sufficiently into account active duties and charities, and the love of
the neighbor so strikingly illustrated by the Divine Master in His life
and teachings. This objection, if valid, would be a fatal one. For, of
a truth, there can be no meaner type of human selfishness than that
afforded by him who, unmindful of the world of sin and suffering about
him, occupies himself in the pitiful business of saving his own soul, in
the very spirit of the miser, watching over his private hoard while his
neighbors starve for lack of bread. But surely the benevolent unrest,
the far-reaching sympathies and keen sensitiveness to the suffering of
others, which so nobly distinguish our present age, can have nothing to
fear from a plea for personal holiness, patience, hope, and resignation
to the Divine will. "The more piety, the more compassion," says Isaac
Taylor; and this is true, if we understand by piety, not self-concentred
asceticism, but the pure religion and undefiled which visits the widow
and the fatherless, and yet keeps itself unspotted from the world,--which
deals justly, loves mercy, and yet walks humbly before God. Self-
scrutiny in the light of truth can do no harm to any one, least of all to
the reformer and philanthropist. The spiritual warrior, like the young
candidate for knighthood, may be none the worse for his preparatory
ordeal of watching all night by his armor.

Tauler in mediaeval times and Woolman in the last century are among the
most earnest teachers of the inward life and spiritual nature of
Christianity, yet both were distinguished for practical benevolence.
They did not separate the two great commandments. Tauler strove with
equal intensity of zeal to promote the temporal and the spiritual welfare
of men. In the dark and evil time in which he lived, amidst the untold
horrors of the "Black Plague," he illustrated by deeds of charity and
mercy his doctrine of disinterested benevolence. Woolman's whole life
was a nobler Imitation of Christ than that fervid rhapsody of monastic