and we're outside them, and so we get into the way, when we
want them to be good, of giving them a punishment that's outside the
harm they've done, and trying to put the harm they are going to do
outside of their reach; and when they do the right thing, half the time
we don't help them to do it again. But that isn't God's way. Nothing is
ever outside of Him; and what happens after we have done a thing is just
what must happen, nothing more and nothing less, so that we can never
hope to escape the good or the evil of what we have done; for the way
things must happen is just God's character that never changes. You see
the reason we can choose between right and wrong when a tree can't, or a
beast, is just because God's power of choice is in us and not in them.
So we use His power, and when we use it right and think about pleasing
Him--for, you see, we know He can be pleased, for our minds are just
bits of His mind (as far as we know anything about Him; but of course we
only know a very little)--He puts a tremendous lot of strength into us,
so that we can go on doing right next time. Of course it's a low sort of
right when we don't think about Him, for that's the most of what He
wants us to do; but I tell you" (a little personal fire and energy here
broke the calm of the recital), "I tell you, when I do look up to God
and say, '_Now I am going to do this for Your sake and because You are
in me and will do it_,' I tell you, there's _tremendous power_ given us.
_That's the law that makes the value of religion_; I know it by the way
I gave up drinking. But now, look here; most of the time we don't use
God's will, that He lends us, to do what's right; well, then He doesn't
slap us and put the harm out of our reach. He does just what the mother
does when she takes the child's hand and puts it against the hot thing,
and the burn hurts her as much as it hurts the child; but He is not weak
like we are to do it only once in a way. I tell you, Ann, every time you
do a wrong thing God is with you; that is what I saw when I was hard up
and God showed me how things really were. Now, look here, there isn't
any end to it that we can see here; it's an awful lot of help we get to
do the wrong thing if that's the thing we choose to do. It gets easier
and easier, and at first there's a lot of pleasure to it, but by-and-by
it gets more and more dreadful, and then comes death, and that's the end
here. But God does not change because we die, and wh