nd live, and all unawares the advancing soul has built and
forged for itself a new condition, and the question and the answer are
one.

By the same fire, vital, consecrating, celestial, which burns until
it shall dissolve all things into the waves and surges of an ocean of
light, we see and know each other, and what spirit each is of. Who
can tell the grounds of his knowledge of the character of the several
individuals in his circle of friends? No man. Yet their acts and words
do not disappoint him. In that man, though he knew no ill of him, he put
no trust. In that other, though they had seldom met, authentic signs
had yet passed, to signify that he might be trusted as one who had an
interest in his own character. We know each other very well,--which of
us has been just to himself and whether that which we teach or behold is
only an aspiration or is our honest effort also.

We are all discerners of spirits. That diagnosis lies aloft in our
life or unconscious power. The intercourse of society, its trade,
its religion, its friendships, its quarrels, is one wide, judicial
investigation of character. In full court, or in small committee, or
confronted face to face, accuser and accused, men offer themselves to be
judged. Against their will they exhibit those decisive trifles by which
character is read. But who judges? and what? Not our understanding. We
do not read them by learning or craft. No; the wisdom of the wise
man consists herein, that he does not judge them; he lets them judge
themselves and merely reads and records their own verdict.

By virtue of this inevitable nature, private will is overpowered, and,
maugre our efforts or our imperfections, your genius will speak
from you, and mine from me. That which we are, we shall teach, not
voluntarily but involuntarily. Thoughts come into our minds by avenues
which we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through
avenues which we never voluntarily opened. Character teaches over our
head. The infallible index of true progress is found in the tone the man
takes. Neither his age, nor his breeding, nor company, nor books,
nor actions, nor talents, nor all together can hinder him from being
deferential to a higher spirit than his own. If he have not found
his home in God, his manners, his forms of speech, the turn of
his sentences, the build, shall I say, of all his opinions will
involuntarily confess it, let him brave it out how he will. If he have
found his