NEVER BE BLOTTED OUT.

What I am reading in him meantime he also is reading in me; and before
the journey is over we could half write each other's lives. Whether we
like it or not, we live in glass houses. The mind, the memory, the
soul, is simply a vast chamber panelled with looking-glass. And upon
this miraculous arrangement and endowment depends the capacity of
mortal souls to "reflect the character of the Lord."

(2). But this is not all. If all these varied reflections from our
so-called secret life are patent to the world, how close the writing,
complete the record within the soul itself! For the influences we meet
are not simply held for a moment on the polished surface and thrown
off again into space. Each is retained where first it fell, and stored
up in the soul forever.

THIS LAW OF ASSIMILATION

is the second, and by far the most impressive truth which underlies
the formula of sanctification--the truth that men are not only
mirrors, but that these mirrors, so far from being mere reflectors of
the fleeting things they see, transfer into their own inmost
substance, and hold in permanent preservation the things that they
reflect.

No one knows how the soul can hold these things. No one knows how the
miracle is done. No phenomenon in nature, no process in chemistry, no
chapter in necromancy can ever help us to begin to understand this
amazing operation. For, think of it, the past is not only _focused_