"But if our inclinations were all right?"
"Then we should be ready for heaven, I fancy. How should we take up the cross in that case? We are to deny ourselves and take up the cross daily, you know. How are elephants' toes? Do they show in front?"
This important point being settled, Marion went on:
"It always seems to me as if the emphasis in that sentence ought to be on the other word: 'Deny himself.' That is the hard saying for me. I have always lived so to and for myself."
"I am sure you don't now; you look out for everybody. I don't know what we should do without you this winter."
"Well, I do try not to be selfish, but I'm afraid that very often when I think I am doing for others, it is only self-seeking at the bottom."
"I'll tell you what, Marie: I think it is possible to be self-seeking in that very way," said Bram, shrewdly. "I mean in thinking too much about one's own spiritual state. Don't you know how Uncle Duncan scolded Harry for getting into the habit of feeling his pulse and watching his breathing? He said it was the very worst thing for him."
"But don't you believe in self-examination?"
"Yes, at proper times. But I don't believe in taking every thought and action to pieces and looking at it through a magnifying-glass; as I read in one of Uncle Duncan's books the other day:
"'Sanctify all thy doings with a general good intention, and there leave them.'