First published as an introduction to an American edition of that
author's _The Patience of Hope_.

THERE are men who, irrespective of the names by which they are called in
the Babel confusion of sects, are endeared to the common heart of
Christendom. Our doors open of their own accord to receive them. For in
them we feel that in some faint degree, and with many limitations, the
Divine is again manifested: something of the Infinite Love shines out of
them; their very garments have healing and fragrance borrowed from the
bloom of Paradise. So of books. There are volumes which perhaps contain
many things, in the matter of doctrine and illustration, to which our
reason does not assent, but which nevertheless seem permeated with a
certain sweetness and savor of life. They have the Divine seal and
imprimatur; they are fragrant with heart's-ease and asphodel; tonic with
the leaves which are for the healing of the nations. The meditations of
the devout monk of Kempen are the common heritage of Catholic and
Protestant; our hearts burn within us as we walk with Augustine under
Numidian fig-trees in the gardens of Verecundus; Feuelon from his
bishop's palace and John Woolman from his tailor's shop speak to us in
the same language. The unknown author of that book which Luther loved
next to his Bible, the Theologia Germanica, is just as truly at home in
this present age, and in the ultra Protestantism of New England, as in
the heart of Catholic Europe, and in the fourteenth century. For such
books know no limitations of time or place; they have the perpetual
freshness and fitness of truth; they speak out of profound experience
heart answers to heart as we read them; the spirit that is in man, and
the inspiration that giveth understanding, bear witness to them. The
bent and stress of their testimony are the same, whether written in this
or a past century, by Catholic or Quaker: self-renunciation,--