important and of intimate connection to a man engaged in a train
of reflections, than the house or apartment in which he dwells.
The mind may aptly be described under the denomination of the
"stranger at home." On set occasions and at appropriate times we
examine our stores, and ascertain the various commodities we
have, laid up in our presses and our coffers. Like the governor
of a fort in time of peace, which was erected to keep out a
foreign assailant, we occasionally visit our armoury, and take
account of the muskets, the swords, and other implements of war
it contains, but for the most part are engaged in the occupations
of peace, and do not call the means of warfare in any sort to our
recollection.

The mind may aptly be described under the denomination of the
"stranger at home." With their bodies most men are little
acquainted. We are "like unto a man beholding his natural face
in a glass, who beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and
straightway forgetteth what manner of man he is." In the
ruminations of the inner man, and the dissecting our thoughts and
desires, we employ our intellectual arithmetic, we add, and
subtract, and multiply, and divide, without asking the aid,
without adverting to the existence, of our joints and members.
Even as to the more corporeal part of our avocations, we behold
the external world, and proceed straight to the object of our
desires, without almost ever thinking of this medium, our own
material frame, unaided by which none of these things could be
accomplished. In this sense we may properly be said to be
spiritual existences, however imperfect may be the idea we are
enabled to affix to the term spirit.