forever cease to be, while the houses in which they\nlive, and the tools with which they labor, will endure for generations?\"\n\nThe soul is full of prophecies. Only as there may be continuance of\nbeing can these prophecies have fulfillment. The feeling of dependence,\nthe desires for friendship which are never satisfied, the powers of\nbody and of mind which are capable of a development which they never\nreceive on earth, are prophecies of a life beyond death. Not the least\namong the reasons for our belief that death is not the end of the soul\nis the fact that the soul itself is a prophecy of its own immortality.\n\nIt is always best to believe the best. This world and human life may be\ninterpreted on the materialistic hypothesis; then matter is all and\ndeath is the gloomy _finale_ to the tragedy of existence. Or they may be\ninterpreted according to the spiritual hypothesis; then within the body\ndwells the spirit; then the latter is but a tenant of the former. If the\nhouse is destroyed the tenant goes elsewhere. If we interpret the world,\nand human life, according to the materialistic theory all the beauty and\njoy of existence on the earth will disappear. We will then live for a\nlittle time; and our loves, our disciplines, and our victories alike\nwill be only delusions soon to be mercifully ended by death. Possibly\nthat is true; but, if it is true, then this universe is the embodiment\nof the most dismal, desolate, and diabolical thought that it is possible\nfor a human being to conceive. On the spiritual hypothesis all\nexperiences are intended for the perfection of the soul. Bodily\nlimitations, physical sufferings, animal solicitations, may all be used\nso as to promote the development and perfection of the spirit. When the\nbody can do no more the soul will emerge purified and strengthened by\ncontact with that which is physical. It will then move from the narrow\nquarters in which it has dwelt into some larger and fairer room in the\ngreat palace of God. Once more, I confess, we cannot demonstrate the\ntruth of this faith, but it is always best for ourselves and for the\nworld to believe the best. With this faith human life is nobler, and\nhuman effort more persistent and enduring than it would be without it.\nAt the end \"the finished product\" will be larger, and more perfect, if\nthere is something to strive for than if hope is destroyed the moment\nthat aspiration is born. I should be willing to rest my faith in\nimmortality upon this one argument. A rational being should be satisfied\nonly with a rational answer to his questions; a moral being should be\nsatisfied only with a moral solution of his problems. This universe is\nneither rational nor moral if the soul ceases to be at the death of the\nbody. On the other hand, if the soul passes into another and ampler\nsphere all the mysteries are explained, and there is meaning even in the\ndarkest passages of human experience. All things work together for good\nto those who are willing to be led toward the higher things.\n\nThese are some of the reasons, with which all thinking persons are\nfamiliar, for believing that the soul continues its growth after the\nbody has been laid aside. Evolution has opened a new vista in human\nthought. There had been vague suggestions of it before, but evolution\nhas done much to confirm faith by its clear and strong testimony. It\nprophesies the eternal growth of the spirit. These prophecies are\nharmonious with those of the soul, and with the positive teachings of\nthe Christian revelation. This then is our conclusion:--in the process\nof time, in accordance with natural law, our bodies will be laid aside,\nsome in one way and some in another, but the soul that has dwelt in\nthese bodies will become free. In ways of which we know not, and of\nwhich it would be presumption to speak, its perfecting will be\ncontinued. What teachers will take it in hand then is beyond our\nknowledge; but we are confident that its individual existence will\ncontinue, that its perfection will be along moral and spiritual lines,\nthat it will grow forever and forever in intelligence, in love, in the\npower of rational choice, and into harmony with Him from whom it has\ncome and whose glory will be its perfection. To believe less would be to\nrefuse to listen to the voices which speak within and the voices which\nspeak without,--it would be to believe in an irrational and immoral\nuniverse rather than a rational and moral one.\n\nOur souls have a right to be heard, and their prophecies have in them an\nelement of certainty. He who listens to the voices which speak within\nwill never believe that the death of the body is the end of his personal\nbeing. The suggestion of a state of existence from which sin, sorrow,\nand death shall be forever absent, into which there shall enter nothing\nthat maketh a lie, and where sacrificial love is the everlasting light,\nis the highest and most satisfying ideal for human life that has ever\nbeen spoken or imagined; and that which completely satisfies the heart\ncannot at the same time be repudiated by the intellect.\n\nLet us, therefore, reverently confess that we believe in \"the life\neverlasting.\"\n\n\n\n\nPRAYERS FOR THE DEAD\n\n\n    Thy voice is on the rolling air;\n       I hear thee where the waters run;\n       Thou standest in the rising sun,\n    And in the setting thou art fair.\n\n    What art thou then? I cannot guess;\n       But tho' I seem in star and flower\n       To feel thee some diffusive power,\n    I do not therefore love thee less:\n\n    My love involves the love before;\n       My love is vaster passion now;\n       Tho' mixed with God and Nature thou,\n    I seem to love thee more and more.\n\n    Far off thou art, but ever nigh;\n       I have thee still, and I rejoice;\n       I prosper, circled with thy voice;\n    I shall not lose thee tho' I die.\n\n       --_In Memoriam._ Tennyson.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n_PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD_\n\n\nThe wisest of men have little to guide them when they approach that\nmysterious realm from which no traveler has ever returned. With humility\nand the consciousness that we must, at the best, walk in the twilight, I\ntake up one of the most mysterious and fascinating of themes. No one has\nany right to speak positively on such a subject, and I shall not do so.\nThose who have the assurance of sight when they write about what lies\nbeyond the grave are both to be envied and to be pitied,--envied because\nof their confidence, pitied because they may be self-deceived.\n\nLet me make my exact purpose as plain as I can by an illustration. A\ndear friend, one with whom you have associated for years, enters the\nsilent life. The morning following, as has long been your custom, you\noffer your prayers to the Heavenly Father, and, as usual, mention that\nfriend by name. Suddenly you stop and say to yourself, \"I can no more\noffer that petition, for my friend is now beyond the need of my poor\nprayers.\" Then, suddenly and swiftly, come the questions, Although my\nfriend is called dead is he any less alive than when he was in the body?\nWill not all that constituted his personality continue to grow in the\nfuture as in the past? Does the death of the body do anything more than\nchange the mode of the spirit's existence? And the result is that you\nsay to yourself, \"I will continue to pray for my friend, for, if he is\nalive now, every reason which led to prayers before his death justifies\ntheir continuance.\"\n\nFrom more than one person I have heard words similar to these which I\nhave put into this hypothetical form; and because of these expressions\nof sane and sacred experience I am led to ask my readers to follow me in\nthe consideration of a subject which is seldom mentioned, except with\nincredulity, by most Protestants.\n\nNo one who may not appreciate the importance of this subject should be\neither troubled or heedless. We learn our lessons concerning the\nprofounder mysteries simply by living. No one can be blamed for not\nappreciating what he is not yet, either intellectually or spiritually,\nready to receive. Providence takes good care of us. When we are prepared\nfor the reception of any truth it usually finds us.\n\nThis subject has been regarded with suspicion by two classes of\nthinkers: Protestants who have revolted from the extent to which praying\nfor the dead has been carried in the Roman Catholic Church, and the\nmuch smaller number who hold what they delight in affirming is \"the true\ntheology,\" and who have insisted that when men die their state is\nirrevocably and forever fixed, the good going at once into the perfect\nbliss of heaven and the wicked into the suffering of hell.\n\nIt will be more profitable for us to deal with the positive side of our\nsubject than to attempt to clear away misconceptions and half truths.\n\nWhat is meant by prayers for the dead? Exactly the same as prayers for\nthose in the body. When the body dies the soul, or the essential man, is\nnot touched by death. The personality is that which thinks, chooses,\nlives. Your mother is not the form on which your eyes rested, or the\narms which encircled you, but the thought, the devotion, the affection\nconcealed, yet revealed, by the body, and which use it for their\ninstrument. In reality we never saw our dearest friends; what we saw\nwas color, form, but never the spirit. That is disclosed through the\nbody, but is not identified with it. Now just as we have prayed for a\nmother, or a child, or a friend whose physical form is familiar, but\nwhose personality we have seen only in its revelations, so we continue\nto pray for that loved one which we do not see any more, or any less,\nafter what is called death.\n\nIn other words, instead of thinking of any as dead, we think of all as\nalive, although many of them are in the unseen sphere. Love and sympathy\nhave never been dependent on the body except for expression, and there\nis no evidence that they ever will be. Sympathy and affection, thought\nand will, are matters of spirit; and why may not spirit feel for spirit\nand minister to spirit, when the body is laid aside? Your hands, your\nfeet, your lips did not pray for your child; your spirit prayed for his\nspirit, and now that his body is laid aside, like a worn-out garment,\nyou may keep on doing just what you did before. This is what is meant by\nprayers for the dead.\n\nI am well aware that it may seem to some that these statements rest\nlargely on assumptions, but they are not baseless assumptions. One other\nassumption must be made before we can proceed in our study, and that one\nis the truthfulness of the Christian teaching that death is not\ncessation of being, but only the decay of the bodily organism.\n\nHow may prayers for the dead be justified? Are they taught as a duty in\nthe Scriptures? The privilege rests not so much on particular\nexhortations as upon the whole Christian teaching concerning\nimmortality. God is the God of the living. Bishop Pearson in his\nexposition of the Apostles' Creed has an impressive passage, which I\nquote: \"The communion of saints in the Church of Christ with those who\nare departed is demonstrated by their communion with the saints alive.\nFor if I have a communion with a saint of God, as such, while he liveth\nhere, I must still have communion with him when he is departed hence;\nbecause the foundation of that communion cannot be removed by death. The\nmystical union between Christ and His Church ... is the true foundation\nof that communion.... But death, which is nothing else but the\nseparation of the soul from the body, maketh no separation in the\nmystical union, no breach of the spiritual conjunction, and consequently\nthere must be the same communion, because there remaineth the same\nfoundation.\"[9]\n\n[Footnote 9: Quoted in Welldon's \"Hope of Immortality,\" page 332.]\n\nJesus taught that death is but a change of the form of existence. On the\nMount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah appeared alive, and as\ninterested in human affairs. If death is not cessation of being, but\nonly a change in the form of its manifestation, why should we think\nthat human sympathy ends when breathing ceases, and why should we\nconclude that mutual service may be rendered impossible by \"a snake's\nbite or a falling tile.\" Tennyson in \"In Memoriam\" gives the Christian\ndoctrine exquisite expression,\n\n    \"Eternal form shall still divide\n    The eternal soul from all beside;\n    And I shall know him when we meet.\"\n\nJesus teaches the reality of immortality He represents those gone from\nus as not dead but as still living and still interested in human\naffairs. If His teaching is true, is it not as reasonable to try to\nserve those of our loved ones who are out of the body as those who are\nin the body? So far as we can see, the only way in which we can serve\nthem is by prayer, although they may, possibly, minister to us in other\nways.\n\nIf immortal existence means the possibility of unceasing growth, then\nevery reason which prompts prayer for those who are bodily present\nremains a motive when they have entered the state which is purely\nspiritual.\n\nBut what efficacy will prayers for the dead have? My answer is two-fold.\nAll the efficacy that prayer ever has. If death is relative only to a\nsingle state of existence, and if those whom we call dead are living,\nand still free agents, then they may still choose good and evil, and\nthey may still grow toward virtue. Choice always implies a possibility\nof freedom; and freedom is a necessity when there is moral\nresponsibility. If prayer helps any one, why not those who have passed\nfrom our sight? Surely we must believe them still to possess the power\nof choice and, therefore, that of choosing evil as well as good.\n\nYou ask why pray at all. My answer is simple and free from all attempts\nat casuistry: simply because we must. Prayer is not so much a Christian\ndoctrine as a human necessity. It is as natural as breathing. By prayer\nI mean not only spoken petitions but, equally, the longing and pleading\nof the soul, either blindly or intelligently, for things which are\nbeyond our reach, and which only a higher Power can provide. Those\nlongings may have formal expression, and they may not. Prayer so far as\nit is petition is the soul pleading with the Unseen for what it deeply\ndesires. I do not suppose that God needs light from any mortal man, but\nall men do need many things from Him, and, as naturally as children\npresent their desires to earthly parents, even though they know them to\nbe already favorable, we go with our deeper needs to our Heavenly\nFather.\n\nMuch time has been wasted in trying to formulate a rational basis for\nprayer. When a child in the smaller family no longer asks his father to\naccede to his wishes, when he no more pleads with his father for his\nbrother or his sister, then it will be time enough to inquire if, in the\nlarger family which we call humanity, we may do without prayer. Until\nthen let us believe,\n\n    \"More things are wrought by prayer\n    Than this world dreams of.\"\n\nLeaving now the apologetic side of the subject, which is alluring, we\nobserve one evident blessing which always attends praying for the dead.\nIt keeps ever before our minds the thought that they are actually alive.\nIt makes the doctrine of the communion of saints a sacred reality. If I\nmay in this essay be allowed to assume a hortatory tone I will say, if\nyou have been in the habit of praying for your friend, do not give it up\nsimply because he has ceased to breathe. As regularly as ever continue\nto pray for him, and he will be to you more than a memory. What would\nhave been but an occasional remembrance will then be a daily communion;\nand what would have been only formal praying to God will be an hour, or\na moment, of association with those who will grow nearer and dearer, and\nnot farther and vaguer, with the passing years. The hour of devotion\nwill thus be hallowed, because it will be a holy tryst with absent\nfriends, as well as a time for making our requests known to our Heavenly\nFather. Who can exaggerate the delight and benefit of such an exercise?\nWhat sources of strength are to be found in spiritual association with\nour beloved! If we are thus helped why should we presume that they may\nnot also, by such sweet hours, be strengthened for their duties? I know\nthis may seem fanciful. I ask no one to follow me who is not ready to do\nso. I do not speak dogmatically, but with great earnestness, when I say\nthat prayer for our beloved after they are gone is a privilege and a\nhelp--I would fain believe both to them and to us.\n\nBut it may be objected that the moral state of men is fixed at death,\nand that nothing that we or they can do can influence it by a hair's\nbreadth. That this has been a popular opinion is true; and it is equally\ntrue that many have supposed that all who have had faith on the earth\nare in bliss; and that all who have been without faith are in misery;\nand that the beatitude of all the good is equal and alike, and that the\nmisery of all unbelievers is the same.\n\nSuch inferences, though held by many for whose scholarship and character\nI have profound reverence, seem to me to be contrary to Scripture, to\nthe analogies of nature, and to the moral sense. Such a theory is\ncontrary to Christian Scriptures; for the parable of the talents shows\nthat some will have greater and some lesser reward; and the parable of\nDives and Lazarus has relation only to Hades, or to the state which in\nthe thought of that time intervened between death and the judgment.\n\nThis theory is contrary to the analogies of life on earth. Here change\nindicates not a finality but a new opportunity. Every crisis of life is\nan opening into a newer and larger world. Why should we say that what we\ncall death, alone of all the changes through which we pass, leads to\nthat which is unchangeable?\n\nThe theory is contrary to the moral sense of all earnest souls. Who does\nnot have to compel himself to believe, and that with difficulty, that\ndeath determines forever the fate of all, and that there is neither\npossibility of progress nor of going backward after the body is laid\naside?\n\nLet me quote a noble passage from Bishop Welldon: \"But if a variety of\ndestinies in the unseen world, whether of happiness or of suffering, is\nreserved for mankind, and yet more, if the principle of that world is\nnot inactivity but energy or character or life, it is reasonable to\nbelieve that the souls which enter upon the future state with the taint\nof sin clinging to them, in whatever form or degree, will be slowly\ncleansed by a disciplinary or purifactory process from whatever it is\nthat, being evil in itself, necessarily obstructs or obscures the vision\nof God.\" He continues, \"And this is the benediction of human nature, to\nfeel that, as souls upon earth are fortified and elevated by the prayers\noffered for them in the unseen world, so too by our prayers may the\nsouls which have passed behind the veil be lifted higher and higher into\nthe knowledge and contemplation and fruition of God.\"[10]\n\n[Footnote 10: The Hope of Immortality, page 337.]\n\nWe do not know that death forever determines the condition of the soul.\nOn the other hand, as I grow older, the idea seems to me to be opposed\nto Scripture, to the analogies of nature and history, to reason, and to\nthe universal moral sense.\n\nIf any one should object to prayers for the dead because the privilege\nand duty seem so distinctively a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church,\nmy only reply is that we should never ask who are the advocates of any\nteaching, but, only, is it true? Each branch of the church emphasizes\nsome phase of truth. The Roman Church has given more prominence to\nprayers for the dead than Protestants, and because of that it will have\nthe gratitude of many honest souls who cannot believe that they are\nentirely and forever severed from those whom they have loved and still\nlove.\n\nI am well aware that there are many difficult questions concerning this\nsubject which it is impossible for me to answer. Some truths are clearly\nrevealed and of others we have only glimpses. Concerning some we feel\nmore than we know, and feelings which are not selfish are prophetic.\nWhat an earnest and inquiring spirit feels must be true is quite as\nlikely to be found true as conclusions which seem to have been reached\nby a process of faultless logic.\n\nI fully believe that we are justified in praying for those who have\ndeparted this life, that the good may grow better, that the clouds which\nobscure the vision of the unbelieving may be removed, that all taints of\nanimalism may be washed away; and that we should pray even for the\nwicked, that the disciplinary processes through which they are passing\nmay some time and somehow lead them to submit their wills to the love\nand truth of God. We may pray for our loved ones, not simply by way of\nasking something for them, but in order that there may be a meeting\nplace,--a time for communion and fellowship between those here and those\nbeyond the veil. That meeting place must be found in our common\napproach to God.\n\nDoes this teaching seem mystical and fanciful? What if it does? It is in\nline with the human heart's deepest desires, and with the soul's\nimmortal aspirations. What they most earnestly affirm in their hours of\ndeepest need, and highest illumination, cannot be altogether without\nfoundation in reason and in the Scriptures.\n\nThe unity of life cannot be too strongly emphasized. Life is one. It is\nall under the eye and in the strength of God. It has to do with spirit;\ndeath, if there is any such thing, has to do with matter. Spirits always\ngrow because they always live. The universe is not composed of two\nhemispheres, in the upper one of which are to be gathered all the good\nand in the lower all the evil. It is saner and better to believe that\nthe universe is a sphere in which, in their own places, are all the\nspirits of men, some beautiful with the holiness of God; some only\nbeginning to rise toward Him, like seed that has broken the soil and\nbegun to move toward the light; and still others like seed whose\npossibilities are all hidden, but which are not destroyed and which some\nday also will hear the divine call, feel the touch of God's light, and\nbegin to move toward Him.\n\nWe live in the midst of mystery. In the future we shall probably find\nthat our best attempts at rational answers to many questions have gone\nwide of the mark. The most that any of us can do is to be true to\nourselves, and to respond to every call from above. In the midst of the\ngloom of mortal existence it is safe to follow our hearts.\n\nWe long to commune with those who have gone, to help them and to be\nhelped by them. This longing is natural and rational. That it is not\nwithout reason is proved by the example of our Master, who, after His\ndeath, is represented as ministering to those whom He loved, and who, we\nare told, ever liveth to make intercession for us.\n\nWhat our hearts desire, what harmonizes with reason, what is confirmed\nby the revelations and example of our divine Teacher, will persuade none\nfar from the path which leads to light and felicity.\n\nThose whom men call dead, it is best to believe, have but entered upon\nanother phase of the eternal life of the spirit.\n\nThe Roman Church has an act or service called \"The Culture of the Dead.\"\nIt means the \"practice of the presence\" of those who, though gone from\nus, in spirit are with us. The Creed has an article which reads, \"I\nbelieve in the communion of saints.\" The Christian year has one day\ncalled \"All Saints' Day.\" We shall not be far from the traditions of\nthe church when we pray for our beloved, whether they be in the body or\nout of the body.\n\nThose who would realize the beatitude of this privilege should remember\nthe truth in this stanza from \"In Memoriam:\"\n\n    \"How pure at heart and sound in head,\n       With what Divine affections bold,\n       Should be the man whose thought would hold\n    An hour's communion with the dead.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE GOAL\n\n\n    But Thee, but Thee, O Sovereign Seer of time,\n    But Thee, O poet's Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,\n    But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,\n    O perfect life in perfect labor writ,\n    O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,--\n    What _if_ or _yet_, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,\n    What least defect or shadow of defect,\n    What rumor, tattled by an enemy,\n    Of inference loose, what lack of grace\n    Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,--\n    Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,\n    Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?\n\n    --_The Crystal._ Sidney Lanier.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\n_THE GOAL_\n\n\nIf the cosmic process in the physical sphere culminated with the\nappearance of man, and if, since that culmination, its movement has been\ntoward the perfection of the soul, it is fit and proper that this book\nshould end with a study of the goal toward which the human spirit is\npressing. Is it possible for us, with our limitations, to have an\nadequate conception of the man that is to be \"when the times are ripe\"\nand the \"crowning race\" walks this earth of ours?--or, if not this\nearth, at least, dwells in the spiritual city? The fascination of this\nsubject has been widely recognized. The answer must be secured from many\nsources. Only in imagination can we follow the lines along which the\nspirit will move in the far-off ages, and yet our conclusions will not\nbe wholly imaginative, for the direction in which those lines are\ntending is clearly perceived. Under the circumstances, therefore,\nimagination may not be an untrustworthy guide. We are now to deal with\nprophecies, some of them easy and some of them difficult to read. But\nreading prophecies is not prophesying. I shall not prophesy, but rather\nendeavor to understand and to interpret a few of the many voices which\nhave spoken, and are speaking, on this subject.\n\nThe soul is itself a prediction of what it is to be. It utters a various\nlanguage.\n\nThe growth of intelligence is prophetic. Savage tribes suggest the\noriginal condition of primitive man. The pigmies in Africa afford hints\nof Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. From such as they, and from lower types\nstill, the race has slowly and painfully risen. In them a certain rude\nintelligence appears. They have cunning rather than reason. They are\nhalf akin to brute and half akin to man. A kind of selfish intelligence\ncharacterizes their thinking. They lack a sense of proportion and\nrelation. Before the ant a man looms as large as a mountain before us.\nAn insect does not see things as they are but as they seem to it. Growth\nin intelligence necessitates a truer appreciation of proportions and\nrelations. The pigmy also sees little but himself, but years and\nexperience leave behind them wisdom. The civilized races have all risen\nfrom barbarism and savagery--that is, from a state of imperfect thinking\nas well as of imperfect loving and choosing. Experience and culture\nbring larger knowledge and a more equable balance of the faculties. No\nman should be measured by his achievement in any one field of endeavor.\nHe may paint like Titian and be as voluptuous; he may write tragedies\nlike Shakespeare and have no logic; he may be a gatherer of facts like\nDarwin and have no power of philosophic analysis. The intellect grows\nsteadily toward perfection of vision and logical strength, and also and\nquite as significantly, toward harmony in the development of all the\npowers of thought.\n\nThe contrast between the selfish cunning of an African pigmy and the\nlarge and noble minds which are steadily multiplying, is a prophecy of\nthe man who will dwell on this earth when the vision is clear and the\npower of rational judgment is perfected.\n\nThe prophecy of the soul is not less evident in the emotional nature. At\nfirst the soul is either so imperfect, or so limited by the body, that\nit seems to be nothing but a creature of emotions. It loves, but its\naffections are selfish and egotistic. What may be called the epochs in\nits growth are finely treated by Coleridge in \"The Ancient Mariner\" and\nby Tennyson in \"In Memoriam.\" The Ancient Mariner felt only selfish\naffection. He had no love for \"being as being.\" He killed the albatross\nwith as little heed as he disregarded his fellow-men; but the ministries\nof his misery were multiplied until, at length, he was able to see\nsomething beautiful even in the writhing green sea-serpents that\nfollowed the ship of death on which he sailed. That was the first sign\nof the larger interest which had long been growing within him, and which\nwas to continue to grow until he could say,\n\n    \"He prayeth best who loveth best\n    All things both great and small.\"\n\n\"In Memoriam\" is the record of the expansion of a soul through its\nincrease in love. At the beginning of his grief the poet sings,\ndolefully and hopelessly, through his tears,\n\n    \"He is not here; but far away\n       The noise of life begins again,\n       And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain\n    On the bald street breaks the blank day.\"\n\nBut the soul is growing secretly and surely as wheat grows in winter.\nThe Christmas bells ring out their music and at first are almost hated,\nbut they break through the shell of sorrow and let in a faint echo of\nthe world's great suffering and the world's great joy. Thus human\nsympathy is enlarged just a bit. In successive years the music of the\nChristmas bells is heard more distinctly, the sorrow of the world\nbecomes more audible, sympathy reaches farther. At last the poem which\nbegan with a _miserere_ ends with a marriage, and he who could at first\nwrite that dreary line,\n\n    \"On the bald street breaks the blank day\"\n\ntestifies to the beneficence of the path in which he had been led in\nthis wise and beautiful stanza,\n\n    \"Regret is dead, but love is more\n       Than in the summers that have flown,\n       For I myself with these have grown\n    To something greater than before.\"\n\nFrom dwelling in a prison with grief as a jailer he has caught a vision\nof the,\n\n    \"One far off divine event\n    To which the whole creation moves.\"\n\nThis expansion of the soul is not difficult to follow. Traces of it may\nbe seen in the enlarged sympathy, the growing brotherhood, and in the\nrapidly increasing conviction that even nationalities are only temporary\nexpedients for bringing the day when love shall be the universal law.\nThe charities and philanthropies which are blossoming in every city and\ncountry district, the consciousness of responsibility for the poor and\nweak, the angel songs which are heard in the midst of battle, and the\ngradual disappearance of war, are all vague but true prophecies of what\nthe soul will be when love is perfected. The knowledge of past progress\nis an inspiration, and the imagination of what will be a glorious hope.\n\nA single clause in the Apocalypse has long seemed to me as fine a\nstatement of the condition which will prevail, when this prophecy is a\nreality, as could be phrased,--\"The Lamb is the light thereof.\" Light is\nthe medium in which objects are visible, and the Lamb is the symbol of\nsacrificial love. The great dreamer, in his vision, beheld a time when\nspirits would see in sacrificial love as now we see physical objects in\nthe medium of light. To those who have studied the expansion of\nindividual souls, and who then have contrasted the selfishness of\nearlier social conditions with the love of men as it is revealed in the\nlaws, institutions, ministries of to-day, this dream of the Apostle\nrises in the distance as a new continent to a voyager over the wide and\ndesolate ocean.\n\nEqually prophetic is the advance which has been made from the passion\nof savage barbarism, or infantile wilfulness, to the moral reason of the\npresent day as seen in the highest types of humanity in civilized lands.\nWilfulness characterizes the childish nature and passion the savage\nnature. But with the growth of the soul choices are differentiated from\nimpulses, and more and more regularly are inspired by intelligence and\nunselfish affection. This progress toward intelligent and unselfish\nchoice distinguishes the movement toward civilization. Here, again, the\nadvance made by the individual soul and by the race are equally\nprophetic. With the years the choices become more rational and loving.\nTime mellows all men somewhat, and forces a little wisdom into the\nhardest heads. Even slight growth prophesies that which shall be swifter\nwhen conditions are more favorable.\n\nThe soul is a prediction of clearer vision, truer thought, more\nunselfish love and wiser choices. It is a prophecy of the perfect man.\n\nHistory is also prophetic of larger souls. The stream of human history,\nafter it has been followed backward a few thousand years, leads into the\nregion of legend and myth--that is, to a time when history could not be\nwritten because there was no writing, and when all truth was conveyed in\nsymbolical forms. That means toward a time of narrow experience, and of\nknowledge far more limited than the present. Memory, in those days, was\nenormously and abnormally capacious and retentive, but there was no\nappreciation of humanity. Few lessons from the experiences of others\nwere possible, because the mind was filled with merely tribal legends.\nWhat was called early civilization was only relatively splendid. There\nwas unsurpassed poetry but no science, ample brawn but diminutive brain,\nmuch passion but little love. Out of the darkness of the past the stream\nof history, very narrow and shallow at first, has emerged and steadily\nexpanded and deepened. Men are now equally intense but far clearer in\nvision, nobler in purpose, and purer in character. Their laws year by\nyear have become more humane, their sympathies less contracted, their\ninstitutions more civilized. Nature's secret drawers have been unlocked.\nWe are sometimes told that science has added much to the store of man's\nknowledge but nothing to the strength of his mind or the nobility of his\ncharacter. That is a serious mistake. With the enlarged visions of the\nuniverse, with clearer conceptions of our cosmic relations, with the\nnational neighborliness which is now a necessity, the capacity and the\nquality of the soul must change. Nay, it has already changed, for we\ninhabit the same lands over which savages formerly roamed, and we find\nin the earth and air what they never found; and when we look up into the\ngreat wide sky and say, \"The Heavens declare the glory of God,\" we are\nnot thinking of a tribal Deity, or a partial, and more or less\npassionate, monarch enthroned in the midst of his splendors, but of the\nKing Eternal, immortal, invisible. Knowledge tends to enlarge the mind\nby which it is acquired. All faculties are strengthened by use.\n\nHistory has moved along a bloody pathway, or, to revert to the figure of\na stream, is indeed a river of \"tears and blood.\" The horrors of the\nprocess by which the race has been lifted can hardly be exaggerated. I\ndo not forget them while I put stronger emphasis on the fact that the\noutcome of all the struggle of individuals, the conflict of classes, and\nthe wars of nations has been a nobler and purer quality of soul,--not\nless heroic but more sacrificial, not less strong but far more virtuous.\n\nThe growth of the individual soul is mirrored in the progress of the\nrace. When we have learned to read aright the history of the world, we\nare informed as to the interior forces which have made civilization.\nEvents are expressions of thoughts; institutions are manifestations of\nsoul. If there has been progress in institutions there must have been an\nequal progress in the souls which are the real forces by which progress\nis always won. As history has been the evolution of humanity toward\nfiner forms, so it is the assurance that the forces which have been at\nwork in the past will not cease, but steadily continue until \"the pile\nis complete.\" The perfect society will be composed of perfected\nindividuals. History as prophecy is harmonious with soul as prophecy.\n\nThe future state of the soul has been the subject of rare fascination\nfor the world's great thinkers. Nearly all religions have a forward\nlook. \"The Golden Age\" lies far in the distance, but it has commanded\nthe faith of all the seers. It has sometimes been a dream concerning\nindividuals, and again a vision of the perfected society, but in reality\nthe two are one, for the social organism is but a congeries of\nindividuals. Bacon dreamed of New Atlantis, Sir Thomas More saw the fair\nwalls of Utopia rising in the future, Plato defined the boundaries of\nthe ideal Republic, Augustine wrote of the glories of the _Civitate\nDei_, and Tennyson with matchless music has sung of the crowning race:--\n\n    \"Ring out old shapes of foul disease;\n      Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;\n      Ring out the thousand wars of old,\n    Ring in the thousand years of peace.\n\n    Ring in the valiant man and free,\n      The larger heart, the kindlier hand;\n      Ring out the darkness of the land,\n    Ring in the Christ that is to be.\"\n\nThe common characteristic of these social ideals is their dependence on\nthe culture of individuals. With the incoming of \"the valiant man and\nfree,\" the man of \"larger heart and kindlier hand,\" there is a\nreasonable hope that the darkness of the land will disappear.\n\nWith that deep look into the inmost secrets of human experience which\nsounds strangely autobiographical, Browning wrote in \"Rabbi Ben Ezra,\"\n\n      \"Praise be thine!\n      I see the whole design,\n    I, who saw power, see love now perfect too;\n      Perfect I call thy plan;\n      Thanks that I was a man!\n    Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!\"\n\n      \"Therefore I summon age\n      To grant youth's heritage,\n    Life's struggle having so far reached its term;\n      Thence shall I pass, approved\n      A man, for aye removed\n    From the developed brute; a god though in the germ.\"\n\nThose last lines condense Browning's creed concerning man. He is \"for\naye removed from the developed brute,\" and is \"a god in the germ.\"\nBrowning holds that while in the future there will surely be expansion\nof soul, evolution as a physical process is at an end. Henceforward\nthere will be no passing from one species to another. Species have to do\nwith physical organisms, not with spirits. Soul in man is but God \"in\nthe germ.\"\n\nEmerson and Matthew Arnold have written much about education. The one\nforetells a day when the soul, after mounting and meliorating, finds\nthat even the hells are turned into benefit; and the other makes his own\nthe thought of Bishop Wilson that culture is a study of perfection, and\nthat the soul must ever seek increased life, increased light, and\nincreased power.\n\nEducation is the word of the hour and of the century. It is believed to\nbe the panacea for all ills, individual and social. But, precisely, what\ndoes this passion for education signify if not that, either\nintelligently or otherwise, all believe in the perfectibility of the\nsoul, and that it will have all the time that it needs for the process.\nThe absorbing devotion to intellectual training suggests the inquiry as\nto whether many who affirm that they are agnostic concerning immortality\nare not in reality earnest in their faith; for why should they seek the\nculture of that which fades, as the flowers fade; when it approaches\nlife's winter? But, whether faith in continuance of being is firm or\nfrail, few doubt the perfectibility of spirit, because, beyond almost\nall things, they are seeking its perfection. Literature, which is but\nthe thoughts of the great souls of successive periods recorded,\nprophesies a day when all that hinders or taints shall be done away, and\nwhen the divine in the germ shall have grown to large and fair\nproportions. If there were no other light the outlook would still be\ninspiring. It is well sometimes to ask ourselves what we were made to\nbe--not these bodies which are clearly decaying--but these spirits\nwhich seem to grow younger with the passage of time. I have sometimes\nthought that the very idea of second childhood is itself a prophecy of\nthe soul's eternal youth. Certain it is that we are the masters of the\nyears. The oldest persons that we know are usually the youngest in their\nsympathies and ideals. Sorrow and opposition should not destroy, but\nonly strengthen the spiritual powers. Intelligence grows from more to\nmore. The sure reward of love is the capacity and opportunity for larger\nlove. Virtuous choices gradually become the law of liberty. These facts\nare index fingers pointing toward large and loving, strenuous and\nsympathetic manhood. And toward such human types, as a matter of fact,\nthe race has been moving. The expectation of the seers and prophets,\nalso, has been of a golden age in which all souls will have had time,\nand opportunity, of reaching the far-off but splendid goal. Believing,\nas we do, that death is never a finality, but that it is only an\nincident in progress; that instead of being an end it is only freedom\nfrom limitation, we find ourselves often vaguely, but ever eagerly,\nasking, To what are all these souls tending? Toward a state glorious\nbeyond language to utter we deeply feel. But has no clearer voice\nspoken? At last we have reached the end of our inquiry. If any other\nvoices speak they must sound from above. We stand by the unseen like\nchildren by the ocean's shore. They know that beyond the storms and\nwaves lie fair and wealthy lands, but the waters separate and their eyes\nare weak. So we stand before the future, and ask, Toward what goal are\nall this education, experience and discipline tending? Are they\nperfecting souls which at last are to be laid away with the bodies which\nwere fortunate enough to win an earlier death? It would be impiety to\nbelieve that. Then indeed should we be put to \"permanent intellectual\nconfusion.\" If all the voices of the soul are mockeries, then life is\nworse than a mistake--it is a crime.\n\nThe solution of the mystery is now before us. The man that is to be has\nwalked this earth, and wrought with human hands, and lived and labored\nand loved, and passed into the silent land. Is Jesus the unique\nrevelation of the divine? There may be many to question that, but there\nare few, indeed, who doubt that He embodied all of the perfect humanity\nwhich could be expressed within the limitations of the body. He\nrepresented Himself as essential truth and very life. He condensed duty\ninto such love as He manifested toward men. He embodied the heroism of\nmeekness, the courage of self-sacrifice, the vision of goodness. He was\nan example of all that is strong, serene, sacrificial, in the midst of\nthe lowest and most unresponsive conditions. So much we see, and the\nrest we dimly, but surely, feel.\n\nIt was reserved for Paul, in a moment of inspiration, to put into a\nsingle phrase a description of the goal of the human spirit, as\nsomething which may be forever approached but never reached, in these\nwords, \"Till we all attain unto the measure of the stature of the\nfullness of Christ.\" The fullness of Christ! That is the soul's final\ndestiny. It was the far call of that goal which it faintly heard at its\nfirst awakening and which has never entirely ceased to sound in his\nears. Who shall explore the contents of that great phrase? It is a\nsubject for meditation, for prayer, but never for discussion. He who\napproaches it in a controversial spirit never understands it. What are\nthe qualities of the character of Christ? Some of them lie on the\nsurface of the story. He never doubted God, or, if so, but for a single\nmoment; He was unselfish; He lived to love and to express love; He had\nsome mysterious preternatural power over nature--such, perhaps, as\nscience is approaching in later times; kindness, sympathy, helpfulness,\npurity, shone from His words and actions. He declared that the privilege\nof dying to save those who despised Him was a joy. He lived in the\nlimitations of the human condition and, therefore, on the earth only\nhints of \"His fullness\" are discernible. The full revelation is to be\nthe endless study of those who are able to see and to appreciate things\nas they are. But we may ask ourselves whither these lines tend. When the\nintelligence, the love, the compassion, the mercy, the purity, the moral\npower and spiritual grandeur which only in dim outline are revealed in\nthe Christ, have perfect manifestations, what will the vision be? The\nvery thought transcends the farthest flights of the poet's imagination\nand the most daring speculations of philosophers. In \"the fullness of\nChrist\" is the soul's true goal. For that all men, and not the elect\nfew, were created. That is the revelation of the divine plan for\nhumanity. Toward that evolution has been slowly, and often painfully,\npressing from those dim aeons when the earth was without form and void.\nWhen man appeared as the flower of all the cosmic process he started at\nonce toward this goal. And with great modesty, and simply because I\nbelieve in God and that His love cannot be defeated, I dare to hope\nthat, sometime and somehow, after all the pains of retribution and moral\ndiscipline have done their inevitable work, after all the fires of\nGehenna have consumed the desire to sin, after Hades and Purgatory have\nbeen passed, the souls which, for a time, have dwelt in these mortal\nbodies, purified and without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, will be\ngiven the beatific vision and permitted to realize the height and\ndepth, the length and breadth of \"the fullness of Christ.\"\n\n    \"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,\n    Or decomposes but to recompose,\n    Become my universe that feels and knows.\"\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAchilles, 74.\n\nActaeon, 82.\n\nAdam's fall, 142.\n\nAdjustment to environment, 50, 52.\n\nAdjustment to knowledge of freedom, 58.\n\nAEschylus, 129.\n\nAmbrose, 140.\n\nAncient Mariner, 295.\n\nAngelo, Michael, 48, 182.\n\nAnimal entail, 79.\n\nArnold, Matthew, 72, 98, 226, 306.\n\nAtmosphere in nurture, 215.\n\nAttraction vs. Compulsion, 216.\n\nAugustine, 34, 35, 140, 196, 199, 304.\n\nAustere experiences, 97.\n\nAwakening vs. Re-awakening, 147.\n\n\nBacon, Lord, 304.\n\nBernard, St., 90.\n\nBooks, The most vital, 229.\n\nBrowning, Robert, 26, 113, 129, 152, 238, 305, 314.\n\nBrowning, Mrs. E.B., 113.\n\nByron, Lord, 74.\n\nBunyan, John, 16.\n\nBushnell, Horace, 37.\n\nBuxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 220.\n\n\nCenci, Beatrice, 129.\n\nChatterton, 74.\n\nCirce, 83.\n\nComforter, The, 205.\n\nCompanionship, Spiritual, 183.\n\nComus, 81, 92.\n\nConscience, 67, 187.\n\nConversion, 133.\n\nCreationism, 11.\n\nCrisis in Ascent of the Soul, 134.\n\nCross, The revelation of divine sacrifice, 175.\n\nCulture, 212.\n\nCulture, a study of perfection, 226.\n\nCulture and life, 227.\n\nCultured man, The, 231.\n\n\nDante, 6.\n\nDeath, Light on, 176.\n\nDeath of the body, 239.\n\nDiana, 82.\n\nDonatello, 137.\n\nDuBois-Reymond, 55.\n\n\nEdinburgh, Incident in, 186.\n\nEducation, prophecy of soul's growth, 306.\n\nEmerson, 214, 215, 306.\n\nEmanation, 10.\n\nEnvironment, Influence of, 218.\n\nEnvironment, of what composed, 222.\n\nEpictetus, 111.\n\nEvolution and Immortality, 241.\n\nExperience, Individual, 150.\n\nExpiation, 155.\n\n\nFalconer, Robert, 143.\n\nFaust, 5, 35, 129.\n\nFetish worship, 245.\n\nFiske, John, 5.\n\nFliedner, Pastor, 220.\n\nFreedom, Realization of, 54.\n\n\nGalahad, Sir, 85.\n\nGarrison, William Lloyd, 220.\n\nGod, Rational doctrine of, 157.\n\nGod revealed in Christ, 161.\n\nGod cannot be defeated, 136.\n\nGoethe, 5.\n\nGolden Age, 303.\n\nGrace, Falling from, impossible, 145.\n\nGrail, The Holy, 126.\n\nGrowth a means of knowledge, 61.\n\nGuardian angels, 88, 201.\n\nGuinevere, 129, 143, 144.\n\n\nHale, Nathan, 219.\n\nHamlet, 129.\n\nHannibal, 74.\n\nHawthorne, Nathaniel, 36, 137.\n\nHelps in trial, 195.\n\nHeredity, 56.\n\nHeroism in silence, 198.\n\nHesperus, 2.\n\nHindu Swami, 64.\n\nHindu mother, 66.\n\nHindrances, Ministry of, 89.\n\nHistory, Prophetic, 300.\n\nHope for all, 32.\n\nHugo, Victor, 36, 86.\n\nHunt, Holman, Light of the World, 163.\n\n\nIdeals, Influence of, 218.\n\nIdeal Man seen in Jesus Christ, 164.\n\nIdylls of the King, 142.\n\nImmortality, Ode to, Wordsworth, 10.\n\nImmortality in the New Testament, 242.\n\nImmortality in the ethnic religions, 242.\n\nImmortality, belief in, innate, 244.\n\nImmortality, belief in, universal, 245.\n\nImmortality, unbelief in, irrational, 247.\n\nImmortality and the great teachers, 252.\n\nInequalities in human condition, 249.\n\nIn Memoriam and Growth of the Soul, 295.\n\nIntelligence, Growth in, prophetic, 292.\n\nIsaiah, 142.\n\n\nJesus the Soul's goal, 310.\n\nJesus the Supreme Optimist, 169.\n\nJudson, Adoniram, 137.\n\n\nKaiserwerth, 220.\n\n\nLanier, Sidney, 290.\n\nLearning by experience should be unnecessary, 148.\n\nLife the best teacher, 228.\n\nLife, Unity of, 284.\n\nLife's mystery illumined, 171.\n\nLight of the World, Hunt's, 163.\n\nLuther, Martin, 138.\n\n\nMacbeth, 129.\n\nMacdonald, George, 143.\n\nMahomet, 111.\n\nMalthus, 118.\n\nMan, light on his nature, 163.\n\nManhood, The ideal, 166.\n\nMarble Faun, 137.\n\nMarseillaise, The, 219.\n\nMatthewson, Dr. Geo., 245.\n\nMarguerite, 35.\n\nMelchizedek, 133.\n\nMilton, John, 82, 83, 92, 255.\n\nMoral order, 51.\n\nMorally excellent, the, how discern, 63.\n\nMoral failure, 73, 129.\n\nMoral evil inexplicable, 173.\n\nMore, Sir Thomas, 304.\n\n\nNapoleon, 74.\n\nNelson, Lord, 220.\n\nNew College, Oxford, 70.\n\nNewton, Sir Isaac, 202.\n\nNey, Marshal, 219.\n\nNightingale, Florence, 220.\n\nNurture, 211.\n\nNurture, part of parents in, 214.\n\nNurture, vitally important, 224, 225.\n\n\nOptimism, 105.\n\nOptimism, Rational basis of, 113.\n\nOver-soul, 94, 184.\n\nOvid, Metamorphoses, 82.\n\n\nParents' duty to children, 149.\n\nPascal, 21.\n\nPaul, 80.\n\nPearson, Bishop, 272.\n\nPersonality, 29, 270.\n\nPigmies, 293.\n\nPilgrim's Progress, 6.\n\nPlato, 140.\n\nPlan of salvation, 155.\n\nPoe, Edgar A., 74.\n\nPrayer, 276.\n\nPrayers for the dead, objections, 269.\n\nPrayers for the dead, definition, 270.\n\nPrayers for the dead, how justified, 272.\n\nPreexistence, 10.\n\nProdigal Son, 27, 28.\n\nPrometheus, 12.\n\nProphecy, 121.\n\nProtestants and doctrine of prayers for the dead, 269.\n\n\nRabbi Ben Ezra, 305.\n\nRe-awakening of the Soul, 130.\n\nRe-awakening vs. Awakening, 147.\n\nResponsibility, 30.\n\nResurrection of Christ, 14.\n\nReynolds, Sir Joshua, 79.\n\nRing and the Book, 129.\n\nRoman Church and prayers for the dead, 282.\n\n\nSakya Muni, 199.\n\nSantiago, 196.\n\nSatisfaction, 155.\n\nSaul, Browning's, 152.\n\nScarlet Letter, The, 137.\n\nSelf-realization, 31.\n\nShakespeare, 112, 129, 255.\n\nShelley, 74, 129.\n\nSiddhartha, 111.\n\nSin always evil, 119.\n\nSin a reality, 127.\n\nSin, Mystery of, 172.\n\nSocrates, 74, 111, 199, 253.\n\nSophocles, 129.\n\nSoul, Solitary, 87.\n\nSouls in society, 103.\n\nSoul, what awakens, 34.\n\nSoul, definition, 7.\n\nSoul, origin, 9.\n\nSoul, limited by body, 77.\n\nSoul, full of prophecies, 257.\n\nSpartans, 65.\n\nSpirit evidence of being of God, 20.\n\nSpiritual protection, 188.\n\nSpirits attract spirits, 194.\n\nSpirit, The Eternal, 206.\n\nSpitta, Karl J.P., 210.\n\nSubconscious action, 20.\n\nSympathy, definition, 106.\n\nSympathy, results from severe experience, 109.\n\nSuffering no mistake, 116.\n\nSuffering made endurable, 167.\n\n\nTemptations of saints, 84.\n\nTennyson, 85, 113, 126, 129, 274.\n\nThoughts important in character, 230.\n\nTraining an element in nurture, 220.\n\nTransfiguration of Christ, 14.\n\nTruth, Search for, 191.\n\nTruth finds those prepared for it, 269.\n\n\nUlysses, 83.\n\nUniverse, Moral, 93.\n\nUniverse, The idea of, 159.\n\nUtopia, 304.\n\n\nVedas, Hymns of, 114.\n\n\nWarning voices, 187.\n\nWatch on the Rhine, 219.\n\nWelldon, 273, 280, 281.\n\nWhittier, John G., 220.\n\nWilberforce, William, 140, 220.\n\nWilson, Bishop, 226, 306.\n\nWingfold, Thomas, 143.\n\nWordsworth, 2, 10, 48, 182.","title":"The Ascent of the Soul","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":46682}