CHAPTER VII TRAINING THE INNER LIFE I. _Environment and Character_ A psychological principle we should never lose sight of is that the attitude of mind and heart towards all moral questions is just what we choose to make it. Surround a man with debasing associations, and let him yield to the resulting influences, and he becomes debased. On the other hand, the influence of a pure and noble environment makes for purity and nobility of character. Every man in his inner character, and in that outward expression of character that we call life, is the product of the influences to which he yields himself. One of our chief dangers, however, is that many influences flow out from our daily environment of which we are quite unconscious. We are not always in a position to realize our surroundings and their effect, and even when we can realize them, it is often beyond our power to control them. But before an external influence can work any hurt to us, there must be something {91} within that answers to it. A child may pass unscathed through an environment of vice, because there is nothing in the child-heart that responds to the call of sin. Our Lord had this in mind, perhaps, when He laid it down as a condition necessary to entrance into the Kingdom of God that we should become as little children,[1] and He was able to make this condition quite absolute, because while no man can control his external environment and the consequent influences, he can, by the deliberate use of his will, acting in the power of the Holy Ghost, create, in very large measure, whatever interior condition he wishes. By his daily course he can develop a moral and spiritual interior that will habitually respond with alacrity to the evil and be deaf to the good; or, on the other hand, one that will not only rise up quickly to entertain every good influence and suggestion, but will in a large measure (though never wholly in this life) be even unconscious like little children of the presence of evil influences.[2] {92} So let us learn how to create an interior environment in which the Holy Ghost will be the dominant force. Otherwise Satan will surely surround us with so much of sin, that becoming accustomed to it, and to the thought of it, we shall be unable to resist the effort he will make to use our faculties as instruments for his work. Nor must we wait until conscious of his approach before seeking to create the proper interior environment. In most cases it will then be too late. It is not easy to surround ourselves with an atmosphere of good and pious thought in the moment of assault. We must be beforehand with him. In times of peace we must prepare for war.