Such is our negative attitude.
Now if we are convinced that evil in ourselves has no power unless
we give it power, that is the first step toward making our efforts
positive and so negativing the evil. If we are convinced that evil
in ourselves has not only no power but no importance unless we give
it power, that is a step still farther in advance. The next step is
to refuse to submit to it and refuse to resist it. That means a
positive yielding away from it and a positive attention to doing our
work as well as we can do it, whatever that work may be.
There is one way in which people suffer intensely through being
negative and allowing their temptations to be positive, and that is
in the question of inherited evil. "How can I ever amount to
anything with such inheritances? If you could see my father and what
he is, and know that I am his daughter, you would easily appreciate
why I have no hope for myself," said a young woman, and she was
perfectly sincere in believing that because of her inherited
temptations her life must be worthless. It took time and gentle,
intelligent reasoning to convince her that not only are no inherited
forms of selfishness ours unless by indulging we make them ours, but
that. through knowing our inheritances, we are forewarned and
forearmed, and the strength we gain from positive effort to free
ourselves fully compensates us for what we have suffered in
oppression from them.
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