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 needed companionship and cooeperation in all its deep experiences; and that the ancients were not altogether wrong in their belief in the presence and protection of Guardian Angels.  But something more vital and assuring than that faith is desired.  It is rather the inseparable fellowship of those who are facing the same mysteries and fighting the same battles as ourselves; but even that not infrequently is denied.

Is this all?  There is another possibility which observation has never detected and which science is powerless to disprove.  Can we be sure that no malign spiritual influences hinder and bewilder?  We cannot be sure.  The common belief of nearly all peoples ought not to be rudely brushed aside.  No one willingly believes in lies nor clings 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 and delusions; and, on the other hand, it is equally possible that the spaces which we inhabit, but which we cannot fully explore, have other inhabitants than our vision discerns, and that those beings may help and may hinder us in our progress.  It is not wise to dogmatize where we are ignorant.  While the scales balance we must wait.

Are the hindrances in the path of the soul without any ministry?  That cannot be; for then they are exceptions to the universal law, that nothing which exists is without a purpose of benefit.

All the analogies of nature indicate that human limitations are intended to serve some good end, since, so far as observation has yet extended, it has found nothing which is caused 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 we resist;"[5] and St. Bernard says, “Nothing can work me damage except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault."[6]

[Footnote 5:  Essay on Compensation.]

[Footnote 6:  Quoted by Emerson in Essay on Compensation.]

And St. John says, “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life."[7]

[Footnote 7:  Revelation 2:7.]

The mission of the austere is the development of strength.  Concerning this suggestion we shall inquire later.  The souls which have reached the serene summits have ever been 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 things which He suffered, so, in the Cosmic plan, all souls must come to strength and perfection by the difficulties which they overcome and the enemies which they subdue.