ver ye would that others
should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." One of the best tests we
can apply to ourselves is to imagine ourselves in the place of others.
Suppose we were conscious of homely features, ungainly forms and awkward
manners, or of lack of information or knowledge; suppose we were in such
straitened circumstances that we were obliged to wear coarse, cheap,
unsuitable or unbecoming garments how would we feel and how would we
wish to be treated? And if we find within ourselves an unwillingness to
be judged by this standard, or to conform our conduct to it, then we
should realize that we do wrong, that we are wrong in spirit. Then
should come the conscious effort to do right, to change our spirit from
selfishness to unselfishness, from unkindness to kindness. This is the
work that no human being can do for us. Every individual soul must pass
through that struggle alone. Whenever we are conscious of the necessity
of a decision between doing right and doing wrong, even though we may
feel indisposed to do the right and disposed to do the wrong, yet if we
can _will_ to do the right we have taken a step toward God and heaven;
we have begun the unfolding of the moral and spiritual nature.

Now I have before said that an intellectual culture may be, so to speak,
veneered upon us, but a spiritual culture must come from within outward.
In botany you learn of two kinds of plants--those which grow by external
accretions, as bulbs, which, are called exogenous? and plants which
grow within outward, which are called endogenous A great philosopher has
said that "man is that noble endogenous plant which grows, like the
palm, from within outward." The culture of the heart and the growth of
the spiritual nature is wholly individual; it depends on ourselves
alone. Parents and teachers can furnish the surroundings and the
accessories which they hope will most help to nourish this spiritual
growth, but they can do no more. And often how bitterly are they
disappointed when they see that, in spite of admonition and instruction
and entreaty and example, and every external help and incentive, the
inner nature, the heart, the soul of child or pupil is not assimilating
spiritual truth, is not growing "in grace and in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord."

And now I pass from the consideration of that experience which is the
foundation of a lovely character to consider some of the forms of
outward expression of this inward