, a fresh power of endurance, is
seen in all who are drawn within the group and share its mind. This is
what St. Paul seems to have meant, when he reminded his converts that
they had the mind of Christ. The primitive friars, living under the
influence of Francis, did practice the perfect poverty which is also
perfect joy. The assured calm and willing sufferings of the early
Christians were reproduced in the early Quakers, secure in their
possession of the inner light. We know very well the essential
characters of this fresh mentality; the power, the enthusiasm, the
radiant joy, the indifference to pain and hardship it confers. But we
can no more produce it from these raw materials than the chemist's
crucible can produce life. The whole experience of St. Francis is
implied in the Beatitudes. The secret of Elizabeth Fry is the secret of
St. John. The doctrine of General Booth is fully stated by St. Paul. But
it was not by referring inquirers to the pages of the New Testament that
the first brought men fettered by things to experience the freedom of
poverty; the second faced and tamed three hundred Newgate criminals, who
seemed at her first visit "like wild beasts"; or the third created
armies of the redeemed from the dregs of the London Slums. They did
these things by direct personal contagion; and they will be done among
us again when the triumphant power of Eternal Spirit is again exhibited,
not in ideas but in human character.

I think, then, that history justifies us in regarding the full living of
the spiritual life as implying at least these three characters. First,
single-mindedness: to mean only God. Second, the full integration of the
contemplative and active sides of existence, lifted up, harmonized, and
completely consecrated to those interests which the self recognizes as
Divine. Third, the power of reproducing this life; incorporating it in a
group. Before we go on, we will look at one concrete example which
illustrates all these points. This example is that of St. Benedict and
the Order which he founded; for in the rounded completeness of his life
and system we see what should be the normal life of the Spirit, and its
result.

Benedict was born in times not unlike our own, when wars had shaken
civilization, the arts of peace were unsettled, religion was at a low
ebb. As a young man, he experienced an intense revulsion from the
vicious futility of Roman society, fled into the hills, and lived in a
cave for