have somewhat to say to you in your trouble, some advice to give
you in your distress. You are suffering greatly, past the power of
reason to alleviate, for you no longer know yourself, nor are aware what
you really think. But I will show to you three pictures of yourself that
shall rouse you to what you are, to what you were, and to what you shall
be.

"I found you, not many years ago, a very young man, most exceptionally
placed in regard to the world. You were even then rich, though not so
rich as you now are. You were beautiful and full of vigour, but you have
now upon you the glow of a higher beauty, the overflowing promise of a
more glorious life. You were happy because you thought you were, but
such happiness as you had proceeded from without rather than from
within. You were a materially thinking man. Your thoughts were of the
flesh, and your delights--harmless it is true--were in the things that
were under your eyes--wealth, power, book knowledge, and perhaps woman,
if you can call the creatures you believed in women.

"You gathered wealth in great heaps, and your precious stones in
storehouses. You laid your hand upon the diamond of the river and upon
the pearl of the sea, and they abode with you, as the light of the sun
and the moon. And you said, 'Behold it is my star, which is the lord of
the dog-heat in summer, and it is my kismet.' You also took to yourself
wives of rare qualities, having both golden and raven black hair, whose
skin was as fine silk, and their breath as the freshness of the dawning,
and their eyes as jewels. Then said you, rejoicing in your heart, that
you were happy; and so you dwelt in peace and plenty, and waxed glad.

"Therefore you accomplished your first destiny, and you drank of the cup
that was filled to overflowing. And if it had been the law of nature
that from pleasure man should derive permanent lasting peace, you had
been happy so long as you lived. But, though you have the faultless life
of the body to enjoy all things of the earth, even as other men, though
in another degree, you have within you something more. There is in your
breast a heart beating--an organ so wonderful in its sensitiveness, so
perfect in its consciousness of good, that the least throb and thrill of
pleasure that it feels is worth years and ages of mere sensual life
enjoyment. The body having tasted of all happiness whereof it is
capable, and having found that it is good, is saturated with its own
ease