I was much interested in reading St. Augustine's _Confessions_ lately to recognize how small a part, after his conversion, any aspirations for the welfare of humanity seem to play in his mind compared with the consciousness of his own personal relations with God. It was this which gave him his exuberant sense of joy and peace, and his impulse was rather the impulse of sharing a wonderful and beautiful secret with others than an immediate desire for their welfare, forced out of him, so to speak, by his own exultation rather than drawn out of him by compassion for the needs of others. That is one of the most constant features which emerges from a careful study of the character of Christian types. St. Francis commenced his career by leaving his parents. John Fox did the same. In that Puritan classic, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, one of the outstanding features is the striking absence of emphasis on the value of the social and domestic virtues, and the Rev. Principal Donaldson notes this as one of the features of early Christian literature in general. Christian preaching was for centuries full of contemptuous references to "filthy rags of righteousness," "mere morality," etc. The aim of the saints was a purely selfish and personal one. It was not even a refined or a metaphysical selfishness. It was a simple teaching that the one thing essential was to save one's own soul, and that the main reason for doing good in this world was to reap a benefit from it in the world to come. If it can properly be called morality, it was conduct placed out at the highest rate of interest. Christianity may often have used a naturally lofty character, it was next to impossible for it to create one.