It is but cowardice that cries for the so-called natural outworking of
everything within man; it seeks to save the labour of weeding, the pain
of cutting here and pruning there. It asks only to be left alone. But
that way lies the deepest pain of all, the pain of a life where there
is nothing but tangles of weeds--no flowers, no capacities for joy, no
power to will, no eye to see the good and true and beautiful.

No; the great Teacher was right when He called for self-denial and
self-victory. He only is great, he alone has found life who has
learned to bring all his parts and faculties into service, who brings
all his body and self into subjection that all may be keen and well
kept tools in the work he is doing as a servant of his brothers and his
age. This service gives the supreme and sufficient motive for the
suppression and elimination of all things that might hinder; the
development of the best self for the best service by means of the
cutting off of anything that might hinder or thwart the high and holy
service purposes of a life.



THE FALLACY OF NEGATION

The ancient law that nature abhors a vacuum holds true in the moral
realm. The heart of man is never long empty. And yet the whole scheme
of modern ecclesiastical regulation of life is built on the plan of
making a man holy by emptying him of all evil and stopping there,
leaving a negative condition, without a thought of the necessity of
filling the void.