us, here is the hopefulness of such considerations--the
very same life, when the breath of God's spirit or His penetrating voice
has stirred and roused the soul in it, is felt to be transformed. The
man is born anew.

"There is nothing finer," some one has said, "than to see a soul rise up
in men, which amazes the very men in whom it rises." They are surprised
to find that these new capacities were in them, unnoticed through their
careless days, yet in them all the time. This birth of the new life,
with all its promise of new tastes, new ambitions, new thoughts, new
purposes, may indeed come to you without your feeling all at once how
great a thing it is. At first it may be nothing more than some vision of
the possibilities of your life, or some electric flash of new
consciousness that runs through you, or the sharp pang of remorse for
some sin or some neglect, or the flush of shame or repulsion as you think
of something or other in your life, or the glow of some good resolution
to begin some new life or new duty, or take some new turn, or pursue some
new aim. You hardly think perhaps of this as the awakening of your soul.
It may never have occurred to you to think of it as being just as sacred
a thing as was Jacob's vision at Bethel, as being indeed the work of the
same Divine spirit.

But let us consider it a little further. Whatever it is that is thus
stirring in your heart, it comes and it comes again; it lingers in your
thoughts and feelings; it haunts, it impresses and awes you; it rises
before you suddenly and stops you from some sin, or, if it fails to stop
you, it turns the pleasure for which you craved into wretchedness; or it
encourages and consoles you in some hour of weakness or sorrow. I
suppose there is hardly one of you who has not had some such experience
as this. And if you ask. What is it? It is, I repeat, the awakening of
the soul in you--nothing less than this--and happy is it for you, if you
recognise that it is the soul striving to win its proper place in the
regulation of your life.

When Moses saw the vision of the burning bush, and suddenly felt himself
on holy ground; when Elijah heard the still, small voice calling, "What
doest thou here, Elijah?" when Saul, on his way to Damascus, fell to the
ground conscience-smitten, crushed, blinded, rebuked; when the child
Samuel heard the Divine voice calling to him in the darkness of the
night;--in each case it was the awakening or the rea