WE HAVE NO LIFE APART FROM OTHERS 1. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? 2. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. 3. Whoever degrades another, degrades me; WE ARE ONE BODY And whatever is done or said, returns at last to me. 4. I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 5. When saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? Or when saw we thee sick or in prison, and came unto thee? 6. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 7. The same heart beats in every human breast. 8. Thou canst not, even if thou wouldst, separate thy life from that of humanity. Thou livest in it, by it, and for it. Thy soul cannot rid itself of the influence of the elements amongst which it moves. 9. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eye-lids. 10. To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away. 11. The body is not one member, but many. BUT MANY MEMBERS 12. If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, because I am not the eye I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? 13. If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole body were hearing, where were the smelling? And if they were all one member, where were the body? 14. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary. 15. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. THE SOCIAL 16. In order to understand what he is himself, a man must first know what that mysterious humanity is, which is formed of other men like himself, and who again are ignorant of what they are. SELF 17. Every man contains in himself the elements of all the rest of humanity. They lie in the background, but they are there. Some time or other to every man must come the consciousness of this vaster life. 18. By becoming one with the social self, the indivi dual, instead of being crushed, is made far vaster, far grander, than before. 19. The renunciation which he has to accept in abandoning merely individual ends is immediately compensated by the far more vivid life he now enters into. 20. In abandoning his exclusive individuality, he becomes for the first time a real and living individual; and, in accepting as his own the life of others, he becomes aware of a life in himself that has no limit and no end. 21. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. CHAPTER VII GOOD BEGETS GOOD IN THE WORLD AND 1. Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent propaganda. 2. Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent. 3. It is good neither to eat flesh or to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or made weak. THE SPREAD 4. Much of our lives is spent in marring our own influence, and turning others' belief in us into a widely concluding unbelief, which they call knowledge of the world, while it is really disappointment in you or me. OF EVIL 5. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is a part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled. 6. There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone. We cannot isolate ourselves, and say that the evil which is in us shall not spread. Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. 7. Moral evil is as infectious as the plague. Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. 8. Nothing is so contagious as example. It lets loose in our lives those bad actions which shame would have kept imprisoned. Therefore, tempt not contagion by proximity, and hazard not thyself in the shadow of corruption. 9. Men of character are the conscience of the society to which they belong. 10. As one lamp lights another, nor grows 11. less, So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. VIRTUE COMMUNICATES ITSELF No life Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife, 12. Great men are the fire pillars in this dark pilgrimage of mankind: they stand as everlasting witnesses of what has been, prophetic tokens of what may still be, the revealed, embodied possibilities of human nature. 13. Great deeds cannot die; 14. There is no death for that which dwells apart, 15. Ethics are thought not to satisfy affection. But all the religion we have is the ethics of one or another holy person; as soon as character appears, be sure love |