ins at
spiritual culture must admit that the great enemy to a devout
concentration of mind is the force of bodily and worldly desire.
Communion with God is impossible, so long as the flesh and its lusts are
not subdued.... It is not mere temperance, but positive asceticism; not
mere self-restraint, but self-mortification; not mere self-sacrifice,
but self-extinction; not mere morality, but absolute holiness." And
further on in his address, Mozoomdar claimed that this asceticism is
practically the essential principle in Christianity and the meaning of
the cross of Christ: "This great law of self-effacement, poverty,
suffering, death, is symbolized in the mystic cross so dear to you and
dear to me. Christians, will you ever repudiate Calvary? Oneness of will
and character is the sublimest and most difficult unity with God." The
chief value of these quotations from Mozoomdar lies in the fact that
they show forth the underlying motive of all asceticism. It would be
unjust to the distinguished scholar to imply that he defends those
extreme forms of monasticism which have appeared in India or in
Christian countries. On the contrary, while he maintains, in his
charming work, "The Oriental Christ," that "the height of self-denial
may fitly be called asceticism," he is at the same time fully alive to
its dangerous exaggerations. "Pride," he says, "creeps into the holiest
and humblest exercises of self-discipline. It is the supremest natures
only that escape. The practice of asceticism therefore is always
attended with great danger." The language of Mozoomdar, however, like
that of many Christian monastic writers, opens the door to many grave
excesses. It is another evidence of the necessity for defining what one
means by "self-mortification" and "self-extinction."

Turning now to Christian monasticism, it will be found that, as in the
case of Oriental monasticism the yearning for victory over self was
uppermost in the minds of the best Christian monks. A few words from a
letter written by Jerome to Rusticus, a young monk, illustrates the
truth of this observation: "Let your garments be squalid," he says, "to
show that your mind is white, and your tunic coarse, to show that you
despise the world. But give not way to pride, lest your dress and your
language be found at variance. Baths stimulate the senses, and are
therefore to be avoided."

To keep the mind white, to despise the world, to overcome pride, to stop
the craving of t