The true childhood comes to the
surface, and you see what the boy is meant to be always. Look at the
jerkiness of the conceited man. Look at the quiet _fluency_ of motion in
the modest man. Look how anger itself which forgets self, which is
unhating and righteous, will elevate the carriage and ennoble the
movements.
But how far can the same rule of _omission_ or _rejection_ be applied
with safety to this deeper character--the manners of the spirit?
It seems to me that in morals too the main thing is to avoid doing
wrong; for then the active spirit of life in us will drive us on to the
right. But on such a momentous question I would not be dogmatic. Only as
far as regards the feelings I would say: it is of no use to try to make
ourselves feel thus or thus. Let us fight with our wrong feelings; let
us polish away the rough ugly distortions of feeling. Then the real and
the good will come of themselves. Or rather, to keep to my figure, they
will then show themselves of themselves as the natural home-produce, the
indwelling facts of our deepest--that is, our divine nature.
Here I find that I am sinking through my subject into another and
deeper--a truth, namely, which should, however, be the foundation of all
our building, the background of all our representations: that Life is at
work in us--the sacred Spirit of God travailing in us.
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