"Facing West from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, A, a child, very old, over waves, toward the house of maternity, the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost circled: For starting Westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere, From Asia, from the north, from God, the sage, and the hero, From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and spice islands, Long having wandered since, round the earth having wandered, Now I face home again, very pleased and joyous. (But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?)" * * * * * "I know I am deathless. I know that this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass; And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness can wait." * * * * * "As to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before." * * * * * "Births have brought us richness and variety, and other births have brought us richness and variety." * * * * * And this quotation from the American poet N.P. Willis: "But what a mystery this erring mind? It wakes within a frame of various powers A stranger in a new and wondrous world. It brings an instinct from some other sphere, For its fine senses are familiar all, And with the unconscious habit of a dream It calls and they obey. The priceless sight Springs to its curious organ, and the ear Learns strangely to detect the articulate air In its unseen divisions, and the tongue Gets its miraculous lesson with the rest, And in the midst of an obedient throng Of well trained ministers, the mind goes forth To search the secrets of its new found home." THE TENTH LESSON SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION. One of the things that repel many persons who have had their attention directed to the subject of Metempsychosis for the first time, is the idea that they have evolved _as a soul_ from individual lowly forms, for instance that they have at one time been an individual plant, and then an individual animal form, and then an individual higher animal form, and so on until now they are the particular individual human form contemplating the subject. This idea, which has been taught by many teachers, is repellent to the average mind, for obvious reasons, and naturally so, for it has no foundation in truth.