eals, and, so far as
you had any sense at all, would probably be very comfortable indeed? Is
there no "punishment" in this deprivation of the highest and finest
things that we can conceive of?

It seems to me that a person who has deteriorated, who has become
selfish, who has become mean, who has lost all taste for high and fine
and sweet things, and is unconscious of them, is having meted out to
him the worst conceivable retribution. If a man is mean and knows it,
if a man is selfish and is conscious of it, if a man is unjust and is
stung by the reflection, there is a little hope for him, there is life
there, there is moral vitality, there is a chance for him to
recuperate, to climb up into something higher and finer; but, if he has
not only become degraded and mean, but has become contented in that
condition, it seems to me that he is worse off than almost anybody else
of whom we can dream.

Let us see for a moment on what conditions a man who has deteriorated
is well off. There are three big "ifs" in the way, in my thought of it.
If a man really is a spiritual being, if he is a child of God, if there
are in him possibilities of unfolding of all that is sweet and divine,
then he is not well off when he is not developing these, and is content
not to develop them. Browning says, in his introduction to "Sordello,"
"The culture of a soul, little else is of any value."

If we are souls, and if the culture of a soul is of chiefest
importance, then cursed beyond all words is the man who has
deteriorated and become degraded and is content to have it so. Blessed
beyond all words is the soul that is haunted by discontent, haunted by
unattained and unattainable ideals, who is restless because of that
which he feels he might be and yet is not, he who is touched by the
far-off issues of divinity, and cannot rest until he has grown into
the stature of the Divine!

And then, once more, if it be true that it is worth our while to help
our fellow-men in the higher side of their nature, to help them be men
and women, to help them realize that they are children of God, and to
grow into the realization of it, if, I say, this be worth while, then
lamentable beyond all power of expression is the condition of that man
who does not feel it and does not care for it, and does not consecrate
himself to its attainment. Look over the long line of those who have
served mankind. Who are they? From Abraham down, the prophets of
Israel; Jesus, P