When once we have won our freedom from resistance, we must use that freedom in action, and put it directly to use.  Sometimes it will result in a small action, sometimes in a great one; but, whatever it is, it must be done. If we drop the resistance, and do not use the freedom gained thereby for active service, we shall simply react into further bondage, from which it will be still more difficult to escape.  Having dropped my antagonism to my most bitter enemy, I must do something to serve him, if I can.  If I find that it is impossible to serve him, I can at least be of service to someone else; and this action, if carried out in the true spirit of unselfish service, will go far toward the permanent establishment of my freedom.

If a circumstance which is atrociously wrong in itself makes us indignant, the first thing to do is to drop the resistance of our indignation, and then to do whatever may be within our power to prevent the continuance of such wrong.  Many people weaken their powers of service by their own indignation, when, if they would cease their excited resistance, they would see clearly how to remedy the wrong that arouses their antagonism.  Action, when accompanied by personal resistance, however effective it may seem, does not begin to have the power that can come from action, without such resistance.  As, for instance, when we have to train a child with a perverse will, if we quietly assert what is right to the child, and insist upon obedience without the slightest antagonistic feeling to the child’s naughtiness, we accomplish much more toward strengthening the character of the child than if we try to enforce our idea by the use of our personal will, which is filled with resistance toward the child’s obstinacy.  In the latter case, it is just pitting our will against the will of the child, which is always destructive, however it may appear that we have succeeded in enforcing the child’s obedience.  The same thing holds true in relation to an older person, with the exception that, with him or her, we cannot even attempt to require obedience.  In that case we must,—­when it is necessary that we should speak at all,—­assert the right without antagonism to what we believe to be their wrong, and without the slightest personal resistance to it.  If we follow this course, in most cases our friend will come to the right point of view,—­sometimes the result seems almost miraculous,—­or, as is often the case, we, because we are wholesomely open-minded, will recognize any mistake in our own point of view, and will gladly modify it to agree with that of our friend.

The trouble is that very few of us feel like working to remedy a wrong merely for the sake of the right, and therefore we must have an impetus of personal feeling to carry us on toward the work of reformation.  If we could once be strongly started in obedience to the law from love of the law itself, we should find in that impersonal love a clear light and power for effective action both in the larger and in the smaller questions of life.