The strength that makes it possible to do this must be a strength like to the divine strength. A strength ordained from the foundation of the earth as a part of man's birthright, to become a part of himself, when he begins to try for himself to conceive of higher good and to live it. The man who thinks only as other men think, dares act only as other men act, is as a babe in swaddling clothes, helpless, dependent. One can never be strong until he learns to walk alone, independent of another's hand to cling to or another's strength to steady himself by. One must learn to stand on his own feet, learn to keep his own balance, learn to step by his own volition. If he does not he becomes a cripple. Most lives are as the lives of cripples, and we help to make them so by our continued trying to force people to cling to us and our ideas, frightening them into believing that they are in great danger if they try to step alone. A little trembling of the legs as one first stands alone is nothing to be alarmed at. A few falls and bumps as we first step out never seriously injure us. It is only when a life has strength to stand out alone, independent of its fellows, that its soul can take hold of God. And I fancy that it is only when a life thinks and acts for itself, and allows its fellow men to think and act for themselves, that it is in a condition to really give help and to receive help, really in a state of mind to fulfill the commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." It is one thing to be brave enough to do something which is hard to do but which your fellow men will approve of your doing, and an entirely different thing to do something hard but which your fellow men will not approve of your doing. Therefore I want to radiate into actual, living potentiality my belief that life consists in expression and not repression. By many this is taken to be a plea for license and want of self-control. Do not believe it! That is not what I mean. The expression of evil is not the expression of myself, for I long to do only good. Read what St. Paul says on the subject. And by "I," I mean my real self, as Paul did--not my lower self, my evil heredity, or whatever it is that seeks to drive away the good from me--I, the real I, the self which is, and which may not appear to the world, want to express all that is in that real self. That means that I must control, slay, kill, drive out all the evil that comes to me and demands that I express it as part of myself. It is not a part of my spiritual self, and if I express evil then I am not myself in that sense. But I want to have such perfect, such absolute control over all outward expressions that I shall ever and at all times express nothing but that which is good; and that which will be felt to be good by all people.