tances, must be made. Thus it is that
temptation, hard conflict, and bewildering perplexities usher in the
life of the Spirit. These are largely the results of our biological past
continuing into our fluctuating half-made present; and they point
towards a psychic stability, an inner unity we have not yet attained.

This realization of ourselves as we truly are--emerging with difficulty
from our animal origin, tinctured through and through with the
self-regarding tendencies and habits it has imprinted on us--this
realization or self-knowledge, is Humility; the only soil in which the
spiritual life can germinate. And modern man with his great horizons,
his ever clearer vision of his own close kinship with life's origin, his
small place in the time-stream, in the universe, in God's hand, the
relative character of his best knowledge and achievement, is surely
everywhere being persuaded to this royal virtue. Recognition of this his
true creaturely status, with its obligations--the only process of pain
and struggle needed if the demands of generous love are ever to be
fulfilled in him and his many-levelled nature is to be purified and
harmonized and develop all its powers--this is Repentance. He shows not
only his sincerity, but his manliness and courage by his acceptance of
all that such repentance entails on him; for the healthy soul, like the
healthy body, welcomes some trial and roughness and is well able to bear
the pains of education. Psychologists regard such an education,
harmonizing the rational or ideal with the instinctive life--the change
of heart which leaves the whole self working together without inner
conflict towards one objective--as the very condition of a full and
healthy life. But it can only be achieved in its perfection by the
complete surrender of heart and mind to a third term, transcending alike
the impulsive and the rational. The life of the Spirit in its supreme
authority, and its identification with the highest interests of the
race, does this: harnessing man's fiery energies to the service of the
Light.

Therefore, in the rich, new life on which the self enters, one strand
must be that of repentance, catharsis, self-conquest; a complete
contrition which is the earnest of complete generosity, uncalculated
response. And, dealing as we are now with average human nature, we can
safely say that the need for such ever-renewed self-scrutiny and
self-purgation will never in this life be left behind. For