the midst of battle, and the
gradual disappearance of war, are all vague but true prophecies of what
the soul will be when love is perfected. The knowledge of past progress
is an inspiration, and the imagination of what will be a glorious hope.

A single clause in the Apocalypse has long seemed to me as fine a
statement of the condition which will prevail, when this prophecy is a
reality, as could be phrased,--"The Lamb is the light thereof." Light is
the medium in which objects are visible, and the Lamb is the symbol of
sacrificial love. The great dreamer, in his vision, beheld a time when
spirits would see in sacrificial love as now we see physical objects in
the medium of light. To those who have studied the expansion of
individual souls, and who then have contrasted the selfishness of
earlier social conditions with the love of men as it is revealed in the
laws, institutions, ministries of to-day, this dream of the Apostle
rises in the distance as a new continent to a voyager over the wide and
desolate ocean.

Equally prophetic is the advance which has been made from the passion
of savage barbarism, or infantile wilfulness, to the moral reason of the
present day as seen in the highest types of humanity in civilized lands.
Wilfulness characterizes the childish nature and passion the savage
nature. But with the growth of the soul choices are differentiated from
impulses, and more and more regularly are inspired by intelligence and
unselfish affection. This progress toward intelligent and unselfish
choice distinguishes the movement toward civilization. Here, again, the
advance made by the individual soul and by the race are equally
prophetic. With the years the choices become more rational and loving.
Time mellows all men somewhat, and forces a little wisdom into the
hardest heads. Even slight growth prophesies that which shall be swifter
when conditions are more favorable.

The soul is a prediction of clearer vision, truer thought, more
unselfish love and wiser choices. It is a prophecy of the perfect man.

History is also prophetic of larger souls. The stream of human history,
after it has been followed backward a few thousand years, leads into the
region of legend and myth--that is, to a time when history could not be
written because there was no writing, and when all truth was conveyed in
symbolical forms. That means toward a time of narrow experience, and of
knowledge far more limited than the present. Memory, i