was in man_, Who spoke always down to man's deepest interests, dwelt and
spoke therefore in that realm of truth where man's own paradoxical
nature is most manifest; where his interests appear to flourish only by
being ruthlessly pruned; where he rises to the highest development of
self only by self-mortification. This is, in fact, the very lesson
Christ teaches in these words. To _find the life_ is the highest object
of every man and the end for which he was created; yet this can be
attained only by the _losing of it for Christ's sake_. Individuality can
be preserved only by the sacrifice of Individualism. Let us break up
this thought and consider it more in detail.

I. (i) Catholics, it is said, are the most fundamentally selfish people
in the whole world, since all that they do and say and think is
directed and calculated, so far as they are "good Catholics," to the
salvation of their own souls. It is this that continually crops up in
their conversation, and this that presumably is their chief
pre-occupation. Yet surely this, above all methods, is the very worst
for achieving such an end. One does not pull up flowers to see how they
are growing. The very secret of health is to be unconscious of it.
Catholics, on the other hand, scarcely ever do anything else; they are
for ever examining themselves, for ever going to confession, for ever
developing and cultivating the narrowest virtues. The whole science of
Casuistry, for example, is directed to nothing else but this--the exact
definition of those limits within which the salvation of the soul is
secure and beyond which it is imperilled; and Casuistry, as we all know,
has a stifling and deadening influence upon all who study it.

Again, see how the true development and expansion of the soul must
necessarily be hindered by such an ideal. "I must not read this book,
however brilliant, since it might be dangerous to my faith. I must not