"
Nothing could be more simple, more intelligible, more natural, more
supernatural. It is an analogy from an every-day fact. Since we
are what we are by the impacts of those who surround us, those who
surround themselves with the highest will be those who change into
the highest. There are some men and some women in whose company
we are
Always at our best.
While with them we cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerous
words. Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity.
All the best stops in our nature are drawn out by their intercourse,
and we find a music in our souls that was never there before.
Suppose even THAT influence prolonged through a month, a year, a
lifetime, and what could not life become? There, even on the common
plane of life, talking our language, walking our streets, working
side by side, are sanctifiers of souls; here, breathing through
common clay, is Heaven; here, energies charged even through a
temporal medium with the virtue of regeneration. If to live with
men, diluted to the millionth degree with the virtue of the Highest,
can exalt and purify the nature, what bounds can be set to the
influence of Christ? To live with Socrates--with unveiled face--must
have made one wise; with Aristides, just. Francis Assisi must
have made one gentle; Savonarola, strong.
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