Spiritual pathology is a proper subject for direct observation
and analysis, like any other subject involving a series of living
actions.
In these living actions everything is progressive. There are sudden
changes of character in what is called "conversion" which, at first,
hardly seem to come into line with the common laws of evolution. But
these changes have been long preparing, and it is just as much in the
order of nature that certain characters should burst all at once from the
rule of evil propensities, as it is that the evening primrose should
explode, as it were, into bloom with audible sound, as you may read in
Keats's Endymion, or observe in your own garden.
There is a continual tendency in men to fence in themselves and a few of
their neighbors who agree with them in their ideas, as if they were an
exception to their race. We must not allow any creed or religion
whatsoever to confiscate to its own private use and benefit the virtues
which belong to our common humanity. The Good Samaritan helped his
wounded neighbor simply because he was a suffering fellow-creature. Do
you think your charitable act is more acceptable than the Good
Samaritan's, because you do it in the name of Him who made the memory of
that kind man immortal? Do you mean that you would not give the cup of
cold water for the sake simply and solely of the poor, suffering
fellow-mortal, as willingly as you now do, professing to give it for the
sake of Him who is not thirsty or in need of any help of yours? We must
ask questions like this, if we are to claim for our common nature what
belongs to it.
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