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Show MAN'S GREATEST DUTY (By JOHN T. WOODBURY) It is a seductive philosophy no matter what else it is, that teaches a man to hide from himself, to take umbrage in a hocus pocus of words, to lose his better self in the siren voice of base desire, callow cal-low youth, unhallowed selfishness, or inconsiderate presumption. It is a sound philosophy, no matter what else it is, that teaches man that his greatest duty to himself, to his fellows and to his God is to relinquish the lower in favor of the higher life, the false for the true, the ignoble for the noble, the wrong for the right, the crass for the fine, the transitory for the abiding, the invalid for the valid, the ephemeral eph-emeral for the eternal, the form for the substance, the husk for the kernel. The road of genuine repentance is the only highroad there is. There are many other roads, 'tis true, but they are all low roads. All but the high road evade, though they cannot put off forever, for-ever, the inevitable meeting of the self. The foursquare meeting of the self is the final judgment. The sooner it comes to 'any man, the oftener it come to any man the better off he is. The meeting must purge him of cant, pretense, and sham if he is to achieve a character, for when he meets himself him-self in utter nakedness, he remembers re-members betimes his littleness, the wiles he used to deceive others, and they are before the face of his consciousness in stark reality. They are not to be avoided; they will not avaunt at his command; they are his; they are almost he; the gravest danger of all is that they shall become him, and become be-come he. In this repentance, in this conquest con-quest and exploitation of the self, knowledge is important, but it is not the only requisite. A new heart, a new will, a new regenerated regen-erated inner self, a self-shouldered responsibility is the sine qua non of success in this incomparable matter. This ever-continuing regeneration regenera-tion of the self from within better bet-ter equips a man "with power to carry out the greatest command God ever gave to him than all the wisdom of the ages. This great commandment is: "Bring to pass much righteousness of your own free will and choice." Such a society of men would be trustworthy. Such a society is the greatest need of the world. Such a society 'and only such a society soci-ety can bring the millenium with it, for the Kingdom of God is within the soul of man. |