|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: inquire into the causes of the change. These I traced to my lowness of
spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the
common, old, public, disconsidered sin of self-indulgence. Instantly
the text came in my head, "HOW CAN SATAN CAST OUT SATAN?" What? (I
thought) I had, by self-indulgence; and the following of pleasant
paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast myself wholly out of conceit
with my own character, and jeopardised the lives of James and Alan?
And I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in?
No; the hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by
self-denial; the flesh I had pampered must be crucified. I looked
about me for that course which I least liked to follow: this was to
|
