if, growing up in the habitual use of time-honoured spiritual exercises,
we have truly learnt to know by our own experience, as by the example of
the Saviour set before us in the Gospel, that they are the support and
safeguard of all that is highest and purest and best in us, if only we
are careful to use them with sincerity and reverence.




VIII. AN UNANSWERABLE QUESTION.


"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one."--JOB xiv.
4.

This is one of those simple questions which, by their very simplicity and
directness, set us thinking about the importance of our personal life.

"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" But all our common life
is somehow the outcome of our separate individual lives--of your life and
mine. Therefore how important it is in the common interest that each of
us should look above all things to his own life and its character, for
this will determine his contribution to the life of his society.

Nearly all men are keen about the reputation of their society, about the
name it bears, about the way in which men think and speak of it.

Thus you are no doubt sensitive, almost every one of you, about the good
reputation of your school or your house, or any society with which you
may happen to be closely connected or identified.