live for a while by this creed, and you will learn soon enough how much of hate and how little of love you are likely to receive. In all the points thus far indicated, and especially in the last, there is no place for half-way conduct. There must be a complete and absolute decision, with no petty and clever computations of consequences. And in addition to these more decisive rules of habit, there are many smaller ones which go to reinforce and make practicable the larger principles. For instance, there is the Gospel command: “Let the dead bury their dead.” The dead are the best people to do this work. If one refrain from controversy about what is past and gone, then one may give himself to tasks of positive construction, and not merely to that destructive work which, even if it be essential, should be subordinate. Many a memorial has been dedicated to those who destroy which should have been reserved for those who fulfil. And yet, one must not let himself be cheated. He must not even be thought to be easily duped. He must let the would-be clever people know that he reads their thoughts and knows what they are seeking. One may, as I have already said, read such thoughts quite thoroughly if one be no longer blinded by any selfishness of his own. Apart from this degree of self-defence, which is so far necessary, the better plan in general is to see the good side of people and to take for granted that there is good in them. Then it not only happens that they often make the effort to be good and become actually better through one’s appreciation of them, but it also happens that one is saved from a personal experience of regret or distress. For intercourse with persons whom one recognizes as bad, demoralizes one’s own nature, and in the case of sensitive persons may go so far as to have even a physical effect. What is bad needs no severity of criticism or of reproach. In most cases it needs only to be brought to the light. Then, even if the man protest that he is not bad, his conscience judges him. Therefore, when one must blame others, he should proceed with great calmness, speak of the matter without disguise and without glossing, but simply and without passion. Passionate reproaches seldom do good, and good people who lack sympathy are apt to be very trying. There is a kind of virtuous character not unfamiliar in some Protestant circles which to those who differ from its convictions seems to have no capacity for love. It is especially aggravating to young people, so that they often prefer the company of the vicious to that of moral but cold-blooded friends.