So likewise with the imagination. Perhaps no human faculty is responsible for so much sin, and there is a peculiar heinousness in sins of the imagination. In His mercy God has limited our sphere of sin. There are certain evils impossible for us because He has withheld us from the condition necessary for their commission. Instead, therefore, of being grateful for such a blessed limitation, we use the imagination to conjure up impossible situations. We create new worlds for ourselves, new theatres for our exploits of pride and wickedness, and in them, through will and imagination, we enact the sin that it would be impossible to commit in our actual external lives. This strong activity of the imagination can and must be directed. If this mysterious faculty be so prone to produce its own creations, if we indeed will dream of things that do not belong to the present moment, let them be holy things. Yes, let the imagination run as fast as it will, check it in nothing save in the subjects of its activity. Let it transport us to heavenly places. Let it picture to our astonished vision the things that will be hereafter, the company of heaven, {96} the companionship of the Saints, the glory of the Lamb. Or, if these ranges be too lofty, let the fancy create new earthly theatres for our activity. Let us picture ourselves following Jesus as He "went about doing good";[4] let us see Him healing the lepers, opening the eyes of the blind, raising the dead, blessing the little children; let us bring vividly before us the great example of His life; and let the picture so burn itself, through the power of the imagination, into the very fabric of the brain, that we cannot choose but make it the model for our own lives. So, after a time, the imagination will become so trained that it will ever be creating holy things, and presenting them for our consideration, and will become incapable, in the end, of producing any picture that could not find ready reflection in the stainless mirror of the human mind of our Blessed Lord. When we consider the method of thus training the inner man, we find that our course must be shaped by means of certain practices, which should be strenuously pursued if real progress is to be made. These practices will be, as à Kempis says particularly of one of them, as a rudder guiding the ship, keeping it on its proper course. {97} Those we shall consider especially are: (1) Constancy of mind and will; (2) Patience; (3) Calmness; (4) Diligence. IV. _The Practice of Constancy_ Thomas à Kempis says, "The beginning of all evil temptations is inconstancy of mind, and small confidence in God, for as a ship without a rudder is tossed to and fro by the waves, so the man who is slack and quits his purpose is many ways tempted."[5]