The Bogomils repudiated infant baptism, and considered the baptismal rite to be of a spiritual character neither by water nor by oil but by self-abnegation, prayers and chanting of hymns.
For example, we find him arguing for the legitimacy of judicial punishments and military service against an over-literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount; and he took an important part in giving currency to the distinction between evangelical " counsels " and " commands," and so defending the life of marriage and temperate enjoyment of natural good against the attacks of the more extravagant advocate of celibacy and self-abnegation; although he fully admitted the superiority of the latter method of avoiding the contamination of sin.
His action was applauded by Young China at the time as evidence of patriotic self-abnegation, but events proved that it was chiefly inspired by recognition of the fact that he and the Cantonese group of politicians who had joined him as leaders of the Republican movement, did not yet carry sufficient weight to justify them in attempting to form a national government.
Whether such self-abnegation is saintly or idiotic is a question for the angels.
She did not think of applying submission and self-abnegation to her own life, for she was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood and loved in another those previously incomprehensible virtues.
