vestige of them disappears.  It is like the peeling after scarlet fever,—­the dead skin stays on until the new, tender skin is strong underneath, and after we think we have peeled entirely, we discover new places with which we must be patient.  So, with the old habits of resistance, we must, although turning away from them firmly, be steadily patient while waiting for the pain from them to disappear.  It must take time if the work is to be done thoroughly,—­but the freedom to be gained is well. worth waiting for.

One of the most prevalent forms of bondage is caring too much in the wrong way what people think of us.  If a man criticises me I must first look to see whether he is right.  He may be partly right, and not entirely,—­but, whatever truth there is in his criticism, I want to know it in order that I may see the fault clearly myself and remedy it.  If his criticism is ill-natured it is not necessarily any the less true, and I must not let the truth be obscured by his ill-nature.  All, that I have to do with the ill-nature is to be sorry, on my friend’s account, and help him out of it if he is willing; and there is nothing that is so likely to make him willing as my recognizing the justice of what he says and acting upon it, while, at the same time, I neither resent nor resist his ill-nature.  If the man is both ill-natured and unjust,—­if there is no touch of what is true in his criticism,—­then all I have to do is to cease resenting it.  I should be perfectly willing that he should think anything he pleases, while I, so far as I can see, go on and do what is right

The trouble is that we care more to appear right than to be right. This undue regard for appearances is very deep-seated, for it comes from long habit and inheritance; but we must recognize it and acknowledge it in ourselves, in order to take the true path toward freedom.  So long as we are working for appearances we are not working for realities.  When we love to be right first, then we will regard appearances only enough to protect what is good and true from needless misunderstanding and disrespect.  Sometimes we cannot even do that without sacrificing the truth to appearances, and in such cases we must be true to realities first, and know that appearances must harmonize with them in the end.  If causes are right, effects must be orderly, even though at times they may not seem so to the superficial observer.  Fear of not being approved of is the cause of great nervous strain and waste of energy; for fear is resistance, and we can counteract that terrified resistance only by being perfectly willing that any one should think anything he likes.  When moving in obedience to law—­natural and spiritual—­a man’s power cannot be overestimated; but in order to learn genuine obedience to law, we must be willing to accept our limitations and wait for them to be gradually removed as we gain in true freedom.  Let us not forget that if we are overpleased—­selfishly pleased—­at the approval of others, we are just as much in bondage to them as if we were angry at their disapproval.  Both approval and disapproval are helpful if we accept them for the use they can be to us, but are equally injurious if we take them to feed our vanity or annoyance.