Mr. Mill[183] 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." Now, 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_,[184]--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 set our hearts on _daily_ improvement;--Always place a definite purpose before thee;--Get the habit of mastering thine inclination._) These are moral precepts, and moral precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our conduct, and to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and inward perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the great masters of morals--Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.