Yet after all, if those who so earnestly desire clairvoyance could possess it temporarily for a day or even an hour, it is far from certain that they would choose to retain the gift. True, it opens before them new worlds of study, new powers of usefulness, and for this latter reason most of us feel it worth while; but it should be remembered that for one whose duty still calls him to live in the world it is by no means an unmixed blessing. Upon one in whom that vision is opened the sorrow and the misery, the evil and the greed of the world press as an ever-present burden, until in the earlier days of his knowledge he often feels inclined to echo the passionate adjuration contained in those rolling lines of Schiller's: Dien Orakel zu verkuenden, warum warfest du mich hin In die Stadt der ewig Blinden, mit dem aufgeschloss'nen Sinn? Frommt's, den Schleier aufzuheben, wo das nahe Schreckniss droht? Nur der Irrthum ist das Leben; dieses Wissen ist der Tod. Nimm, O nimm die traur'ge Klarheit mir vom Aug' den blut'gen Schein! Schrecklich ist es deiner Wahrheit sterbliches Gefaess zu seyn! which may perhaps be translated "Why hast thou cast me thus into the town of the ever-blind, to proclaim thine oracle by the opened sense? What profits it to lift the veil where the near darkness threatens? Only ignorance is life; this knowledge is death. Take back this sad clear-sightedness; take from mine eyes this cruel light! It is horrible to be the mortal channel of thy truth." And again later he cries, "Give me back my blindness, the happy darkness of my senses; take back thy dreadful gift!" But this of course is a feeling which passes, for the higher sight soon shows the pupil something beyond the sorrow--soon bears in upon his soul the overwhelming certainty that, whatever appearances down here may seem to indicate, all things are without shadow of doubt working together for the eventual good of all. He reflects that the sin and the suffering are there, whether he is able to perceive them or not, and that when he can see them he is after all better able to give efficient help than he would be if he were working in the dark; and so by degrees he learns to bear his share of the heavy karma of the world.