But the mistake of the monks was twofold. They exaggerated sin, and they
employed unhealthy methods to get rid of it. Excessive introspection,
instead of exercising a purifying influence, tends to distort one's
religious conceptions, and creates an unwholesome type of piety. Man is
a sinner, but he also has potential and actual goodness. The monks
failed to define sin in accordance with facts. Many innocent pleasures
and legitimate satisfactions were erroneously thought to be sinful.
Honorable and useful aspirations that, under wise control, minister to
man's highest development were selected for eradication. "Every instinct
of human nature," says W.E. Channing, "has its destined purpose in life,
and the perfect man is to be found in the proportionate cultivation of
each element of his character, not in the exaggerated development of
those faculties which are deemed primarily good, nor in the repression
of those which are evil only when their prominence destroys the balance
of the whole."
But the methods employed by the monks to get rid of sin afford another
illustration of the fact that noble sentiments and holy aspirations need
to be wisely directed. It is not enough for a mother to love her child;
she must know how to give that love proper expression. In her attempt to
guide and train her loved one she may fatally mislead him. The modern
emphasis upon method deserves wider recognition than it has received.
The applause of the church that sounded so sweet in the ears of the
monk, as he laid the stripes upon his body, proclaims the high esteem in
which penance was held.
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