God forgive me for these sins, as well
as for my sins in the opposite direction; but for these sins especially,
because I see them to be darker and more dangerous than the others.
"For there has been gradually revealed to me (what my many readings in the
lives of fanatics and ascetics ought to have taught me long before), that
there is a terrible gulf ahead of that not caring what men say. Of course
it is a feeling on which the spirit must fall back in hours of need, and
cry, 'Thou, God, knowest mine integrity. I have believed, and therefore I
will speak; thou art true, though all men be liars!' But I am convinced
that that is a frame in which no man can live, or is meant to live;
that it is only to be resorted to in fear and trembling, after deepest
self-examination, and self-purification, and earnest prayer. For otherwise,
Ludlow, a man gets to forget that voice of God without him, in his
determination to listen to nothing but the voice of God within him, and so
he falls into two dangers. He forgets that there is a voice of God without
him. He loses trust in, and charity to, and reverence for his fellow-men;
he learns to despise, deny, and quench the Spirit, and to despise
prophesyings, and so becomes gradually cynical, sectarian, fanatical.
Pages:
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89