The Ascent of the Soul

il even in the deepest darkness, it turns in the direction from which the appeal comes and begins to move toward its goal. Almost simultaneously it realizes

might have conquered Rome, and been the master of the world except for the fatal winter at Capua. Antony, possibly, would have been victor at Actium if it had not been for something in himself that made him susceptible to the fascination of the fair but treacherous Egyptian queen. Achilles was a symbolica

n ministers of the Gospel, unhappily not a few, who have suddenly disappeared and been heard of no more. Into a kindly oblivion they have gone, and that is all that any one needs to know. What do such facts signify? That many, or most, of these men have been essentially and totally bad? Or that they are moral failures? They signify only that they have not yet risen above the hindrances which they have found in their pathways. The world knows of the temporary obscuration of a fair fame; it does not see the grief, the tears, the gradual gathering of the energies for a new assault upon the obstacles in the road; and it does not see how tenderly, but faithfully, Providence, through nature, is dealing with them. Some time they will be brought to themselves-The Eternal Goodn

m the emotions persons worthy of affection, and make the range of objects of choice poor and pitiful. The soul has often been compared to a bird in a cage,-fitted for broad horizons but confined within narrow spaces. This hindrance is a very real one. The man who grows swiftly must be in the open world with beings to love and to serve ever within his reach. Hence the life beyond death is often called the unhindered life because of its freedom from the body. The old story of "Rasselas" is symbolical. In the Happy Valley a man might be as good, but he could not be as great and wise, as in the larger world. The soul will meet fewer temptations there, but those i

uffocating clouds, and that pure spirit finds itself enveloped in darkness and fastened to the earth. The humiliation is complete. What has occurred? Only what has happened again and again; and what will continue to happen for no one knows how long. The animal has gotten the better of the spirit. The soul has sinned-for sin is little, if anything, but a spirit allowing itself to return to the fascinations of the animal conditions out of which it has been evolved, and from which it ought to have escaped forever. The animal entail is the chi

escape but which it must some time conquer. The spirit and the body seem to be in endless antagonism, and yet the body itself will become the fair servant of the soul when once the question of

be called "the wine of the senses." Its eff

very wear

iquor in a c

ught of Ph?bus; w

e through fond, i

on works, their

emblance of the

tish form of

iger, hog or

he fable aright, the glimpse of Diana in her bath, while not an intelligent choice, was more than a mere a

the first of

grandsire in h

y stern Dia

horns and visa

ce-loved dogs,

huntsman to bec

er why the cha

his misfortune,

it was the fa

ilt proceed fr

o the flesh. The companions of Ulysses visited the palace of Circe

acious front,

fiercest of t

eps with blandis

e their species

s of Milton are

uman cou

emblance of the

e brutis

peril, but have found no solitude to which they could go and leave their bodies behind. In the silences faces have appeared to them f

. Their charms are so near and perilous that the pale and haggard man in desperation has shut his eyes, and in this extremity, with his one free hand, is frantically clin

eir way. Faint and far shines the splendor of the goal; the hindrances ar

, and many a woman fair and holy as his pure sister, have lived on this earth of ours. They w

w that it can be conquered, and some time and somehow will be conquered; and that then men, like our

half akin

hought and l

nd suffered,

hem is flowe

s world." But these are not all. Hardly less serious is the ignorance which clothes it like a garment. It come

round, the birds like dwellers from another world circling in the evening light, and the poor fellow tr

f other souls also blindly struggling. At the same time there is the consciousness of a duty to do

ws 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 need

s to them when he knows that they are lies. Superstitions always have some element of truth in them, and the truth, not the error, wins adherents. The most that we can say, at this point, is that we do not know. It is possible that the common beliefs of many widely separated people have no basis in fact, that they are born of dreams

? That cannot be; for then they are exceptions to the universal

ed by chance. Emerson says, "As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptations w

hat overcometh will I give t

n those which have most resolutely faced the obstacles in their pathways. Even apparent hindrances always exercise a beneficent ministry. As Jesus was made perfect by the

ed? It should be taught to fight them at every point. Nowhere is the kindness of nature

es where growth is possible. Nature gives the soul nothing, but she always waits to co?perate with it. This lesson was impressed long ago. It ought never to require new emphasis. Let the you

st the

of sorcery,

n call Chance,

assailed, bu

just force, but

which mischief

appy trial pro

itself shall

e with goodnes

a scum, and se

in eternal r

self-consume

firmament i

base built

. There is an eternal enmity between the serpent and the soul, and the serpent's head must be bruised, but the soul resisting all the forces and fascinations of the flesh, rising on that which h

remembering that it is written in the nature

it may be sunk to deeper depths. Evil and error are doomed and always have been. Evil is moral disease, and disease alway

t it can be satisfied only with love and truth; that every hindrance may be overcome; that the animal was made to be the servant of the spirit; that the body makes a good servant but a poor master; t

experience which cannot be gainsaid that God is a personal spirit, interested in all that concerns His children, and anxious for their growth; and that He can no more allow His love for them to be defeated than He could allow the suns and planets to break from the

AU

kindle w

ch in the he

bloweth a

y our sou

hours of in

h hours of gl

hands and

eap, lay sto

e burden a

day, and wis

e hours of

e built do

y. Matth