confesseth Thee, but sense is slow
To lean on aught but that which it may see;
So hath it crowded up these Courts below
With dark and broken images of Thee;
Lead Thou us forth upon Thy Mount, and show
Thy goodly patterns, whence these things of old
By Thee were fashioned; One though manifold.
Glass Thou Thy perfect likeness in the soul,
Show us Thy countenance, and we are whole!"

No one, I am quite certain, will regret that I have made these liberal
quotations. Apart from their literary merit, they have a special
interest for the readers of The Patience of Hope, as more fully
illustrating the writer's personal experience and aspirations.

It has been suggested by a friend that it is barely possible that an
objection may be urged against the following treatise, as against all
books of a like character, that its tendency is to isolate the individual
from his race, and to nourish an exclusive and purely selfish personal
solicitude; that its piety is self-absorbent, and that it does not take
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 me