this sense, there is hardly a
man who is not leading it. Even the best of men have been aware
of an abhorrent side of their nature. What else can St. Paul mean
when he speaks of the continual warfare between the two
laws--"the law of the flesh that is in his members, and the law
of God that is in his spirit"? What else do the confessions of St.
Augustine reveal but the continual oscillations of a finely poised
nature between the two extremes? What else can we gather from
certain passages in Tennyson's writings, but hints of a miserable
and grievous struggle of the same sort? And what an intolerable
burden to any person of integrity, to any one who would at least
be honest, to think that he passes for better than he is, to think that
if men only could see his heart as he sees it, they would pass him
by with scorn instead of admiration! Yet as a rule, in such cases
self-revelation is not only not demanded, but not even allowable.
The opening of the secret chambers of one's life to the public,
confessions like those of Rousseau, are, if anything, indecent and
nauseating. The case of a man in such situations is bad enough, but
the remedy for it is perforce committed to his own hands. Let him
put his hand to the plough and not turn back, let him grapple with
the evil in his nature and subdue and transform it, let him
accomplish his inner redemption, let him make himself what he
ought to be--what others perhaps think he is. What aid can the
spiritual view of life extend to him in this stupendous business?

The cardinal thought I have in mind, which I believe will provide
an escape from such intolerable moral dilemmas, can best be set
forth by contrasting it with its diametrical opposite. This opposite
is contained in the Buddhistic doctrine of the Karma. The doctrine
of Karma implies that we are what we are to-day, good or bad, or
good and bad, in consequence of good or bad deeds which we
performed in previous states of existence. Our present life,
according to this view, is but a link added to the chain of the
innumerable lives which we have left behind us. It is true, we do
not remember those past existences; but all the same, they have left
their indelible mark upon us. Our fortunes, too, in this present
existence, are determined by our meritorious or unmeritorious
behavior in the past. If, for example, a man acts as your enemy
to-day, it is because in a previous state you wantonly injured him
or some one like him. Bea