well as the end is out of our ken.
Where we came from we cannot know, but certainly the soul that appears
in each newborn babe is not a new thing. It has come from everlasting,
and the present life is merely a scene in the endless drama of
existence. A man's identity, the sum of good and of evil tendencies,
which is his soul, never dies, but endures for ever. Each body is but a
case wherein the soul is enshrined for the time.

And the state of that soul, whether good predominate in it or evil, is
purely dependent on that soul's thoughts and actions in time past.

Men are not born by chance wise or foolish, righteous or wicked, strong
or feeble. A man's condition in life is the absolute result of an
eternal law that as a man sows so shall he reap; that as he reaps so has
he sown.

Therefore, if you find a man's desires naturally given towards evil, it
is because he has in his past lives educated himself to evil. And if he
is righteous and charitable, long-suffering and full of sympathy, it is
because in his past existence he has cultivated these virtues; he has
followed goodness, and it has become a habit of his soul.

Thus is every man his own maker. He has no one to blame for his
imperfections but himself, no one to thank for his virtues but himself.
Within the unchangeable laws of righteousness each man is absolutely the
creator of himself and of his own destiny. It has lain, and it lies,
within each man's power to determine what manner of man he shall be.
Nay, it not only lies within his power to do so, but a man _must_
actually mould himself. There is no other way in which he can develop.

Every man has had an equal chance. If matters are somewhat unequal now,
there is no one to blame but himself. It is within his power to retrieve
it, not perhaps in this short life, but in the next, maybe, or the next.

Man is not made perfect all of a sudden, but takes time to grow, like
all valuable things. You might as well expect to raise a teak-tree in
your garden in a night as to make a righteous man in a day. And thus not
only is a man the sum of his passions, his acts and his thoughts, in
past time, but he is in his daily life determining his future--what sort
of man he shall be. Every act, every thought, has its effect, not only
upon the outer world, but upon the inner soul. If you follow after evil,
it becomes in time a habit of your soul. If you follow after good, every
good act is a beautifying touch to your own s