But Bishop Wilson's Maxims deserve to be circulated as a religious
book, not only by comparison with the cartloads of rubbish circulated
at present under this designation, but for their own sake, and even
by comparison with the other works of the same [v] author. Over the
far better known Sacra Privata they have this advantage, that they
were prepared by him for his own private use, while the Sacra Privata
were prepared by him for the use of the public. The Maxims were
never meant to be printed, and have on that account, like a work of,
doubtless, far deeper emotion and power, the Meditations of Marcus
Aurelius, something peculiarly sincere and first-hand about them.
Some of the best things from the Maxims have passed into the Sacra
Privata; still, in the Maxims, we have them as they first arose; and
whereas, too, in the Sacra Privata the writer speaks very often as
one of the clergy, and as addressing the clergy, in the Maxims he
almost always speaks solely as a man. I am not saying a word against
the Sacra Privata, for which I have the highest respect; only the
Maxims seem to me a better and a more edifying book still. They
should be read, as Joubert says Nicole should be read, with a direct
aim at practice. The reader will leave on one side things which,
from the change of time and from the changed point of view which the
change of time inevitably brings with it, no longer suit him; enough
[vi] will remain to serve as a sample of the very best, perhaps,
which our nation and race can do in the way of religious writing.
Monsieur Michelet makes it a reproach to us that, in all the doubt as
to the real author of the Imitation, no one has ever dreamed of
ascribing that work to an Englishman. It is true, the Imitation
could not well have been written by an Englishman; the religious
delicacy and the profound asceticism of that admirable book are
hardly in our nature. This would be more of a reproach to us if in
poetry, which requires, no less than religion, a true delicacy of