Partly through a kind of mischievous humility which was really pride. They could do these things; I could not, nor were they required of me. It needed special gifts for such a work, and I had not these gifts. Besides, had I not my own work? Was it not as important to educate persons of some culture and social position in a knowledge of Christian truth as to redeem lost people from the hell of their misdoing? Certainly it was easier and pleasanter. I found in it that most subtle of all gratifications, the sense of ability efficiently applied, and winning praise by its exertion. There was no one who wished me to live in any other way than that in which I lived. Those to whom I ministered were satisfied with me, and had I told them that I wished to do the sort of things that Salvation Army people did among the slums, they would have been shocked, and would certainly have dissuaded me. And so to this mischievous humility which assured me that I had no fitness for the kind of life which I knew was the life of the saints in every age, there was added the dull pressure of convention. Why should I do what no one expected me to do? Why could I not be content to fulfill the common standard approved by the average conception of Christianity? I can see now how foolish and how wrong these thoughts were. I saw it even then at intervals. Again and again, like a torturing flash of fire, there ran through me illumining agonized dissatisfactions with myself, my work, my whole position. And again and again I let the flame die down, knowing not that the Son of Man had walked amid the fire. Nay more, I deliberately smothered the holy fire, being in part fearful of it, and of what its consequence might be, if once it were allowed to triumph. For I knew that if I followed these strange impulses my whole life must be changed, and I did not want it changed. I did not want to give up the ease of an assured position, the calm of studious hours, the tasks which flattered my ability. I did not want to face what I knew must happen, the estrangement of old friendships, the rupture of accustomed forms of life. Besides, I might be wholly wrong. I might have no real fitness for the tasks I contemplated; saints, like poets, were born, not made. No one who knew me would have believed me better fitted for any kind of life than that I lived. I had no friend who did not think my present life adequate and satisfactory, and many envied me for the good fortune that had given me just the kind of sphere which seemed best suited to me.