All who are upon the earth in human expression have not yet passed the condition of physical greatness or mental victory incident upon the overcoming of these states. Whole races have gone on beyond it, but all have not yet reached the very beginning of it. So there will follow other races that will begin the intellectual period that you are now culminating in.

As you are now culminating in the directions known in Egypt and Greece in past time; as their intellectual culminations were prophecies of that which nations are now achieving; so your victories in intellect are prophecies of what the whole world will one day become.

Solon and Lycurgus in giving great laws to the State; Homer, Hesiod, Anacreon, Aeschylus, Pindar, the poets of Greece; Pythagoras, Euclid, and those who in mathematics handed down, even from the first, the Bombers to the nations that were to follow; Memnon inventing letters; Thales and Cadmus in giving other letters and mathematics to Greece - these are all culminations in certain lines.

As the physical giant finds his reaction in the dwarf, so the giant of intellect most find his antithesis in the imbecile; for frequently the giant in body is imbecile in mind, and in the dwarfed or deformed body the brightest spirit is seen. The imbecile in intellect is no greater monstrosity than the giant in intellect. The states of physical and mental imperfection thus reveal the true perfection that is still beyond.

the third general. deores, of expression is Tee Spiritual Degree.

In entering upon the consideration of this, the most complex stage of human expression, it should be remembered that, as there is no partiality in the Soul, so there is no partiality in the experience. Each Soul begins at the beginning of experience here, and passes through physical conquest and the physical disappointment, the intellectual conquest and the intellectual disappointment, and enters upon the spiritual conquest and all its difficulties to finally overcome them. The physical victory is not a conquest over the physical nature, nor is the intellectual achievement a conquest over the intellect When you see certain lives that begin better than others, when you see certain individuals that have moral qualities, and others that seem to have none; when you Bee those who have every opportunity, every means of advancement, yet can not avail themselves of them because of their condition, there must be some real solution, and that solution is found only in this system which we are explaining to yon now. If you are journeying up a mountain and have commenced your journey sooner than another, you will be at a higher altitude than the one who commenced afterward; but as he follows along, he will find the same steep and stony places, the same briers and thorns, the same difficulties to encounter; for human nature is so constituted that only what one experiences does one really know. This is proven from the fact that no nation benefits by the history of any other nation. There never was a war that could not have been avoided if the lessons of history had been studied. But study does not make experience, and the lessons of history are not known until each individual or nation realizes them. This is why history repeats itself, that all may have similar experiences. This also becomes the leveler; the intellectual or moral giant and the intellectual or moral dwarf must somewhere be reconciled, or there is partiality in the kingdom of God. Then let us see how this reconciliation takes place. Under this light the intellectual giant is an imbecile spiritually, if he has not spiritual growth; and therefore, if he has pride of intellect, which he does if he has not spiritual growth, is not the natural reaction from that a descent into the valley to find the weakness of mere intellectual strength? A mother loves her imbecile child as well as her bright one; she is even more tender toward it, she knows somewhere there is a clue to that mysterious labyrinth that seems to imprison from the outward world the life that is within. If she could know that sometime there may have been pride of intellect, and triumph over the weaknesses of others, she would realize that this feeble condition is not more pitiable, and that behind that seemingly benighted brain there is the Soul that, one day, will shine forth, not in intellect alone, but in the greater and diviner light of spiritual beauty.

If the theory of the materialist, or the mere secularist, or even of the ordinary theologian were true, there would be no possibility of reconciling physical deformity with spiritual grace and power. But how often do yon Bee, even in the child born with physical deformity, the light of the mind, the light of the spirit that teaches such marvel-ous lessons of patience that all the world can listen and learn wisdom. Look at the man who boasts merely of his physical power, and then behold the little child, perhaps a hunchback, whom he may trample ruthlessly beneath his feet, and see the light within that eye, the patience that is there, and the humility, and learn that this towering form is a dwarf beside the feeble one. Thus are outward conditions not only reconciled, but made to be steps in the individual growth and advancement. Woe unto those who feel strong in their mere physical might; that strength is of the earth, it is fleeting, it passes away; and they must learn by humility, by being conscious of weakness of body and mind, the greater strength of the spirit.

For the most part the ascent through matter, after taking the first steps in the infancy of life, is like a spiral pathway; but there are deviations which are the reactions from heights that are not real, as the superficial height of the body, or the superficial height of the intellect. So that which seems to be a descent is not so in reality; neither is it so in the mental or moral kingdoms, for, as said before, the giant of the intellect, or he who has no goodness or moral strength is a monstrosity, and the reaction from that leads to the simplest mind, hut a mind of sweetness and goodness. You often hear people say: such a sweet nature, but no mind. What is the value of mind if it is not goodness? To encompass the universe with strong terms and technicalities and fail in the real essence of life! These simple minds, as they are termed, who must have descended from the height of superficial intellectuality to the humility, perhaps, of knowing nothing, to learn the lessons of sweetness and goodness, are really on the way to be giants of strength in spirit.