Self-love will not let us listen to
the truth about ourselves; it puts us in a passion both against the truth
and against him who tells the truth, as the history of the truth
abundantly testifies. Yes, your indignant protest is quite true. Self-
love has her divine rights,--no doubt she has. But you are not commanded
to attend to them. Your self-love will look after herself. She will
manage to have her full share of what is right and proper for any passion
to possess even after she cries out that she is trampled upon and
despoiled. My brethren, till you begin to crucify yourselves and to
pluck up your self-love by the roots, you will never know what a cruel
and hopeless task the Christian life is--I do not say the Christian
profession. Nor, on the other hand, will you ever discover what a noble
task it is--what a divine task and how divinely assisted and divinely
recompensed. You will not know what a kennel of hell-hounds your own
heart is till you have long sought to enter it and cleanse it out. And
after you have done your utmost, and your best, death will hurry you away
from your but half-accomplished task.
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