ond, or go very near to
the realms of Giant Despair.

I cannot leave this part of my subject without dwelling for a moment
upon two thoughts which to me seem to be full of significance.

This wonderfully complex nature of ours,--this power of thinking,
choosing, loving, these mysterious inner depths out of which come
strange suggestions, and within which, all the time, processes are
carried on which may rise into consciousness and startle with their
beauty or shame with their ugliness--does no suggestion come from it
concerning its origin and destiny? Until they pass mid-life few men
realize the terrible significance of the command of the oracle at
Delphi, "Know Thyself." Who is not surprised every day at what he finds
within himself? It sometimes seems as if two beings dwelt in every body,
one in the region of consciousness, and one down below consciousness
steadily forging the material which, sooner or later, must be forced up
for the conscious man to think about.

In proportion as we know ourselves more accurately it becomes
increasingly evident that as spirits we are allied to the great Spirit.
Few who earnestly think can believe that their power of thought could
have grown out of the earth; few when they love can believe that there
is no fountain of love, unlimited and free; and few, when they choose
one course and refuse another, would be willing to affirm that they are
without the power of choice, and have no destiny but the grave. In other
words, is not the fact that we are spirits all the proof that we need to
have of the Father of Spirits? Is not a single ray of light all the
evidence which any one needs of the reality of the sun? Is not the
presence of one spiritual being a demonstration of a greater Spirit
somewhere? Every soul indicates that, whatever the process by which it
has reached its present development, it came originally from God. "In
the beginning God" is a phrase which applies to the spiritual as well as
to the material universe.

The soul is not only a witness concerning its own origin, but it is also
a prophecy concerning its destiny. The more thoroughly it is studied the
more convincing becomes the evidence that it must some time reach its
perfected state. The perfection of intelligence, love, and will require
endless growth. The great words of Pascal can hardly be recalled too
frequently:

"Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. It
is not necessary that the