dom. The apprehension of being
singular from my beloved friends was a strait upon me; and thus I
continued in the use of some things, contrary to my judgment, about
nine months. Then I thought of getting a hat the natural color of the
fur, but the apprehension of being looked upon as one affecting
singularity felt uneasy to me. On this account I was under close
exercise of mind in the time of our general spring meeting in 1762,
greatly desiring to be rightly directed; when, being deeply bowed in
spirit before the Lord, I was made willing to submit to what I
apprehended was required of me; and when I returned home, got a hat of
the natural color of the fur.

"In attending meetings, this singularity was a trial to me, and more
especially at this time, as white hats were used by some who were fond
of following the changeable modes of dress, and as some friends, who
knew not from what motives I wore it, grew shy of me, I felt my way for
a time shut up in the exercise of the ministry. Some friends were
apprehensive that my wearing such a hat savored of an affected
singularity: those who spoke with me in a friendly way, I generally
informed in a few words, that I believed my wearing it was not in my
own will."

When the craving for moral consistency and purity is developed to this
degree, the subject may well find the outer world too full of shocks to
dwell in, and can unify his life and keep his soul unspotted only by
withdrawing from it. That law which impels the artist to achieve
harmony in his composition by simply dropping out whatever jars, or
suggests a discord, rules also in the spiritual life. To omit, says
Stevenson, is the one art in literature: "If I knew how to omit, I
should ask no other knowledge." And life, when full of disorder and
slackness and vague superfluity, can no more have what we call
character than literature can have it under similar conditions. So
monasteries and communities of sympathetic devotees open their doors,
and in their changeless order, characterized by omissions quite as much
as constituted of actions, the holy-minded person finds that inner
smoothness and cleanness which it is torture to him to feel violated at
every turn by the discordancy and brutality of secular existence.

That the scrupulosity of purity may be carried to a fantastic extreme
must be admitted. In this it resembles Asceticism, to which further
symptom of saintliness we had better turn next. The adjectiv