Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/217

 they must be reduced to practice—they must be religiously obeyed—they must be made the laws of our life, before we may hope to experience the love and delight that are wrapped up within them.

We cannot, of course, learn and practice all these laws at once. That is not expected or required of us. But we are to do it by little and little, just as Raphael learned to paint and Mozart to play. And the task of learning the laws of our higher life, or of receiving truths into the understanding merely, is comparatively easy. Obeying them—living them—practicing them, in the parlor, in the kitchen, in the office, in the shop, in the counting-house, in the market-place, in the school-room, on the farm, at the fire-side, and in legislative halls—everywhere and always conforming our dispositions and conduct to their requirements, and so weaving these laws into the very fabric of our spiritual being, and making them, as it were, a part of ourselves—this is the laborious and difficult part of the work. And so it is with every art, trade or profession. Learning the rules is comparatively easy; reducing them to practice, is a task of far greater difficulty.

Hence we may see why doing the truth is so often urged and so strongly emphasized in the Sacred Scripture. "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life. " "Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" "My mother and my brethren are those who hear the