" THE IMITATION OF CHRIST."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1
SIR,-Surely numerous additions from " distinguished English writers " might be made to the passage in " The Mill on the Floss " in praise of the book which is beyond praise. Boswell (Vol. ii., p. 481, ed. Napier•) reports Johnson as saying : " Thomas ii Kempis must be a good book, as the world has opened its arms to receive it. It is said to have been printed, in one language or other, as many times as there have been months since it first came out. I always was struck with this sentence in it : Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.' " M. Arnold (" Essays in Criticism," p. 270, ed. 1865) calls the book "the most exquisite document, after those of the New Testament, of all that the Christian spirit has ever inspired," and after quoting six extracts, he says : " These are moral precepts, and precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our conduct, and to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and inward perplexity, they are equal to the best ever fur- nished by the great masters of morals,-Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius." In " Two Years Ago " (c. 25, p. 429), the " Imita- tion " is called the school of many a noble soul." Dean Church (" The Discipline of the Christian Character•," p. 129) says : It springs forth out of the depths of the heart, no one can tell exactly whence, and by degrees takes its last and present shape. And, except the New Testament, no book of religious thought has been used so widely or so long :-‘ Two thousand Latin editions, one thousand French, sixty French translations, thirty Italian,' a considerable number of English ones, and we are re-translating still. Among its translators and editors have been such different men as Corneille, Wesley, Lamennais. No book of human composition has been the companion of so many serious hours, has been so prized in widely different religious communions, has nerved and comforted so many and such different minds,-preacher and soldier and solitary thinker, Christian, or even, it may be, one unable to believe. And what is its secret ? Is it not that it4has been found to be a true and deep commentary on its own opening words?" Dr. Liddon made at least three allusions in his published sermons to the work. In the "Advent Sermons" (Vol. I., p. 188) he said " One work there is, the product of the highest Christian genius, The Imitation of Christ,' whether by it Kempis or an unknown author I cannot determine-which, more than any other, has caught the spirit of the Evangelists ;" and, again, on p. 259 he speaks of the " Imitation " as among " the very choicest of devotional books." And in the " Sermon on Devotion to the Church of Christ," p. 28, he mentions the " Imitation" among other books " that have touched the heart
Previous page
