that service. That conviction
often prevails, although so far as I have observed, not usually in
association with perfect sanity. A man of noble bearing and grave and
solemn manner who was talking about using the telephone for
trans-Atlantic communication, once declared that all men living now are
under the leadership of those who have gone, and that the great of other
times are continuing their work through those now on earth. He added: "I
am confident of my success for I am the representative in these days of
Sir Isaac Newton." Subsequent events proved that Sir Isaac Newton must
have lost most of his common sense since his departure from the earth,
or he would have chosen a more rational representative.

This theory in no way solves the problem before us, but rather
complicates it, because it does not explain how the relation of souls is
adjusted. That there may be some truth in this speculation may be freely
granted. One text at least appears to give it a little confirmation:
"Are not their angels ministering spirits sent forth to minister to such
as shall be the heirs of salvation." That seems to teach that some who
have never dwelt in earthly bodies are the appointed ministers of those
who live on the earth.

Many other persons dismiss this subject by saying that all souls, like
all objects in nature and events in history, are parts of an everlasting
and universal process, and that speculation is useless and a weariness
to the flesh. That is the easiest way out of the difficulty, but it can
be taken only by ignoring the facts. Are all ideas concerning spiritual
ministry delusions? Then how shall we account for the imagination which
is capable of giving birth to such magnificent dreams? And we may
venture to ask also--Who started this movement in which we are all
involved? How comes it that in this cosmic loom such a wondrous fabric
is being woven, if there is no pattern, and no weaver, and will be no
one to enjoy the work when it is finished?

Possibly no one is warned against sin, impelled toward virtue, supported
in sorrow, led into larger visions of truth; and, possibly, truth and
right are also dreams, and the mind itself a delusion; and, possibly,
there is nothing but delusion. Then all study and struggle are useless;
let us go to sleep. But, some one else says, perhaps the phenomena of
which you speak are, in one sense, realities but caused by reactions of
the soul on itself. First it imagines that some spi