Who could be more devout than Saint Simeon Stylites? who spent all his life upon the top of a tall pillar, absorbed in contemplation, ecstasy, remorse and prayer.  Let the poet speak for him.

  “Bethink thee, Lord? while Thou and all the saints
  Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth
  House in the shade of comfortable roofs,
  Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food
  And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls,
  I, ’twixt the spring and downfal of the light
  Bow down one thousand and two hundred times
  To Christ, the Virgin Mother and the Saints: 
  Or in the night, after a little sleep,
  I wake, the chill stars sparkle; I am wet
  With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost,
  I wear an undressed goatskin on my neck,
  And in my weak, lean arms I lift the Cross,
  And strive and wrestle with Thee till I die. 
  O mercy, mercy, wash away my sin!”

A mournful spectacle.  Devotion excited to madness, while mind, heart, and conscience, all are dumb, and the poor weak body only bears the heavy burdens which the tyrannous soul heaps upon it!

Devotion, then, needs conscience.  Conscience tells a man that he must act as well as pray.  Devotion makes the great act of prayer.  Conscience works out into the actual of every-day life, the ideal of which devotion has conceived.  Will then devotion and conscience be sufficient for a noble manhood?  Devotion and conscience alone developed, have ofttimes, in the days that are past, formed some stern old grand inquisitor, torturing the life out of human sinews because he ought.  The grand inquisitor’s devotion and conscience told him that he ought to advance the holy faith by every engine in his power, and therefore, as he considered that the rack, the thumbscrews, the rope, the fire and the faggot were the best possible engines, he used the same to the utmost of his ability; and thought, alas for humanity! that he was doing God service.

The grand inquisitor had devotion, he had conscience, he probably also had nerves of iron; but he could not possibly have had a heart.  Devotion, then, and conscience need a loving, human heart.  Will these three be sufficient?  The picture grows fairer, we begin to feel less pain when we turn away from the stern, dark portrait of the grand inquisitor, which frowns so grimly in the picture gallery of history, and look upon that fair and gentle upturned face, half shaded by the veil that covers her head.  That is a nun of the order of Saint Theresa.

The pale, emaciated countenance tells of many a vigil protracted through the long hours of the night; those wild eyes once saw, or thought they saw, the picture of the Virgin hanging in her cell smiling on her as she prayed; yea, and have wept many a tear as she repeated her sins over to her confessor, or as she stood by the bed-side of some poor sufferer, while those gentle Christian hands smoothed the dying pillow.  Rest in peace, soul sainted and dear!  The tears thou didst once shed, are wiped away now forever; the sins thou didst once bewail, are all forgiven now, for thou hast loved much!