and crucifying it steadily, I hope in the end to extirpate all."
To this, unfortunately, there are four objections: For one thing, life
is too short; the name of sin is legion. For another thing, to deal
with individual sins is to leave the rest of the nature for the time
untouched. In the third place, a single combat with a special sin does
not affect the root and spring of the disease. If you dam up a stream
at one place, it will simply overflow higher up. If only one of the
channels of sin be obstructed, experience points to an almost certain
overflow through some other part of the nature. Partial conversion is
almost always accompanied by such moral leakage, for the pent-up
energies accumulate to the bursting point, and the last state of that
soul may be worse than the first. In the last place, religion does not
consist in negatives, in stopping this sin and stopping that. The
perfect character can never be produced with a pruning knife.
3. But a third protests: "So be it. I make no attempt to stop sins one
by one. My method is just the opposite.