2. Difficulties and dangers of self-examination. — (1) There is the danger of a morbid self -conscious- ness hiirtful to the spiritual life. An analogy may be drawn with bodily health. A sure way of producing sickness and physical disorder is for a person to be constantly worrying himself about his health, and living, as it were, with his fingers always on his pulse. ' Is this self-consciousness a good thing ? Does it not hinder action, destroy energy ? Does it not cultivate a habit of mawkishness, an indelicate desire to expose the most secret passages of our souls, even to the public gaze ? ... In how many other ways do men testify that they feel this self-consciousness to be a disease which will destroy them if they cannot be cured of it ! What numbers does it bring to the feet of the spiritual director ! ' (F. D. Maurice). Do we not live our best life when we just go on doing our duty and filling our place, never considering ourselves at all ? ' There is a kind of devotion to great objects or to public service which seems to leave a man no leisure and to aftbrd no occasion for the question about him- self, whether he has been as good as he should have been, whether a better man would not have acted otherwise than he has done. And again, there is a sense in which to be always fingering- one's motives is a sign rather of an unwholesome preoccupation with self than of the eagerness in disinterested service which helps forward mankind ' (T. H. Green). — (2) A more serious difficulty is that in tliis work of self-criticism we occupy the double position of being both the examiner and the examined. We are at once the judge, the witness.
and the prisoner at the bar. What scope for self- deception, for evasion, for duping ourselves ! Are we not in danger of condemning trifles and over- looking serious faults and vices? How easy to confuse the issues in this complicated process ! to lose sight of the due proportion of things ! to play tricks with ourselves ! Is there any escape from this difficulty ?
3. Suggestions for self-examination. — If the dangers mentioned above are to be escaped, this exercise must be conducted (1) with the vnost humble dependence upon God and desire for His help and guidance. Consider specially Ps 139^^" ^^. The Psalmist could not trust himself. He knew how sin eluded him, how it disguised itself, how it hid in secret chambers where his search could not fol- low it. He needed the aid of One Avho could accom- plish a deeper and more penetrating work than he himself could undertake. Consider also 1 Ch 28^ 29", Ps 261- 2 44-1, Pr le^- ^ 20=7, Jer 17»-";.— (2) The ex- amination must be very largely objective, i.e. not merely, or chiefly, a scrutiny of feelings or motives, but an investigation of actual conduct in the light of God's law and of Christian ideals. The desire expressed in the hymn, ' 'Tis a point I long to know. . . . Do I love the Lord, or no ? ' may often be best answered by a reference to such words as are found in Jn \4}^- 21 15". See also Mt T^^"^", Mk 3^5. ' Do you notice how many times our Saviour says : " If ye love me, keep my commandments " ? It is as if a child should rush passionately to its mother and throw its little arms round her neck, and say con- vulsively, " O mother ! I do love you so ! " "Well, my dear child, if you do, why are you not a better child ? '' ' (H. W. Beecher, Conduct the Index of Feel- ing).— (3) Special consideration should be given to 2 Co 13^ ^ Jesus Christ is in you.'' Therein lies the secret by which self-examination may be a reality and not a fiction ; therein is found the protection from the dangers already referred to. There is a true Light which lighteth every man ; One who dwells with us, near us, in us ; One who will save us from self-flattery and self-deception, and from mawkish self-consciousness. In the light of His presence self-examination is safe and fruitful.
LiTKRATURE. — The most suggestive remarks which the writer has seen on this subject are found in a sermon by F. D. Maurice, Lincoln's Inn Sermons, vol. iii. p. 179, ' How Self-Examination is possible.' T. H. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. iv. 'The Application of Moral Philosophy to the Guidance of Con- duct,' chs. i. ii. , is worthy of most careful study ; cf . Jeremy Taylor, The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying, ch. ii. ' On the Daily Examination of our Actions' ; Thomas a Kempis, 0/ the Imitation of Christ, Bk. i. ' Admonitions useful for the Spiritual Life ' ; W. G. T. Shedd, Sermons to the Natural Man (1879), p. 181 ; W. L. Watkinson, Studies in Christian Character, 1st ser. (1901) p. 10 ; W. S. Wood, Problems of the NT (1890), p. 83 ; T. B. Dover, Alive unto God (1888), p. 37.
Arthur Jenkinson. SELFISHNESS.— The self-sacrifice which Christ demands of all who would be His followers might lead one to imagine that Christianity was a re- ligion of asceticism ; that the Gnostic dualism of good and evil, matter and spirit, was the logical outcome of the teaching of Jesus; that God required the renunciation of all earthly things, and even of life, for the sake of the sacrifice itself. But it is a total misconception of the religion of Jesus to suppose that He makes asceticism an end. What we find Him teaching is not that the world is evil, but that the soul of man is good ; that the soul is eternal, not of time, and therefore that in God alone, to whom it is akin, can it attain its complete satisfaction (Mt e^s-^i I| Lk 1233- ^). He demanded self-renunciation (Lk 1426.27.33)^ ^nd at tlie same time He inculcated the absolute value of the self (Mt IB^e l| Mk S^s-^'). He sets moral self- love over against natural selfishness (Mt 16-^ 11 Mk 8^5), and He insists that tlie perfect, the eternal development of the liunian personality is to be