Granted, but what is this if it is not
Christ? What is Christ if He is not this? He who takes the highest and
most self-respecting view of his own welfare which it is in his power to
conceive, and adheres to it in spite of conventionality, is a Christian
whether he knows it and calls himself one, or whether he does not. A
rose is not the less a rose because it does not know its own name.
What if circumstances had made his duty more easy for him than it would
be to most men? That was his luck, as much as it is other people's luck
to have other duties made easy for them by accident of birth. Surely if
people are born rich or handsome they have a right to their good fortune.
Some I know, will say that one man has no right to be born with a better
constitution than another; others again will say that luck is the only
righteous object of human veneration. Both, I daresay, can make out a
very good case, but whichever may be right surely Ernest had as much
right to the good luck of finding a duty made easier as he had had to the
bad fortune of falling into the scrape which had got him into prison. A
man is not to be sneered at for having a trump card in his hand; he is
only to be sneered at if he plays his trump card badly.
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