Vaughan was still Bishop of Salford when he wrote a little pamphlet on the necessity of prayer for the conversion of England; and at the end of his long and intensively active career he seemed to receive still more light, and to understand better that God wanted from him 'more prayer than activity.'
"The world in its feverish activity now understands but half of God's design. It appreciates action, but not contemplation. Men know and perceive and acknowledge the need of action, and they esteem highly whatever acts and agitates, and nothing else. In so doing they are only being consistent with human nature, but they are mistaken. Activity is in<deed necessary, and cannot be too highly esteemed, but it alone is not enough, or rather, if it suffices in the bustle of everyday life it does not suffice for that of a Christian, which is a union of divine and human elements. In our present century, when faith is departing, as soon as a generous soul flees from the world and seeks refuge in the solitude of the cloister, men speak of it as a cowardly act, not in keeping with the age in which we live. They assume that this outwardly inactive existence was a beautiful outgrowth, a luxury produced by faith in the days when faith reigned supreme. But now that we have to defend every foot of our stronghold, and are losing ground day by day, we need active combatants, and have not too many or even enough of them. Under such circumstances, how can we view with approval those souls which are filled with faith and yet quit the field of battle? This is what people say, though they do not know what they are saying. They talk of battle, without seeing what sort of battle it is; and they speak of a battle-field, and do not perceive where the contest rages most fiercely. They accuse the most generous souls of abandoning the fray, when they
