quire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.”

The greater the force, in other words, the greater will be the moderation, reserve and restraint, for these qualities are the proof of power. All great literature testifies to the truth of this principle—the Bible, for instance. For literature is an art, as life is an art. It is, it is true, the product of the imagination, but of a chastened imagination, an imagination working under the control of the reason. And the masters of it have always known that there is a virtue, and the greatest, in this power of understatement. It both indicates and begets a calmness, a serenity and a sureness of aim and purpose, without which there can be no great literature. Even the most fanciful and fantastic poetry must be real, and this it can not be unless it is marked by the qualities spoken of as inseparable from the literary art at its highest estate. So we see that the same rule applies to literature as to life, that in this particu

lar, as in so many other particulars, literature and life are one.

The other great power spoken of is reticence. Literature is valuable both for what it tells us and what it suggests to us. And the suggestions mostly come from the great reticences. And how full the masters are of them! The man with a well-stored mind can never tell you all he knows—indeed he does not try to do so. Here, as in life, we like to realize the existence of a power not fully used, of a knowledge not wholly revealed. The loquacious and verbose writers may please in their way, but they do not and can not make the highest appeal. In the great books you get in some mysterious way a sort of sense of silence even in the very utterance, and much more in the things that are not said but that you feel might have been said. Close of kin to this reticence is the other fine quality of allusiveness than which nothingunless it be the reticence itself-is more stimulating and suggestive. Fortunately all this makes for clearness, directness and simplicity, which are the very highest literary qualities, associated as they are with that other indispens

able quality of charm. So it is that the men who strain the language to the breaking point are as great offenders as the actors who "tear a passion to tatters." They are without lucidity, without charm, without persuasiveness, beauty or power. They use words, not to express thought, not to clothe beauty, but to ease their own souls and to give vent to their own passions. And that is a most debasing use to make of them. There is, too, a childishness in it that is belittling and dwarfing. As has been said, the great masters of speech have always understood this, and so it is that their power persists through the ages. When one of them does occasionally sin against this law we instinctively feel that for the time he has ceased to be himself. Both in life and literature we need to learn from the masters, to emulate their reserve and restraint. So shall we have nobler. living and greater literature.

MODERATION

OMETHING has been said of the

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power of restraint or reserve, especially in relation to literature and life. We have from St. Paul this admonition-"Let your moderation be known unto all men." The word "moderation,' as here used, differs somewhat in meaning from the words which were discussed in the preceding essay. It signifies, to some extent, pliability, and a capacity for yielding. what it is proposed to discuss is the application of restraint, reserve, moderation and even pliability to the religious life. For a long time now the people of this country have been listening to extravagant praise of the fighting spirit, and it is, perhaps, not surprising that they should have forgotten that this is not the spirit of the religion they profess. But first of restraint and moderation. Men dealing with vast themes, such as religion, are all the while in danger of running to extremes. All about us

are sects based on some narrow interpretation -usually a misinterpretation-of a text of Scripture, the chief quality of which is violence. With them religion is a sort of madness or frenzy. They never approach it, never think about it, except in a spirit of hysteria. The phenomenon is, of course, not new, for such sects have existed in all ages. Many of the saints starved themselves into a state of mind that was extreme and unnatural. And to-day many ignorant men and women sincerely believe that they see visions and hear voices, and are sometimes led, as they suppose, by God into the perpetration of crime, even of murder. The first point to be made is that all this is utterly unchristian. For Christianity is like that wisdom which is described thus by St. James:

"The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

The faith which Christians profess is a reasonable and sober faith, the prime fruit of which is conduct.