It now not only knows that it is free, in a moral order, and that voices from a far-off goal are calling it, but also that those who are with it are more than those who can be against it.  Thus hope, confidence, power to resist, and faith even in the midst of failure dawn, and will never be permanently eclipsed.  The re-awakening of the soul is now complete.

This experience is traditionally called conversion.  It is usually associated with an appropriation of the teaching of Jesus Christ, and inevitably follows an appreciation of His words and His work.  But all the revelations of the Christ have not been through the historic Jesus.  In every land, and in every age, souls have come to this new consciousness.  It was said of Isaiah that he saw the Lord; and of Melchizedek that he was the priest of the most high God.  The former was a Hebrew, but the latter was not in what was to be the chosen line of succession.  The assurance that they are never alone has found many in what has seemed impenetrable darkness, and they have risen and moved upward.  Instances of this kind are not limited to Christian lands, although they are most common where the Christian revelation is known.  I cannot doubt that those who have not had this vision on the earth will have it some time and somewhere.  The Divine power and purpose to save, and to save to the utter-most, are revealed with perfect clearness in the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Nothing could be more explicit than His message that God loves all men, and that it is His will that all should repent and come to the knowledge of the truth.

This stage of advance may be called the crisis in the ascent of the soul.  Before this it has moved slowly and with faltering steps.  Henceforth it will move more confidently and swiftly.  But that does not mean that it will find that hindrances are all removed, or that no unseen hand will draw it downward.  Some of the bitterest hours are to follow—­days and, possibly, longer periods of spiritual obscuration; darkness like that of Jesus in which He cried, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me.”  Who can explain the appalling humiliation of a man when, as if a star had fallen from heaven, he sinks into awful and inexplicable selfishness or sensuality?  It is not necessary that we explain, but we should remember that the goodness of God has so ordered things that even disgrace may lead to stronger faith, clearer vision, and tenderer sympathy.

Austere ministries are still needed; only fire will consume the dross.  The re-awakening of a soul is not its perfecting; but it is its realization that the process of perfecting must go on, and will go on, if need be along a pathway of shame and agony, until all that attracts to the earth and sensuality has disappeared, and the spirit, like a bird released, rises toward the heavens.

The law that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap will never be transcended, and if an enlightened spirit ever chooses to sink once more into the slime it may do so; but it will at the same time be taught with terrible intensity the moral bearing of the physical law that what falls from the loftiest height will sink to the deepest depth.