Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason
and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might
turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness
and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers,
nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of
your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss
and drift, or else be held at a stanstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion,
unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of
passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion
may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix
rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgement and your appetite even as
you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he
who is more mindful of one loses the love and faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white
poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and
meadows -- then let your heart say in silence,"God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest,
and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky,--
then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in
God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
