"I" till
he is about three years old? He always speaks in the third person. It
is always "Baby does this," "Baby likes that," until the Divine
revelation of his personality gradually grows and he recognizes himself
as a person. Then, without any teaching on your part, the child, of
his own accord, will begin to say "I."

Section 4

Oh, who or what is this awful, mysterious "I" that dwells somewhere in
the centre of my being, and rules and possesses and is responsible for
everything? What is this self, in each of you, that is hidden behind
your faces as behind a mask--that is looking out through your eyes, and
receiving, through your ears, the thoughts that others are trying to
express for you? Can the surgeon's knife find any trace of it? Is it
possible to destroy it? Is it possible to get away from it? It has
survived the putting away of every part of the body a dozen times over.
Will it survive the final putting away of the whole body at death?
Will it survive everything? Shall "I" be "I," the same identical
person through all the ages of eternity?

Section 5

Look in again upon this "I" within you and answer this question. Why
does it assert so positively that it is impossible to doubt it; "I
ought to do certain things, I ought not to do certain other things"?
All over the earth this day--from the St. Lawrence to the Ganges, from
the North Pole to the South--there is no man outside of a lunatic
asylum without that conviction. No race, not even the lowest, has been
found without it. Where did that conviction come from? From the
Bible, do you say? From the teachings of Christ? Nay, surely not.
Long before the Bible, long before the incarnation of Christ, the old
pagan had the thought clear and distinct, though not by any means so
clear and distinct as Christianity has made it. Did you ever think of
the mystery of this authoritative utterance of the self within you: "_I
ought_"? In the very lowest savages it asserts this. St. Paul calls
this sense of "ought"--the law of God written in our hearts (Rom. ii.
15). St. John calls it the light of Christ in us, "the light which
lighteth every man coming into the world" (St. John i. 9). Longfellow
sings of it in "Hiawatha":

That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings
For the good they comprehend not;
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in the darkness.