ull conviction
that, having told her aspirations, she had reached the height
desired, and was worthy of all praise.

Prayer-meetings in the old, orthodox sense are not so numerous as
they were fifty years ago; but the same morbid love of telling one's
own experiences and expressing in words one's own desires for a
better life is as common as ever.

Many who would express horror at these public forms of
sentimentalizing do not hesitate to indulge in it privately to any
extent. Nor do they realize for a moment that it is the same morbid
spirit that moves them. It might not be so pernicious a practice if
it were not so steadily weakening.

If one has a spark of real desire for better ways of living,
sentimentalizing about it is a sure extinguisher if practised for
any length of time.

A woman will sometimes pour forth an amount of gush about wishing to
be better, broader, nobler, stronger, in a manner that would lead
you, for a moment, perhaps, to believe in her sincerity. But when,
in the next hour, you see her neglecting little duties that a woman
who was really broad, strong, and noble would attend to as a matter
of course, and not give a second thought to; when you see that
although she must realize that attention to these smaller duties
should come first, to open the way to her higher aspirations, she
continues to neglect them and continues to aspire,--you are surely
right in concluding that she is using up her nervous system in
sentimentalizing about a better life; and by that means is doing all
in her power to hinder the achievement of it.

It is curious and very sad to see what might be a really strong
nature weakening itself steadily with this philosophy and water. Of
course it reaches a maudlin state if it continues.

His Satanic Majesty must offer this dose, sweetened with the sugar
of self-love, with intense satisfaction. And if we may personify
that gentleman for the sake of illustration, what a fine sarcastic
smile must dwell upon his countenance as he sees it swallowed and
enjoyed, and knows that he did not even have to waste spice as an
ingredient! The sugar would have drowned the taste of any spice he
could supply.

There is not even the appearance of strength in sentimentalizing.

Besides the sentimentalizing about ourselves in our desire to live a
better life, there is the same morbid practice in our love for
others; and this is quite as weakening. It contains, of course, no
jot of real affec