monition your plan for the
general betterment of the race's condition, how would you word it?

Admonition

O.M. Diligently train your ideals UPWARD and STILL UPWARD toward a
summit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in conduct which,
while contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits upon your neighbor
and the community.

Y.M. Is that a new gospel?

O.M. No.

Y.M. It has been taught before?

O.M. For ten thousand years.

Y.M. By whom?

O.M. All the great religions--all the great gospels.

Y.M. Then there is nothing new about it?

O.M. Oh yes, there is. It is candidly stated, this time. That has not
been done before.

Y.M. How do you mean?

O.M. Haven't I put YOU FIRST, and your neighbor and the community
AFTERWARD?

Y.M. Well, yes, that is a difference, it is true.

O.M. The difference between straight speaking and crooked; the
difference between frankness and shuffling.

Y.M. Explain.

O.M. The others offer your a hundred bribes to be good, thus conceding
that the Master inside of you must be conciliated and contented first,
and that you will do nothing at FIRST HAND but for his sake; then they
turn square around and require you to do good for OTHER'S sake CHIEFLY;
and to do your duty for duty's SAKE, chiefly; and to do acts of
SELF-SACRIFICE. Thus at the outset we all stand upon the same
ground--recognition of the supreme and absolute Monarch that resides in
man, and we all grovel before him and appeal to him; then those others
dodge and shuffle, and face around and unfrankly and inconsistently and
illogically change the form of their appeal and direct its persuasions
to man's SECOND-PLACE powers and to powers which have NO EXISTENCE in
him, thus advancing them to FIRST place; whereas in my Admonition I
stick logically and consistently to the original position: I place the
Interior Master's requirements FIRST, and keep them there.

Y.M. If we grant, for the sake of argument, that your scheme and the
other schemes aim at and produce the same result--RIGHT LIVING--has
yours an advantage over the others?

O.M. One, yes--a large one. It has no concealments, no deceptions. When
a man leads a right and valuable life under it he is not deceived as to
the REAL chief motive which impels him to it--in those other cases he
is.

Y.M. Is that an advantage? Is it an advantage to live a lofty life for
a mean reason? In the other cases he lives the lofty life under
the IMPRESSION that he is