Innate Receptivity to Evil—See [Disease, Causes of].
INNATE, THE
As in the case of the little girl mentioned below, we have to guard, not alone against the acts of evil men, but against what is in the men themselves:
“Come on! come on!” said a gentleman to a little girl at whom a dog had been barking furiously. “Come on! he’s quiet now.”
“Ah, but,” said the little girl, “the barks are in him still.”
(1625)
INNER LIFE
I was lately in a grove where a number of large sycamores were shedding their bark; at least three layers of the bark showed plainly, the coarse outer bark brown, but this shed in large spots or blotches, exposing the white inner bark, so well known in this great tree; but this also was peeling up, and falling here and there, and showing the clear, green inmost bark of the tree; the outer layers ripening, drying, dying, and falling off, but the inmost bark strengthening and renewing itself day by day.
But I was imprest with the fresh, wholesome look of these sycamores. Many trees of that name seem dying; not so those where the decaying outer bark was loosening and dropping, while the fresh young inner bark was coming out to take its place. I never saw healthier trees. They certainly were not hide-bound. I believe the quick dropping of the old bark gave the vigorous inner bark a chance to come out and strengthen, just as we know trials and afflictions often bring out the inner life in beauty and strength.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”
(1626)