os, is a
being. It is more than a power of the soul, though it is that also; it
has a universal life of its own, and just as the dark heaving waters do
not know what jewel lights they reflect with blinding radiance, so the
soul, partially absorbing and feeling the ray of Eros within it, does
not know that often a part of its nature nearer to the sun of love
shines with a brilliant light to other eyes than its own. Many people
move unconscious of their own charm, unknowing of the beauty and power
they seem to others to impart. It is some past attainment of the soul,
a jewel won in some old battle which it may have forgotten, but none
the less this gleams on its tiara, and the star-flame inspires others to
hope and victory.

If it is true here that many exert a spiritual influence they are
unconscious of, it is still truer of the spheres within. Once the soul
has attained to any possession like love, or persistent will, or faith,
or a power of thought, it comes into spiritual contact with others who
are struggling for these very powers. The attainment of any of these
means that the soul is able to absorb and radiate some of the diviner
elements of being. The soul may or may nor be aware of the position it
is placed in or its new duties, but yet that Living Light, having found
a way into the being of any one person, does not rest there, but sends
its rays and extends its influence on and on to illume the darkness of
another nature. So it comes that there are ties which bind us to people
other than those whom we meet in our everyday life. I think they are
most real ties, most important to understand, for if we let our lamp
go out some far away who had reached out in the dark and felt a steady
will, a persistent hope, a compassionate love, may reach out once again
in an hour of need, and finding no support may give way and fold the
hands in despair. Often we allow gloom to overcome us and so hinder the
bright rays in their passage; but would we do it so often if we thought
that perhaps a sadness which besets us, we do not know why, was caused
by some one drawing nigh to us for comfort, whom our lethargy might
make feel still more his helplessnes, while our courage, our faith might
cause "our light to shine in some other heart which as yet has no light
of its own"?

III.

The night was wet, and as I was moving down the streets my mind was also
journeying on a way of its own, and the things which were bodily present