conquered; and that then men, like ourselves, grown from
the same stock, evolved from the lower levels, will constitute "the
crowning race."

"No longer half akin to brute,
For all we thought and loved and did,
And hoped, and suffered, is but seed
Of what in them is flower and fruit."

These are a few samples of the hindrances which the soul must face in
its progress through "the thicket of this world." But these are not all.
Hardly less serious is the ignorance which clothes it like a garment. It
comes it knows not whence; it journeys it knows not whither, and
apparently is attended by no one wiser than itself.

Hugo's awful picture of a man in the ocean with the vast and silent
heavens above, the desolate waves around, the birds like dwellers from
another world circling in the evening light, and the poor fellow trying
to swim, he knows not where, is not so wide of the mark as some
thoughtless readers might suppose.

The soul is ignorant and timid, in the vast and void night, with its
environment of ignorance and of other souls also blindly struggling. At
the same time there is the consciousness of a duty to do something, of a
voice calling it somewhere which ought to be heeded, and of having
bitterly failed.

The solitariness of the soul is also one of the most mysterious and
solemn of its characteristics. The prophecy which is applied to Jesus
might equally be applied to every human being: He trod the wine-press
alone. In all its deepest experiences the soul is solitary. Craving
companionship, in the very times when it seeks it most it finds it
denied. Every crucial choice must at last be individual. When sorrows
are multiplied there are in them deeps into which no friendly eye can
look. When the hour of death comes, even though friends crowd the rooms,
not one of them can accompany the soul on its journey. It seems as if
this solitariness must hinder its growth. Perhaps were our eyes clearer
we should see that what seems to retard in reality hastens progress. But
to our human sight it seems as if every soul needed companionship and
cooeperation in all its deep experiences; and that the ancients were not
altogether wrong in their belief in the presence and protection of
Guardian Angels. But something more vital and assuring than that faith
is desired. It is rather the inseparable fellowship of those who are
facing the same mysteries and fighting the same battles as ourselves;
but even that not