The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-11-23

you permit me to do this and get my
self into trouble7 You know how
headstrong and unreasonable am,
and you ought to have taken better
care of me-"
Now, this relation of responsibility
and dependence between the differ
ent elements in our nature, and OF
which the doctrine of dual personal
ity is of course only metaphor, ex-
plains the necessity for that frequent
and solitary communion with ones
own thought and feeling which, as we
have seen. is the secret OF strong in
dividuality. Between society and
solitude there is this relation, that
each is the complement of the other.
The ole enables us to understand
our neighbors; and the other makes
us acquainted with ourselves. The
former, whether consisting of the
companionship of living persons or
of books, imparts knowledge and in
spires feeling; the latter, with its
habit of self communion, facilitates
that process of mental and moral di-
gestion whereby the material alb
sorbed is changed into the fibre OF
personal conviction and principle.
The intellectual results of practic
ing this habit or neglecting it reveal
themselves in all conversation be-
tween two or more persons.
There are two kinds of converse
ton. Of these one is entirely super
fetal, and produced by outward
causes. To one who listens without
participating, it would seem as it,
instead of the words being suggested
by any real ideas in the minds of the
speakers, their tongues were connect
ed by some mysterious mechanism,
so that the movement of one set them
all in motion. 1t is as when, just be-
fore dawn, while as yet none of the
family are stir, traveller on a coun-
try road approaches farmhouse.
The watchdog barks, and hearing
this, the awakened geese begin to
scream, the hens echo the alarm, and
the turkeys add their voices to the
chorus, Then the traveller goes on his
way; the dog composes himself to
sleep again; those other voices which
his barking called into action are 81
fenced: and all is as it was before.
In conversation of this kind all mem
bers of the party speak at once; there
is much emotional laughter; and
scarce anyone knows or cares what
the others are saying.
But in conversation of the other
and better sort whoever speaks in
stantly commands attention because
whatever fuency he may possess or
lack, there is that in his tone and
manner which proclaims that he has
something to say; knows just what it
is; and will say it because he thinks
it. Like John the Baptist he has
come forth from the solitude of self
communion, bringing with him a
message which he there received; and
while the acting self speaks, the gov
erning self presides, insisting upon
strict mental integrity,-insisting that
the words which the lips utter shall
express only the thoughts that have
been fashioned in the mind, and of
which the judgment approves. This
is real conversation, the commuri ion
of mind with mind; and it is possible
only between those who by long and
deep self-communion have attained
to some degree of self-knowledge;
who know what they think and why
they think it; and whose habit OF
mental self-government renders it
certain that speech and thought will
be related as body and soul. No
greater contrast can be imagined
than that between this kind of talk
ing in which words are deliberately
chosen because of their fitness to ex
press ideas and feelings already ex
listing in the speakers mind as the
ripened product of observation and
experience, and that purely automatic
speech, which, being once started,
keeps on for no better reason than
that, owing to the law of inertia, it
finds motion easier than rest.
The moral results of self-compan-
ionship of course reveal themselves
in our conduct. That a person who
has accepted, as a social responsible
ity, the guardianship of his own moral
nature, and is determined to have no
secrets from his own soul, is more
likely to do right than wrong is evil
dent from the fact that we have every
motive for dealing honorably with
person in whose company the greater
part of our time must be spent. Let
ne say that the crisis of termination is