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.