d upright, and unimpeached. For perhaps the most hopeless
people, morally speaking, are those people who, according to their own
confession, "have never done any harm." There is a good prospect for
those who are trying to grow better, however they may slip and flounder.
There is hope, on the other hand, for the desperately wicked--for the
very violence of one extreme precipitates the other; and sometimes the
best and purest souls have been swept by a thunder-shower of sin. But
those who rest upon the fact that they "have never done any harm," by
being so easily contented show but little moral vitality. There is no
aspiration in their natures. They seem to have no particular mission in
the universe; for, if they have never done any harm, they have done
little else. They are poorly fitted for this earth, which demands the
effort of all our faculties; poorly fitted for heaven, whose inhabitants
would not make harmlessness their chief characteristic. Their residence
and their paradise might be a great exhausted receiver, where there is
no gravitation to draw them down, and no air to send them up. But, in
truth, these people deceive themselves. Every man exerts a _positive_
influence, and cannot, if he would, be a mere negation in the world. In
the great conflict of good and evil there is no middle ground. There
are no compromises in God's government, and neutral men are the devil's
allies. "He that is not with me, is against me."

Let us see, then, how possible it is that _we_ may contribute to the
force of evil in the City. In other words, let us inquire--in what way
do respectable and harmless people, as they deem themselves, become
Allies of the Tempter?

In the first place, by their _customs_. And, chief of all, by the custom
of an intense and inconsiderate selfishness. How many there are who
require no other sanction for what they do than "that pleases me," or
"this gratifies me!" It is wonderful what a mighty agent _self_ is,
estimated by its own standards. It is the hero of every exploit, the
centre of every event, and the oracle of all opinions. It interprets the
purpose of the universe; it finds out exactly what the world was made
for. At least, a good many, apparently, have ascertained that the world
was made for them, and that they were sent into it to get what
gratification they can. And it appears sadly out of tune to them, if it
does not serve this end. In anything they do, therefore, they consider
only selfi