Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/51

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are unwilling to bear these crosses and to bring home into their lives the wholesome spiritual stimulus that this roughening of life alone can give to them. We have reacted too far from the old monastic idea. Men speak with scorn now of those men and women who went away into monasteries and convents, despising the joys of the world for the sake of their souls. But these men and women were infinitely better than the great multitudes who go out into the world to-day, despising their souls for the sake of the joys of the world. If a man or woman wants to do any despising it is better to despise the world than the soul. It were well for us to go back a little to the spirit of the mediæval time. When that spirit was pure and good the world's richest service flowed out from it.

The glory of life for us consists in finding the rough, the morally austere things in life and then fearlessly and unhesitatingly doing them. There is no splendour in the easy indulgent way. The splendour lies in finding the hard thing to be achieved and revelling in it.

Many years ago I clipped this story from the editorials of what was then our ablest newspaper:

"A young Briton named Felix Oswald became interested a while ago in the geology of Turkish Armenia. He made long journeys through that country and finally came home with an important