Then, too, it acts like a frost not merely upon personal, but upon national ambition, and so keeps the wellspring from the root. Its assumption of a superhuman fortitude accords but ill with scientific truth, for if with one bound every man may become as God, he will despise that infinitely slow upward progression which is the only real advance. But, above all, it lives estranged from tenderness, in which alone at certain hours of torment the distracted mind finds God's face reflected. It preaches renunciation of all vain aversions and desires; but it repels sweet impulses that are not vain. By exalting apathy in regard to personal suffering, it becomes insensible to others' pain also. In the conviction that appeals for sympathy are avowals of unworthiness, it will have no part in the love of comrades, and it never discovered the truth that the strength and the compassion of the Divine are one perfection. There is a favourite mediaeval legend depicted in one of the windows of the cathedral at Bourges, which exposes in a characteristic fashion this weakness of the Stoic's creed. The Evangelist St John, when at Ephesus, remarked in the forum the philosopher Cratinus giving a lesson of abnegation to certain rich young men. At the teacher's bidding the youths had converted all their wealth into precious stones, and these they were now bidden crush to dust with a heavy hammer in the presence of the assembled people, that so they might make public profession of their contempt for riches. But St John was angered at so wasteful a renunciation. "It is written," he said, "that whoso would be perfect should not destroy his possessions, but sell them, and give the proceeds to the poor." "If your master is the true God," replied Cratinus scornfully, "restore these gems again to their original form, and then they shall be bestowed according to your desire." St John prayed, and the precious stones lay there once more perfect in all their brilliance and splendour. The moral of the old tale is clear--that all virtue without charity is nothing worth; and that of virtue without charity, the Stoic's cold renunciation is the chief type and ensample.