Then there are conditions in life where yon will see individuals who seem to be made up of fragments; who never do anything continuously; who can not persist in anything as a pursuit; who seem to have ability in many directions, hut no tenacity of purpose. One of .these lives would seem to be adapted to commerce for a while, then he would be a lawyer, then he would be a book maker, and finally a teacher, or a clergyman, then he would turn speculator; these are the gathering up of some of the fragments of embodiments that were not finished. These fragmentary states are like threads. You may have seen work that was done on some of those ancient hand-looms, where there was not a continuous thread, but the ends of the woof were left to be afterward carefully gathered up, or cut off, to make the warp and woof complete. These fragmentary and erratic lives are like the broken threads, having this intention; that they are taking up those threads of other embodiments to carry them forward to complete the fabric of life. You may have in mind some who seem to possess peculiar traits, each of which are wonderful, in their way, who have intelligence and ability in almost every direction, yet no continued purpose; they are illustrations of this state to which we refer. Sometimes these erratic lives suddenly change when they reach a certain state; when these fragments are outworked and discarded, then the new line, whatever it may be that is to be taken up, will be carried on to completion.

Many embodiments beginning expression in one direction turn, in later years, toward something entirely different. The child and the youth may seem to have tendencies that point in one direction, but mature life will find them wholly changed. We call this an overlapping; where the previous embodiment had not finished expression in a certain line. Yon will see this illustrated in precocious children, whom fond parents and friends think will prove remarkable in some given direction; when childhood is past, the gift in the direction of the precocity ceases; parents and friends are disappointed; they had built hopes and expectations on their early promise, bat it proved to be fictitious only. All these instances are unaccounted for, except in the usual attempt to account for them by saying: the child's gifts have been spoiled by doting parents and unwise friends; but that which is perfect and genuine can not be perverted in any way.

If any gift is to serve a purpose in an embodiment it is fully expressed, but if it has served its purpose in a preceding embodiment it sometimes flashes like a parting gleam of light upon the consciousness in the next embodiment, to show that it has been, and then gives place to something else. We have known some who as children were very miserly, (this is not usual with children) who seemed to grasp money very closely, yet who entirely outgrow the tendency in later years. We have even known the very extreme of generosity in childhood, succeeded by avarice in later years. Oftentimes the things that were prized and looked forward to in childhood, one wholly rejects in mature years. The solution of the over-lapping is, that there is a line of expression to be finished in a given direction, and when that is finished, even if it is in childhood, the embodiment then takes up the line of that expression for which it is really intended.

These instances must serve not only to illustrate the frequent and intimate relation of an embodiment to a previous one, but they bear us directly on to the next step in our lesson: that of Reminiscence.

Reminiscence differs from memory As possession differs from the shadow of it. Memory is simply the register of passing events. Reminiscence is the essence of life; the fragrance or perfume of the flower of existence, whose fruition is in the Soul. Few lives, who are at all prepared to think on this subject, have not some reminiscence; none have the evidence of memory; some odor of a flower, some strain of music, the sight of a face upon the street, a conversation with some individual, who may be a stranger, the glimpse of a castle, will call up singular reminiscences unto such as we have referred to. So subtle, yet potent, are these, that were they fashioned, as they have been by poets and novelists, into song or story, they would form the soul of all the romance in the world.

All Oriental prophets, and ancient scholars; man; of the Grecian philosophers; modern writers of exalted romance; and poets of every age, have been aware of reminiscences of previous embodiments, or have made the heroes and heroines of their poems or novels to possess them. Pythagoras, being far advanced in embodiments, could perceive what he was in Mb previous existence, and that he did not finish the line of teaching that he intended; he had foretold in that previous embodiment that he would come as a teacher. All this was clearly stated in his teachings. He gave his followers to understand that he had reminiscences of long lines of life through which he had been advancing to reach the knowledge he had attained. Brilliant in science, as well as in morals and philosophy, the world accepts his perfect propositions in mathematics, but forgets Mb systems of ethics and philosophy, Plato's divine "Cosmos " included all past as well as present and future expressions. Wordsworth in Mb "Ode on Immortality;" Goethe and Schiller, and a score of others, illustrate the knowledge of reminiscence or the perception of it in the divine art of poesy. What other light than this divine reminiscence gleamed in upon that child, Bettina Von Arnem, to make her know that Goethe wag the genius of the hour? To whom other than the princess of a sacred past, in a kingdom not of earth, could Schiller have traced the "MyBtery of Reminiscence"? George MacDonald in his novel, "Portent," has distinctly made the hero and heroine know that they were upon the earth before. It is a sad, weird tale, but it serves to illustrate the truth of reminiscence.