welling place.' My heart echoes back, 'Lord Jesus,
help me to do or suffer thy will. When thou seest me in danger of
NESTLING--in pity--in tender pity--put a THORN in my nest to prevent me
from it.'"[193]

[193] R. Philip: The Life and Times of George Whitefield, London,
1842, p. 366.

The loathing of "capital" with which our laboring classes today are
growing more and more infected seems largely composed of this sound
sentiment of antipathy for lives based on mere having. As an anarchist
poet writes:--

"Not by accumulating riches, but by giving away that which you have,

"Shall you become beautiful;

"You must undo the wrappings, not case yourself in fresh ones;

"Not by multiplying clothes shall you make your body sound and healthy,
but rather by discarding them . . .

"For a soldier who is going on a campaign does not seek what fresh
furniture he can carry on his back, but rather what he can leave behind;

"Knowing well that every additional thing which he cannot freely use
and handle is an impediment."[194]

[194] Edward Carpenter: Towards Democracy, p. 362, abridged.

In short, lives based on having are less free than lives based either
on doing or on being, and in the interest of action people subject to
spiritual excitement throw away possessions as so many clogs. Only
those who have no private interests can follow an ideal straight away.
Sloth and cowardice creep in with every dollar or guinea we have to
guard. When a brother novice came to Saint Francis, saying: "Father,
it would be a great consolation to me to own a psalter, but even
supposing that our general should concede to me this indulgence, still
I should like also to have your consent," Francis put him off with the
examples of Charlemagne, Roland, and Oliver, pursuing the infidels in
sweat and labor, and finally dying on the field of battle. "So care
not," he said, "for owning books and knowledge, but care rather for
works of goodness." And when some weeks later the novice came again to
talk of his craving for the psalter, Francis said: "After you have got
your psalter you will crave a breviary; and after you have got your
breviary you will sit in your stall like a grand prelate, and will say
to your brother: "Hand me my breviary.". . . And thenceforward he
denied all such requests, saying: A man possesses of learning only so
much as comes out of him in action, and a monk is a good preacher only
so far as his deeds pr