SOUNDINGS 



over — that we have only to pay the debt of the 

 body, and not of the mind — is one of the dreams 

 that it is hard for most persons to give up. Will not 

 then the universal mind that pervades Nature claim 

 its own also? Can you and I hope to remain de- 

 tached from it forever? Is that a consummation 

 devoutly to be wished? 



Be assured that no particle of soul or body can be 

 lost. But processes may cease; the flame of the lamp 

 may go out, and the sum total of force and matter 

 remain the same. When a blade of grass dies, a proc- 

 ess has ended, and as mysterious a process as went on 

 in Caesar's brain and body. And when all life on the 

 earth and in our universe ceases, if it ever does, the 

 problem would remain just as puzzling, if we can 

 fancy ourselves still here to puzzle over it. We are 

 links in an endless cycle of change in which we 

 cannot separate the material from what we call the 

 spiritual. 



The water in our bodies to-day may have flashed 

 as a dewdrop yesterday, or lent itself to the splendor 

 of the sunrise or sunset, or played a part in the bow 

 in the clouds. To-morrow it may be whirling in the 

 vortex of a tornado, or helping to quench the life of 

 a drowning man, or glistening in the frost figures on 

 the window-pane. The movements of the brain 

 molecules in which the phenomena of thought and 

 consciousness are so mysteriously involved, they, 

 too, are links in the cycle of change. 



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