Yes to Life block one
so far i have spoken of temporary alterations produced by shifting excitements in the same person but the relatively fixed differences of character of different persons are explained in a precisely similar way in a man with the liability of a special sort of emotion whole ranges of inhibition habitually vanish which in other men remain effective and other sorts of inhibition take their place when a person has an inborn genius for certain emotions his life differs strangely from that of other people ordinary for none of their usual deterrents check him your mere aspirant to a type of character on the contrary only shows when your natural lover fighter or reformer with whom the passion is a gift of nature comes along the hopeless inferiority of voluntary to instructive action he has deliberately to overcome his inhibitions the genius with the inborn passion seems not to feel them at all he is free of all their inner friction and nervous waste to a fox the obstacles omnipotent over those around them are as if non-existent could the rest of us so disregard them there might be many such heroes for many have the wish to live for similar ideals and only the adequate degree of inhibition quenching fury is lacking
the difference between willing and merely wishing between having ideals that are creative and ideals that are but pining and regrets thuse depends solely either on the amount of steam pressure chronically driving the character in the ideal direction or on the amount of ideal excitement transiently acquired given a certain amount of love indignation generosity magnanimity admiration loyalty or ethusiasm of self-surrender the results is always the same the whole raft of cowardly obstructions which in tame persons and dull moods are sovreign impediments to action sinks away at once our conventionality our shyness laziness and stinginess our demands for precedent and permission for guarantee and surety our small suspicions timidities despairs where are they now severed like cobwebs broken like bubbles in the sun the flood we are borns on rolls them so lightly under that their very content is unfelt set free of them we float and soar and sing this aural openness and uplift gives to all creative ideal levels a bright and caring quality which is nowhere more marked than where the controlling emotion is religious the true monk takes nothing with him but his lyre we may now turn from these psychological generalities to those fruits of the religious state which form the man who lives in his religious center of personal energy and is actuated by spiritual enthusiasms differs from his previous carnal self in perfectly definite ways the new ardor which burns in his breast consums in its flow the lower noes which formerly beset him and keeps him immune against infection from the entire groveling portion of his nature magnanimities once impossible are now easy paltry conventionalities and mean incentives once tyrannical no longer hold sway the stone wall inside of him has fallen the hardness in his heart has broken down the rest of us can imagine this by recalling those temporary moods into which either the trials of real life or the theatre or a novel sometimes throws us especially if we weep for it is then as if our tears broke through an inveterate inner dam and lets all sort of ancient feelings drain away leaving us now washed and soft of heart and open to every noble leading with most of the customary hardness quickly returns but not so with saintly persons many saints have possessed what the church reveres as a special grace that so called gift of tears in those persons the melting mood seems to have held almost uniterrupted control and as it is with tears and melting moods so it is with other exalted affections their reign may come by gradual growth or by a crisis but in either case it may have come to stay
in the ebbs of emotional excitement meaner motives might temporarily prevail and backsliding might occur but that lower temptation may remain far apart from transient emotion the most numerous are that of reformed drunkards converted at three in the afternoon and getting drunk in the hay-field the next day but after that permanently cured of his appetite from this hour drink had no terrors for me i never touch it never want it the same thing occurred with my pipe the desire for it went at once and never returned so that with every known sin the deliverance in each case being permanent and complete i have had no temptations since conversion lord i must have this blessing are you willing to give up everything to the lord question after question kept coming up to which I said yes Lord yes Lord until this came why do you not accept it now and i said I do Lord i fellt no particular joy only a trust just then the meeting closed and as i went out into the street i met a gentleman smoking a fine cigar and a cloud of smoke came into my face amd i took a long deep breath of it and praise the Lord all my appetite for it was gone and then as i walked along the street passing saloons where the fumes of liquor came out i found that all my tastes and longings for that accursed stuff was gone Glory to God! for ten or eleven long years after that i was in the wilderness with its ups and downs my appetite for liquor never came back the classic case is that of a man cured of sexual temptation in a single hour to mr spears the colonel said i was effectively cured of all inclination to that sin i was so strongly addicted to that i thoughts nothing short of shooting me in the head could have cured me of it and all desire and inclination to it was removed as entirely as if i had been a suckling child nor did the temptation return to this day one thing i have heard the colonel frequently say that he was much addicted to impurity before his acquaintance with religion but that so soon as he became enlightened from above he felt the power of the Holy Ghost changing his nature so wonderfully that his sanctification in the respect seemed remarkable such rapid abolition of ancient impurities reminds us strongly of what has been observed as the result of a hypnotic suggestion that it is difficult not to believe that subliminal influences play the decisive
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the difference between willing and merely wishing between having ideals that are creative and ideals that are but pining and regrets thuse depends solely either on the amount of steam pressure chronically driving the character in the ideal direction or on the amount of ideal excitement transiently acquired given a certain amount of love indignation generosity magnanimity admiration loyalty or ethusiasm of self-surrender the results is always the same the whole raft of cowardly obstructions which in tame persons and dull moods are sovreign impediments to action sinks away at once our conventionality our shyness laziness and stinginess our demands for precedent and permission for guarantee and surety our small suspicions timidities despairs where are they now severed like cobwebs broken like bubbles in the sun the flood we are borns on rolls them so lightly under that their very content is unfelt set free of them we float and soar and sing this aural openness and uplift gives to all creative ideal levels a bright and caring quality which is nowhere more marked than where the controlling emotion is religious the true monk takes nothing with him but his lyre we may now turn from these psychological generalities to those fruits of the religious state which form the man who lives in his religious center of personal energy and is actuated by spiritual enthusiasms differs from his previous carnal self in perfectly definite ways the new ardor which burns in his breast consums in its flow the lower noes which formerly beset him and keeps him immune against infection from the entire groveling portion of his nature magnanimities once impossible are now easy paltry conventionalities and mean incentives once tyrannical no longer hold sway the stone wall inside of him has fallen the hardness in his heart has broken down the rest of us can imagine this by recalling those temporary moods into which either the trials of real life or the theatre or a novel sometimes throws us especially if we weep for it is then as if our tears broke through an inveterate inner dam and lets all sort of ancient feelings drain away leaving us now washed and soft of heart and open to every noble leading with most of the customary hardness quickly returns but not so with saintly persons many saints have possessed what the church reveres as a special grace that so called gift of tears in those persons the melting mood seems to have held almost uniterrupted control and as it is with tears and melting moods so it is with other exalted affections their reign may come by gradual growth or by a crisis but in either case it may have come to stay
in the ebbs of emotional excitement meaner motives might temporarily prevail and backsliding might occur but that lower temptation may remain far apart from transient emotion the most numerous are that of reformed drunkards converted at three in the afternoon and getting drunk in the hay-field the next day but after that permanently cured of his appetite from this hour drink had no terrors for me i never touch it never want it the same thing occurred with my pipe the desire for it went at once and never returned so that with every known sin the deliverance in each case being permanent and complete i have had no temptations since conversion lord i must have this blessing are you willing to give up everything to the lord question after question kept coming up to which I said yes Lord yes Lord until this came why do you not accept it now and i said I do Lord i fellt no particular joy only a trust just then the meeting closed and as i went out into the street i met a gentleman smoking a fine cigar and a cloud of smoke came into my face amd i took a long deep breath of it and praise the Lord all my appetite for it was gone and then as i walked along the street passing saloons where the fumes of liquor came out i found that all my tastes and longings for that accursed stuff was gone Glory to God! for ten or eleven long years after that i was in the wilderness with its ups and downs my appetite for liquor never came back the classic case is that of a man cured of sexual temptation in a single hour to mr spears the colonel said i was effectively cured of all inclination to that sin i was so strongly addicted to that i thoughts nothing short of shooting me in the head could have cured me of it and all desire and inclination to it was removed as entirely as if i had been a suckling child nor did the temptation return to this day one thing i have heard the colonel frequently say that he was much addicted to impurity before his acquaintance with religion but that so soon as he became enlightened from above he felt the power of the Holy Ghost changing his nature so wonderfully that his sanctification in the respect seemed remarkable such rapid abolition of ancient impurities reminds us strongly of what has been observed as the result of a hypnotic suggestion that it is difficult not to believe that subliminal influences play the decisive
page 292
posted by Andrew B. Noselli at 10:01 AM
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