d is the one supreme thing?

Think out for yourself the answer to that and to all these questions.
I am not going to answer any of them. My purpose here is not to answer
questions but to set you asking them--not to do your thinking for you,
but to set you thinking for yourselves. Is it the spoiling and ruining
of that self within you which Christ balances against the whole world?

Section 8

Now, have I helped, even in a little way, to introduce you to
yourself--that "self" that is going out into the great adventure of the
Hereafter? If I have, I have done a very good thing for you. With so
many the soul is but a vague abstraction, belonging to the pulpit and
the sick-bed and the life of the hereafter. But amid the busy daily
life, the real work and pleasure, the real streets and houses, it is
hard to think of it except as something shadowy and unreal. My effort
here is to take it out of the region of the vague and unreal and bring
it into the region of every-day, practical life.

Try to respond to my thoughts. Try to get acquainted with your own
self--your own soul. Try to watch its wondrous life. Try to become
impressed with its existence--to think about its character. Think
whether, when the Bible says anything about your soul, it means this
mysterious being that you call "I." Think whether this "I" is an
emanation from God's nature, and therefore is intended to be in harmony
with Him. Think whether it must live for ever and ever, and therefore
if its character be not of enormous importance--if its character-making
be not the one supremely important thing in your life.

Then realize that whether you exalt or degrade it, it is with you for
ever. You CAN NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GET AWAY FROM YOURSELF. You will be
the very same self after death as before. I read some time since of
the sinking of a ship and how the captain dived through the cabin door,
and keeping the light above in view, swam up through the hatchway and
escaped out of the wreck. There is a deceitful expectation in human
nature that when we go down in the sea of death and eternity we shall
in some way escape out of ourselves, swim away from our own
personalities, and thus leave the ship at the bottom of the sea. If
the "I" meant only the body, that would be true. But this "I" is where
character exists, where love and desire and will exist. This "I" is
the captain himself. The captain cannot swim away from the captain.
Myself cannot