it. I will not stultify my own sense of right and wrong by ignoring what I deem to be wrong in another. I will reprobate it, for myself, and earnestly strive to be kept free from it, but, at the same time, I will see the good in all its beauty and power and will glorify it and accept it, and thank God that so much good does exist.

The whole question thus resolves itself to me: Shall I refuse to accept the good of certain men because they do many evil things? Shall I refuse to accept good except from those who are perfect? If so, from whom shall I gain good? From you, reader? Are you perfect? If you take that position you had better drop this book, here and now, for you cannot receive good from me, for too sadly do I know that neither the book nor its writer is perfect. Joaquin Miller perfectly expresses this thought in the introductory lines to his poem on Byron:

In men whom men condemn as ill,

I find so much of goodness still,

In men whom men account divine,

I find so much of sin and blot,

I hesitate to draw the line between the two,
Where God has not!

Let us be fearless, honest, just, frank. Too often we condemn people who have as much good as evil in them or more because we are afraid if we do not condemn the evil that they do, openly

and loudly, people will think we tolerate evil because we ourselves are evil. Hawthorne wrote his Scarlet Letter to teach us different. The harsh, stern, vindictively pure and good people — in my humble judgment—have many and grave sins to answer for as well as those whom they so mercilessly condemn. I condemn all that which appears evil to me, and I seek to avoid it, but I condemn no man, no woman. That is not my privilege, my work. Judgment belongs to God who knows all circumstances and understands all hearts. I know and understand very little, for I am very shortsighted and ignorant. How can any of us look with so severe an eye upon the sins of our brothers and sisters when we, too, are imperfect, ignorant, prone to wrong. John Wesley taught the people of his denomination very differently, though they haven't yet learned the lesson. One of his hymns

says:

To hate sin with all my heart
And yet the sinner love.

And the Lord of the whole Christian Church spoke in no uncertain terms when He said, " Judge Not," and in His action to those who brought the adulterous woman to Him clearly showed us what our attitude should be. Joaquin Miller wrote a much-needed lesson for this age, this civilization, this people (the puritanic American and AngloSaxon), when he took this incident in Christ's life

and made it the theme of his poem, Charity. May its high and sympathetic truths sink deep, so that henceforth you will be able to stand side by side with the Divine in dealing with sinful men and women, and while condemning the sin be able to say: "Go, and sin no more." And, remember, it is not for you to say which sin is most sinful in God's sight. You may know which is of greater horror to yourself, but it may be that the " darling sin" you cherish in secret, or the "weakness" of your life may be regarded by the Divine as of great culpability as well as the "horrible sin" you so much deplore and feel you must condemn so bitterly in another.

CHAPTER VII

RADIANCIES OF FEAR

FEAR EAR is the greatest enemy of mankind. It is the creator of evil, for many people sin through fear. It is the maker of cowards and moral weaklings, the foe of all progress, the barrier to advancement, physical, mental, spiritual. He who is afraid dares not, and he who dares not, knows not, feels not, enjoys not. The fearful do not live; they merely exist, in bondage to a terror that leaves them neither night nor day. They know few of the delights of achievement, for they are afraid to dare. Fear throttles endeavor, stifles hope, murders aspiration. It is a hydra-headed monster of protean forms. It is a liar and a coward, a beguiler and a thief, a sneak and a poltroon, a slanderer and a cur. It comes in a thousand guises sometimes as caution, then as tact, again as consideration for others, but ever and always as a deceiver and a destroyer.

If there is one thing above another that I wish I had learned in earliest youth, and I wish I had known enough to teach my children in their earliest days, it is perfect fearlessness. The only thing I

fear to-day is fear. To go through life afraid of this and that and the other, is to take away all joy, all spontaneity, all freedom, all aspiration, all endeavor.

I used to believe and teach that we should "fear God." But the word "fear" as here used is not the abject, groveling, contemptible feeling that so many people imagine it to be. God has made us in His own image. He wishes us to stand upright, and greet Him as filial beings should, proud and glad to come to Him as "Our Father."

Fear makes us whine and whimper before God, and go to Him in the same spirit of dread that leads the Indian to feel he must always be propitiating the powers that be. If he does not pray and sing and dance and smoke the good powers will be offended, and will injure him, and the evil powers will be made more evil and do him more harm than they otherwise would. Hence month in and month out, because of fear, he seeks by his dances, and smokings, and songs, and prayers to protect himself from evil by soothing their possible anger and quieting their fury against him.

There is much of this same spirit in our oldtime theology, and our present-day life. We are afraid of God. God doesn't want us to be afraid. Every man should therefore stand upright, afraid of neither God, man, nor devil. God is no tyrant to be turned from His purposes by sycophantic