Everything that we found noble, and strong, and brave in Stoicism we find also here; the power to transform external evil into internal good, and to hold so tightly to our self-chosen good that no power in earth or heaven can ever wrest it from us,--a good so universal that the circumstance is inconceivable in which it would fail to work. Yet with all this tenacious, world-conquering strength, there is, drawn from the divine Source of this affection a gentleness, and sympathy, and tenderness, and humble human helpfulness, which the Stoic in his boastfulness, and hardness, and self-sufficiency could never know. The Christian abhors lying and stealing, scolding and slandering, slavery and prostitution, meanness and murder, not less but far more than the Stoic. But he refrains from these things, not under constraint of abstract law, but because he cares so deeply and sensitively for the people whom these things affect that he cannot endure the thought that any word or deed of his should bring them pain or loss or shame or degradation. Thus he gets the Stoic strength without its hardness, the Stoic universality without its barrenness, the Stoic exaltation without its pride, the Stoic integrity without its formalism, the Stoic calm without its impassiveness. Christianity is as lofty as Platonism; but it gets its elevation by a different process. Instead of rising above drudgery and details, it lifts them up into a clearer atmosphere, where nothing is servile or menial which can glorify God or serve a fellow-man.