In the same parliament, Mozoomdar, the brilliant and attractive representative of the Brahmo Somaj, in describing “Asia’s Service to Religion,” thus stated the motives and spirit of Oriental asceticism:  “What lesson do the hermitages, the monasteries, the cave temples, the discipline and austerities of the religious East teach the world?  Renunciation.  The Asiatic apostle will ever remain an ascetic, a celibate, a homeless Akinchana, a Fakeer.  We Orientals are all the descendants of John the Baptist.  Any one who has taken pains at spiritual culture must admit that the great enemy to a devout concentration of mind is the force of bodily and worldly desire.  Communion with God is impossible, so long as the flesh and its lusts are not subdued....  It is not mere temperance, but positive asceticism; not mere self-restraint, but self-mortification; not mere self-sacrifice, but self-extinction; not mere morality, but absolute holiness.”  And further on in his address, Mozoomdar claimed that this asceticism is practically the essential principle in Christianity and the meaning of the cross of Christ:  “This great law of self-effacement, poverty, suffering, death, is symbolized in the mystic cross so dear to you and dear to me.  Christians, will you ever repudiate Calvary?  Oneness of will and character is the sublimest and most difficult unity with God.”  The chief value of these quotations from Mozoomdar lies in the fact that they show forth the underlying motive of all asceticism.  It would be unjust to the distinguished scholar to imply that he defends those extreme forms of monasticism which have appeared in India or in Christian countries.  On the contrary, while he maintains, in his charming work, “The Oriental Christ,” that “the height of self-denial may fitly be called asceticism,” he is at the same time fully alive to its dangerous exaggerations.  “Pride,” he says, “creeps into the holiest and humblest exercises of self-discipline.  It is the supremest natures only that escape.  The practice of asceticism therefore is always attended with great danger.”  The language of Mozoomdar, however, like that of many Christian monastic writers, opens the door to many grave excesses.  It is another evidence of the necessity for defining what one means by “self-mortification” and “self-extinction.”

Turning now to Christian monasticism, it will be found that, as in the case of Oriental monasticism the yearning for victory over self was uppermost in the minds of the best Christian monks.  A few words from a letter written by Jerome to Rusticus, a young monk, illustrates the truth of this observation:  “Let your garments be squalid,” he says, “to show that your mind is white, and your tunic coarse, to show that you despise the world.  But give not way to pride, lest your dress and your language be found at variance.  Baths stimulate the senses, and are therefore to be avoided.”

To keep the mind white, to despise the world, to overcome pride, to stop the craving of the senses for gratification,—­these were the objects of the monks, in order to accomplish which they macerated and starved their bodies, avoided baths, wore rags, affected humble language and fled from the scenes of pleasure.  The goal was highly commendable, even if the means employed were inadequate to produce the desired results.