1. Sometimes in the created spiritual person, the subject and object are identical. The question is a question of fact. In illustrating the fact, it will be proved. When a man looks at his hands, he sees they are instruments for _his_ use. When he considers his physical sense, he still perceives it to be instrument for _his_ use. In all his conclusions, judgments, he still finds, not himself, but _his_ instrument. Even in the Pure Reason he finds only _his_ faculty; though it be the highest possible to intellect. Yet still he searches, searches for the _I am_; which claims, and holds, and uses, the faculties and capacities. There is a phrase universally familiar to American Christians, a fruit of New England Theology, which leads us directly to the goal we seek. It is the phrase, "self-examination." In all thorough, religious self-examination the subject and object are identical. In the ordinary labors and experiences of life, man says, "I can do this or that;" and he therein considers only his aptitudes and capabilities. But in this last, this profoundest act, the assertion is not, "I can do this or that." It is, "I am this or that." The person stands unveiled before itself, in the awful sanctuary of God's presence. The decision to be made is not upon the use of one faculty or another. It is upon the end for which all labor shall be performed. The character of the person is under consideration, and is to be determined. The selfhood, with all its wondrous mysteries, is at once subject and object. The I am in man, alike in kind to that most impenetrable mystery, the eternal I AM of "the everlasting Father," is now stirred to consider its most solemn duty. How shall the finite I am accord _itself_ to the pure purpose of the infinite I AM? It may be, possibly is, that some persons have never been conscious of this experience. To some, from a natural inaptitude, and to others, from a perverse disinclination, it may never come. Some have so little gift of introspection, that their inner experiences are never observed and analyzed. Their conduct may be beautiful, but they never know it. Their impressions ever come from without. Another class of persons shun such an experience as Balshazzar would have shunned, if he could, the handwriting on the wall. Their whole souls are absorbed in the pursuit of earthly things. They are intoxicated with sensuous gratification. The fore-thrown shadow of the coming thought of self-examination awakens within them a vague instinctive dread; and they shudder, turn away, and by every effort avoid it. Sometimes they succeed; and through the gates of death rush headlong into the spirit-land, only to be tortured forever there with the experience they so successfully eluded here. For the many thousands, who know by experience what a calm, candid, searching, self-examination is, now that their attention has been drawn to its full psychological import, no further word is necessary.