Lives of Alcyone

known something far better. Consequently, his next life shows a
distinct drop. There was here a certain amount of physical suffering,
which no doubt toughened his fibre even while it discharged some
portion s of his heavy karmic debt. In the succeeding incarnation he
had a great deal of emotional suffering. On the whole he bore it well
and nobly, and came out of it purified and strengthened. The
Peruvian life was clearly an opportunity for him to try his newly
acquired powers under the most favourable auspices, thereby not
only increasing them but setting up a habit of using them – creating
a momentum along the line of good. When this had been
accomplished, and when he had also achieved whatever result was
expected from that quaint Chinese incarnation in which he did little
more than leave his card on the Celestial Empire, back he came
again to the very scene of the original failure in Poseidonis to try
over again to the very scene of the original failure in Poseidonis to
try over again that terrible test. But the intervening lives had not
been spent in vain; they had done their work; this time he passed,
and passed triumphantly, not only leading a good life in the midst of
general iniquity, but even nobly sacrificing that life to an almost
exaggerated sense of duty. Thus the object of the evolutionary
forces was achieved and he was at liberty to pass on to the
development of another side of his character.
Returning now to the valleys in which our story of this life
opened, we find that Ulysses, the eldest son of Alcyone, though left
for dead upon the field of battle, afterwards recovered and,
gathering together a few men who had contrived to escape to the
hills, attempted a partial restoration of the ravaged estates. All the
cattle had been captured and all the crops destroyed, but he made a