General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1855 Original Publisher: John Murphy and Co. Subjects: Spiritual life Perfection Religion / Christianity / Catholic Religion / Christian Life / General Religion / Devotional Religion / Spirituality Religion / Christian Theology / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VI. EXTERNAL CONDUCT. I Hinted in the last chapter, that one reason why we felt ourselves hindered by some secret obstacles, was, that we had neglected our external conduct, and had not been careful to apply the principles of the spiritual life to our intercourse with others. It is to be wished we could always remember the importance of this. But there is a more especial necessity for us to bear it scrupulously in mind in the earlier stages of the devout life. For a beginner has great temptations to esteem very lightly his external conduct. He has recently been learning for the first time, the importance of pure intention, habitual recollection, and the supremacy of an interior life. Moderation is difficult to human nature; and what is novel, never gives fair play to what is old and familiar. Hence, though no one would dare to put it into words, a beginner filled with the true, but to him fresh thought, that the interior life is far superior to the exterior, thinks the latter positively worthless, or even regards it as a temptation. The esteem of the one, unfortunately breeds in him a disesteem of the other, especially as a person who has only recently begun to be thoroughly religious is always very much troubled with an inclination to entertain contemptuous feelings about persons and things. Contempt is the most universal temptation of beginnings. To be a …