Our thought-motions compared with theirs are like an ox-team to a locomotive. It is a fact, and there is no use in quarreling with it. On the other hand, through our association with matter we are able, without permanent injury, to bear oppressions of the spirit which would be death itself to them; and those among them who would take delight in insulting us are deterred from doing so by our insensibility to the stinging thought-current. We ourselves would not insult a post for being one. These oppressions of spirit, or depressions, as we blindly call them, are a part of the system by and through which we are made to manifest what manner of person we are; and our blindness as to the real meaning of the life we have come into possession of, our persistent mistaking it for an end, instead of a means to an end, brings it to pass that the tests we undergo as to our fitness for this or that position in the real though hidden life that awaits us all, are real and genuine tests, which they could not be, to their full extent, if we clearly understood at the time just what was being done. Every thoughtful man and woman looking back over life can discern how this or that decision has been a turning-point leading on to unexpected success or paving the way to disaster or defeat. When the test is complete, some inkling of its meaning often dawns upon us, and we resolve to be on guard next time, and then perhaps we start off on some rainbow chase, only to discover that we are the prey of delusion once more. Then, perhaps, we get angry and curse the whole machine as the product of some stupid blunderer, thereby avoiding the confession of any mental obliquity on our own part.