But let another test be put to this philosophy--the test of life. How does it work out? What are the best lives, the lives that are richest and that have most enriched the world? Are they those that have given free rein to every fancy, that have nurtured and brought to fruitage every growth of the heart's garden, whether it be thistle, brier, or poison root, or fair, nutritious product? Are they those that have given the tiger and the beast of prey free and full range of the life? There is striking unanimity in the answer. The rich and the enriching lives have been those that have come by the path of the cross; they have learned repression, practiced denial, and suffered death. In every sphere the lights that have illumined the way of man's advance have not been the dancing flames of selfish, sensual passion but the consuming of the bodies of the martyrs and heroes, either burning in their passion for others or denying and losing all rather than denying truth and light. The law runs through all; if you would have a perfect flower you must deny existence to many weeds, you must repress the rank growth, you must pluck off many a leaf and nip many a bud that the one may come to the fullness of its beauty. Through the grain of character goes the wise husbandman, and death is in his hand--the death of the less worthy, the harmful, and the enemy that life may abound yet more and more in that which is worthy. In those fields where all things grow in their own way the weeds become the standard for all; license brings all down to the level of the lowest. But life is not license--it is choice, selection, sacrifice, death. Pain is the only price at which perfection may be purchased. Self-realization comes not by permitting all things to have their way but by subjecting all parts to the securing of that high end. It is but cowardice that cries for the so-called natural outworking of everything within man; it seeks to save the labour of weeding, the pain of cutting here and pruning there. It asks only to be left alone. But that way lies the deepest pain of all, the pain of a life where there is nothing but tangles of weeds--no flowers, no capacities for joy, no power to will, no eye to see the good and true and beautiful. No; the great Teacher was right when He called for self-denial and self-victory. He only is great, he alone has found life who has learned to bring all his parts and faculties into service, who brings all his body and self into subjection that all may be keen and well kept tools in the work he is doing as a servant of his brothers and his age. This service gives the supreme and sufficient motive for the suppression and elimination of all things that might hinder; the development of the best self for the best service by means of the cutting off of anything that might hinder or thwart the high and holy service purposes of a life. THE FALLACY OF NEGATION