Thomas à Kempis’s works as a whole fit into the writings of this group of disciples of Gerard Groote, just as his _Imitation of Christ_ fits into the rest of his works. He simply is the best writer they had, as the _Imitation_ is the best thing he ever wrote. If none of the many manuscripts of the _Imitation_ bore his name, as nearly all of them do; and if none of the contemporaries who knew him had certified to his authorship of it, as so many of them do; and if none of the printed editions bore his name, as twenty-one of the fifteenth century and forty of the sixteenth do, we still would have been obliged to ascribe it to him. No other century than his could have produced it. It reflects the ideas of no other group than that of the disciples of Gerard and Florens. The very title, _De Imitatione Christi, et de Contemptu Omnium Vanitatum Mundi_, expresses the twofold aspect of the _moderna devotio_ of which Gerard and Florens were the sponsors. Among those disciples there is no one but the author of the _Soliloquy of the Soul_ and the _Valley of Lilies_, to whom we could give it. It differs no more in point of worth from Thomas’s other books than does the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ from Bunyan’s other writings, _Grace Abounding_ always excepted. While it is by his formal hymns Thomas à Kempis acquires his right to a place here, it is true at the same time that the _Imitation_ itself is a great Christian poem, not only in substance but in form. A Belgian, who was his contemporary, says he had written the book _metrice_, or in rhythm and rhyme. As it was printed always as prose until our own times, this statement was somewhat puzzling, as was the title, _Musica Ecclesiastica_, found in some of the manuscripts. But Rev. Karl Hirsche, Lutheran pastor in Hamburg, has vindicated both expressions by showing that Thomas has followed such models as the sequence, _Victimae paschali_, in the composition of his work. And he has given us an edition based on Thomas’s autograph of the year 1441, in which this peculiarity is made visible.[15] It is true that this way of writing what we may call rhymed and rhythmical prose is not confined to Thomas or to the _Imitation_ among his works. Among others Jan van Schoonhooven, a Belgian disciple of Jan Rusbroek’s, uses this form frequently; and Pastor Hirsche has pointed out its frequency in others of Thomas’s works. But in no other book approaching the _Imitation_ in length is the restriction of rhythm and rhyme so steadily accepted. As an instance, take this brief passage from the fifth chapter of the third book: