Speaker 1: Spiritual strength. All things are wholly to the Holy mind,
All uses are legitimate impure, all occupations blessed and sanctified,
And every day a sabbath, a clear and firm head
must proceed and accompany a clear and gentle heart. Without
the first, the second is impossible, for the qualities of
purity and gentleness can only be reached through a clear
perception of right and wrong, and by the exercise of
an irresistible will. The strength of a powerful animal, or
of that animal force in man, which enables him to
gain the victory over others by attack and resistance, is
weakness compared with that quiet, patient, invincible will by which
a man overcomes himself and tames to obedience and trains
to the service of holy purposes. The savage passions of
his nature. Every dog can bark and fight, and every
foolish man can abuse fence with hard words and give
way to fits of bad temper. These things are easy
and natural to him, and require no effort and no strength.
But the wise man puts away all such follies and
trains himself in self control, trains himself to act unerringly
from fixed principles and not from the fleeting impulses of
an unstable nature. He who succeeds in so training himself
is able to train others in a small degree by precept,
but largely and chiefly by practice or example. For it
is pre eminently the prerogative of the wise to teach
by their actions. The mockeries of Herod, the accusations of
Thai people, and the fanatical persecutions of the priests have
all failed to draw from Jesus the word of complaint, bitterness,
or self defense. Such sublime acts of silence and self
control continue to reach for ages, both individuals and nations,
with far greater power and effect than all the words
and books uttered and written by the world's vast army
of priests and learned commentators. To retaliate and fight belongs
to the animal in man, as it belongs to the
beast of the forest. But to refuse to be swayed
from the practice of a divine principle by any external pressure,
to stand firm and unalterable in goodness and truth alike,
amid blame and praise. This belongs to the divine in
man and in the universe. To alter one's conduct in
order to please others or to avoid their censure or misunderstanding,
can never lead to spiritual strength. That divine kindness, which
always accompanies spiritual understanding and strength, is something very different
from merely saying pleasant words, for pleasant words are not
always true words, but consist in doing what is best
for the eternal welfare of the other person or persons.
The weak father, who is unfit to train children, only
considers how he can escape trouble with his children, and
so he slurs over their acts of disobedience and selfishness
and tries to please them. But the strong father, who
considers the future character and welfare of his children, knows
how and when to administer a severe reproof, fully understanding
that a few minutes pain caused by his rebuke may
save his child from years of suffering as a result
of loose living which is fostered by parental neglect. The strong, kind,
unselfish father, whose care is for his children's good and
not for his own immediate comfort, knows not only how
to be tender in affection, but tender in discipline, knows
how to stretch out the strong and severe arm of
restraint to save his little ones when they would ignorantly
wander away in wrong paths. So the man of spiritual
strength cannot be merely a weak framer of smooth words,
but a doer of right actions, an utterer of words
that are vital and true and therefore eternally kind. The
spiritually weak man shrinks from right when it is brought,
as by its nature it must be brought in opposition
to his desires, and he embraces sin because it is pleasant.
The spiritually strong man shrinks from sin more, especially when
it is presented to him in a pleasant garb, and
embraces right, even though by so doing he will bring
upon himself the odium of those who are ignorant of
divine principles and their beneficent application. The man of spiritual
understanding is as unbending as a bar of steel where
right is concerned, knowing that right alone is good. He
is as unresisting as water where self is concerned, knowing
that self alone is evil. Acting from imperishable principles and
not from the fleeting desires of self, his actions partake
of the imperishable nature of the principles from which they spring,
and continue to afford instruction and inspiration through unnumbered generations.
It is always the portion of one who so acts
to be misunderstood. The majority live in their desires and impulses,
following them blindly as they are brought into operation by
external stimuli, and do not understand what is meant by
acting dispassionately from right and fixed principles, with entire freedom
from self interest, such will necessarily misunderstand and misjudge the
right doer, regarding him as cold and cruel in his
unbearing adherence to right, or as weak cowardly in his
quiet refusal to passionately defend himself. He will therefore be
accused of many things, but this will not cause him
any suffering, nor will he be troubled or disturbed thereby,
for the truth which he practices is a source of
perpetual joy, and he will be at rest in the
knowledge that there are those who will understand and follow,
that he is working for the ultimate good, even of
his accusers, and that by manifesting the truth in his
daily actions, he is in the company of those divinely
strong ones who are leading the world into ways of
quietness and peace.