So it is with the mind in its relation to eternal
truth. If it no longer transmits its fluctuations,
its partial knowledge, its unreliable information
to the soul, then in the inner place of
peace already found when the first rule has
been learned--in that inner place there leaps
into flame the light of actual knowledge. Then
the ears begin to hear. Very dimly, very
faintly at first. And, indeed, so faint and
tender are these first indications of the commencement
of true actual life, that they are
sometimes pushed aside as mere fancies, mere
imaginings.

But before these are capable of becoming
more than mere imaginings, the abyss of
nothingness has to be faced in another form.
The utter silence which can only come by closing
the ears to all transitory sounds comes as
a more appalling horror than even the formless
emptiness of space. Our only mental conception
of blank space is, I think, when reduced
to its barest element of thought, that of black
darkness. This is a great physical terror to
most persons, and when regarded as an eternal
and unchangeable fact, must mean to the mind
the idea of annihilation rather than anything
else. But it is the obliteration of one sense
only; and the sound of a voice may come and
bring comfort even in the profoundest darkness.