prove to you that your consciousness of identity has undergone no change, I need but attempt to prove to you that you are the same individual that you were when a child, by referring to scars made upon your fingers in childhood, which still remain, by calling to mind traits of your childish character. All these proofs you would consider very much inferior to that proof afforded by an affirmation within you, which rises above all outward evidence. It is that to which the Book alludes when it says, "As he could swear by no greater, therefore he swore by himself." Although in your physical, intellectual, and moral being you have changed in every thing pertaining to your finite consciousness, yet there is that within you which tells you you are the same. Let one change follow another to eternity, you will not lose your consciousness of identity.
That which makes you differ from others does not enter into this absolute consciousness of identity. In other words, the thought, feeling, and affection which characterized you at any particular time of life has nothing to do with this absolute identification of self. Nothing by which the world knows me, or by which it knows you, enters in to form our inmost identity. We have an identity which lies deeper than everything external; and it is this identity, which admits of no change, which says that we are the same, and will forever remain the same identical beings to all eternity. No change of position, no change of character, no destruction of reputation, no conversion of happiness into suffering, presents the least difficulty in the way of identification. The man who has fallen, been ruined
