es them to fellowship with him in the estimate of themselves and in
their efforts after higher attainments. 'Be thus minded' means, Think
as I do of yourselves, and do as I do in your daily life.

How did he think of himself? He tells us in the sentence before, 'Not as
though I were already perfect. I count not myself to have apprehended.'
So then a leading characteristic of this true Christian perfection is a
constant consciousness of imperfection. In all fields of effort, whether
intellectual, moral, or mechanical, as faculty grows, consciousness of
insufficiency grows with it. The farther we get up the hill, the more we
see how far it is to the horizon. The more we know, the more we know our
ignorance. The better we can do, the more we discern how much we cannot
do. Only people who never have done and never will do anything, or else
raw apprentices with the mercifully granted self-confidence of youth,
which gets beaten out of most of us soon enough, think that they can do
everything.

In morals and in Christian life the same thing is true. The measure of
our perfection will be the consciousness of our imperfection--a paradox,
but a great truth. It is plain enough that it will be so. Conscience
becomes more sensitive as we get nearer right. The worse a man is the
less it speaks to him, and the less he hears it. When it ought to
thunder it whispers; when we need it most it is least active. The thick
skin of a savage will not be disturbed by lying on sharp stones, while a
crumpled rose-leaf robs the Sybarite of his sleep. So the practice of
evil hardens the cuticle of conscience, and the practice of goodness
restores tenderness and sensibility; and many a man laden with crime
knows less of its tingling than some fair soul that looks almost
spotless to all eyes but its own. One little stain of rust will be
conspicuous on a brightly polished blade, but if it be all dirty and
dull, a dozen more or fewer will make little difference. As men grow
better they become like that glycerine barometer recently introduced, on
which a fall or a rise that would have been invisible with mercury to
record it takes up inches, and is glaringly conspicuous. Good people
sometimes wonder, and sometimes are made doubtful and sad about
themselves, by this abiding and even increased consciousness of sin.
There is no need to be so. The higher the temperature the more chilling
would it be to pass into an ice-house, and the more our lives are
brou