Romans; it torments some Eastern peoples still—­that terrible thought—­I am I myself, and cannot be any one else.  I am answerable for all that I ever did, or shall do; and no one can be answerable for me.  All the bad deeds I ever did, the bad thoughts I ever thought, are mine, parts of me, and will be for ever.  I can no more escape from them than I can spring off my own shadow.  But men have been always trying to escape; to escape from the burden of their own self, and the dread of an evil conscience; and have invented religion after religion, often fantastic enough, often pathetic enough likewise, in hopes of hiding from themselves the secret thought—­I am I, and must be myself for ever.  But I am not what I ought to be, and therefore I may be wrong, and miserable for ever.  And how many people, in this Christian land, are saying at this very moment to themselves, “Oh that I could get rid of this I myself in me, which is so discontented and unhappy!  Oh that I had no conscience!  Oh that I could forget myself!” And they try to forget themselves by dissipation, by gaming, by drinking, by taking narcotic drugs, even sometimes by suicide, as a last desperate attempt to escape from themselves, they know not and care not whither.  It is all in vain.  There is no escape from self.  As the pious poet whose bust stands beneath yonder tower has said: 

   Each in his separate sphere of joy and woe
   Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart.

I must be I, thou must be thou, he must be he, she must be she, and no one else, throughout our mortal lives, and, for aught we can tell, for ever; alone, each of us, with our own souls, our own thoughts, our own actions, our own hopes, our own fears, our own deservings.  Stay alone:—­with all these?  Yes, and alone with one more.  Each of us is alone with God.  Face to face with God, seen by Him through and through, and directly answerable to Him at every moment of our lives, for every deed, and word, and thought.  And is that not a more terrible thought than any?  Ah! my friends, it may be.  But it may be also the most comforting of all thoughts, the only really comforting thought, if we will but look at the question as the Psalmist looks at it, and cry with him to God, “I am Thine, oh save the me whom Thou hast made.”

There are those, and those who deserve a respectful hearing, who will differ from all that I have been saying, and indeed from the beliefs of 999 out of 1000 of the human race in every age.  They will say—­This fancy that you are an I, a self, individual and indivisible, is but a fancy; one of the many idols which man creates for himself, by bestowing reality and personality on mere abstractions like this I and self.  Each man is not one indivisible, much less indestructible, thing or being.  He is really many things.  He is the net result of all the organic cells of his body, and of all the forces which act through them within, and of all the