forces. The subduing, modifying, redirecting, and transmuting of the antagonizing spiritual elements within, is the wonderful and mighty work which all men must, sooner or later, undertake. For a long time man regards himself as the slave of external forces, but there comes a day when his spiritual eyes open, and he sees that he has been a slave this long time to none and nothing but his own ungoverned, unpurified self. In that day, he rises up, and, ascending his spiritual throne, he no longer obeys his desires, appetites, and passions as their slave, but henceforth rules them as his subjects. The mental kingdom through which he has been wont to wander as a puling beggar and a whipped serf, he now discovers is his by right of lordly self-control—his to set in order, to organize and harmonize, to abolish its dissensions and painful contradictions, and bring it to a state of peace.
Thus rising up and exercising his right-
[ 51 ]
