tius, not slow to discover in Thomas abilities of a high order, embraced every oijportunity to draw the pious youth closer to liis side, and in 139G tinalf)' offered him a home at Ids own house, the head-quarters of the breth- ren, to study and watch more closely the character and inclinations of the youthful stranger. Surrounded Ijy pi- ous comrades, among whom we meet Arnold of Schoon- hoven (q. v.), with whom he shared a little chamber and bed, Thomas was soon inclined to a life of asceti- cism. "Examples," says Thomas a Kempis himself, '■are more instructive than words" (J\ill. lilior.xxiv, 1, p. 95). Possessed of a boding mind, and animated by a piety so fervent as to presume always the best of oth- ers, such was the effect produced upon him by the brethren's whole manner of life, that the seven years he spent in the zealous exercise of piety and the prosecu- tion of his studies at the school and brother-house of Deventer were to him seven years spent in an actual paradise. About 1400 he petitioned father Florentius for a recommendation to admit him into the convent of Mount St. Agnes, near Zwoll, of which his brother John a Kempis (q. v.) was then prior, and with a hearty wel- come he entered this monastery as a novice among the regular canons. "Strangely as the mind of Thomas w'as bent upon his vocation, and although both nature and previous education had perfectly adapted him for it, he did not pluftge into it without consideration. De- liberate even in his youthful zeal, he spent five years of novitiate, assumed the monastic dress in the sixth, and did not imtil the year following take the vow, which he then, however, kept with inviolable fidelity" (Ullmann, uf infra, ii, 124). It was not until about 1413 that he was ordained to the priesthood. Before this or- dination he had buried himself, like all worthy disciples of the brotherhood, in the copying of MSS. and in the performance of religious exercises. Now that he ^\■as a priest, his chief occupation became the delivery of relig- ious discourses and the duties of the confessional. He continued, however, copying religious MSS. Thomas a Kempis, indeed, applied himself with vigor to this la- bor, to which he brought a quick eye and a skilful liand. He copied out the whole Bible, a missal, and a multi- tude of other works, which the monasters of St. Agues preserved ; but, in performing this office, he also prac- ticed the advice of one of the ancients, who, in writing out books, did not only seek by the labor of his hands to gain food for his body, but also to refresh his soul with heavenlj' nourishment. He was humble, meek, ready to give consolation ; fervent in his exhortations and prayers, spiritual, contemplative, and his efforts in this direction finally resulted in the composition of an original treatise, which to this hour remains one of the most perfect compositions in religious literature, by many considered the most beautiful uninspired produc- tion— the Imitation of Christ (see below). In 1425 Thomas was appointed subprior, an office which in- trusted to his care the spiritual progress of the brethren and the instruction of novices. A difficidty having oc- curred between the jiope on the one side, and the chap- ter and nobility of Utrecht on the other, about the elec- tion of Rudolph of Dieiihold as archbishop, the diocese was put under interdict, and the canons left JNIount St. Agnes in 1429 to retire to Lunekerke, in Friesland, but returned in 1432, when Thomas became procurator of the convent. But, as the duties of this office appeared to abstract him too much from meditation and his more profitalile labors as an author, he was, about 1449, re- poned in the subpriorate, and continued in this office until his death, July 2r>, 1471. "From the nature of the case, we have little to say of Thomas's cloisteral life. Without any considerable disturbance, it flowed on like a limpid brook, reflecting on its calm surface the un- clouded heavens. ( Juict industry, lonely contemplation, and secret prayer filled uj) tlie day, and every day was like another." Among his contemporaries Thomas was eminently distinguished for sanctity and ascetic learn-
KEMPIS
34
KEMPIS
Worl:^. — The reputation of a Kempi?, however, rests not upon his ascetic' character, but rather on the produc- tions of liis pen — his sermons, ascetical treatises, pious biographies, letters, and hynnis^and from these only one need be selected to claim for him the mastery as a religious writer — his Ih' Iinilutione Christi — " standing, as no o)ie doubts, and as even its effects have demon- strated it to do, ill point of excellence far above all the rest, the (lurest and most linished production of Thom- as;" a worlv which, next to the sacred Scriptures only, has had the largest number of readers of which sacred literature, ancient or modern, can furnish an example. In its pages, says Milman (^Lutiii Christianity, vi, 482), '• are gathered and concentred all that is elevating, pas- sionate, profoundly pious in all tho older mystics. No book, after the holy Scripture, has been so often reprint- ed ; none translated into so many languages, ancient and modern," extending even to Greek and Hebrew, or so often retranslated. Sixty distinct versions are enu- merated in French alone, and a single collection, formed at Cologne within the present century, comprised, al- though confessedly incomplete, no fewer than 500 dis- tinct editions. Indeed, it may be somewhat of a sur- prise to some to learn that this book has had an impor- tant influence on the mind of John Wesley and on the origin of Methodism. Wesley published a translation of it, entitled The Christian's Pattern. It was one of the earliest volumes issued by the ^Methodist Book Con- cern, and is still on their catalogue. "It should be," says one of the most distinguished American Method- ists, '• in the hands of every Methodist."