itive application. The religious setting of life withdrew human
energies from their rightful and fruitful sphere of activity and
applied them to tasks of self-analysis and never-ceasing
self-criticism. Such an approach to life produced men who were saints,
men who were unselfish and admirable in almost every way; but this
saintliness grew at the expense of significant human achievement. It
was as though men forged splendid instruments and did not know how to
use them. The pity of it all is, that this mediaeval world-view
stimulated men to devotions of soul which looked away from the arena of
human life rather than into it.

But religion only revealed what human nature, itself, possessed. These
capacities for sympathy, love, persistent self-discipline, and devotion
to ideals were natural to man. The primary fault with Mediaevalism was
the inability to see the worth of human things and the hypnotic
fixation of the mind upon unreal relations and demands. The modern man
admires these cloistered saints and, at the same time, feels the
tragedy and {180} futility of this goodness which wearied itself out in
vigil and prayer. The human cost of this virtue was so high and its
objective use so small. It is only as an artist that I can enjoy
reading the _Prayers and Meditations_ of Thomas a Kempis. When this
mood is not upon me, I am repelled by the picture of this white-faced
monk in his cell, holding in restraint all his natural impulses by
means of the thought of a reward in paradise after death. Virtue was
the winning of a goal set by his Maker, for reasons which he did not
dream of questioning. "When I weary of the long night vigils, or of
the Lessons, longer perhaps than usual, give me grace to remember how
great are the rewards in heaven which I have now a chance of gaining.
When the days of abstinence from food and drink are many, give me the
power to fast, and good health to enable me to carry on my work; give
me pardon for the sins which I have committed, keep me from falling
into them again, relieve me from the punishment they have deserved, and
give me a good hope of everlasting happiness with the elect in the
Kingdom of God." We feel that this ethical energy should have been
used otherwise and in the service of human beings. Better Thomas a
Kempis than the man who is mad for wealth and the lusts of the flesh;
but far better than either is the sane worker for things of good
repute. His goodness is a soci