rld of unaccustomed and
unpleasant things as that? I have many answers to his censure. For
example, and first, I labour and will continue to labour more and more in
this world of things, and less and less in any other world, because here
we begin to see things as they are--the deepest things of God and of man,
that is. Also, because I have the precept, and the example, and the
experience of God's greatest and best saints before me here. Because,
also, our full and true salvation begins here, goes on here, and ends
here. Because, also, teaching these things and learning these things
will infallibly make us the humblest of men, the most contrite, the most
self-despising, the most prayerful, and the most patient, meek, and
loving of men. And, students, I labour in this because this is science;
because this is the first in order and the most fruitful of all the
sciences, if not the noblest and the most glorious of all the sciences.
There is all that good for us in this subject of the will and the heart,
and whole worlds of good lie away out beyond this subject that eye hath
not seen nor ear heard.

CHAPTER VII--SELF-LOVE

'This know, that men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,
boasters, proud, unthankful, without natural affection,
truce-breakers, false accusers, traitors, heady, high-minded: from all
such turn away.'--_Paul_.

'Pray, sir, said Academicus, tell me more plainly just what this self of
ours actually is. Self, replied Theophilus, is hell, it is the devil, it
is darkness, pain, and disquiet. It is the one and only enemy of Christ.
It is the great antichrist. It is the scarlet whore, it is the fiery
dragon, it is the old serpent that is mentioned in the Revelation of St
John. You rather terrify me than instruct me by this description, said
Academicus. It is indeed a very frightful matter, returned Theophilus;
for it contains everything that man has to dread and to hate, to resist
and to avoid. Yet be assured, my friend, that, careless and merry as
this world is, every man that is born into this world has all those
enemies to overcome within himself; and every man, till he is in the way
of regeneration, is more or less governed by those enemies. No hell in
any remote place, no devil that is separate from you, no darkness or pain
that is not within you, no antichrist either at Rome or in England, no
furious beast, no fiery dragon, without you or apart from you, can do