martyrs have smiled amid the torture?
How is it that the profound sinner who lives
for pleasure can at last feel stir within himself
the divine afflatus?

In both these cases the possibility has arisen
of finding the way; but too often that
possibility is killed by the overbalance of the
startled nature. The martyr has acquired a
passion for pain and lives in the idea of heroic
suffering; the sinner becomes blinded by the
thought of virtue and worships it as an end,
an object, a thing divine in itself; whereas it
can only be divine as it is part of that infinite
whole which includes vice as well as virtue.
How is it possible to divide the infinite,--that
which is one? It is as reasonable to lend
divinity to any object as to take a cup of water
from the sea and declare that in that is contained
the ocean. You cannot separate the
ocean; the salt water is part of the great sea
and must be so; but nevertheless you do not
hold the sea in your hand. Men so longingly
desire personal power that they are ready to
put infinity into a cup, the divine idea into a
formula, in order that they may fancy themselves
in possession of it. These only are those
who cannot rise and approach the Gates of
Gold, for the great breath of life confuses
them; they are struck with horror to find how