"When subsequently I read Maeterlinck's fine book, _The Treasure of the Humble_, my belief in this was strengthened, for he made the same observation. When I finally took in hand my own spiritual education, I found that this was the principal point, and by watching my thoughts I prevented them breaking out into action. Now for the first time I understood why I had so often in my life thought myself unjustly accused and punished for offences which I had not committed. I confess now that I had committed them in thought. But how did men know that? Assuredly there is a hidden justice which punishes sins of thought, and when men make each other accountable for suspicions, ugly looks or feelings, they are right. That is a hard saying, but it is so." =Sins of Will.=--The teacher continued: "There are also sins of wish and volition. You know that one can hate and worry a man dead. I was once in a watering-place in which the hotel proprietor had introduced a sort of monopoly. He had arrogated to himself the privilege of alone providing food for the boarders. He starved them by cooking the goodness out of the meat before he roasted it, by making soup of rye-meal, and so on. The boarders were patient, and no one wished to make a disturbance. But their hatred of the man increased. After a month I observed that the hotel proprietor began to look yellow in the face and to pine away. As he sat at his bar he became the object of glances full of hatred. At last, one day, the whole company, a hundred in number, rose during the midday meal and departed. Then the proprietor became ill of a liver disease. It seemed as though the collected gall of all the guests had somehow transferred itself to his liver, and curdled there. He vanished; they had killed him. But their hatred was this time justified, or quite natural. "When, however, we hate a man because he will not admire us or further our selfish interests, we may become simply murderers. That, however, depends on the behaviour of the other. If he is innocent in the matter, he will be immune and irreceptive of the poison. I know a person who hated me because she could not rob me. She was a servant to whom I had shown nothing but kindness. Her hate did not affect me so long as I was upright." =The Study of Mankind.=--The teacher said: "One ought not to attempt to study men. Partly because they do not lay themselves open to be studied, partly because they are aware when they became objects of deliberate investigation. He who does not give himself, receives nothing. He who does not approach men in a spirit of sympathy, finds no point of contact with them. When I regard them as companions in misfortune, fellow-wanderers in the wilderness, they open themselves to me. If I expose myself, I show a confidence in them, which meets with a response. If I approach them with suspicion, they show suspicion. If anyone visits me, in order to examine me, I let him sit for his portrait to me.