a night with a sick person? Perhaps. All these acts may be good, and are better done for others than for oneself; but they may be bad, and, strictly speaking, are not absolutely necessary. One thing is undoubtedly useful and necessary, namely, to teach men to live rightly. But how to do that? There is one way—to live rightly oneself. Our error is, that men wish to teach so that the teaching shall be seen in visible results; to which end one must inevitably teach by words. But to teach by one's life is the surest of sure ways; only often, almost always, one will not see the fruit. One thing remains then: to live rightly. Help me, God!
*****
People are for ever finding they cannot live together.
"I cannot live with him." "Ah, you cannot? Then give up living altogether, for it is precisely with him you are meant to live." Or, "I wish to plough,—only not this field" (which is the first that has to be ploughed). "Then it seems you are only pretending, and that you do not wish to plough."
So it was with me, in regard to
