he had taken me for his own,
and my joy was full. I returned home from the meeting with feelings as
simple as a child. I thought all would be glad to hear of the joy of
the Lord that possessed me, and so I began to tell the simple story.
But to my great surprise, the pastors (for I attended meetings in three
churches) opposed the experience and said it was fanaticism, and one
told the members of his church to shun those that professed it, and I
soon found that my foes were those of my own household."

The penny was a small financial safeguard, but an effective spiritual
obstacle. Not till it was thrown away could the character settle into
the new equilibrium completely.

Over and above the mystery of self-surrender, there are in the cult of
poverty other religious mysteries. There is the mystery of veracity:
"Naked came I into the world," etc.-- whoever first said that,
possessed this mystery. My own bare entity must fight the
battle--shams cannot save me. There is also the mystery of democracy,
or sentiment of the equality before God of all his creatures. This
sentiment (which seems in general to have been more widespread in
Mohammedan than in Christian lands) tends to nullify man's usual
acquisitiveness. Those who have it spurn dignities and honors,
privileges and advantages, preferring, as I said in a former lecture,
to grovel on the common level before the face of God. It is not
exactly the sentiment of humility, though it comes so close to it in
practice. It is HUMANITY, rather, refusing to enjoy anything that
others do not share. A profound moralist, writing of Christ's saying,
"Sell all thou hast and follow me," proceeds as follows:--

"Christ may have meant: If you love mankind absolutely you will as a
result not care for any possessions whatever, and this seems a very
likely proposition. But it is one thing to believe that a proposition
is probably true; it is another thing to see it as a fact. If you
loved mankind as Christ loved them, you would see his conclusion as a
fact. It would be obvious. You would sell your goods, and they would
be no loss to you. These truths, while literal to Christ, and to any
mind that has Christ's love for mankind, become parables to lesser
natures. There are in every generation people who, beginning
innocently, with no predetermined intention of becoming saints, find
themselves drawn into the vortex by their interest in helping mankind,
and by the understandin