m on the purpose of finding out the weak points to which special
attention and discipline should be directed. It is a very easy thing to
say, 'Oh, I am a poor, weak, sinful creature!' It would do you a great
deal more good to say, 'I am a very passionate one, and my business is
to control that quick temper of mine,' or, 'I am a great deal too much
disposed to run after worldly advantage, and my business is to subdue
that,' or, 'I am afraid I am rather too close-fisted, and I ought to
crucify myself into liberality.' It would be a great deal better, I say,
to apply the general confession to specific cases, and to set ourselves
to cultivate individual types of goodness, as well as to seek to be
filled with the all-comprehensive root of it all, which lies in union
with Jesus Christ. We have often to preach, dear brethren, that the way
of self-improvement is not by hammering at ourselves, but by letting God
mould us, and to keep the balance right. We have also to insist upon the
other side of the truth, and to press the complementary thought that
specific efforts after the cultivation of specific virtues and all the
more if they are virtues that are not natural to us, for the gospel is
given to us to mend our natural tempers--is the duty of all Christian
people that would seek to live as Christ would have them.

And how is this to be done? How am I to gird upon myself and to keep--if
I may transpose the metaphor into the key of modern English--tightly
buckled around me this belt which may hold in place a number of fine
articles of clothing?

Well, there are three things, I think, that we may profitably do. Go
down deep enough into yourself if you want to cure a lofty estimate of
yourself. The top storeys may be beautifully furnished, but there are
some ugly things and rubbish down in the cellar. There is not one of us
but, if we honestly let the dredge down into the depths, as far down as
the _Challenger's_ went, miles and miles down, will bring up a pretty
collection of wriggling monstrosities that never have been in the
daylight before, and are ugly enough to be always shrouded in their
native darkness. Down in us all, if we will go deep enough, and take
with us a light bright enough, we shall discover enough to make anything
but humility ridiculous, if it were not wicked. And the only right place
and attitude for a man who knows himself down to the roots of his being
is the publican's when 'he stood afar off, and would n