enough related to life itself to achieve vitality. The result is that self acquires too prominent a place, and questions are determined, courses laid, in accordance with the reactions of this personal equation. If anything of this appears in the book under consideration, it is of the slightest, and no more than a feeling that the author has gone far, but has not yet quite achieved the great and vitalizing element that through St Benedict entered into the practice of withdrawal from the world, and from then on was the great glory of Christian society. I mean fellowship in withdrawal, and the loss of all sense of personal gain or gratification through this companionship and in the helping and saving of others. As Mr Sedgwick says, "No man can save his own soul without necessarily helping his brother save his soul likewise," and it is equally true that no man can save his brother's soul, or any part of him, without helping to save his own soul. The greatness of the Christian monastic system was that it balanced these two things in just equilibrium, adding thereto the element of comradeship, which was the best protection against egotism and undue regard for one's own soul and one's own immediate spiritual happiness.
