As one looking through a prism sees a fine bordering of rainbow on every object, so he beheld a glorified world. His former self seemed to him something forever past and gone. He looked at himself as at another person, who had sinned and suffered, and was now resting in beatified repose; and he fondly thought all this was firm reality, and believed that he was now proof against all earthly impressions, able to hear and to judge with the dispassionate calmness of a disembodied spirit. He did not know that this high-strung calmness, this fine clearness, were only the most intense forms of nervous sensibility, and as vividly susceptible to every mortal impression as is the vitalized chemical plate to the least action of the sun’s rays. UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. [Sidenote: Sorrow an educator.] Any mind that is capable of a _real sorrow_ is capable of good. * * * * * [Sidenote: Individuality.] Now, the reflections of two men, sitting side by side, are a curious thing,—seated on the same seat, having the same eyes, ears, hands, and organs of all sorts, and having pass before their eyes the same objects,—it is wonderful what a variety we shall find in these same reflections. * * * * * [Sidenote: Inspiration.] By what strange law of mind is it that an idea, long overlooked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond. * * * * * [Sidenote: Power of mind over body.] Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that, for a time, can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so mighty. * * * * * [Sidenote: True heroism.] Have not many of us, in the weary way of life, felt, in some hours, how far easier it were to die than to live? The martyr, when faced even by a death of bodily anguish and horror, finds in the very terror of his doom a strong stimulant and tonic. There is a vivid excitement, a thrill and fervor, which may carry through any crisis of suffering that is the birth-hour of eternal glory and rest. But to live,—to wear on, day after day, of mean, bitter, low, harassing servitude, every nerve dampened and depressed, every power of feeling gradually smothered,—this long and wasting heart martyrdom, this slow, daily bleeding away of the inward life, drop by drop, hour after hour,—this is the true searching test of what there may be in man or woman. * * * * * [Sidenote: Moral atmosphere.] An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who _feels_ strongly, healthily, and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race. * * * * * [Sidenote: Self-sacrifice.]