This individual affection which distinguishes me from you belongs to my exterior or outer consciousness. So then, when I speak of character, I speak not of this inmost principle which has never changed, and never can change, but will live on unchanged, because self-existent and self-sufficient—not of the God within—the Divine breath living in the soul—but of that which is exterior of that which derives its life, understanding, and perception from the light which this absolute consciousness throws out. That which pertains to my character enters into my individual and finite selfhood; and it is by what is found there that I am to judge myself, and the world is to judge me. If you were to come to my inmost character, you would then come at the absolute and infinite which exists in me and in every other individual, without which man could not be a conscious being at all. Separate man from this conscious consciousness, and he would cease to exist. It is by the harmonizing of his finite perception with the infinite perception that he lives in God and God in him. All there is of life, of conscious being, is but a reflection of this absolute consciousness; just as the light of the moon is but the reflection of the light of the sun. Extinguish your sun, and your moon could give you no light. Separate man from this absolute consciousness, and he would have no finite consciousness. Then that which constitutes you and me conscious beings here and hereafter is not this absolute conscious principle within, but that which comes into unceasing relation to it, by which we are made conscious of that which is. I have thought, feeling, and affection, which pertain to me as a finite physical being; and I am made aware of that thought, that feeling, and that affection by the presence of this absolute principle within me; but at the same time they do not take their character from this absolute consciousness. Hence we hear persons talk about forming characters. But character is to be considered in a double sense. All possess this inmost character, and hence it is said that every individual in his inmost is divine. But that Divinity, that God within him by which he lives, and without which he could not live, constitutes no part of his individual selfhood. It is the Jehovah in the soul, by which he is revealed to himself. That character in man, I grant, never changes. It is the external individual character to which I wish to call attention in a special manner. Now that character which makes me an individual being, and by which I become wise or foolish, good or bad, true or false, is constantly undergoing changes, and is developed under laws growing out of relations which I sustain to material and spiritual things and influences which operate upon me from both the natural and spiritual plane. This finite character is the one by which I am to be judged.