A fourth token of the higher life is Wisdom. Wisdom is situated at the junction of the intellectual and the moral faculties. It consists in the highest use of the intellect for the discernment of the largest moral interests of humanity. It is the most perfect willingness to do the right combined with the utmost attainable knowledge of what is right, and with the clearest perception of what, in a given situation, is feasible. Wisdom is the attribute of one who works toward the most sublime ends imaginable, but who at the same time realises the limitations due to existing conditions and who, free from impatience at the unavoidable imperfections of man’s estate, seeks to achieve the better as a step leading in the direction of the best. Wisdom consists in working for the better from the love of the best. The world is full of reformers who thunder at the gates of the Impossible, seeking to force an entrance, and who injure their causes, as well as themselves, by the inevitable reaction which ensues when their schemes are found to be impracticable. Wisdom teaches that it is possible to lead the higher life, even now. But the crowning grace of all is Humility, in the sense in which it implies and presupposes dignity. Dignity is based upon the consciousness of a divine element in human nature, of an infinite aim, a boundless destiny. Humbleness is due to a sense of the incalculable distance which still separates us from the goal. These two, inseparably combined, are the invariable accompaniment of moral greatness wherever met with. Self-righteousness and a cynical contempt of human nature on the other hand are the two chief enemies of moral progress. These monsters must be slain if we would hope to continue in the upward path. The higher life cannot be attained without rigorous self-discipline, and self-discipline always involves pain, but the end in view is worthy of the sufferings we are called upon to endure, the prize is worthy of the price exacted of us. SPIRITUAL PROGRESS By what sort of experience are we led to the conviction that spirit exists? On the whole, by searching, painful experience. The rose Religion grows on a thorn-bush, and we must not be afraid to have our fingers lacerated by the thorns if we would pluck the rose. For instance, a person who endures great bodily suffering with fortitude will discover that there is something in him which physical agony cannot overcome, something not of the senses, which all the assaults of the senses are powerless to affect. Why in this world of ours there should be so much suffering no one knows. But this we know; that, evil existing, the world being such as it is, we can win from evil, if we choose, an inestimable good, namely--the conviction that there is in us a power not of the senses, the conviction that spirit exists, and exists in us.