Raphael's self-denial was really self-indulgence. Outwardly he lived in a garret on a few sous a day. Inwardly he indulged to excess in all of which he was outwardly deprived, stimulated by the worldly success which he already enjoyed by anticipation. His desired fame was of the kind prompted by his vanity and egotism, fitly accompanied by that "libertinism of the mind" that was the inward death afterward actualized in his career. All the kingdoms of the world were shown him "in a moment of time" as he sat in his comfortless garret, and he bought "the glory of them" at the price demanded.

Louis Lambert's lonely life of three years in Paris after leaving college, is an illustration of the "isolation of power." He was strong enough to lift his intellectual nature above the plane of self-gratification, compelling it to serve him in his efforts to put into form the revelations of his soul. This strength compels isolation, in that it prevents conformity to cut-and-dried theories and unseeing and unquestioning acceptance of self-declared authority, substituting instead unswerving allegiance to the inner wisdom.

It is a strength that withstands while it upbuilds -- withstands the temptations to intellectual intoxication and aggression, while it steadily incorporates the ideal belonging to a higher level till this ideal becomes the "living Word." It is a strength that is more than physical, more than mental; a power that is not of this world -- not of the shadow but of the