Some exceptions must be taken to a few other extreme statements of Fénelon, in which he follows other mistaken writers. The language of such teachers on humility is overstrained and really false, likely to do harm. Fénelon says, for example, “Those who are truly humble always take the lowest place, rejoicing when they are despised, and considering every one superior to themselves. We may judge of the advancement we have in humility by the delight we have in humiliation and contempt.” His motto was, “Ama nesciri”—Love to be unknown. Kempis wrote much of this same sort. And John Fletcher of Madeley was constantly offering up the prayer which we have in Charles Wesley’s couplet, “Make me little and unknown, Loved and prized by God alone.” To desire to be despised, thought meanly of, accounted as naught, we can not recognize as a fruit of grace in a healthy mind rightly apprehensive of the vast importance to usefulness of a good reputation. To think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think is wrong, but so is it wrong to think of ourselves less highly than we ought. The truth above all things, facts at any cost whether to ourselves or other people, is the better attitude. No gain can come from falsity on the one side, any more than on the other. To delight unspeakably in the will of God, even when it involves contempt from those who misunderstand our position, is not the same as delighting in contempt itself. To insist on the lowest place when our recognized and lawful place is higher, would be neither wise nor edifying. Fénelon himself took his proper place as archbishop in the cathedral and palace and elsewhere, without diminution from his humility. He showed the latter in his hospital work, and in his familiar relations with those of lower rank. A little too much is made in some places of the importance of silence. There is not sufficient recognition of the fact that some are in great danger of speaking too little, that there are idle silences as well as idle words. The stress laid upon listening to the interior voice is also carried somewhat beyond bounds, and needs counterbalancing by the warning that it is very easy to mistake the utterances of our own spirits for those of the Spirit of God, the products of a vain imagination for the products of Divine direction. Many have been sadly misled at this point. We need not perhaps specify other strained and unbalanced remarks. There are not many of them, and it would be unjust to make too much of them; but it is also unsafe to ignore them altogether. The letters are all the better in that they demand reflection from the reader, and are not to be taken up in a wooden way as though they were infallible. Properly perused, with prayer and meditation, they can not fail to be of immense service to the inquiring mind and the devotional spirit. There is nothing better as a stimulus to those with lofty aspirations seeking for guidance as to how best they may reach the heights.