3. But a third protests: "So be it. I make no attempt to stop sins one
by one. My method is just the opposite.

I COPY THE VIRTUES

one by one."

The difficulty about the copying method is that it is apt to be
mechanical. One can always tell an engraving from a picture, an
artificial flower from a real flower. To copy virtues one by one has
somewhat the same effect as eradicating the vices one by one; the
temporary result is an overbalanced and incongruous character. Some
one defines a _prig_ as "a creature that is over-fed for its size."
One sometimes finds Christians of this species--over-fed on one side
of their nature, but dismally thin and starved looking on the other.
The result, for instance, of copying Humility, and adding it on to an
otherwise worldly life, is simply grotesque. A rabid temperance
advocate, for the same reason, is often the poorest of creatures,
flourishing on a single virtue, and quite oblivious that his
Temperance is making a worse man of him and not a better. These are
examples of fine virtues spoiled by association with mean companions.
Character is a unity, and all the virtues must advance together to
make the perfect man.

This method of sanctification, nevertheless, is in the true direction.
It is only in the details of execution that it fails.

4. A fourth method I need scarcely mention, for it is a variation on
those already named. It is