Yet, for the help and comfort of even such a refuser as this, I would
say: Nothing which you reject can be such as it seems to you. For a
thing is either true or untrue: if it be untrue, it looks, so far like
itself that you reject it, and with it we have nothing more to do; but,
if it be true, the very fact that you reject it shows that to you it has
not appeared true,--has not appeared itself. The truth can never be even
beheld but by the man who accepts it: the thing, therefore, which you
reject, is not that which it seems to you, but a thing good, and
altogether beautiful, altogether fit for your gladsome embrace,--a thing
from which you would not turn away, did you see it as it is, but rush to
it, as Dante says, like the wild beast to his den,--so eager for the
refuge of home. No honest man holds a truth for the sake of that because
of which another honest man rejects it: how it may be with the
dishonest, I have no confidence in my judgment, and hope I am not bound
to understand.
Let us then, my friends, beware lest our opinions come between us and
our God, between us and our neighbour, between us and our better selves.
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