.

Still, as years go by, I think I can sympathise more with those who have
been trained up in other schools of thought and experience. I was
reading in a book lately that we are largely responsible for our {172}
own experiences, that we have a duty to get them of the right kind. The
book was by an American lady on social questions. I think there is truth
in her words.

_To D. B. K., head of a Public School Mission._

Eastbourne: October 1902.

I delight to know men better, because I find so much more in them than I
had expected. They differ from me, and I try to get out of the habit of
making them in my own image, and try to find the image in which God is
making them. I have been praying for you. I want a spirit of sanity and
sacrifice to possess you, that you may be able to see the good works
which God has prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. . . .

I am struck by the sacrifice which Christ demands. Unless the man hates
father, mother, family, friends, yea, and himself also, he 'cannot be'
His disciple, Christ gives them all back again--only 'with persecutions.'
We find more in the world, when we are 'crucified to it,' than ever
before; but there is a something added. We have a deeper joy in home
ties, in human love, in social life, in the changing seasons, in the dear
old earth. Only the joy has a note of sorrow, a pathos, which Christ
calls 'persecutions.' We see more in life, and yet we are in a measure
out of sympathy with our surroundings. We have heard and we can never
forget the sorrows of those who are 'one man' with us. There is more in
that word 'persecutions' than this, as no doubt {173} you have found.
But this, I think, is part of its signification, isn't it? . . .

I believe in your 'mission' even more than you do. It is men like you,
who through great tribulations strive to enter the Kingdom, that God
uses. The fact that you are two men, and that the true man--the
Christ--is painfully yet surely being 'formed' in you, means that you
will be able to appeal to others who are painfully conscious of their
double consciousness and are often the slaves of the lower, inhuman self.
Your wealth of affection will make you feel as St. Paul did--_teknia mou,
ous palin mechris ou morphothe Christos en humin_.

[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraph were
transliterated as follows: _teknia_--tau, epsilon, kappa, nu, iota,
alpha; _mou_--mu, omicron, upsilon;