Humility, self-restraint, asceticism, patience, solitude, love of Jesus, prayer, and a diligent use of the sacramental grace of the eucharist are the means recommended to form the character of the perfect Christian.

It was doubtless because all this was so perfect an expression of the medieval ideal that it found such wide and instant favor.

There is no questioning of dogma, nor any speculation on the positions of the church; all this is postulated with child-like simplicity.

Moreover, the ideal of the church for the salvation of the individual, and the means supposed to secure that end, are adopted by a Kempis.

He tacitly assumes that the imitator of Christ will be a monk, poor and celibate.