I. The arguments of Sections I to XII are not always easy to follow closely; but, in passing with Section XIII to the history of the Vision, all obscurity vanishes, and we have no difficulty in tracing the line of thought of the first speaker, resulting in his willing reconcilement to the uncertainties inseparable from human life as at present constituted. A brief attempt to follow the preceding course of argument will afford an explanation of the speaker's position at the opening of Section XIII. (1) The difficulty advanced at the outset of attaining to even a moderate realization of the possibilities of the Christian life is ascribed by the first speaker (at the close of Section I) to the essential indefiniteness in things spiritual implied in the very suggestion of advance, of growth. That which we believed yesterday to be the mountain-top proves to-day but the vantage-ground for a yet higher ascent: And where we looked for crowns to fall, We find the tug's to come. (ll. 27-28.) In reply, the second speaker admits the existence of difficulty, but of one differing somewhat in character from that recognized by his interlocutor. The Christian life were a sufficiently straightforward matter, if belief pure and simple were possible: if, as he puts the case, the relative worth of things temporal and eternal were once rendered clear and unmistakable. Even martyrdom itself would then become as nothing to the believer. (2) The first speaker, or the soliloquist (since he it is who actually advances the arguments consistent with the position of his imaginary companion), whilst accepting the truth of the proposition, reasserts the theory, little more than suggested in Section I, that such fixity and definiteness of belief is, under existing conditions, an impossibility. If not in the visible world, granting so much, yet beyond it, is that which may not be grasped by the finite intelligence. Such limitations may perchance serve for the term of mortal life; but in the light thrown upon life by the approach of death a change will inevitably pass over the aspect of all things, and Eyes, late wide, begin to wink Nor see the path so well. (ll. 57-58.) Again, the Christian who does not wish his position of moderate faith to be disturbed, agrees; but attributes the shifting ground of belief to the self-evident truth that faith would no longer be faith were the objects with which it deals mere matters of common and proved knowledge, belief in them as inevitable as the necessity of breath to the living creature. You must mix some uncertainty With faith, if you would have faith be. (ll. 71-72.)