evelation of Christ as well. What do you
think of the question? When the dust shall return to the earth as it
was, shall the spirit return to God who gave it? When brain and heart
and nerves are destroyed, when the sun is old and the stars grow cold,
and all that you ever saw is swept away into nothingness, will this
mysterious, lonely self remain, to say "I" and "my" and "mine" and
"me," through all the ages of Eternity?

Section 7

Now, I put a closer question still. Is not this mysterious "I" behind
the brain the being that God is especially concerned with? What He
sometimes calls your soul.[1] The ceiling of the Sistine chapel at
Rome has a fine painting by Michael Angelo from the text, "Man became a
living soul." It represents the Supreme Spirit floating in the ether
and touching with His finger the body of Adam. As He touches it an
electric spark flashes into the body and Adam becomes a living soul.
Is not this the centre of the awful mystery that I call "I,"
myself--the same of which our Lord asks His tremendous question: "What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own self?"

Is not this "self" the real man, the man in the centre of his life, in
the deepest recesses of his being, the man as he lives beneath the eye
of God and enters into relations with God--the man for whom the Bible
announces that exciting adventure in the long ages of the Hereafter?

Is not this "I" looking out from behind your eyes this moment--the real
man, of whom the body that you see is only the outward covering, of
whom the brain is only the outward telegraphic instrument? Should not
we adapt our thoughts to that tremendous fact? Instead of thinking "I
_have_ a soul," should we not rather think "I _am_ a soul"? Instead of
thinking, that beautiful girl has an ugly soul, that insignificant
looking man has a noble soul, should we not rather think, that ugly
soul has a beautiful girl body, that splendid soul is in a mean looking
body? Would not some such manner of thinking help to bring home the
reality, that "I" am the invisible immortal being which clothes itself
in a material body during this first stage of its life. Should not we
be more likely to become acquainted with our own soul, to become
impressed with its existence, to think about its character? Should we
not thus learn more easily that wealth and clothes and outward
appearance are not so important, that the character, the relation to
Go