All Mental Discipline And Symmetrical Growth Are

We Are To Regard The Mind, Not As A Piece Of Iron To Be Laid Upon The Anvil And Hammered Into Any Shape, Nor As A Block Of Marble In Which We Are To Find The Statue By Removing The Rubbish, Nor As A Receptacle Into Which Knowledge May Be Poured; But As A Flame That Is To Be Fed, As An Active Being That Must Be Strengthened To Think And To Feel -- And To Dare, To Do, And To Suffer.

To Be Energetic And Firm Where Principle Demands It, And Tolerant In All Else, Is Not Easy. It Is Not Easy To Abhor Wickedness, And Oppose It With Every Energy, And At The Same Time To Have The Meekness And Gentleness Of Christ, Becoming All Things To All Men For The Truth's Sake. The Energy Of Patience, The Most Godlike Of All, Is Not Easy.

Remove From The History Of The Past All Those Actions Which Have Either Sprung Directly From The Religious Nature Of Man, Or Been Modified By It, And You Have The History Of Another World And Of Another Race.

Nothing But The Cross Of Christ Can So Startle The Spiritual Nature From Its Torpor, As To Make It An Effectual Counterpoise To The Debasing And Sensual Tendencies Of The Race. Favored By Temperament And Education, Individuals May Measurably Escape; But If The Race Is To Triumph In The Conflict Between The Flesh And The Spirit, Between The Lower Propensities And The Higher Nature, They Must, As Constantine Is Said To Have Done, See The Cross, And On It The Motto, "in Hoc Signo Vinces." By This Sign We Conquer.

The Infidelity That Springs From The Heart Is Not To Be Reached By A Course Of Lectures On The Evidences Of Christianity; Argument Did Not Cause, And Argument Will Not Remove It.