He decries the carnal
combat of the prize-ring, and compels the red animal to spiritual
combat. The poisoned lie, the nasty, gossiping tongue, the brutality
of the unkind epigram, the business and social nastiness and
treachery of to-day--these are the thrusts and scratches of the red
animal when the somnambulist is in charge. They are not the upper
cuts and short arm jabs and jolts and slugging blows of the spirit.
They are the foul blows of the spirit that have never been disbarred,
as the foul blows of the prize-ring have been disbarred. (Would it
not be preferable for a man to strike one full on the mouth with his
fist than for him to tell a lie about one, or malign those that are
nearest and dearest?)
For these are the crimes of the spirit, and, alas! they are so much
more frequent than blows on the mouth. And whosoever exalts the
spirit over the flesh, by his own creed avers that a crime of the
spirit is vastly more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand
the somnambulists convicted by their own creed--only they are not
real men, alive and awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases
that dispel all doubt as to their undiminished and eternal
gloriousness.
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