It is my conviction that such an act of open disgrace as he had been
guilty of, may be the outcome of evil more easy to cast off than that
indicated by home-habits embodying a selfishness regarded embodied in
families, and which perhaps are as a mere matter of course. There is
little hope of the repentance and redemption of certain some until they
have committed one or another of the many wrong things of which they are
daily, through a course of unrestrained selfishness, becoming more and
more capable. Few seem to understand that the true end is not to keep
their children from doing what is wrong, though that is on the way to
it, but to render them incapable of doing wrong. While one is capable of
doing wrong, he is no nearer right than if that wrong were done--not so
near as if the wrong were done and repented of. Some minds are never
roused to the true nature of their selfishness until having clone some
patent wrong, the eyes of the collective human conscience are fixed with
the essence of human disapprobation and general repudiation upon them.
Doubtless in the disapproving crowd are many just as capable of the
wrong as they, but the deeper nature in them, God's and not yet theirs
utters its disapproval, and the culprit feels it.
Pages:
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602