We must deny all anxieties and fears. When young we must not mind what the world calls failure; as we grow old, we must not be vexed that we cannot remember, must not regret that we cannot do, must not be miserable because we grow weak or ill: we must not mind anything. We have to do with God who can, not with ourselves where we cannot. He is our care; we are his; our care is to will his will; his care, to give us all things. This is to deny ourselves. “Self, you may be my consciousness, but you are not my being. If you were, what a poor miserable, weak wretch I should be! But my life is hid with Christ in God, whence it came, and whither it is returning—with you certainly, but as an obedient servant, not a master. For God is more to me than my consciousness of myself. He is my life; you are only so much of it as my poor half-made being can grasp. Because I have treated you as if you were indeed my own self, you have dwindled yourself and lessened me, till I am ashamed of myself. If I were to mind what you say, I should soon be sick of you. No! Let me have the company of the Perfect One, not of you! Of my elder brother, the Living one! Goodbye, self, I deny you, and will do my best every day to leave you behind me.”
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