We must remember always that it is not the repression or concealment
of resentment and resistance, and forbearing to express them, that
can free us from bondage to others; it is overcoming any trace of
resentment or resistance within our own hearts and minds. If the
resistance is in us, we are just as much in bondage as if we
expressed it in our words and actions. If it is in us at all, it
must express itself in one way or another,--either in ill-health, or
in unhappy states of mind, or in the tension of our bodies. We must
also remember that, when we are on the way to freedom from such
habits of resistance, we may suffer from them for a long time after
we have ceased to act from them. When we are turning steadily away
from them, the uncomfortable effects of past resistance may linger
for a long while before every vestige of them disappears. It is like
the peeling after scarlet fever,--the dead skin stays on until the
new, tender skin is strong underneath, and after we think we have
peeled entirely, we discover new places with which we must be
patient. So, with the old habits of resistance, we must, although
turning away from them firmly, be steadily patient while waiting for
the pain from them to disappear. It must take time if the work is to
be done thoroughly,--but the freedom to be gained is well. worth
waiting for.

One of the most prevalent forms of bondage is caring too much in the
wrong way what people think of us. If a man criticises me I must
first look to see whether he is right. He may be partly right, and
not entirely,--but, whatever truth there is in his criticism, I want
to know it in order that I may see the fault clearly myself and
remedy it. If his criticism is ill-natured it is not necessarily any
the less true, and I must not let the truth be obscured by his
ill-nature. All, that I have to do with the ill-nature is to be