t to difference of
opinion among themselves, but to a divergence of character from the
pattern of feeling and life which he has been proposing to them. If in
any respects ye are unconscious of your imperfections, if there be any
'witch's mark' of insensibility in some spot of your conscience to some
plain transgressions of law, if in any of you there be some complacent
illusion of your own stainlessness, if to any of you the bright vision
before you seem faint and unsubstantial, God will show you what you do
not see. Plainly then he considers that there will be found among these
perfect men states of feeling and estimates of themselves opposed to
those which he has been exhorting them to cherish. Plainly he supposes
that a good man may pass for a time under the dominion of impulses and
theories which are of another kind from those that rule his life.

He does not expect the complete and uninterrupted dominion of these
higher powers. He recognises the plain facts that the true self, the
central life of the soul, the higher nature, 'the new man,' abides in a
self which is but gradually renewed, and that there is a long distance,
so to speak, from the centre to the circumference. That higher life is
planted, but its germination is a work of time. The leaven does not
leaven the whole mass in a moment, but creeps on from particle to
particle. 'Make the tree good' and in due time its fruit will be good.
But the conditions of our human life are conflict, and these peaceful
images of growth and unimpeded natural development, 'first the blade,
then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear,' are not meant to
tell all the truth. Interruptions from external circumstances, struggles
of flesh with spirit, and of imagination and heart and will against the
better life implanted in the spirit, are the lot of all, even the most
advanced here, and however a man may be perfect, there will always be
the possibility that in something he may be 'otherwise minded.'

Such an admission does not make such interruptions less blameworthy when
they occur. The doctrine of averages does not do away with the voluntary
character of each single act. The same number of letters are yearly
posted without addresses. Does anybody dream of not scolding the errand
boy who posted them, or the servant who did not address them, because he
knows that? We are quite sure that we could have resisted each time that
we fell. That piece of sharp practice in business,