A man should ask himself
wherein he has chiefly failed, and come short of the glory of GOD:
whether he is loyally observing any self-imposed rule of life and
discipline, and fulfilling any resolutions which may have been made,
or any obligations which have been undertaken. Having made in this
manner an honest attempt to discover his own shortcomings and failures
before GOD, let him with equal honesty confess them, seek forgiveness,
and in the spirit of repentance and restored sonship start again.
The late Lieutenant Donald Hankey, better known as "A Student in
Arms," criticizes Churchmen of a certain type as being unwholesomely
preoccupied with the thought of their sins, and allowing their
consciences to become a burden to them. They should, he says, 'think
less of themselves, and trust the Holy Spirit more. The advice is
excellent: but morbid scrupulosity is not a common fault of English
laymen. The habit, as Mr. Chesterton expresses it, of "chopping up
life into small sins with a hatchet" is, of course, to be avoided: but
the purpose of self-examination and self-knowledge is not to encourage
morbid introspection, but by frank acknowledgment and repentance to
get rid of the past and with recovered hope and serenity to reach
forward towards the future.
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