Whenever you feel an emotion of pain, have the courage to trace it to
its source, place this emotion in all its meanness before you, then
think how ridiculous it would appear to you if you contemplated it in
another. Finally, ask yourself whether there can be any indulgence of
such feelings in a heart that is bringing into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ,--whether there can be any room for them in a
temple of God wherein the spirit of God dwelleth.[39]
FOOTNOTES:
[37] 1 John iii.
[38] 1 Cor. xii. 25, 26.
[39] Cor. iii. 16.
LETTER V.
SELFISHNESS AND UNSELFISHNESS.
This is a difficult subject to address you upon, and one which you will
probably reject as unsuited to yourself. There are few qualities that
the possessor is less likely to be conscious of than either selfishness
or unselfishness; because the actions proceeding from either are so
completely instinctive, so unregulated by any appeal to principle, that
they never, in the common course of things, attract any particular
notice. We go on, therefore, strengthening ourselves in the habits of
either, until a double nature, as it were, is formed, overlaying the
first, and equally powerful with it.
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