saw another in the ripeness of splendid powers growing more intelligent,
loving, and spiritually beautiful, without feeling that if death were
really the end no being is so much to be pitied as man, and no fate so
much to be coveted as a short life in which the mockery may go on.

Our souls themselves assure us that they have come from a fountain of
spiritual being--that is, from God; and they are also prophecies of a
perfection which has never yet been realized on the earth and which will
require eternity to complete. But all are not conscious of themselves as
spiritual beings and children of eternity, and many come slowly to that
consciousness. Our next inquiry, therefore, will concern the Soul's
Awakening.




THE AWAKENING OF THE SOUL


There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do our townsmen tell.

Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the East
Asked, Who rides by with the royal air?

* * * * *

That selfsame instant, underneath,