Before going further, it may be well to refer to an attack which was made on the author for his treatment of mediæval saints and of the stories connected with them. Obviously, a man who sympathises with an emotional form of religion would not be inclined to confine these enthusiasts within such narrow limits as would one of a colder temperament. This may explain the feelings of the critics in question. There can be little doubt that the ascetic and the nun, with their mortifications and trances, had not for the author much attraction. Even the style in which the book was written may have led him to write too lightly on some details of this period; but if such were the case, he knew, as well as any critic, that these people were trying to do their duty, even if they failed. The ascetic who thought he had no duty in the world, and therefore ran away and refused to ‘fight a battle for the Lord,’ and the ‘hysterical sister,’ are rather subjects for pity than for jest; and contrary as all the author’s convictions may have been to asceticism, he would rather have wept over their strange acts and mad fancies than scoffed at them. We feel convinced that any harsh remarks should be taken as referring to the system which brought its victims into such a condition, and not to the victims themselves. Though disapproving of the system, the author would never have withheld his admiration from any individual act of self-sacrifice, when it was done from a right motive and was the offering of a loving heart. The fact that this book is again published by request is a sign that the author’s labours have been appreciated and that his name is not forgotten. ‘Some men,’ he once wrote in a letter, ‘who have died young, have lived far longer than others who have outpassed their three-score years and ten. Life consists not in the abundance of things a man possesseth, nor in the abundance of things a man doeth, but in the abundance of thoughts he thinks leading toward some special result in this world or the next.’ So, again, he writes in his diary, ‘Reputation—consider it, soul of mine, not as an end, but as a means of sowing right thoughts and feelings among thy fellows. Strive towards power over the thoughts of men—power that may be solemnly used in God’s sight as being a faithful steward for His glory. Have I a brain that must be busy, a will in this direction which—with all my vacillation elsewhere—has been and is unconquerable? Let me pray to use it with reverent lowliness of heart as a talent committed to me, fearing to misuse it, to allow any corner of the estate to be waste, or any wain of the harvest to fall into the enemy’s hand.’