ion in a previous life which
now culminate in this result. We are no longer mystified because
apparent causeless misfortunes befall him for we know that in the nature
of things he did generate the causes in the past. A single incarnation
has the same relation to the whole of the soul's evolution that a single
day has to one incarnation. As the days are separated by the nights and
yet all the days are related by the acts which run through them, so the
incarnations are separated by periods of rest in the heaven world and
yet all the incarnations are related by the thoughts and acts running
through them. What a man does in his youth affects his old age, and
what we did in our last incarnation is affecting the present one. The
one is no more remarkable than the other. As we mould old age by youth
so we are shaping the coming incarnation by this one. Before we shall be
able to see the utter reasonableness of the truth that what we are now
is the result of our past we must have a clear understanding of the
relationship between the soul and the body. The physical body in each
incarnation is the material expression of the soul, of its moral power
or weakness, of its wisdom or ignorance, of its purity or its grossness,
just as one's face is, at each moment the expression of one's thought
and emotion in physical matter. Every change of consciousness registers
itself in matter. A man has emotions. He feels a thrill of joy and his
face proclaims the fact. He becomes angry, and the change from joy to
anger is registered in physical matter so that all who see his face are
aware of the change in his consciousness, which they cannot see. These
are passing changes like sunshine and shadow and they are obvious to
all. But we know that as the years pass the constant influence of
consciousness moulds even physical matter into permanent form. A soul of
sunny disposition finally comes to have benevolent features while one of
morose tendency as certainly has a face of settled gloom. Nobody can
contact the soul of another with any physical sense we possess yet
nobody has the slightest doubt of his ability to distinguish between a
sunny, peaceful soul and a soul that is not in harmony with life. We
know the difference only because consciousness moulds matter. But this
is merely the surface indication. Consciousness is continually
influencing matter and the major part of its work is not visible to us.
What the consciousness is, the body becomes. W