As he makes this resolution, a warm glow suddenly pervades his being. He feels at once lighter and stronger, and then perhaps he does a little thinking for himself. "If I believed in angels, I should say that they were near, and touched me then; I never felt anything like it." Little does he suspect the truth, that the whole idea which he so carefully elaborated in his mind had been flashed into it from without by an angel-friend, and that when it had borne its natural fruit in a good resolution, it became possible for the same friend to convey to him a touch of her own delight. It may be objected that illustrations like these prove nothing as to the source of the experience; that to deny that invisible intelligences so play upon men is as rational, or more so, as to say they do. But we are not limited to such comparatively indefinite evidence. For nearly fifty years it has been permitted, or commanded, or both, that these invisible beings should demonstrate the reality of continued existence, and they have been doing so in a great variety of ways. For particulars, reference is made to the periodical literature devoted to the subject, and to the scores of books which have been written upon it. It is not my purpose, however, to enter into this field of evidence with any approach to minutiæ, for it was not here that I acquired the ability to say, The occult world is a real, inhabited domain. I know whereof I speak. CHAPTER XII. In searching for truth in the fields of thought, we often run counter to our own prejudices, and almost unconsciously call a halt. There are some whose self-conceit is so great that they invariably do so the moment that any of their prejudices is in the slightest danger of a shock. But it is rather to the seeker who has in part divested himself from this hampering load, which he had perhaps inherited like a humor of the blood, that I now speak. What is to be done? How proceed in such a case? The remedy is simple. Whenever you are dealing with abstract ideas, and find one that is refractory, either in itself for want of further analysis, or because of some special weakness of yours which incapacitates you from subduing it, never give it up; if you do, you will find yourself under it like a toad under a stone for an indefinite length of time. No, the right thing to do is to pass at once from the abstract to the concrete, and find in material things the counterpart of the truth under examination, and then proceed. The effect is often wonderful.