CHAPTER VI
ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING
IN threading the labyrinth of a mind to find its starting point upon a new phase of existence, it is frequently most difficult to lay hold of the silken clue which guided it to the gateway out of a maze of turnings. Every life has its moments of revelation when it would seem proper to start away upon the higher adventures of the soul; but seldom does a human being go forward without hesitation, leaving the past with its thousand detaining hands by an irrevocable decision. Having received the vision, beheld the clear trail of a path up the mountain, the pilgrim soul, with mystifying impulses which it cannot itself understand, obeying instincts which lie too deep for scrutiny, will almost invariably turn backward on the road of experience to reembrace its wornout illusions and weep at its old tombs. Finding the old life and its associations as disappointing and unprofitable as ever, it will agonize once more over its mistakes, and putting them off again one by one, will back away toward its future, with face set miserably upon the past. Not until the past smites him, will the pilgrim, with a sudden realization of himself, turn right about and rush for his mountain. Now he must search again for the path. His search may be weary and performed in humility,
