e and the same time, something within himself impels
him upward, and another something drags him downward. But the point for
special consideration now is that the soul is never satisfied with
anything but truth, that the history of thought is the record of the
search for truth, that every new discovery has acted as a stimulus to
still more ardent exploration, and that the search is always for
elemental realities, the causes of phenomena, for "things as they are."
The promise of Jesus was fulfilled long before it was spoken. Some one,
in all the ages, has been leading into truth and showing things to come;
and the process was never more evident than after all these years of
intellectual and spiritual progress. I say some one has led. By that I
mean a personal spirit, unseen, but ever present; for how could he whose
home is in the mire be supposed, steadily and unwaveringly, to reach
toward the skies unless there was some attraction in the skies? The only
attraction for one spirit is another spirit. This age-long, unwavering
passion for truth and progress, the wisest of men have believed to have
been inspired by Providence or God or by guardian angels--which after
all are only other ways of stating the doctrine of Jesus concerning the
Holy Spirit.

Another phase of this subject is the power, which has seemed to come
from outside the soul, to sustain and help those who have been called to
endure bitter and long-continued sorrow and pain. Those who feel
themselves to be weak as water under the stress of severe trial, almost
without previous suggestion, assume the proportions of heroes. They
endure and suffer with patience what would crush those who are only
physically brave and strong. A woman who seemed to have few resources in
herself, suddenly lost four children. In speaking of it, she very simply
but forcefully, said: "I could never have endured it myself." She
believed that her fragility had been reinforced by one stronger than
herself. Exceptional physical courage will account for deeds of amazing
heroism like that displayed at the sinking of the Merrimac in the
harbor of Santiago. Some persons are thus gifted by nature, as others
have a poetic temperament. But exhibitions of physical valor, stimulated
by the consciousness of world-wide applause, are very different from the
patience with which weak persons accept heavy burdens without a murmur,
and carry them apparently without assistance, sustained only by the
consci