more to be defended by wrath and by fear;--shall abide with
us Hope, no more to be quenched by the years that overwhelm, or made
ashamed by the shadows that betray:--shall abide for us, and with us, the
greatest of these; the abiding will, the abiding name of our Father. For
the greatest of these is Charity.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Mr. Mill says, in his book on Liberty, that "Christian morality is, in
great part, merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative
rather than positive, passive rather than active." He says, that, in
certain most important respects, "it falls far below the best morality of
the ancients." The object of systems of morality is to take possession of
human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or allowed to drift
at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in the practice of
virtue; and this object they seek to attain by prescribing to human life
fixed principles of action, fixed rules of conduct. In its uninspired as
well as in its inspired moments, in its days of languor and gloom as well
as in its days of sunshine and energy, human life has thus always a clue
to follow, and may always be making way towards its goal. Christian
morality has not failed to supply to human life aids of this sort. It has
supplied them far more abundantly than many of its critics imagine. The
most exquisite document, after those of the New Testament, of all the
documents the Christian spirit has ever inspired,--the _Imitation_,--by no
means contains the whole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of
this morality would think themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to
look for it in the _Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of
passages like these: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est."--"Omni
die renovare debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte
incipiamus, quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus."--"Secundum propositum
nostrum est cursus profectus nostri."--"Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte
vincimus, et ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur."--"Semper aliquid
certi proponendum est."--"Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac." (_A life
without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing.--Every day we ought to
renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound
beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought.--Our improvement
is in proportion to our purpose.--We hardly ever manage to get
completely rid even of one fault, and do not se