The means by which a soul comes to its self-realization has been a
favorite study with poets, dramatists, and novelists. Marguerite, in
"Faust," was a simple, sweet, sensuous, traditionally religious girl
until she was rudely startled by the knowledge that she was a great
sinner; that moment the scales began to fall from her eyes. In her,
Goethe has shown how one class of persons, and that a large class, come
to self-realization.

Victor Hugo, in a passage of almost unparalleled pathos, has pictured in
Jean Valjean a kind of big human beast who, when half awake, steals a
loaf of bread to save others from starving, but who is startled into
fullness of manhood by the sympathy and consideration of the good Bishop
whose silver he had also stolen.

Hawthorne, in Donatello, has pictured a beautiful creature fully
equipped with affections, emotions, passions, but with little
consciousness of responsibility, until the fatal moment in which a crime
illuminates his soul like a flash of lightning.

Such experiences are not to be compared with those of the prodigal son
or of Saul. Before the one was reduced to husks, or the light blazed
upon the other, they felt the obligation to do right. The prodigal chose
pleasure with his eyes wide open and Saul was, mistakenly but truly,
trying to do God's will even when he assisted in the stoning of Stephen.

Hugo, Goethe, and Hawthorne have accurately delineated single steps in
the growth of the soul. They have shown how the process of the soul's
awakening may be, and often has been, hastened. It may be hindered by
false ideals and a vicious environment, and it may be hastened by lofty
ideals and a holy environment.