The criticism of Schaff is just in its estimate of the general influence
of the monastic ideal, but there were individual monks whose views of
sin and salvation were singularly pure and elevating. Saint Hugh, of
Lincoln, said to several men of the world who were praising the lives of
the Carthusian monks: "Do not imagine that the kingdom of Heaven is only
for monks and hermits. When God will judge each one of us, he will not
reproach the lost for not having been monks or solitaries, but for not
having been true Christians. Now, to be a true Christian, three things
are necessary; and if one of these three things is wanting to us, we are
Christians only in name, and our sentence will be all the more severe,
the more we have made profession of perfection. The three things are:
_Charity in the heart, truth on the lips, and purity of life_; if we are
wanting in these, we are unworthy of the name of Christian."