There is nothing fantastic, fanatical,
inhuman about it. It is within our reach--within the reach of every
man and woman; within the reach of the poorest, the most unlearned.
For how does St. Paul tell us that we can become like God?
'Wherefore,' he says, 'putting away lying, speak every man truth with
his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and
sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give
place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather
let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that
he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt
communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to
the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the
day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Do that, he says, and you will be followers of God, as dear children;
and thus will you surely save your souls alive. For they will be
inspired by the Spirit of God, the spirit of goodness, who is the
Lord and Giver of life; wherefore they cannot decay nor die, but must
live and grow, develop and improve perpetually, becoming better and
wiser,--and therefore more useful to their fellow-creatures, more
blessed in themselves, and more pleasing to God their Father, through
all eternity.
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