We
have been talking about Sir Thomas Malory and chivalry and ideals: there is
one thing you need to know--all of us need to know it--and to know it
well."Ideals are of two kinds. There are those that correspond to our
highest sense of perfection. They express what we might be were life, the
world, ourselves, all different, all better. Let these be high as they may!
They are not useless because unattainable. Life is not a failure because
they are never attained. God Himself requires of us the unattainable: 'Be ye
perfect, even as I am perfect! He could not do less. He commands perfection,
He forgives us that we are not perfect! Nor does He count us failures
because we have to be forgiven. Our ideals also demand of us perfection--the
impossible; but because we come far short of this we have no right to count
ourselves as failures. What are they like--ideals such as these? They are
like light-houses. But light-houses are not made to live in; neither can we
live in such ideals. I suppose they are meant to shine on us from afar, when
the sea of our life is dark and stormy, perhaps to remind us of a haven of
hope, as we drift or sink in shipwreck.
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