The student of history contemplates the rise and fall of nations and traces the causes which have led to their overthrow. He observes the same influences at work to-day as in the olden time, and when the premonition of like disasters comes home to him, he is ready to exclaim, "There is no hope! There is no God!" And in so speaking he gives utterance to the soul of our race, which is still groping in the darkness for light and a place of rest. How much of this is true of man as an individual? Very little, comparatively, as we shall see. In the first place, as individuals, we are conscious of companionship. We look around us and out over the world and see great numbers of our fellows whose life and surroundings are comparable with our own. Such differences as we perceive in each other only give evidence that our fellow-beings are real, not simply reflections of ourselves; are objective entities, not elusive shadows. And by as much as we are conscious of an individuality apart from that of our race, by so much may we hope to separate the thread of our destiny from the tangled mass. Examples of such a separation are to be found among the great names of the earth; and a study of their lives will teach us how best to shape our own. It will also teach us that race-life and individual life are not necessarily the same, that the individual may absorb light for which the race is not yet ready, and set his standards of thought and action far beyond what is yet possible to the race as a whole. If, now, we form our conceptions of the character of the power overruling us, by an exclusive study of those events which affect great numbers, we are liable to serious error. If the sound of thunders intended for the ear of the race be concentrated so as to fall upon our individual hearing, they will certainly deafen us completely. On the other hand, those whose narrower vision sees only the play of events as they affect the lives of individuals are also liable to error in forming their estimate of the character of the overruling power. Here tragedy visible and invisible plays its part, and sometimes injustice in the extreme appears to triumph. There is no possibility of avoiding error in judgment from this point of view, without constantly bearing in mind at least three things: first, that outward disaster is sometimes an inevitable result of long-hidden crime; second, that to the innocent, death is a release from prison, a promotion from a lower to a higher sphere of action, and that those who are able to look beyond the instruments used to break their fetters, to the kindness that sets them free, can mount on the wings of delight to a diviner air; and third, that the dwarfing of the faculties of a soul during the short space of earth-life will turn out to be a far less serious matter to the soul than to the one responsible for it. CHAPTER XXIII.