e to consecrate certain times, preferably a certain time
each day, to self-recollection; to dedicate an hour--or a half-hour,
if no more can be spared--to seeing one's life in all its relations;
that is, as the poet has put it, to seeing life "steadily and seeing it
whole." The sane view is to see things in their relation to other
things; the non-sane view is to see them isolated, in such a way
that they exercise a kind of hypnotic spell over us. And it makes no
difference what a man's habitual interests may be, whether they be
sordid or lofty, he needs ever and anon to get away from them. In
reality, nothing wherewith a man occupies himself need be sordid.
The spiritual attitude does not consist in turning one's back on
things mundane and fixing one's gaze on some supernal blaze of
glory, but rather in seeing things mundane in their relation to
things ultimate, perfect.

The eating of bread is surely a sufficiently commonplace
operation. Yet Jesus brake bread with his disciples in such way
that that simple act has become the symbol of sublimely spiritual
relations, the centre of the most august rite of the Christian
Church. In like manner the act of sitting down to an ordinary meal
with the members of our family may, if seen in its relations, be for
us a spiritual consecration. The common meal may become for us
the type of the common life we share, the common love we bear.

On the other hand, seemingly much more lofty pursuits may have a
narrowing and deadening effect on us if we do not see them in
their ultimate relations, and so divest them of reference to life's
highest end. For instance, the pursuit of science may have this
effect, if the sole object of the scientist be to perform some
astonishing piece of work for the purpose of attracting attention or
to secure a well-salaried position, or even if he be so wedded to
his specialty as to fail to be sensitive to the relations of it to the
body of truth in general. And the same holds good of the
narrow-minded reformer, of whom Emerson has said that his
virtue so painfully resembles vice; the man who puts a moral idol
in the place of the moral ideal, who erects into the object toward
which all his enthusiasm goes some particular reform, such as the
single tax, or socialism, or public parks, or a model school; the
man, in short, who strives for a good instead of striving for
goodness. Whatever our pursuits may be, we should often
mentally detach ourselves from them,