It has been suggested by a friend that it is barely possible that an objection may be urged against the following treatise, as against all books of a like character, that its tendency is to isolate the individual from his race, and to nourish an exclusive and purely selfish personal solicitude; that its piety is self-absorbent, and that it does not take sufficiently into account active duties and charities, and the love of the neighbor so strikingly illustrated by the Divine Master in His life and teachings. This objection, if valid, would be a fatal one. For, of a truth, there can be no meaner type of human selfishness than that afforded by him who, unmindful of the world of sin and suffering about him, occupies himself in the pitiful business of saving his own soul, in the very spirit of the miser, watching over his private hoard while his neighbors starve for lack of bread. But surely the benevolent unrest, the far-reaching sympathies and keen sensitiveness to the suffering of others, which so nobly distinguish our present age, can have nothing to fear from a plea for personal holiness, patience, hope, and resignation to the Divine will. "The more piety, the more compassion," says Isaac Taylor; and this is true, if we understand by piety, not self-concentred asceticism, but the pure religion and undefiled which visits the widow and the fatherless, and yet keeps itself unspotted from the world,--which deals justly, loves mercy, and yet walks humbly before God. Self- scrutiny in the light of truth can do no harm to any one, least of all to the reformer and philanthropist. The spiritual warrior, like the young candidate for knighthood, may be none the worse for his preparatory ordeal of watching all night by his armor. Tauler in mediaeval times and Woolman in the last century are among the most earnest teachers of the inward life and spiritual nature of Christianity, yet both were distinguished for practical benevolence. They did not separate the two great commandments. Tauler strove with equal intensity of zeal to promote the temporal and the spiritual welfare of men. In the dark and evil time in which he lived, amidst the untold horrors of the "Black Plague," he illustrated by deeds of charity and mercy his doctrine of disinterested benevolence. Woolman's whole life was a nobler Imitation of Christ than that fervid rhapsody of monastic piety which bears the name.