Directly this world ceases to afford us pleasure, we wonder why we were born. The soul longs for happiness; feels certain she was created for it. So she is. Looking at the masses of drab, ugly, and unsuccessful lives around us, we may well ask what purpose and what progress is there in the lives of all these hopeless-looking people. But there is not one life that does not have brought before it, and into it, the opportunity of, and the invitation to, self-sacrifice, and in a greater or lesser degree this is accepted and responded to by all. There is far more soul-progress made by these grey-looking lives than would appear on the surface: they accept self-sacrifice--they accept Duty--all is well. Very much progress may not be made during the one earth-period of life, but some is made: we drifted away slowly from God; our return is slow. XIII Love is not the mere pleasant sentiment of the heart we are apt to consider it: it is _the animating principle of the soul,_ it is the reason and cause of her existence: it is a God-Force. When a soul does not love God she has ceased to respond to this Force; she is no longer a "sensitive" or _living_ soul: when she becomes insensitive, she has become what flesh is when it is "callous." This insensitiveness is the one great predominating disease of the soul: it is the cause of the darkness in which the soul finds herself in this world: it is this which causes our unawareness of God and of Celestial-living. How can we commence to remedy this disastrous state? We can act nobly, we can be generous, doing what we do as though it were for love, although it is merely Duty which animates us. This will be more or less joyless, because love alone can make acts joyful; but though it may be joyless it will advance the soul immensely: it will advance her to the highest degrees required by God in order that He shall Retouch her. When He Retouches her she becomes reanimated, she once again commences to live for and because of love: she becomes "sensitive" to God. This Retouching may occur only after the soul is free of the body--but the body is the house in which our examination must be passed, in which we must prepare and qualify for this Retouching. Hence the importance of continuing to make every effort _in this life._ The soul which takes Christ into herself, loves Him, obeys Him, tries to copy Him, qualifies fully for this Retouching. XIV