ave may come anew a prince
For gentle worthiness and merit won;
Who ruled a king may wander earth in rags
For things done or undone."

Or, as an unknown poet says:

"One ship sails East and another sails West
With the self same winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale,
Which determines the way they go.

As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life.
'Tis the act of the soul, which determines the goal
And not the calm or the strife."

When we wish to engage someone to undertake a certain mission we choose
some one whom we think particularly fitted to fulfill the requirements and
we must suppose that a Divine Being would use at least as much common
sense, and not choose anyone to go his errand who was not fitted therefor.
So when we read in the Bible that Samson was foreordained to be the slayer
of the Philistines and that Jeremiah was predestined to be a prophet, it
is but logical to suppose that they must have been particularly suited to
such occupation. John the Baptist also, was born to be a herald of the
coming Savior and to preach the kingdom of God which is to take the place
of the kingdom of men.

Had these people had no previous training, how could they have developed
such a fitness to fulfill their various missions, and if they had been
fitted, how else could they have received their training if not in earlier
lives?

The Jews believed in the Doctrine of Rebirth or they would not have asked
John the Baptist if he were Elijah, as recorded in the first chapter of
John. The Apostles of Christ also held the belief as we may see from the
incident recorded in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew where the Christ
asked them the question: "Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?" The
Apostles replied: "Some say that Thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias;
and others Jeremias or one of the Prophets." Upon this occasion the Christ
tacitly assented to the teaching of Rebirth because He did not correct the
disciples as would have been His plain duty in His capacity as teacher,
when the pupils entertained a mistaken idea.

But to Nicodemus He said unequivocally: "Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God" and in the eleventh chapter of Matthew, the
fourteenth verse, He said, speaking of John the Baptist: "_this __ is
Elijah_," in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew, the twelfth verse, He
said: "Elija