Of this endeavor, the
animating labors and afflictions of early Christianity, the touching
asceticism of mediaeval Christianity, are the great historical
manifestations. Literary monuments of it, each in its own way
incomparable, remain in the _Epistles_ of St. Paul, in St. Augustine's
_Confessions_, and in the two original and simplest books of the
_Imitation_.[454]
Of two disciplines laying their main stress, the one, on clear
intelligence, the other, on firm obedience; the one, on comprehensively
knowing the ground of one's duty, the other, on diligently practising
it; the one, on taking all possible care (to use Bishop Wilson's words
again) that the light we have be not darkness, the other, that according
to the best light we have we diligently walk,--the priority naturally
belongs to that discipline which braces all man's moral powers, and
founds for him an indispensable basis of character. And, therefore, it
is justly said of the Jewish people, who were charged with setting
powerfully forth that side of the divine order to which the words
_conscience_ and _self-conquest_ point, that they were "entrusted with
the oracles of God";[455] as it is justly said of Christianity, which
followed Judaism and which set forth this side with a much deeper
effectiveness and a much wider influence, that the wisdom of the old
pagan world was foolishness[456] compared to it.
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