Great stuff by C.S. Lewis...

C. S. Lewis - Best described "Clear and compelling reasoning from the master apologist".

First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious ideal that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. ~ Mere Christianity pp. 8

You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials 'for the sake of humanity', and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.

The Habit of Faith

Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an athiest I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probably. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where they get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound athiest, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and ths state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith. ~ Mere Christianity pp. 140-141

Christ, the only complete realist about temptation

A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist.

Make pretend

What is the good of pretending to be what you are not? Well, even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There is the bad kind, where the pretense is there instead of the real thing; as when a man pretends he is going to help you instead of really helping you. But there is also a good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing. When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best think you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you willl be really feeling friendlier than you were. Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already. That is why children's games are so important. They are always pretending to be grown ups - playing soldiers, playing shop. But all the time, they are hardening their muscles and sharpening their wits so that the pretense of being grown-ups helps them to grow up in earnest. Now, the moment you realise 'Here I am, dressing up as Christ,' it is extremely likely that you will see at once some way in which at the very moment the pretense could be made less of a pretense and more of a reality. You will find several things going on in your mind which would not be going on there is you were really a son of God. Well, stop them. Or you may realise that, instead of saying your prayers, you ought to be downstairs writing a letter, or helping your wife to wash up. Well, go and do it. ~ Mere Christianity pp. 188-189 I dare say that this idea of divine make-believe sounds rather strange at first. But, is it so strange really? Is not that how the higher thing raises the lower? A mother teaches her baby to talk by talking to it as if it understood long before it really does. We treate our dogs as if they were 'almost human': that is why they really become 'almost human' in the end. ~ Mere Christianity pp. 191-194

Helped by an Invisible Christ

You may say 'I've never had the sense of being helped by an invisible Christ, but I often have been helped by other human beings.' That is rather like the woman in the first war who said that if there were a bread shortage it would not bother her house because they always ate toast. If there is no bread there will be no toast. If there were no help from Christ, there would be no help from other human beings. But do not forget this. At first it is natural for a baby to take its mother's milk without knowing its mother. It is equally natural for us to see the man who helps us without seeing Christ behind him. But we not remain babies. We must go on to recognise the real Giver. It is madness not to. Because, if we do not, we shall be relying on human beings. And that is going to let us down. The best of them will make mistakes; all of them will die. ~ Mere Christianity pp. 190-191

Excerpts from Nice People or New Men

If Christianity is true then why are not all Christians obviously nicer than all non-Christians? If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions - if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before - then I think we must suspect that his 'conversion' was largely imaginary; and after one's original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, that is the test to apply. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelieveable to the outside world. ... if Christianity was something that nasty people needed and nice ones could afford to do without; and as if niceness was all that God demanded. But this would be a fatal mistake. There is a paradox here. As long as the "nice person/non-Christian" does not turn to God, he thinks his niceness is his own, and just as long as he thinks that, it is not his own. Is is when the "nice person/non-Christian" realises this his niceness is not his own but a gift from God, and when he offers it back to God - it is just htne that it begins to be really his own. For now the "nice person/non-Christian" is beginning to take a share in his own creation. The only things that we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose. One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realise your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing cheques, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God. Now quite plainly, natural gifts carry with them a similar danger. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. 'Why drag God into it?' you may ask. It is very different for the nasty people - the little, low, timid, warped, thin-blooded, lonely people, or the passionate, sensual, unbalanced people.if they make an attempt at goodness at all, they learn, in double quick time, that they need help. It is Christ or nothing for them. They are (in one very real in terrible sense) the 'poor': He blessed them. ... if you are a poor creature - saddled, but no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion - nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends - do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will cling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all - not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last).

The Ultimate Blessing

But if you are a poor creature - saddled, but no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion - nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends - do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will cling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all - not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last).