This is part of the programme. Individualism accepts this and
makes it fine. It converts the abolition of legal restraint into a
form of freedom that will help the full development of personality,
and make the love of man and woman more wonderful, more beautiful,
and more ennobling. Jesus knew this. He rejected the claims of
family life, although they existed in his day and community in a
very marked form. 'Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?' he
said, when he was told that they wished to speak to him. When one
of his followers asked leave to go and bury his father, 'Let the
dead bury the dead,' was his terrible answer. He would allow no
claim whatsoever to be made on personality.

And so he who would lead a Christlike life is he who is perfectly
and absolutely himself. He may be a great poet, or a great man of
science; or a young student at a University, or one who watches
sheep upon a moor; or a maker of dramas, like Shakespeare, or a
thinker about God, like Spinoza; or a child who plays in a garden,
or a fisherman who throws his net into the sea. It does not matter
what he is, as long as he realises the perfection of the soul that
is within him. All imitation in morals and in life is wrong.
Through the streets of Jerusalem at the present day crawls one who
is mad and carries a wooden cross on his shoulders. He is a symbol
of the lives that are marred by imitation. Father Damien was
Christlike when he went out to live with the lepers, because in
such service he realised fully what was best in him. But he was
not more Christlike than Wagner when he realised his soul in music;
or than Shelley, when he realised his soul in song. There is no
one type for man. There are as many perfections as there are
imperfect men. And while to the claims of charity a man may yield
and yet be free, to the claims of conformity no man may yield and