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Show 66 she was able to conclude, "what on£ can do, another can, especially a Latter-Day Saint who can ask of the Father for his assistance..." A word, too, about educational aims only partially attained. Ellis is pragmatic enough to realize that "little advancement...is better than nothing," that in the final analysis, "We have to learn from experience. It is very well to plan, meditate and theorize, but there is nothing like everyday life to prove what it will all accomplish." Finally, we might address our modern inclination toward impatience with Ellis in her ever-recurring self-recriminations as she fails to subdue her will. In attempting to stifle unworthy impulses, she is using a popular method of her time for developing nobility. The prevailing attitude of our time is that if the heart can be changed, the will can be readily made to conform. How much of this represents a real difference in approaches, and how much is merely semantics? Also, any irritability with Ellis in her almost habitual self-flagellations needs to be tempered by the realization that while she wrote of her struggle over an extended period, we are reading it all bunched together like seven courses of spinach in one meal. Another consideration: Ellis had valid reasons for a lively awareness of her own shortcomings. She lived in a time when evenings were comparatively free of distractions and thereby permitted a silent review of the day's events prior to prayer. We, with the preoccupations of commercial entertainment outside our homes and the bombardment of the media within our walls, are prone to so lose |