delivered.  The attraction seemed to be resistless.  Again and again he was on the verge of falling when the fall would have been ruin.  Then something made it morally impossible for him to enter upon the path which he had determined to follow.  The means used to dissuade him were various.  Sometimes a friend would call, then a duty would intervene, then some obligation would press until, to use his own way of phrasing it,—­“it seemed as if some unseen person who could read my thoughts and desires was walking by my side and, as fast as I was in danger of yielding to evil, ordering events so as to prevent me from doing what I wanted to do.”

Few men who are trying to live on spiritual levels would hesitate to acknowledge that they have been the subjects of similar protection.  The peculiar feature about it all is that the agents used are so often entirely unconscious of the influence which they are exerting.  An unseen hand seems to be guiding our moves on the chess-board of life, so as to check us every time that we are inclined to play falsely.  I do not mean that all are persuaded toward virtue, but I do mean that enough are protected from moral evil and spiritual peril to justify the belief that such ministries are around all; and that those who choose to do wrong do so in the face of spiritual appeals which, if they would but give them heed, would make resistance of evil easy and successful.  If any one who reads these words doubts my conclusions, let him study his own life, with a little care, and learn for himself whether there are not many hours in which he is almost persuaded to accept the ancient doctrine of guardian angels.

This phase of the spiritual experience is rendered still more vivid when we remember that the souls of men are perpetually dissatisfied with present attainments, and ever eager in their efforts to explore the unseen.  The history of human thought, if it could be written, would show that the mind has never been satisfied with what it has possessed, and that each new glimpse of truth has stimulated still more ardent inquiry.  The more it is pondered the more impressive this fact becomes.  The soul seems to have had just before it, in all the stages of its development, a spiritual forerunner opening a way into larger and fairer realms.  This consciousness is not akin to a passion for wealth.  A man with enormous riches often ceases to acquire, and devotes himself to the enjoyment of what he possesses; but who ever heard of a thoughtful man who felt that he might cease investigating and devote himself to the pleasures of knowledge?  Such instances there may have been, but they are not numerous and have never been recorded.

Of course there are many, who in no true sense can be called seekers after truth, who do not trouble themselves with questions about the Unseen.  They chew the cud of custom with all the placidity of good-natured oxen.  They do not live,—­they simply exist.  It is possible for any man to shut his eyes to the light, but that does not banish the light.  It envelops him, and pours its splendors around him, regardless of his wilful blindness.  Millions are so engrossed with selfishness, or animalism, that they catch the accents of no spiritual message, but those appeals are never hushed.  The deafness of the multitudes who will not hear does not prove that no voices are calling.