ΰ>1(Γ ΙΠιιιΙηι nf / Rev. Frederick William Faber, I). I). / Sl.fiO Per Vol I ALL FOR JESUS ; or, The Rasy Ways of Divine Love. 12mo. Cloth, aimthe to make bright,the happy andand attractive to those need I • denAn Life, Publicpiety Ministry, Passion the Risen Life, that or Great I Fortj· such Days. helps. I BETHLEHEM. 12mo. Cloth. / A treatise considering the three and thirty years of the life of our I Lord. Embracing the sacred Infancy, the Holy Childhood, the Hid I GROWTH IN HOLINESS; OR, THE progress of the ^pirihudlt ife. BY FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D, Author of “All for Jesus," Etc , Etc. Occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei, et agnitionis Filii Dei. in virum perfectum, In mensuram, ætatis plenitudinis Christi. Veritatem facientes in charitate, crescamus In Illo per omuia, qui esi caput, Christus.—ad epubsios. With the Approbation of the Most Rev Archbishop of Baltimore ZŸX7.J2 JOHN MURPHY COMPANY, PUBLISHEBS. BALTIMORE, MABYLANP TO MY BLESSED PRINCE AND PATBOS SAINT RAPHAEL, OSE OF THE SEVEN WHO STAND ALWAYS BEFORE GOB GLORIOUS, BENIGNANT, BEAUTIFUL, THE FIGURE OF HIS PROVIDENCE, PHYSICIAN, GUIDE, AND JOY OF SOULS. COMPANION OF WAYFARING MORTAL? AND ANGEL OF THEIR VICISSITUDES, BT WHOM YUE TENDERNESS OF THE FATHER, THE HEALING OF Γ11Β SOM AND THE GLADNESS OF THE HOLY GHOST, ARE MINISTERED TO WANDERING MEN WITH THE EFFICACIOUS POWER OF AN ANGELIC SPIRIT AND THE COMPASSIONATE. PATHETIC LOVE OF A KINDLY HUMAN HEART. The Oratory, lowdow, Feast of 8t. Rahjaji. mdooclv PREFATORY EPISTLE TO TBW BEV. WILLIAM ANTONT BÜTCHISÛN PRIK8T 0» TH· L0WD0M ΟΒΑΤΟΒΤ. My dear Father Antony, In a walk by the sea-shore at Lancing four years ago, I gan Borne reasons why I should not publish anything on the spiri­ tual life until a given date. That date is past, and here is my book. I have little to say in the way of preface, and that little shall be in the shape of a letter to you, because it will be a memento of our mutual affection which will give both of us pleasure; for it will recall the eventful nine years which we have now spent together, and which it has pleased God should be equal to a long life for their various trials and almost roman * tic vicissitudes. There are two objects for which books may be written, and which must materially affect their style. One is to produce a certain impression on the reader while he reads : the other, to put before him things to remember, and ’.n such a way as he will best remember them. The present work is written for the latter object, and consequently with as much brevity as clear­ ness would allow, and as much compression as the breadth of the subject and its peculiar liability to be misunderstood, would safely permit w iii PREFACE. I dare not presume that there will not bo many cont radio tione to Bo largo a volume, in which every sentence, and fro qnontly each clauso of a sentence, is a judgment on matters about which all pious Catholics have a more or less formed opinion. But so generous a measure of indulgence has been dealt to me before, that I cannot persuade myself it will now be altogether withdrawn, especially as the book will not be found to contain one intentional word or unfavorable criticism either of men or things. This is my only boast. For the rest, I have done no more than try to harmonize the ancient and modern spirituality of the Church, with somewhat perhaps of a propen­ sion to the first, and to put it before English Catholics in an English shape, translated into native thought and feeling, as well as language. Much of the material of the book has fully observed the Horatian precept of Nonum prematur in annum, and the rest has been nine years growing. But it is a very easy thing for a man to go wrong in spiritual theology, and to stray into the shadow of condemned propositions. It will not therefore bo conceitedly making much of a little thing, if I say that I retract beforehand in the amplest and most unqualified manner anything, whether of thought or of expression, which may be uncongenial, not only to the decisions of the Holy See, but also to the approved teaching of our Religious Orders and Theological Schools May God be with my work where it speaks the mind of Hit Church without exaggeration and with sincerity! Ever, my dear Father Antony, Affectionately yours, Frbd. W. Fabik fbe Oratory. London HaMoigtHufh IBM. Qufn etiam juniores, quanqnam theolr girls litens imbuti, tales deben® reverentiam aenioribus iis, quihus vita enm «cientia concor­ dat, nt vix propter aliquas novae enaeionee qnantumeumque appacentos pertinax unquam feratur cito contra determinationes eorun­ dem assertio. Virtue quippe, qualem habebant genitam ex multis experientiis, l.mgè certifie arte judicat et operator. Por paucam instructionem intellectûs, in scientiis priesertim divi­ nis, caneantur nonnunquam errores in eie, qui 6e totos devotioni tradiderunt, dum voluerunt plue sapere, quam sibi satis erat. Gkbsom. Consulting nihil fleri a nobis potest quam ut nostrae semper opiniones et voluntates, linguas pennasque aptemus ei disciplina que in universali viget Ecclesia eo sevo, quo nos summi providentia numinis collocavit TioKAirann Noli eos imitari, qui nullnm legendi ordinem servant; sed quod forte occurrerit, quodque casu repererint, legere gaudent: quibus nibil sapit, nisi quod novum est, et inauditum- Consulta enim, et retera omnia, quantum libet ntilir, fastidiunt Tanta instabilitas procul a te oit: ipsa enim non promovet, sed dispergit spiritum; et periculose laborat, qui koo morbo vitiatas est Dacbuivs 2 (1·) CONTENTS. ÎMÀP. Μη I. True Signs or Progress II. Presumption III. How to and make Spiritual Lin. 17 Discouragement................... 27 in th· the most us Signs or 41 God................. 53 Back......................................... 67 in which we serve V. What Holds our ·............................ Progress....................... IV. The Spirit or VI. External Conduct.......... .................................... 81 95 VII. The Ruling Passion........ . ........... VIII. Our Normal State............................................... 108 IX. Patience................................................................. 130 X Human Respect.................................................... 150 XI Mortification our True Perseverance........... 163 XII The Human Spirit.............................................. 185 XII] The Human Spirit Defeated...............«........... 206 XIV Spiritual Idleness........................................... .224 XV ................................................................ XVI 243 Temptatione......... .. »*►··*................................. 277 (*▼) CONTENTS. · * Pi XVII. SCRUPLES........................................................... XVIII. The Office or Spiritual Director................ 324 XIX. Abiding Sorrow for XX. The Right View XXL The Irreligious Sin................................ 350 of our Faults..................... 367 and the Elect.................... 382 XXII. The True Idea of Devotion.......................... 397 XXIII. The Right Use of Spiritual Favors............ 423 XXIV. Distractions and their Remedies. ............... 453 XXV. Lukewarmness............................. 469 XXVI. Fervor................................................................ 480 XXVII. Discretio·..................—...................... » 488 GROWTH IN HOLINESS. CHAPTER I. TRUE SIGNS OF PROGRESS IN THE SPIRITUAL UFK The spiritual life is made up of contradictions. This is only another way of saying that human nature is fallen One of the greatest contradictions, and practically one of the most difficult to be managed, is that in spirituality it is very important we should know a great deal about our selves, and at the same time equally important that we should think very little about ourselves ; and it is not easy to reconcile these things. I mention this difficulty at the outset, inasmuch as we shall have in the course of this treatise to look very much into ourselves, and conse­ quently we run the risk at the same *ime of thinking very much of ourselves; and this last might do us more harm than the first would do us good. No knowledge in the world can be more interesting to us than to know how we stand with God. Every thing depends upon it. It is the science of sciences to us, more than the knowledge of good and evil which tempted Adam and Eve so violently. If we are well with God, all is well * 2 b (Π) 18 PRUE SIGNS OF PROGRESS with us, though the thickest darkness of adversity be round about. If wo arc not well will) Him, nothing is well with us, though the best and brightest of oarth be at our feet. It is natural that we should desire to know if we are making progress in the spiritual life; neither is there anything wrong, or even imperfect, in rhe desire, provided it be not inordinate. It would be an immense consolation to us, if wo should have reason to suppose wo were advancing; and if, on the contrary, we had grounds for suspecting something was amiss, there would at least be a sense of safety and security in the feeling that at all events we were not going on in the dark about the matter which concerns us more nearly and dearly than anything else. Love likes to know that it is accepted and recipro­ cated; and in the case of God especially, that it is not rejected as it deserves to be ; and fear is equally anxious for the same knowledge because of the eternal interests which are concerned in it. But however much we may desire it, we cannot have anything like an accurate knowledge of our progress in the spiritual life; and that for reasons on God’s side as well as on our own. On His side, because it is His way to conceal His work ; and on ours, because self-love exag­ gerates the little good we do. We do not even know for certain whether we are in a state of grace, or as Scripture expresses it, whether we deserve love or hatred. For wo have each of us a cavern of secret sins about us ; and as the Inspired Writer warns us, we must not be without fear even of forgiven sin. There are wrong ways of trying to gain this knowledge which the impatient heart seeks so anxiously. All desires become inordinate in the long run, if they are not sharply IN ΤΠΕ SPIRITUAL LIFE I® schooled and tightly kept under; and it is when they bo come inordinate that they hit with such fatal ingenuity upon wrong ways of satisfying themselves. One of these wrong ways is pressing our directors tn tell us their judg­ ment about us, which they are naturally very reluctant to do, both because they shrink from apparent pretension to supernatural gifts, such as the discernment of spirits, and because they arc aware that such knowledge is hardly ever good for us to have. Then, when this artifice proves unsuccessful, we take arbitrary and artificial marks of our own, as children run sticks into the sand to time the tide by ; and, as might be expected, we select wrongly where we had no right to select at all ; and having made a mis­ take, we are obstinate in it, and as is usual with men, the more obstinate in proportion as we are more mistaken ; and so the end of it all is delusion. And even when we do not seek to know our own interior state by one of these wrong methods, we do what is equally wrong, by disquiet­ ing ourselves constantly upon the subject, which is nothing less than a forfeiting of blessings and graces nearly every aour in the day. But in truth as it is with the hour of our death, so it is with our growth in grace. It is in every way not good for us that we should have any certain or exact know­ ledge about it. It is as much as ever we can do to keep ourselves humble, even when our faults are open and glaring, and any good there may be in us so little as to be almost invisible. What then would it be if we were truly growing in grace, and making rapid strides iu the love of God ? Surely the less we know, the easier it will be to keep humble. Moreover, the absence of such exact knowledge renders us more supple and obedient, both to 10 TRUE SIGNS OF PROGRESS the inspirations of the Holy Ghost within us, and Io the suggestions of our spiritual directors without us. Just ae it is ignorance of their maladies which makes the sick so amenable to their physicians, so it is with our ignorance of our proficiency in the spiritual life. And how much of this proficiency depends on this twofold obedience to inspirations and direction 1 Furthermore, the very un­ certainty is itself a perpetual stimulus to greater genero­ sity towards God. For the worst of all excessive self­ inspection is, that the good grows and swells as we look at it, and because we look at it; and hence, a man whose eye is always turned inward on his own heart, has, for the most part, a strangely exaggerated notion of the amount ef wbat he is doing for God. Whereas it is the very dis­ proportion between the greatness of what God has done for us, and the spirit of Fatherly love in which He has done it, and the littleness of wbat we do for God, and the spirit of niggardliness in which we do it, that makes us crave to love Him more, and to work for Him more self- denyingly. Hence I conclude that it would not be for our own best interests to know exactly, and for certain, how far we had got on the road to perfection Nevertheless a certain amount of knowledge of our state is possible, desirable, and even necessary, so long as it be desired moderately, and sought for rightly. We need consolation in so difficult and doubtful a battle ; and we are not yet sufficiently detached not to find an especial consolation in the knowledge of the operations of grace within our souls. We cannot be much given to prayer without obtaining more or less insight into God’s dealings with uj j and indeed if we do not know the graces which God is giving us, wc shall not know how to correspond IN THE SPIRITU Ali LIEE. <2, to them. So that some amount of such knowledge is ab· eolutely necessary to our carrying on the Christian warfare at, all ; and the lawful ways of acquiring it are prayer, ex· amination of conscience, and the spontaneous admonitioni of mir spiritual director. This is enough to say about the knowledge of our own spiritual state. It is a very difficult and dangerous sub­ ject. The less of such knowledge we can do with tha belter ; because it is so hard to seek it rightly, or to use it moderately. Still it cannot be dispensed with altoge­ ther, though its importance varies with the spiritual con­ dition of the individual. Thus it is important for us to put before ourselves clearly the particular condition of the spiritual life which we are now concerned with. Persons are what is called converted ; that is, they are turned to God and commence a new life. They do penance for their sins : they abjure certain false maxims which they held: they feel differently towards God and Jesus Christ: they commit themselves to certain practices of mortification : they pledge them­ selves to certain devotional observances; and they put themselves under the obedience of spiritual direction. Then they have their first fervours. They are helped by a supernatural promptitude in all that concerns the service of God, by sensible sweetness in prayer, by joy in the sacraments, by a new taste for penance and humiliation, and a facility in meditation, and often a cessation, partial or entire, of temptation. These first fervours may last weeks, or months, or a year or two even ; and then their work is done. We have corresponded to them more or less faithfully. They have had their own experiences, peculiarities, symptoms, difficulties. They have a parti­ 22 TRUE SIGNS OF PROGRESS cular genius of their own, and need a direction which it suitable for them, and is not suitable for anything else Now they have passed away, and are out of our reach. We shall meet them again at the judgment-seat, and not before. But where have they left us? At the commencement of a new stage in the spiritual life, a very trying and a very critical time. The mere passing away of fervours, which were never meant for anything more than a tempo­ rary dispensation, leaves us immersed in an uncomfortable feeling of lukewarmness. The characteristics of our present state are that we seem to be left more to ourselves than we were. Grace appears to do less for us. Old natural character comes up, when the fervours that over­ laid it are gone out, and begins to tell again with amazing vivacity. We felt as if we were more thrown upon the manliness and honesty of our own purposes and wills, and were, at least less sensibly, buoyed up by the various apparatus of the supernatural life. Our prayers become drier. The ground we are digging is stiffer and stonier The work seems less attractive in proportion as it grows more solid. Perfection does not feel so easy, and penance unbearable. Now is the time for courage, now is the trial of our real worth. We are beginning to travel the cen­ tral regions of the spiritual life, and they are, on the whole, tracts of wilderness. Here it is that so many turn back, and are thrown aside by God as frustrate saints and broken vocations. The soul I am addressing has come to this point, and is toiling on, burnt by the sun and wind, ankle deep in the sand, filled with despair from the infre­ quency of the water-springs, querulous for the want o1 TN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 23 cool quiet shade, and greatly inclined to ait down and give the matter up as hopeless. For the love of God do not sit down ! It is all over with you if you do. If I only knew, you say, that I wai getting on, if I could really believe I was making any way nt all, I would force my weary limbs to advance! Two are better than one, saith Scripture; so let us toil on together for awhile, and talk of our helps and hindrances. We are not saints, you know. Perhaps we are not aiming at saints’ heights; and if we are not, then we must not take saints’ liberties. The lessons we want must be sober, and safe, and low. Anyhow we must neither turn back nor sit down. Are we getting on ? There is not a well or a palm to measure by; there is only sand and an horizon. Courage here are five signs. If we have one of them, it is well if two, better; if three, better still; if four, capital; if all the five, glorious. 1. If we are discontented with our present state, what· ever it may be, and want to be something better and higher, we have great reason to be thankful to God. For such discontent is one of His best gifts, and a great sign that we are really making progress in the spiritual life But wo must remember that our dissatisfaction with our­ selves must be of such a nature as to increase our humi­ lity, and not such as to cause disquietude of mind or uneasiness in our devotional exercises. It must be made up of a rather impatient desire to advance in holiness, combined with gratitude for past graces, confidence for future ones, and a keen, indignant feeling of how much more grace we have received than we have corresponded t>· 2. Again, strange as »t may sound, it is a sign of our t4 TROE SIGNS OF PROGRESS growth if wo are always making new beginnings and frc-d starts. The great St. Antony made perfection consist in it. Yet this is often ignorantly made a motive of diseouragement, from persons confounding fresh starts in the feront life with the incessant risings and relapsings <>f habitual sinners. Neither must we confound these con­ tinual fresh beginnings with the fickleness which so often leads to dissipation, and keeps us back in our heavenward path. For these new starts seek something higher, and therefore for the most part something arduous ; whereas fickleness is tired of the yoke, and seeks ease and change. Neither again do these beginnings consist in changing our spiritual books, or our penances, or our methods of prayer, much less our directors. But they consist in two things chiefly : first, a renewal of our intention for the glory of God ; and secondly, a revival of our fervour. 3. It is also a sign of progress in the spiritual life, when have some definite thing in view : for instance, if wo are trying to acquire the habit of some particular virtue, we or to conquer some besetting infirmity, or to accustom ourselves to a certain penance. All this is a test of ear­ nestness, and also a token of the vigour of divine grace within us. Whereas if we are attacking no particular part of the enemy’s line, it is hardly a battle ; and if we are shooting without an aim, what can come of it but smoke and noise? It is not likely we are advancing, if, as people speak, we are going on in a general way, without distinctly selecting an end to reach, and actively forcing our way to the end we have thus consciously selected. 4. But it is a still greater sign that we are making progress, if we have a strong feeling on our minds that God wants something particular from us. We are some· IN TUB SPIRITUAL I IFF. 25 times aware that the Holy Spirit is drawing us in one direction rather than in another, that He desires some fault to be removed, or some pious work to be undertaken. This is called by spiritual writers an attraction. Some have one persevering attraction all their lives long. With others it is constantly changing. With many it is so indistinct that they only realize it now and then; and not a few seem to be without any such special drawing at * all. It implies of course an active self-knowledge, as well as a quiet inward eye of prayer ; and it is a great gift, because of the immense facilities which it gives for the practice of perfection ; for it almost resembles a spe­ cial revelation. To feel then, with all sober reverence, this drawing of the Holy Ghost, is a sign that we are making progress. Yet it must be carefully remembered that no one should be disquieted because of the absence of such a feeling. It is neither universal nor indis­ pensable. 5. I will venture also to add that an increased general desire of being more perfect is not altogether without its value as a sign of progress : and that, in spite of what I have said of the importance of having a definite object in view. I do not think we esteem this general desire of perfection sufficiently. Of course we must not stop at it nor be satisfied with it. It is only given us to go on with. Htill, when we consider how worldly most good Christians are, and their amazing blindness to the interests of Jesus, • It was remarked by Mother de Blonay, that those who are des­ tined by God to spend great part of their lives in religions superior­ ships, are, for the most part, without any peculiar attraction. Bcearee it is a “universal spirit" which the Holy Ghost desires to fore '· such souls. 8 20 TRUE SIGNS OF PROGRESS, ETC. find their almost incredible impenetrability by super, natural principles, we must see that this desire of holiness is from God, and a great gift, and that much which is of surpassing consequence is implied in it. God be praised for every soul in the world which is so fortunate as ta possess it! It is almost inconsistent with lukewarmness ; and this is no slight recommendation in itself: and although there is much beyond it and much above it, yet it is indispensable both to what is beyond and what is above. Nevertheless we must not be blind to its dangers. All supernatural desires, which we simply enjoy without practically corresponding to them, leave us in a worse state than they found us. In order to be safe we must proceed without delay to embody the desire in some act or other, prayer, penance, or zealous deed : yet not pre­ cipitately, or without counsel. Here then are five fairly probable signs of progress, and none of them so far above our heads as to be un practical to the lowest of us. I do not mean to say that the existence of these signs implies that all is as it ought to be in our spiritual life ; but that it shows we are alive, advancing, and in the way of grace : and the possession of any one of these signs is something unspeakably more precious than the best and highest gift earth can give. I repeat, if we have one of these signs it is well ; if two, better; if three, better still ; if four, capital; if all five, glorious. Now see I we have made a little way. We are further into the wilderness; and if an footeore m ever, at least a trifle less fainthearted. FRESU MPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT 21 CHAPTER Π. PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT. Fou will see by the last chapter that I have made t sort of map of the spiritual life in my own mind. I have divided it into three regions of very unequal extent, and of very diversified interest. First, there comes the region of beginnings, a wonderful time, so wonderful that nobody realizes how wonderful it is, till they are out of it, and can look back on it. Then stretches a vast extent of wilderness, full of temptation, struggle, and fatigue, a place of work and suffering, with angels, good and bad, winging their way in every direction, the roads hard to find and slippery underfoot, and Jesus with the Cross meeting us at every turn. This is four or five times the length of the first region. Then comes a region of beautiful, wooded, watered, yet rocky moun­ tains, lovely yet savage too, liable to terrific tempests and to those sudden overcastings of bright nature, which characterize mountainous districts. This last is the land of high prayer, of brave self-crucifixions, of mystical trials, and of heights of superhuman detachment and abjection, whose rarefied atmosphere only chosen souls Oin breathe. I have joined myself to a soul who is out of the region of beginnings, and has just entered on the great central wilderness, whose long plains of weary sand join the verdant fields of the beginners with the woody mountains of the long-tried and well-mortified souls. God calle 28 PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT. some to Himself in their first fervours, others mature in grace on the mountain heights. But more die in the wilderness, some at one point of the pilgrimage, some at another. Of course there is only one good time for each of us to die ; and that is the exact hour at which God wills that death should find us. But as the great body of devout men die while they are crossing the central wilderness, it is this wilderness of which I wish to speak : the wilderness of long, patient perseverance in the hum­ bling practices of solid virtue. Persons who are aiming ever so little at perfection are the choice portion of God’s creation, and are dear to Him as the apple of His eye. Hence everything that con­ cerns them is of consequence. Thus it was important uhat they should have some signs furnished them, by means of which they could estimate with some probability the progress they are making in the spiritual life But they often mistake for signs of progress things which taken by themselves do not tell either way ; and thus they fall into delusions which take them into bye-paths, tire them out, and then bring them back again into the road miles behind where they were, when they first wandered. These false signs will form the subject of this chapter. The consideration of them is of the moro importance, inasmuch as it brings us across a great many facts about the spiritual life which it exceedingly concerns ns to know. The soul then at this sb ge of its journey is beset by two opposite temptations. Sometimes it is attacked by one, sometimes by another, according to different moods of mind and diversities of character. These temptations are discouragement and piesumption; and our chief PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT business at this point is to be upon our guard againtf these two things. Discouragement is an inclination to give up all attempt * after the devout life, in consequence of the difficulties by which it is beset, and our already numerous failures in it. We lose heart; and partly in ill-temper, partly io real doubt of our own ability to persevere, we first grow querulous and peevish with God, and then relax in our efforts to mortify ourselves and to please Him. It is like the sin of despair, although it is not truly any sin at all. It is a sort of shadow of despair ; and it will lead us into numberless venial sins the first half-hour we give way to it. What it shows is that we trusted too much to our own strength, and bad a higher opinion of ourselves than we were at all warranted in having. If we had been truly humble, we should have been surprised we did not do worse, instead of being disappointed we did not do better. Many souls are called to perfection, and fail, through the sole and single mischief of discouragement. Meanwhile persons trying to be spiritual are peculiarly liable to discouragement, because of their great sensitive­ ness. Their attention is riveted to a degree in which it never was before on two things, minute duties and observ­ ances, and exterior motives ; and both these things ren­ der them uncommonly sensitive. Conscience, acted upm by the Holy Ghost, becomes so fine and delicate that't feels the jar of little infirmities, that never seemed infir­ mities before ; and not only is its perception of sio quick­ ened, but the sense of pain which “in inflicts is keener. The difficulty and the hiddenness of the work i3 which they arc engaged augmente still mort thλ sen.ucvcnrss, especially as they are so far from rvceiv'Lg tikbl· rapport 8* 80 PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT. from those around them, that, they must rather make their account to be called enthusiastic and indiscreet, sin gular and affected, by those even who arc good people, but have the incalculable ill-luck to be good in their own way, not in God’s way. Moreover early piety is never wise. How should it be, since experience alone can make it wise? The world complains of the mistakes of begin­ ners in religion, not seeing that they only make these mistakes because they are not yet quite so unworldly and anti-worldly, as please God they will be by and by. One of these mistakes is that they exaggerate their own faults, and this at once leads to discouragement. Besides that, they are working to high models, Jesus and the Saints; and when they have done their best, and what is for them really well, it must be so terribly below what they aimed at that they can hardly help being disappointed. What is more trying to spirits and temper than to be invariably playing a losing game ? And what else can a man do who has made up his mind to be like his Crucifix ? But the upshot of all this discouragement is that i* Tenders us languid and unjoyous ; just the two worsx» things that could happen to us, because they make any thing heroic simply impossible. If a man has tight hold of bis adversary in a wrestling match, and is suddenly seized with languor, all is over with him ; for the victory depended on the play of his muscles and the firmness of his hold. A victorious army can beat a vanquished army of twice its numbers, because the joy of victory is such a moral power. Thus to be languid and unjoyous, and that so early in the day, is quite fatal to us ; and it is in these two things that the bane of discouragement consists PRESUMPTION Λ NT) DISCOURAGEMENT. 81 Ab to presumption I believe it is much less common than discouragement. A man must be a fool to be pre­ sumptuous in religion. Nevertheless we can be very foolish when we least expect it. St. Theresa says humi­ lity is the first requisite for those who wish to lead an ordinarily good life; but that courage is the first requi­ site for those who aim at any degree of perfection. Now presumption is never very far from courage; and hence we must be upon our guard against it. We may fall into it in many different ways; and I will mention some of them. There is a proverb that the first blow is half th ** battle. I do not think it holds in spiritual matters; and the reason I do not think so is that such a number of persons are called to devotion and an interior life, who break down and abandon it. The fault was not in the first blow. It was vigorous enough, loving enough, hum ble enough. The fault was later on; it was either that they got tired of mortification, or that they fell into a common superstition about grace, and when it did not come true, they were disgusted. This superstition con­ sists in imagining that grace is to work like a charm, almost without the concurrence of our own wills. A man will not get up at his proper time in the morning. He says he cannot ; which is absurd, for there is no physical power holding him down in his bed. The fact is he will not; he does not choose to do it; the virtue )f it or the obedience of it is not worth the pain of it. He pleads that over night he made a resolution to get up next morn­ ing, and asked the souls in Purgatory to get him up. The morning comes; the air is cold ; meditation is uninterest­ ing; sleep is pleasant. No souls have come from Pur­ gatory to pull him out of bed, draw his curtains, light hi· 32 HUWUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT fire, and the rest. It is not therefore his affair. lie han done his part. He finished it all last night: but grace has not worked. What can he do? This is only a pic­ ture of a thousand other things. Multitudes who would have been nigh to saints remain nigh to sinners from this singular superstition about grace. What we want is not grace; it is will. We have already a thousand times more grace than we correspond to. God is never wanting on His side. It is the manly persistent will which is wanting on ours. But to return. The first blow is not half the battle in the devout life. But we think it is. We become im­ patient with the extreme and mysterious slowness of God’s movements, and we think the work begun is as good as the work ended; and knowing what the saints have done, when after long austerities they had consummated their union with God, so far as on earth may be, we presume, and imitate them in the letter, without discerning the spirit. Or again we mistake the vigour of Divine Grace for the fortitude of our own will ; and so we turn against God some special accession of supernatural strength which He has compassionately vouchsafed to us. Experience has not yet shown us by how many defeats each spiritual victory is gained. We shall find that out presently ; for it is a grand fountain of humility. Moreover there is a peculiar pleasure and an exalting sense of power which for a long time sensibly accompanies co-operation with grace. We bring it with us out of our first fervours, and it does not go away all at once when they do. And we mistake this for acquired habits of solid virtue. Or we dwell on our own good works, and then a mist rises out if thorn and we see them double. Or injudicious friends PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT. 33 praise us and remark how devout wc have grown of late, and think they are doing us a kindness while they are thus overthrowing the work of God in our souls. All these causes lead us into presumption, and presumption into indiscreet excesses, and indiscreet excesses into self· trust, and self-trust into an inevitable reaction against the inte-ior life altogether. Neither must we forget to note, though it belong» rather to a treatise on the Beginnings of the Spiritual Life, that in the earlier stages of our course, and espe­ cially in the remains of our first fervours, there are some things which greatly resemble what we read of in advanced saints. The fact is, we are only just settling into our normal state. God has hitherto been doing far Jiore than it is His will to do for a continuance. Our beginnings are sometimes almost as supernatural as our endings may be. We are not to expect that the long fiterval between the two will be so. We must part com­ pany now with a great deal of sensible sweetness, with many secret manifestations of God, and fervent aspira­ tions, which have sometimes perhaps made us fancy that we should soon be saints. Now this likeness of our beginnings to certain features of more advanced states entices us occasionally into a secret presumption. We have no idea how heavy the mere pressure of time will be upon us hereafter, nor how long the road really is, though the mountains look so near. Without one addi­ tional duty, without one new temptation, nay I will put it more strongly still with fewer duties and fewer tempta­ tions the mere continuance of going against our natural inclinations, which is implied in the service of God, is a drag upon us more fatiguing and more depressing than o 34 PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT we could bave conceived beforehand. Perseverance in the greatest of trials, the heaviest of burdens, the most crushing of crosses. These two dangers of discouragement and presumption lead us into opposite mistakes with regard to our spiritual progress. Hence it is of consequence to be on our guard against certain symptoms which discouragement will take as proofs we are not advancing, and presumption as proofs we are greatly advancing, when in reality, taken by them­ selves, they tell neither way. I proceed to consider five of these uncertain signs of progress : and to look at each of them under the double aspect of presumption and discouragement. 1. After watching ourselves for a time, we perceive that we either do or do not conquer some besetting fault. We presume upon this. But let us consider. It may be no real proof of progress, for our temptations ma, from many causes happen to be weaker at that particular time. The devil by his natural subtilty may foresee that we shall thus examine ourselves, and thus rest upon the result of our examination ; and wishing to inspire us with false confidence, which is always fine weather for his cam­ paign, H may draw off his forces and leave us in tempo­ rary peace. Or again our faults may be changing from some change in our exterior life, or from the force of yvars, or any other cause. That our faults do change is certain, and these changes give birth to some of the most remarkable phenomena of the spiritual life. Or again, from some little infidelity to grace, the sensitiveness and delicacy of our conscience may be in punishment a little dulled ; and hence we may be less conscious of our falls. Ib there any one who has not experienced this punish- PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT. 85 ment? Hence there is no ground for presumption simply in our perceiving that we have fallen less often into some besetting fault. But then there is also no reason for discouragement because we happen of late to have fallen oftener. We must go on taking observations for a long time before we can safely begin to draw inferences from them. It may be, for many reasons, that we are more conscious of our falls just now than we were before. Or God may allow us to fall in order to keep us bumble, or to conceal from us the progress we may be making in some other direction. Or it may be that our great enemy has made a dead set against us in that particular respect. We may be actually supporting a charge, not merely marching through a difficult country. We do not know enough about ourselves to be reasonably discouraged then by this first sign. 2. We presume or are disheartened in proportion as we have or have not sensible sweetness in our religious exercises. But presumption should remember that this sensible sweetness arises very often from physical causes, from good health, fine weather or high spirits, and even when it is an operation of grace it is sometimes a testi­ mony of infirmity, and a mark of spiritual infancy. It is the bait of God’s condescension to tempt us on, when we have not sufficient solid virtue to distinguish between Him and His gifts, and to serve Him for His own sake, not for theirs. It is a bait to be eagerly seized, for it brings forth solid fruits. Yet it is God’s gift, not our pro· gress. At the same time it is very unreasonable to be discouraged by the absence of this sensible sweetness For it is a gift, not a virtue; and God gives it to whom He wills, and when He wills, and in what measure Ha 86 PRESOMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT. wills. Nay, His very withholding it is sometimes b favour; for it is meant to raise the soul to a higher state to ennoble its love, and to increase its occasions of merit­ ing. Even if it is a chastisement it rnay be .1 favour. People very often insist on giving way to low spirits because they are sure that such or such a symptom in their spiritual life is a divine punishment. Truly a spiritual mm, when he is peevish, is the most unreason­ able of all complainants. I cannot see anything disheart­ ening in being punished by God. On the contrary, when He punishes He does not ignore us; and His ignoring us would be the really terrible thing. And when He punishes, it is a father’s punishment, and the hardness of the blow and the number of the stripes are in truth but measures of the affectionateness of the punishment. Never let us wish God to put off His punishments. It is a wish He might easily grant, and for which we should pay dearly in the end. God is interested in us and full of merciful purposes, when He condescends to chastise us. While one hand wields the rod, the other is filled with special graces, which we shall receive when nature has been sufficiently hurt and mortified. 3. Another experience which we are in the habit of making too much of, is our finding or our not finding mental prayer and meditation grow easier. For medita­ tion is in itself ordinarily so difficult that anything like an increased facility in it presently awakens presumptuous feelings. But we should recollect that the habit of prayer is a different thing from the grace of prayer ; and meditation is such a discursive method of prayer that it is quite easy to form a habit of it without its going at all deeply into us, or affecting our interior life. Instance! ΓΚΕΒ0Μ1Τ10Ν AND DISCOURAGEMENT »7 of this corae across us continually in the shape of men who never miss their morning medi ation, yet seem to be none the better for it, do not lead more mortified lives, or vanquish their dominant passion, or govern their tongues, or become more recollected. Not but that the habit of prayer is an excellent thing; only it is not the gift of prayer, and we arc apt to exaggerate its importance from confounding it with the gift. It may also happen at any particular time that the subjects of our meditations may be easier to us, as being more suitable to our genius. The different times of the ecclesiastical year may bring this about. It may be Christmas, or Lent, or Corpus Christi. For some can meditate easily on the Passion who cannot meditate at all on the Infancy; and some find rest and devotion in the Gospel Narratives and Parables who can make nothing of our Lord’s Mysteries Or our bodily health may be better, our sleep sounder, or our circumstances more cheerful, or the excitement of some great feast, coming or gone, may be still upon us and help us. All this is against our presuming simply because for the while meditation goes on more swim­ mingly and smoothly. At the same time we have no reason to be discouraged if meditation so far from growing easier seems to become impossible to us. It is a long work to gain facility in mental prayer, and it is acquired much mere by mortification than it is by habit; and our progress in mortifications, while it must be steady and unsparing, must also be gradual and cautious, erring rather on the side of too little than too much, because of our wretched cowardice. Moreover, as I shall have to show in the sequel, dry meditations are often the most profitable, and of course it is just the dryness that makes 4 88 PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT. the difficulty. And, to put it at the Wv rst, there is nok necessarily the least venial sin in want of readiness at prayer; and surely it is a great thing for us at this stage, and remembering old times, that God’s grace keeps us from offending Him. It is not a sign of a low estate to be immensely joyful at the mere absence of sin. There are better things in store for us; but God grant that as we force our way we may never lose the simplicity of that satisfaction ! I will not allow that we have always a right to be discouraged even by our sins, but I am sure we ought not to be discouraged by anything which ii short of sin. 4. We are often apt to philosophize on the phenomena of our temptations, and to be elated or cast down by what we fancy we observe in that region. But even if the sky look cloudless and serene, we have no warrant to be elated. Our temptations may at any particular time oe fewer in number, as I have observed before. They may also be of a less attractive character, in consequence of some change in our outward circumstances. Or our minds may be full of some interesting occupation which completely possesses them and so distracts them from the temptations, without there being anything meritorious or uupernatural in it. It is sometimes true that the world helps us as well as binders us by its multifarious distrac­ tions. They prevent much sin, though they spoil much recollection. It is this which makes solitude so * danger ous except to tried virtue. But suppose a very tempest of temptations is raging round us ; discouragement would be as unreasonable in this case as presumption in the other. The very vehemence of the temptations is a sign pf the devil’s anger ; and be is far too sensible to be angry PRF.BUMPTION AND DISCOURAGEMENT 39 for nothing. When the Bible speaks of his being angry, it is added that it is because his time is short. We must have provoked him by the way in which we have hong on to God, or by the marks of special love which God has made to shine upon us, and which Satan may be able to sec more clearly than ourselves. If the tempta­ tions frighten us rather by their obstinacy and long con­ tinuance, as if they were determined not to leave us until they had got a fall out of us, we must be on our guard indeed, but with joy and thanksgiving. For the very continuance of the temptation is a proof that so far at least it has not been consented to. The dog goes on barking, says St. Francis of Sales, because he has not been let in Furthermore, which may be the result of Satan’s natural sagacity and foresight, an access of new and unusual temptations is often a sign that a season of 'peculiar grace is at hand. Therefore, with Jacob, we must wrestle till the dawn. 5. At different seasons we feel the effect of the sacra­ ments more or less decidedly. Certainly there are times when it almost seems as if the sacraments were going to destroy faith, so palpably do we see and hear and taste and touch and handle and realize grace. This is especially true both of confession and communion. Nevertheless there is no room for presumption here The grace of the sacraments is not our merit; and the sensible effect of them may often bo apparent, and yet its being sensible arise actually from other causes, physical or mental. Or God may see that we are unusually weak and so may give us an unusual grace, and make it sensible in order to inspirit the lower part of our soul more effectually. Vet if the sacraments become insipid, losing what littl· 40 PRESUMPTION AND DISCOURAO EMENT. BCDAible savour they bad to our souls before, we must not be discouraged as if some evil were befalling us. It is no proof that we are not receiving in abundant, measure the solid grace of the sacraments. The saints have ex­ perienced similar things, even after they had become saints. And, moreover, though this perhaps is taking you a little too near the mountains, bare faith is by far the grandest of all spiritual exercises. Perhaps you will say that this is an unsatisfactory chapter : all negatives. But have you not got far enough to see that inward peace is the great thing you want ? and nothing so effectually secures that, as the wise and skilful handling of these two temptations, presumption and discouragement. Besides, if it was a great thing to know what are signs of progress, it is far from a little thing to know what are not signs, especially wbsu they pretend to be. now TO MAKE THE MOST O», FTO. Il CHAPTER 1Π. HOW Γ0 MAKE THE MOST OF OUR 8I0N8 01 PROGRESS I must now suppose the soul of my pilgrim to bave some or all of the signs of progress enumerated in the first chapter. It cannot be content with merely contem­ plating them ; it must set to work to cultivate them : and how is this to be done ? This is the question to which the present chapter must furnish an answer. But a word of general advice at the outset. At this early stage of the devout life we must be careful not to take too much upon ourselves, not to fly too high, not to promise God great austerities, nor burden ourselves with nume­ rous practices. We must not be cowardly and faint­ hearted ; but we must be moderate and discreet. To be gentle with ourselves is not necessarily to be indulgent to ourselves. The punishment that is not too much for a man would kill or maim a child. In the spiritual life there are generally particular aids of grace or means of grace appropriated to particular epochs; and just as this epoch has its own dangers, pre­ sumption and discouragement, so it has its two aids or means, recollection and fidelity; and its great work at present is to get used to these two things. In our be­ ginnings, while our first fervours were burning in oui hearts, we hardly felt the need or realised the importance of these things. They came of themselves. Impulses of grace did it all; and the generosity of young luv· 4’ 42 now TO MAKE THE MOST OF supplied for a great deal of painful and dry self-discipline Thus we were recollected without feeling it, and faithful without knowing it. But those days are passed away. Many books have been written upon recollection, of more paragraphs than I must use words. To put it quite shortly, recollection is a double attention which we pay first to God and secondly to ourselves; and with­ out vehemence or straining, yet not without some painful effort, it must be as unintermitting as possible. The necessity of it is so great that nothing in the whole of the spiritual life, love excepted, is more necessary. We cannot otherwise acquire the habit of walking constantly in the presence of God; nor can we without it steer safely through the multitude of occasions of venial sin which surround us all day long. The whispered inspira­ tions of the Holy Ghost pass away unheard and un­ heeded. Temptations surprise us and overthrew us ; and prayer itself is nothing but a time of more toan usual distractions because the time out of prayer is not spent in recollection. The very act by which we apply our attention to prayer does little more than empty our minds of our duties, so as to give more room for distractions than we had while hand and head and heart were in the occupations of daily life. This habit of recollection is only to be acquired by degrees. There is no royal road to it. We must make the occasional practice of silence one of our mortifica­ tions, if we can do so without singularity or ostentation ; and seeing that for the most part we all talk more in con­ versation than others would wish us to do, it would not De hard to mortify ourselves in this way. We should also watch jealously any eagerness to hear news, and to OÜR RTGN8 OP PROGRESS. 4Λ Know wbat is going on in the great world around us. Until we feel the presence of God habitually and cac revert to Him easily, it is astonishing with what readi­ ness other subjecte can prc-occupy and engross us ; and it is just this which we cannot afford to let them do. News­ papers keep not a few back from perfection. Visiting the Blessed Sacrament daily is another means of acquiring recollection. We feel the visit long after it is over. It makes a silence in our hearts and wraps an atmosphere around us, which rebuke the busy spirit of the world. The practice of retaining some spiritual flower, maxim or resolution, from our morning’s meditation, in order to supply us with matter for ejaculatory prayer during the day, is a great help to the same end. Bodily mortifica­ tion is a still greater, especially the custody of the senses, when we can practise it unnoticed. But the greatest help of all is to act slowly. Eagerness, anxiety, indeliheration, precipitancy, these are all fatal to recollection. _jet us do everything leisurely, roeasuredly and slowly, and we shall soon become recollected, and mortified as well. Nature likes to have much to do, and to run from one thing to another ; and grace is just the opposite of this. I do not know a better picture of recollection than Fenelon’s description of grace, which he sent to a person who was just going into a convent. “ God would have you wise, not with your own wisdom, but with His. He will make you wise, not by causing you to make many reflections, b it on the contrary by destroying all the un­ quiet reflections of your false wisdom. When you shall no longer act from natural vivacity, you will be wise with­ out your own wisdom. The movements of grace are 44 HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OP simp.V, ingenuous, infantine. Impetuous nature thinks much and speaks much. Grace thinks little and says little, because it is simple, peaceable, and inwardly re­ collected. It accommodates itself to different eharac tors. It makes itself all to all. It has no form nor con­ sistence of its own; for it is wedded to nothing; but takes all the shapes of the people it desires to edify. It measures itself, bumbles itself, and is pliable. It does not speak to others according to its own fulness, but ac­ cording to their present needs. It lets itself be rebuked and corrected. Above all things, it holds its tongue, and never says anything to its neighbour which he is not able to bear : whereas nature lets itself evaporate in the heat of inconsiderate zeal.” * The peculiar rewards which recollection brings with 1« show how appropriate a grace it is to this particular epoch of the spiritual life. The difficulties of prayer are more easily surmounted, and some of its more dangerous delu­ sions avoided. It seems also to prevail more with God when it is offered from a recollected heart, and the answers come quicker and more abundantly. Sweetness and sensible devotion once more revisit the soul along with the peace in which recollection plunges it; and lib­ erty of spirit, arising from the detachment from all earthly things, which is gradually the consequence of recollection, enables us to fly, rather than to walk, along the path of perfection. Without recollection, this liberty of spirit becomes mere license and dissipation, and our spiritual life nothing but presumptuous imitation of the freedoms which the saints nave purchased by years of heroic self-restraint and dis­ interested love. How many fall into this pitfall, whenoe • Lettres, tome ▼, p. 8V8 OUR SIGNS OF PROORRS8. 4δ they arc drawn out only to go down into Egypt w bond» jjen ! For recollection ie itself a holy captivity, to which we arc unwilling to submit; but from which we tnly free ourselves to meet a worse and harder slavery. Vanity and cowardice are equally the sworn foes of recollection; for to vanity it is always unfolding pictures of self which are anything but flattering, and cowardice is perpetually annoyed by its loud calls to reform and mortification,which grow more irksome the longer they are delayed. In a word, at this season of our pilgrimage, external things, though a necessary probation, are a trial almost above our grace to bear. They begin by engaging, pos­ sessing, pre-occupying us ; and no sooner are our minds completely filled by them, than they beguile our hearts, and entice us into a thousand human attachments, which, however spiritual their pretexts may be, are nothing more than a veritable slavery. The mind and heart thus ■ubdued, nothing is wanting but the third and last projess of corrupting us, which is accomplished by dissipa­ tion, sensuality, and the maxims of the world. We may be sure then that without recollection we shall make no progress. Fidelity is the other great aid of this epoch of the spi­ ritual life. What is meant by it is this. Even although we may not be living under a rule of life, still as a matter of fact the duties and devotions of one day very much resemble those of another. It is practically as if we promised God certain things, and a particular round of religious observances : so much so that conscience re­ proaches us whenever we causelessly intermit any of them. Thus these daily observances come to be a kind of condi tion of our perseverance. They acquire a sort of sanctity, (JR SIGNS OF PROGRESS. thought it well to pray that God would lead her by th? common way, how necessary must such common guidance be to us ! Still, I would hardly advise that wc should pray for it; lest the very prayer should fill our heads with perilous conceits. There is no weakness or folly, which need even surprise us in self-love. In these five ways we may correspond to the graces which God has already given us, and cultivate those fair fresh promises of growth io holiness which He has allowed us to exhibit in our souls. But I will not leave the sub­ ject of progress, without putting before you an extract which Orlandini gives us from the papers of the Jesuit, Peter Faber, the companion of St. Ignatius. It is a common mistake, says Orlandini, for men aiming at per fection to pay more attention to their daily falls than to the further pursuit of virtue and progress in spirituality. Of this Faber used often to complain, saying that it seemed as if people took a greater pleasure in studying the art of mistaking and falling, than that of acquiring the beauty of virtue. He called this a fraud in the spiritual life. For although it is a virtue to avoid vice, yet to be always contemplating and deploring our sins, keeps the soul down from higher and better things, and retards its holy impe­ tuosity whereby it attempts great works and rapidly climbs heights of virtue, which are of themselves fatal to the vices we less wisely try to diminish by this perpetual inipection and review of self. THE SPIRIT N WHICH WE SERVE GOD M CHAPTER IV. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD. Theory is not much without practice; yet without a good theory practice for the most part is not itself worth much, for it is neither fruitful nor enduring. If this is true in most things, it is especially so in the spiritual life. Now God is to us very much what we are to Him. With the innocent Thou shall be innocent, and with the perverse Thou shalt be perverted. Having then observed in ourselves certain signs of progress, been put upon our guard against certain pretended signs, and seen what we can do to cultivate the promise we have observed, it is de­ sirable that we should clearly understand in what spirit it is that we commit ourselves to God, and pledge ourselves to serve Him. A clear idea is a great help to us, and consistency is no slight part of perseverance. Let us then thoroughly understand what we are about, what we are promising, what sort of a life it will lead to, and what God may reasonably expect of us after our own voluntary professions. What I have to show then in this chapter is that with out liberty of spirit we can never be perfect, that there is no true or safe liberty of spirit which does not follow as a consequence from the spirit in which we serve God, and hence that the only right spirit in which to serve Him is one of self-sacrifice and generosity. When wo have mastered this chapter and turned it into practice, 61 THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD are already miles beyond where we were before People never go far enough, unless they start with a clear view of how far they ought to go. I will begin with the spirit in which most men serve God. There are many difficulties in life. Some men have more, some less. But the most fearful of all no one can get rid of, namely, that of having to deal with God. To have to deal with God is a necessity as awful as it is in dubitable and unavoidable. Contrast His reality with oui untruth, His power with our weakness, His law with our disobedience. Enumerate His known perfections, remein bering that there is no great or small with Him because of His immensity and completeness. Analyze His tre­ mendous sanctity, and meditate separately on every clement of it, its awful minuteness, its unbearable purity, its unspeakable sensitiveness, its terrific jealousy. On our side there is a multitudinous fertility, day and night, of thought, word, work, omission and intention : on His side, the noting of all this, the stern requisition of an invariably pure intention, the strict account, the severity of the punishment, the eternity of the doom, and the infallible inevitableness of it all. His court in heaven we could not see and live, be­ cause of its radiant purity. The strong angels tremble and are shaken ; our Lady is all abased ; and the Sacred Heart of our Lord Himself is flooded with reverential fear. Along the line of Sacred History there gleam like lights the dreadful chastisements which God has inflicted on venial sins. Moses, and David, the man of God whom the lion slew and Oza who upheld the swaying Ara — THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD. 53 these examples are overwhelming disclosures of the sanc­ tity of God ; and the notable thing is, that what seems to anger God in these faults is the want of wholeness of heart with Him. Let us look at our past lives by this light, and have we not cause to tremble ; or even at our present practice, and have we a right to be without fear? What a thought for us that He knows at this moment how we are to stand to all eternity, what pains we are to endure, or what bliss we shall enjoy. It is enough to take away our breath to know that this is known, even though we still are free. Surely nothing can be condeived more awful than having to deal with God. What then follows from this ? Undoubtedly nothing less than these five simple truths. 1. That His service is our most important, if not our sole, work. This is so obvious that it requires only to be stated. Time and words would alike be wasted in he attempt to prove it. Yet alas ! even spiritual persons need to be reminded of this elementary truth. Let us subject ourselves to a brief examination upon it. Are we thoroughly convinced it is true ? Has our past life shown proof of it? Is our present life modelled upon it Are we taking pains that our future life shall be so What is the result when we compare our worldly promp­ titude and industry with our preference of the service of God over all other things? Are we in any way on the look-out for His greater glory or our own greater union with Him ? Is it plain at first sight that we have no object or pursuit so engrossing and so decidedly paramount as the service of God ? 2. That the Spirit in which we serve Him should be entirely without reserve. Need I prove this? What if bfl THB SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD to be reserved? Can there be reserves with God ? Can His sovereignty be limited, or our love of Him over reach the measure of enough ? But have wc no reservo with Him now? Is there really no corner of our heart ov< r which He is not absolute Lord? Does lie ask of uh freely what He wills, and do wc do our best to give Him all He asks? Have we no implicit bargain or conditi i with Him that He is only to go so far with us and no further? Is our outward life utterly and unconditionally dependent on Him? And if it is, is the kingdom of our inward intentions reposing peaceably beneath His un­ questioned sceptre ? 3. That our ruling passion should be horror of sin, even venial sin, and unworthy imperfections. Now do we so much as know what this feeling means? When we read of it in spiritual books, does it not sound to us like an unreal exaggeration ? Have we even heartily prayed for an increased hatred of sin ? Are there not many evils which afflict us far more keenly ? Are we at­ tracted to Gethsemane, and to the mysterious vision of our Master crushed, like the grapes in a wine-press, beneath the mental horror of the world’s sins? Until we know something of this horror of sin, supernatural principles can hardly be said to have taken possession of our minds. 4. That we should avoid, as if it were sacrilege, any slovenliness in our dealings with God. Surely the terror of His majesty, as well as the immensity of IIis love, should make this one of our fundamental axioms. There is a personal contempt about slovenliness which makes it perfectly horrible to couple even the idea of it with God. It is far more truly a practical atheism, than many gross THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD. 57 Bins into which the vehemence cf our guilty passions maj betray us. Yet how do matters stand with our médita tion, vocal prayer, mass, confession, and communion. And if it be so with our directly spiritual duties, what ‘-hall be said of those occupations of our calling out of which we are to work our salvation, and which can only be sanctified by extreme purity of intention? 5. That the only one fact of any especial importance to us is whether we are honestly serving God or not. Shall we be saved or not 1 The whole of life’s solem­ nity and seriousness resolves itself into that one over­ whelming doubt. We should have nothing so much at heart as this. Nay rather we should have nothing at heart but this. How dead to self wc should soon become under the shadow of this universal, life-long questioni Yet how does the case really stand? A little wrong, a trifling injustice, an insulting word, a piquing of our selflove and personal vanity, stirs us more effectually and interests us more really than the chances of being lost or saved. And yet we are aiming at a devout life I And yet we dream that we are serving God! It is plain, without speaking of high thing: or of fer­ vent devotions, that merely to carry out in the service of God these five self-evident truths, we must serve Him in a spirit of generosity and self-sacrifice. But the spirit of generosity may be looked at in two ways; as it exists in our own hearts, and as it actually inspires our conduct We are thinking of it just now in the first point of view. Its victory over our external actions is a work of time and combat. It will not only be long before it is achieved, but in point of fact it never will be achieved to the extent which we ourselves see to be possible. What I want to (Β THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD. impress upon you is that even as a theory it is of immense utility. Unless we see clearly what it is to be generous with God, and have steadfastly determined to be so, there is no likelihood that the slightest degree of generosity will actuate our external conduct. What we want in our present position is that we shall not consciously at least have any reserves with God, that we shall set no definable bounds either to our love of Him or to our sacrifice for Him, that we shall not fix our eye on any imaginary point of future perfection and say that when we are arrived at that we shall be content, that as we read or hear of the states and stages of the spiritual life and the practices of courageous mortification, we shall never feel of any of them that it will never be a practical matter to us. You see I am putting it all in the nega­ tive. I am not saying you shall positively determine at some future time to do this or to suffer that. I should not wish it. I am only saying you must not exclude as impossible or impracticable any amount of perfection. You must have no reserve. with the future. You have nothing to do You have to follow the present grace, and then the grace which shall present itself next, and then the grace after that, and so on, till God draws you to a nearness to Himself which it would frighten you now even to picture to yourself. You must abandon yourself to grace and follow its lead. · But unless you see the reasonableness of this, and make up your mind to it steadily beforehand, you are quite sure not to do it. This is what I mean by having a good theory of generosity. If you have not the theory now, you will never bave thr practice hereafter. Undeniable as the common sense of this may be, cor· THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE OOP- 59 nipt nature will often plead eloquently against it. Con­ sequently this theory muet not be merely a loving instinct in the heart or an habitual resolution in the will. You must verify it as an intellectual conviction. You must have persuaded yourself of it. If not, when temptation comes, you will tremble from bead to foot with indecision, and end by fainting. It is well, therefore, to make it a frequent subject of meditation. You must accustom yourself to true views about the Gospel. You must see that, all through, it is a religion of suffering, of mortifi­ cation, of self-sacrifice, of consuming love, of self-forget­ ting zeal, of self-crucifying union, in a word, it is the religion of the Cross and the Crucified. You must get well into you the truth so unpalatable to nature that self­ denial is of its essence, and that it must be daily self­ denial, not only that we may be perfect, but even that we may be our dear Lord’s disciples. In truth, Jesus is our model, of whom the Holy Ghost bade the apostle say that He pleased not Himself. Fix your eyes on this Divine Exemplar; familiarize yourself with the mysteries of His Sacred Humanity, until the spirit of them passes into you. Learn the secret of His Infancy, of His eighteen years Hidden Life, of His three years Ministry, of His week’s Passion, of His forty days of Risen Life. Where is there any self? Is it not all «sacrifice in detail ? Is not all unreserved generosity for Jio glory of His Father, and the perishing souls of men ? This unreservedness is the grand characteristic of the Incarnation. Look at His Passion. Take His Divinity for the first point of your meditation on it. How did He use it? He restrained it from consoling Him; He let it •trengthen Him that He might suffer more, even beynd 60 ΤΠΕ SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD· the ordinary limite of human endurance; it was all I lie while actually giving physical strength and vigour Ιο II i executioners to torment Him with, and its concurrence was the weight and the force of the burning lash. Then look at His soul. In it He foresaw His passion all Hi life long, so that it was a fear aud a suffering of time and-thirty years. Gethsemane was, as it wore, the cruci­ fixion of His Soul, as Calvary was of His Body; and all through the Passion His Soul was pierced by woes and humiliations which have never been surpassed or equalled for continuity, variety, and keenness. Then cast an eye upon His Sacred Body. Nothing is held back. Head, Hands, Feet, Eyes, Mouth, Back, Heart, all have their own torture, all contribute their own peculiar agony to the grand Redeeming Sacrifice. His Blood is shed quite wastefully, over the olive roots of Gethsemane, on the pavement of Jerusalem, into the braided thongs and the knotted lashes, all along the way of the Cross, up Cal­ vary, and on the holy wood of the Cross, and it is shed until the emptied Heart has not another drop to give.. Now compare all this with our own mean reserve and half-heartcdness ! Towards God what scanty prayers, what careless examens, what heartless confessions, wnat cold communions, what human respect, what grievous sins! Towards our neighbours, how selfish in action, how unkind in word, bow censorious in thought ! Toward, ourselves, how indulgent, bow conceited, what pampering of our body, what worship of our will ! The great lesson of the Crucifix is whole-heartedness with God, the spirit of joyous abandonment and generous sacrifice. We may get a clearer idea of it if we look at it from another point of view. We are quite capable of THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD. 61 conceiving a man, a saint he could not be, exempt from all actual sin, and observing to the full all the command­ ments in the letter, and yet without generosity to God it is. of course, a theological impossibility; but we are capable of conceiving it This sinless man might, with­ out breaking any commandment, be occasionally dull· hearted with God, grudging Him heroic service and counsels which did not oblige. He might be sometimes inclined to bargain with God, and to think he bad now done quite as much as was discreet. Now and then he might give way to the feeling that his obedient life was irksome, because of the unwearied and unremitting sacri­ fice which it entailed. At intervals he might even have tits of lukewarmness, in matters plainly short of sin. He might look on Jesus without any glow of enthusiasm, and his acts of love might up to a certain point be remiss. Ill this is possibly and imaginably consistent with entire sinlessness. Yet what is the disposition of this unsinning monster, but the portrait of a devil, or something very like it? And why, except for the absence of all gene­ rosity with God ? It is just this which stamps, not the unchristian, but the anti-ebristian character upon it. Of a truth there has been a pure creature, who baa been exempt from every shade of sin ; and yet, if we may say so, sinlessness is not her highest prerogative, even independent of the Divine Maternity. Cast an eye over her sixty-three years, and you will see what is meant by generosity towards God and unreservedness with Him. Her first act of love and use of reason at the very moment rf the Immaculate Conception was an entire and joyous surrender of herself to God, and it was never retracted for so much as an instant through all those years. The 6 62 THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD thought never crossed her of being aught else than a" for God So when she made her vow of virginity, as the most perfect offering to the infinite sanctity of God, h.· sacrificed apparently the one object which was nearest and dearest to every Jewish maiden’s heart, even the hope of being the Mother of the Messias. Then again when she consented, in obedience to those who had a right, to com­ mand her consent, to espouse St. Joseph, what an utter abandonment of self it was! Even her consent to the Incarnation, and her acceptance of the dignity of Mother of God, were acts of generosity, not only because of the unequalled suffering they involved, but also because of the violence she was called upon to do to her deep humi­ lity. Her presentation of Jesus in the temple, and her acceptance of Simeon’s prophecy, were equally examples of her self-forgetting generosity with God. Amidst all the trials of the Sacred Infancy she called for no miracles to alleviate her cares. In the Holy House of Nazareth her life was nothing else than a perpetual oblation of Jesus and of herself to God. Her poverty was perfect; neither did she seek for spiritual consolations, but was contented with the almost unbroken silence of her Divine Son, when she longed for Him to speak. She parted with Him unselfishly when He went upon His three years’ ministry, which, even when she followed Him, at least broke up and rendered desultory her intercourse with Him. She consented to His Passion, and co-ope­ rated with Him in all its steps. She spent fifteen years of resigned desolation upon earth, when He had ascended, and like a magnet had almost drawn her Immaculate Heart up to heaven with His own. She gave Him away to the Eternal Father in the Ascension, »®d Trithout a THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE 00© fiurmur took John fot Jesus. How wonderful must bet detachment have been, who could detach herself even from the presence of our dearest Lord, and which bad nothing, not even Himself, that it did not generously abandon to the will of God ! Such is the spirit in which, according to our measure and degree, we must resolve, by the help of His grace, to serve Almighty God; and among the many reasons why this should be so, I must notice one, because it belongs to our present reflections. We have heard much of liberty of spirit, and we have read that without it we can never reach perfection. Every one agrees in saying great things about liberty of spirit, and in desiring it for himself. But few have any clear notion of what they themselves mean by liberty of spirit : and for the most part, when they sup­ pose they are exercising that liberty, they are in reality only making free with God and their religious duties in i way which will be sharply visited on them at last. Liberty of spirit does not then consist in being free from i rule of life, and not having set duties for set times, nor in changeableness with devotions, pious books and the like, nor in the absence of self-accusation when we neglect any of our exercises, nor in not making a scruple of what other good people make a scruple, nor in being off-hand and careless with the details of our actions on the ground that God looks at the heart, nor in addressing hot words to God, and courting His merciful caresses, when we are taking no sort of pains to mortify ourselves and keep our passions undsr. All this is slovenliness and impertinence, not Christian liberty of spirit. Yet how many do we see who by slightly and unconsciously degrading God in their own ideas, and then making themselves very much al 64 THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOI> home with His service, imagine that they are enjoying the breadth and room and invigorating air of liberty, when they are all the while debauching the very princi­ ples of reverence and religiousness in their own minds, ana are drinking venial sin, as thirsty beasts drink water t If, however, it is not easy always to recognize hbertv of spirit, and to distinguish it from rudeness, irreverence, or an unscrupulous self trust, the difficulty is very much narrowed by reflecting that in most cases we can tell what is net liberty of spirit. For no one can by any possibility hav( a true liberty of spirit, who is not serving God in a spirit of generosity. Now it is easy for us to know whether we are doing or trying to do this or not; and if the answer be in the negative, then wo may be infallibly eertain that anything about us which looks like liberty of spirit is in reality something else, and probably some· thing highly undesirable. It is a help to us then to know so much as this, that if we have not generosity, we nave not liberty. * The one answers to the other. Or at least without generosity there can be no liberty, though troin interior trials there may at particular seasons be generosity without liberty. The spirit of Jesus is a spirit of liberty. Scripture baa passed it into a Christian proverb, that where the spirit of God is, there is liberty. When first it eame into the world, it was a spirit of liberty from the bondage of fear and dark superstition which had reigned over the heathen, from the narrowness and doubt and grovelling appetites of the Greek and Roman unbelievers, and from the slavery of ceremonial and positive precept which had schooled the • I am not speaking of liberty in the theological or metaphysical lent· ; but of liberty of tpirit, a characteristic of Christian piety. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SERVE GOD. 66 Jews ior our Saviour's coining. It is a spirit of liberty Decause it is a law of love, not because it is love only, but ‘«■cause it is a law also, and a law of love. It is liberty because of the munificent superabundance of tbe Great Sacrifice, and, above all other reasons, because Jesus is God. Hence we might naturally infer that the same liberty would penetrate into our most intimate relations with our Lord, and give a character to every phase of tbe spiritual .ife And such is in truth the case. For Christian liberty consists in freedom from sin, as degrading to our nature and destructive of self-respect, as in itself full of wretchedness, as tbe most grinding of tyrannies, and *bove all as an offence against an infinitely good God It consists in freedom from the penalties of sin, such as God's anger, hell, and an evil death But it is also free­ dom from worldliness, that is, from a heart set on tbe world, from a mind full of it, from low views, and from that series of successive disappointments which befall every man who finds comfort in the world. It is a free­ dom from slavery to other men ; for it makes persecution nothing more to us than a means of meriting, and calumny i sweet likeness to Jesus, while it begins the work which is only to end with the last breath we draw, deliverance from human respect. But most of all, liberty of spirit Js freedom from self; for how shall the freed man of Christ sink to be the slave of self? To be free from littleness, from self-love, from secret meanness, and from tbe haunting of our own shame, this is to be free indeed, and there is no other freedom which deserves the name. In one w°rd then, liberty of spirit consists not at ad in being more free with God or less anxious in the dia6* GG THE SPIRIT IK WHICH WE SERPE GOD «barge of our spiritual duties, but in this single thing detachment from creatures. Liberty and detach umm are one and the same thing. He is free who is dct:im nothing bat to suffer less. So He strips us of ourselves, and makes us wholly His. But all this is a long way on. Look up and strain your eyes. I do not know that yon wili so much a» see the mountain tops where all this will be found. But good cheer I it is something to know that those fair heights are really there. It is inconceivable what advantages we derive from these exercises of love of the Incarnate Word. The heart detaches itself from creatures; self-love burns down and goes out; imperfections are corrected; tbe soul is filled with the spirit of Jesus, and advances with giant strides along the paths of perfection. See then, if you are catching no wind in your sails, whether your love of our Lord’s adorable Person and Sacred Humanity is all it ought to be, all He meant and all He asks, or at least whether you are distinctly cultivating it, and doing your best daily to make it grow. 3. The third deficiency, and I am inclined to suppose it by far the most common, may be a want of filial feel­ ing towards God. I wish I could be very clenr, as well as very strong, about this, because so very much depends upon it. If our view of God is not uniformly and habitually that of a Father, the very fountains of piety will be corrupted within us. We shall incur the woe of which the prophet speaks; our sweet will be bitter, and our bitter sweet. Our position towards God is that of creatures. See what is involved in this. We belong absolutely to Him. VVe have no rights but those which He compassionately caooses to secure to us by covenant. Our life is at the mercy of providence, and providence is not a mere course Il 71 WHAT BOLDS US BACK. of external events, but the significant will ?f Three Divine Persons, One God. Our condition m the next life is known to Him already; and we on our part know that more grace than He is obliged to give is n<<>»uy for us, although we know of an infallible certainty that He will give it us, if we choose to correspond to what we have. Yet this last consideration cannot wholly allay the nervousness which the view of our position naturally causes us. Reflection on the attributes of God, His omniscience, omnipotence, immensity and ineffable holi­ ness, is not calculated to diminish this feeling. Never­ theless the conviction that the spirit of adoration, the temper of worship, the instinct of religiousness, reside simply in our always feeling, speaking, and acting towards God as creatures, that is, as beings who have no indepen­ dent existence but have been called out of nothing by Him, is in reality so far from projecting a gloomy shadow over us, or exciting an internal disquietude, that the more seriously these truths are received into the soul, and the more unreservedly the sovereignty of God is acknowledged by us, the more tranquillizing, supernaturally tranquilliz­ ing, will their effect be found. Yet this does not appear on the surface, nor until the mind has become habituated to, and imbued with, reli­ gious thought. We are tempted to look at God in almost any light rather than that of a Father, as well because of our own helplessness, as His overpowering immensity and omnipotence. Yet our spiritual life depends entirely on the view we take of God. If we look at Him as our Master, then His service is our task, and the ideas of reward and punishment will pervade all we do. If we regard Him as our King, surely we must be crushed by WHAT HOLDS UR BACK. 75 the indubitable rights of His unquestionable despotism, and nothing more tender than an abstractior. of dutiful loyalty may we dare to cherish in our hearts. If we look nt, Him as our Judge, the thunders of His vengeance deafen us, the awful minuteness of His indictment strikes us dumb, and the splendour of His intolerable sanctity blinds us. If we consider Him exclusively, in any one of these lights, or in all of them, it is plain our service of him will take its character from our views. Hardness, dryness, untempered fear, and a consciousness of our be­ ing unable to stand upon our rights, will necessarily make us cowardly and mean, cringing and mercenary, querulous, and as disrespectful as we dare to be. But we may even look at Him as our Creator, and yet be wrong. For it is possible to consider a Creator to be an independent and eternally self-existing Being, who for His own good pleasure, as First Cause, has called crea­ tures out of nothing, and cares as little for them as He is beholden to them. Yet it seems to me as if to be a Creator implies the being a Father too. The very will of creation is surely a stupendous act of paternal tender­ ness Thus God is not only our Father and our Creator also, but lie is our Father because He is our Creator. A rational creature, to be a creature, must be a son also. We bring with us out of our primal nothingness the filial tie Creation ranges itself rather under goodness than under power or wisdom. So that if I knew no more of Goa than that He was my Creator, I ought to feel that He was my Father also. Qui plasmasti me miserem mei : Thou who formedst me have mercy on me, was the lifetong prayer of tho penitent of the desert. There ww 7fl WHAT HOLDS US BACK. a sort of rigid, or a sound of right, in the very appella tion, which endeared it to her lowliness and timidity. However this may be, there is no truth more certain than that God is our Father; and that all that is mom tender and most gentle in all paternity on eart h is but. t he merest shadow of the boundless sweetness and affection ateness of His paternity in heaven. The beauty and consolation of this idea surpasses words. It destroys the sense of loneliness in the world, and puts a new colour on chastisement and affliction. It calls consolation out. of the very sense of weakness, enables us to trust God for the problems we cannot solve, and binds us by a sense of most dear relationship to all our fellow-men. The idea enters into, and becomes the master thought of even all our spiritual actions. In sin, we remember it; in aiming at perfection we lean upon it; in temptations we feed upon it; in suffering we enjoy it. He is our Father in the ordinary events of life, in protection from a thou­ sand evils which He never lets us feel, in answers to prayer, in blessing those we love, and in forbearance with ourselves, forbearance with a degree of coldness and incorrigibleness which is almost incredible, even to our­ selves. He is our Father not nominally only, but really also. As I said, the tie comes out of creation. The Creator has a marvellous and mysterious sensible love for IIis creatures, with which no earthly affection can compare for indulgence or for tenderness. Moreover He has been pleased to make our interests identical with His ; and lie has so created us in His likeness and image as that we should reflect even His Divine Majesty. But he is our Father also by covenant; and as He ever effects what He WHA1 HOLDS US BACK. 71 promises, this new paternity is aa real as the other. And beyond all ties of nature, grace and glory, bj which He calls us children, lie is our Father in a way we can never fully know, in that lie is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Out of this filial feeling towards our heavenly Father comes ease of conscience as to past sin. We can trust Him, in sweet confidence, even with the unutterable de­ cision of our eternal doom. We enjoy liberty of spirit in indifferent actions, mingled with an intense desire to serve Him which our filial love inspires. Out of it come also a sweet forgetfulness of self, enjoyment in prayer, patience in doubts, calmness in difficulties, light­ heartedness in trials, and an uncomplaining contentment in desolation. We worship Him for bis own blessed sake, because He is our most dear Father. Happy sun­ shine of this thought! it falls upon our souls with triple beam, more trust in God, more freedom with God, more generosity with God ! I have dwelt upon this, because it is of paramount importance that we should be thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of the Gospel ; and the missing of it so fre­ quently as men do, is partly owing to their not remem­ bering every hour of the day that our Blessed Lord is God, and partly to their mixing some other idea of God with that of Father, and allowing the harsher element to preponderate. The spirit of the Gospel is tenderness; and these three wants I have been examining, of devotion to our Lady, of devotion to the Sacred Humanity, and of filial feelings towards God, are at once effects of want of Modernes. and causes of the continued want. This is the groat occult hindrance With your chivalrous desire * 7 Γ8 WHAT HOLDS US HAOR for perfection, your disgust with the world, and your appreciation of high things, you expect to be making progress, and are disappointed. I have already asked you to examine yourselves, and sec whether you are not want, ing in devotion to our Blessed Lady, to our dear Lord’s Sacred Humanity, and to the ever-blessed Paternity of God. Now let me put it in another shape. The want of these three things means in reality the want of tender­ ness, though it means other things as well. But the absence of tenderness in religion is often of itself enough to stay man’s growth in holiness. It is worth while, therefore, to say something on this head. A man may be in a certain sense religious: he may fear God, hate sin, be strictly conscientious, and honestly desire to save his soul. All these are most excellent things. But you cannot say that the saints were men of this sort. They had about them a sweetness, a softness, a delicacy, a gen­ tleness, an affectionateness, nay, I will dare to say, a poetry, which gave quite a different character to their devotion. They were living images of Jesus. This, in our far inferior measure and degree, we also must strive to be, if we would grow in holiness. By tenderness is not meant a mere impressionableness, soft-heartedness, or a facility of tears. These are as often marks of cowardice, laziness, and a want of resolute will and earnestness. True tenderness begins in various ways. Its progress is marked by a sorrow for sin, without think­ ing of its punishment, by what I have elsewhere called a touchiness about the interests of Jesus, by childlike doci­ lity to our superiors and spiritual directors, by mortifying ourselves and not feeling it a yoke, by never thinking of stooping short at precepts without going on to counsels, WHAT HOLDS U8 BACK. 7® *nd by a very faint, incipient, and as yet scarcely discern * ible, appetite for humiliations. According as it ia formed in our souls, all the characteristics of sanctity gather U it, and group themselves round it. For love is a greater safeguard against sin than fear, and tenderness renders our conversion to God more entire by making it more easy. It especially attracts Jesus, whose spirit it is, and who will not be outdone in His own peculiar sweetness. Vithout this tenderness there can be no growth ; and while it renders duty more easy, and consequently the performance of duty more perfect, it instils into us the especially Christianlike instincts, such as love of suffering, silence under injustice, a thirst for humiliations, and the like. Moreover, it deepens sorrow for sin into a contrition which is worth more to the penitent soul than any gift that can be named. Look at the phenomena of the In­ carnation, what were they ? Helplessness, unnecessary and unobliged suffering, sacrifice, abasement, continual defeat, no assertion of rights, carelessness of success, and most pathetic wrongs. And what is our response to all these things, but the temper which is expressed by that one word tenderness? The Sacred Infancy teaches us tenderness ; the Pas­ sion tenderness; the Blessed Sacrament tenderness; the Sacred Heart tenderness. But look at the common life of Jesus among men, and you will see more clearly what this tenderness is like. There is first the tenderness of our Lord’s outward deportment. The narrative of Palm Sunday is an instance of it. Also His way with His disciples, His way with sinners, and His way with those in affliction or grief who threw themselves in His road. He quenched not the smoking flax nor broke the bruised reed. This was a complete picture of Him. There ru 80 WHAT HOLDS US BACK. tenderness in His very looks, as when He looked on the rich young man and loved him ; and St. Peter was con­ verted by a look. His whole conversation was imbued with tenderness. The tone of His parables, the absence of terrors in His sermons, and the abyss of forgiveness which His teaching opens out, all exemplify this. He is no less tender in His answer to questions, as when He was accused of being possessed, and when He was struck on the Face. His very reprimands were steeped in ten­ derness; witness the woman taken in adultery, James and John, and the Samaritan, and Judas; nor was IIis zeal less tender, as was evidenced when He rebuked the brothers who would fain have called down fire from heaven upon the Samaritan villagers, and also by the sweet meek­ ness of His divine indignation when He cleared the temple. Now if our Lord is our model, and if His spirit be ours, it is plain that a Cbristianlike tenderness must make a deep impression upon our spiritual life ; and in­ deed give it its principal tone and character. Without tenderness we can never have that spirit of generosity in which we saw that we must serve God. It is as neces­ sary to our interior life, or our relation with God, as it is to our exterior life or relation with others ; and there is one gift of the Holy Ghost, namely piety, whose special office it is to confer this tenderness. If then the secret obstacles of which you complain concern your interior life, and arise from defects in your devotional feelings and exercises, cultivate these three devotions, to our Blessed Lady, to the Sacred Humanity if Jesus, and to the Paternity of God, and great results will follow. Put yourself right in these three things, ind the sails will no longer idly flap against the mast. external conduct Bl CHAPTER VI. EXTERNAL CONDUCT. 1 hinted in the last chapter that one reason why we felt ourselves hindered by some secret obstacles was that we had neglected our external conduct, and had not been careful to apply the principles of', the spiritual life to our intercourse with others. It is to be wished we could always remember the importance of this. But there is a more especial necessity for us to bear it scrupulously in mind in the earlier stages of the devout life. For a be­ ginner has great temptations to esteem very lightly his external conduct He has recently been learning for the first time the importance of pure intention, habitual re­ collection, and the supremacy of an interior life. Mode­ ration is difficult to human nature; and what is novel never gives fair play to what is old and familiar. Hence, though no one would dare to put it into words, a beginner filled with the true but to him fresh thought that the interior life is far superior to the exterior, thinks the latter positively worthless, or even regards it as a tempta­ tion. The esteem of the one unfortunately breeds in him a disesteem of the other, especially as a person who has only recently begun to be thoroughly religious is always very much troubled with an inclination to entertain con­ temptuous feelings about persons and things. Contempt is the most universal temptation of beginnings. To ta a man one idea is an easy thing, and there is a look R2 EXTERNAL CONDUCT. of chivalry about it which helps the delusion. When λ beginner preaches a crusade against anything, we may always suspect delusion. The spirit of a reformer is the contradictory of the ascctical spirit. A crusade against ourselves may be well enough, though better not even that, until we have learned to subdue ourselves. But tc attack other men’s faults is to do the devil’s work for him ; to do God’s work is to attack our own. How different is the wisdom of St. Ignatius ! When we practise particular examen of conscience, he would have us choose for the first object of our holy persecution, not the fault which troubles us most or seems of the greatest magnitude, but the one which most annoys our neighbour and gives him disedification. This must bo our model. Now let us think how it is that beginners, for I may almost say we are but beginners in spirituality, though what may be technically called our beginnings are past,— how it is for the most part that they offend those around them and bring devotion into discredit and disrepute. I would not be harsh, as the world is, in speaking of these faults, for with what difficulties are they not surrounded, what enormous allowances are they not privileged to claim, and what an immense thing it is that they should thus be working heart and soul for God at all ! Besides which it is the old leaven of the world to which they be­ longed, riot their new principles, which are to blame fot what is ungraceful or amiss in their behaviour. They offend then by indiscretion, not observing the proprieties of time, place, age, person and circumstances ; by inconsistency, because their conduct must appear such to those who cannot discern in them interné wv EXTERNAL CONDUCT. S3 which they arc waging; by irritability, far less probably than what the most unkindly critic would forgive if be saw the inward soreness and the weariness of spirit which strife and temptation cause; by singularity, because it i not easy for a man at once to take up with a new set of painciples and always apply them correctly and gracefully to the claims of conflicting duties; and finally by what is in truth no fault of his, but scandal taken rather than given, because the maxims of the Gospel are so rudely uncongenial with the maxims of the world. We must therefore persuade ourselves that it is very important to our spiritual progress and interior holiness that we should take great pains in our intercourse with others, in order that we may be to them the good odour of Christ. Negligence on this point is the reason why many fail in their attempts after perfection ; and while they are looking within for the cause of their ill-success, the true reason of it is to be found all the while in their external conduct. Now there is a wrong as well as a right in every spin· tual question. There is a wrong way of trying to edify people, as well as a right one ; and we will consider the wrong one first. We must never attempt to edify others by any sacrifice of principle, to show, for example, how free wo are from bigotry, or how independent of forms and ceremonies, or what liberty of spirit we have regard mg the observance of certain positive precepts. This is only saying that we must not do evil that good may come. Yet there is no slight temptation to a man, especially if he has a little fit of unusual discretion upon him, to show others at some expense of strict principle that our holy religion is not so harsh and cruel as it seems to be to the 84 EXTERNAL CONDUCT. votaries of the world. The attempt moreover is alwaya as unsuccessful as it is wrong. We must never do «anything in order to edify others, for the express purpose of edifying, which we should not have done except to edify them, and in the doing of which the motive of edification is supreme, if not solitary. Edi fication must never be our first thought. The evangelical rule is to kt our light shine before men that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father who is in heaven. We must take great pains not to Jisedify ; but it would be very dangerous to take great pains to edify. The two things are very different, although they are often confounded: and you will not unfrequently meet with souls whom self-love has so gnawed and corrupted that their perfect restoration would be little less than a mira­ cle, and the mischief of which is to be traced to a wrong theory of the duty of giving edification. Look out to God, love His glory, hate yourself, and be simple, and you will shine, fortunately without knowing it, or think ing of it, with a Christlike splendour wherever you go, and whatever you do. We must not make unseasonable allusions to religion, or irritate by misplaced solemnity. An inward aspiration or momentary elevation of the soul to God, will often do more, even for others, than the bearing of an open testi­ mony, which principle does not require, and at which offence will almost inevitably be taken. There is a silence which edifies without angering; though I admit that tha practice of it is far from easy. Probably we practise it most successfully when we realize it least, but act out of a heart which is in union with God. A man is annoyed with sacred things when they are unseasonably forced EXTERNAL CONDUCT. R5 upon him ; and thus even a well-meaning importunity may be a source of sin. But if a wrong theory of edification, not only causes ns to make many false steps in our external conduct, but also injures and sometimes positively devastates cur souls, what shall be said of a wrong theory of fraternal correc­ tion ? 0 how much scandal and disedification to others, how much overweening self-importance to themselves, has resulted from men holding a wrong theory about this most difficult of duties and most obscure of obligations! We must bear in mind that there are very few, who, by standing or advancement, are in any way called upon to correct their brethren, fewer still who are competent to do it sweetly and wisely, and none whose holiness is not tried to the uttermost by its perfect discharge. While, on the other hand, those who have rashly assumed to themselves this delicate responsibility have not only sinned themselves by disobedience, disrespect, conceit, bitterness, assumption and exaggeration, but have caused sin io others, and made the things of God an offence to them, and a stumbling-block in their road. Hence, before we attempt fraternal correction, we should be quite sure that we have a vocation to it, and we should have made quite sure of it by the judgment of others as well as our own; and when we are clear of the vocation, we must still pre­ face our correction with prayer and deliberation. It may be added, that to correct our brother for the sake of edify­ ing a third person, is a practice which can hardly ever fail of producing unpleasant consequences : and it can only he said not to injure our humility, because it is rather a proof that we have no humility to injure. In the present stage of the spiritual life, then, little more need be said 8 Λ6 EXTERNAL CONDUCT. of the obligation of fraternal correction than that it exista Further on, God will charge us with it, and we shall know how to use it. Should it by chance become a duty now only let us fear it and think twice, and He will help us t/ tbe rest. These, then, are ways in which we must beware of trying to edify our neighbour. Let us now see how w ought to edify him. This must be in two ways: by the mortification cf Jesus, and by the sweetness of Jesus. And first, by tbe mortification of Jesus. Silence under unjust rebukes, abstinence from rash and peremptory judgments, and not standing out in an ill-natured and pedantic way for our rights, obliging others unselfishly and with pains and trouble to ourselves, and not exagge rating in an obstinate and foolish manner unessential points where all men have a right to their liberty ; these arc the ways by which wo should practise tbe mortifica tion of Jesus in our intercourse with others; and indo pendent of the edification we shall give thereby, the amount of interior perfection which we shall attain by these prac­ tices is beyond all calculation. For there is hardly a corrupt inclination, a secret pride, or a fold of self-love which they will not search and purify. But we must also edify others by the sweetness of Jesus. A soft answer turneth away wrath, saith. Scrip­ ture. Kind and gentle words, such as those of oar dear Lord, are an apostolate in themselves. Whereas clever sharp words, such as we have often a strict right to use, are continually doing tbe devil’s work for him, and damaging the souls of others, while they are inflicting no slight wounds upon our own. Our manner, too. must bo full of unction, ard be of itself a means to attract men EXTERNAL CONDUCT. to n«, en beware of looks, manner, and especially of a certain silence, by which we make others feel that we are inwardly cen­ soring them. Nothing is more irritating than this. When sin makes the saints silent, there is a sorrowful sweetness in their silence, as if they were grieving for the offender’s sake, and were striving to love him in spite of his sin. This censorious silence, so little like the sweet­ ness of Jesus, causes others to bristle up and put them­ selves inwardly in an attitude of defence, and so it drives out the little grace that was actually in them, and hardens their hearts against the admission of more. Such a silence is in fact the most pointed fraternal correction, and no one has a right to exercise it who has not ascertained his right according to the methods already stated, to correct his bro ther. And even then, it is the most dangerous way of discharging a most dangerous obligation. It belongs also to the sweetness of Jesus, that we should not allow our piety or devotion to be inconvenient to others. When St. Jane Frances first put herself under the direction of St. Francis of Sales, her servants used to say that Madame’s old director made her pray once oi twice a day, and all the world was incommoded by it, but her new director makes her pray all day long, and yet no one is inconvenienced. A little management surely would be sufficient to contrive that neither communions nor prayers should disturb the least family arrangement, or exact one tittle of self-denial from others. Not that they should grudge it, unhappy souls ! but that it belongs ta EXTERNAL CONDUCT. 89 th··, sweetness of the spiritual life that we should not auk it. Thus it is that our intercourse with others should at once sanctify ourselves and edify them by the double ex­ ercise of the mortification and sweetness of Jesus. But it must have occurred to us that at this stage of our career, our intercourse with others resolves itself mainly into government of the tongue. I do not know which of these two things is the most astonishing, the unexpected importance of the place assigned to this duty in Holy Scripture, or the utter unconcern which even good men often feel about it. Unless a man takes the Concordance, and looks out in the Bible all the passages which have reference to this subject, from Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus to St. James, he will have no idea of the amount of teaching which it contains on this head, nor the actual quantity of that single volume which it engrosses. Still less will he realize the strength of what inspiration teaches. It is not consistent with the brevity at which I am aiming to enter at length into the subject. It is enough to suggest to each one this single question, Is the amount of scrupulous attention which I am paying to the government of my tongue at all proportioned to that tre­ mendous truth revealed through St. James, that if I do not bridle my tongue, all my religion is in vain ? The answer can hardly fail to be both frightening and humbling. But how is this government of the tongue to be prac­ tised ? The very detailing of the evils will, impliedly at least, suggest the redemies. Listen to an hour of con­ versation in any Christian company. How much of it turns, almost of necessity as it would seem, on the action * * 8 HO EXTERNAL CONDUCT. and characters of others ! The meaning of ju dging other» appears to be this: the judgment-seat of our Divine Lord is as it were already set up on the earth. But it, is empty. It is waiting for Him. We, meanwhile, unmannerly and unbidden, keep ascending the steps, en throning ourselves upon His seat, and anticipating and mimicking His judgment of our brethren. To put it in this way brings home to us the wretchedness of what we are doing. It will also surely assist us in endeavouring to cleanse our conversation of so much unnecessary can­ vassing of the motives and actions of others. Yet for the most part we have gone far along our road in devo­ tion and done ourselves many an irreparable mischief, be­ fore we bestow half the carefulness on the government of our tongue, which it not only deserves, but imperiously requires The first effect off spirituality on our minds is to sharpen our critical turn. We have new measures to measure with and new light to see by, and the charac­ ters of our neighbours get the disadvantage of our fresh powers of observation. Make this the subject of your particular examen, and you will be surprised to find how numerous are your falls. Indeed it is difficult to exag­ gerate either the facility, the multitude, or the fatal effects of the sin which all this talking about others leads to, even with the best and kindliest of intentions. At the end of our examen, our resolutions on the subject must be very minute, and our falls must be visited, quietly but determinedly, with some voluntary punishment each time It would be impossible to speak of all the ways in which the attention of spiritual persons at this stage EXTERNAT» CONDUCT. Bl should be tinned upon their external conduct. Kt> 1 bave said, self-introversion is full of dangers, and even the amount of inward attention to self which is neces­ sary is full of dangers. Besides, a beginner cannot pos­ sibly, even if it were desirable, occupy himself wholly with the interior life, unless by an unusual attraction of the Holy Ghost. The very attempt would make him morbid, unreasonable, and unhappy. In most cases therefore it were much to be desired that persons in the early stages of the spiritual life should have some exter­ nal religious work to do, in order that they be at once busied for God and called off from such a self-inspection as might by its excess end in some spiritual disease, and perhaps bodily ailment as well. All persons, for instance, can make much more of their worldly calling than they have done hitherto by putting a supernatural intention into it. They can join confra­ ternities, provided they do not allow themselves to be overloaded with vocal prayers. Most men can give alms; but to turn their alms to the temporal necessities of others into alms to their own spiritual necessities as well, they must give till they feel the giving, till it touches, nips, hurts. Without this, where is the sacrifice? Many also can give time, talent and pains themselves to the works of mercy, which their pastors or others set on foot around them. Time and pains are worth as much as money to the objects of your charity ; they are worth ten times as much considered as spiritual blessings to yourself. But, do not be in a hurry, and do not act without coinsei; but allow yourself to be guided to some good work, io which you can take an abiding interest, and which will suit your spirit, means, and inclination. P2 EXTERNAL CONDUCT. It is surely an obvious mistake for persons to niart on a spiritual course as if they were going to he hermits It is to confound an interior with a solitary life. Their fight is to be in the world’s common ways, and their business with its engrossing and multifarious interests, and their trials are to be in no slight measure from then fellow-men. They must therefore make allowance and arrangements for all this. It must enter into their cal­ culations. It must influence their decisions. True it is that at the moment of conversion as in the state of con­ templation, we realize nothing but God and our own soul. It is a blessed gift this singleness of vision, blessed at its own time and in its own place. It is one of our begin­ nings which is so like our endings. But it is not to be our ordinary or normal state of things. Yet how many there are who make this mistake I They are beginning a devout life. They are determined to be all for God, and they project a plan or system for their future spiritual life. They legislate for mental prayer, for examen of conscience, for confession and com­ munion, for particular devotions, and for mortifications. Everything is laid out with the greatest accuracy, tbe estimate accepted, the plans approved. Yet no mention of their intercourse with others, or their duties towards others, or mercy for others finds a place ! As if this were either not to be at all, or were to have no connec­ tion with the spiritual life, or were so easy and obvious to arrange as not to be worth forethought ! This must surely be a mistake, and its influence cannot but be widely and enduringly felt in our future course. What is all very well for Camaldoli can hardly be the thing foi Change or Piccadilly EXTERNAL CONDUCT. M Ï would even venture to recommend something to give rhe mind a more decidedly external direction at thia period of the spiritual life. For, to tell men eo soon m this to throw themselves out of themselves upon God m the object of faith and love, would not only be unpracti­ cal, because premature, but would lead probably to a want of proper self-government and so to delusions. I would recommend that our favourite devotion should be prayers for the conversion of sinners, with oblations, re­ parations, communions, and the like, all turned in that direction. God is always working with unusual energy in some portion of the Church, and is waiting there ready with an uncommon profusion of graces, until we co-operate with Him by our intercessions. Devotion to the conversion of sinners, when and where God pleases, is full of the thought of God, and falls in with all th< fundamental ideas upon which our own interior life is organized. Hence, to take but a selfish view of the matter, its appropriateness at this period of the spiritual life. Nevertheless, if a man feels no attraction to this devo­ tion, he need not be cast down as if he lacked something indispensable to a spiritual life. Such a zeal is so de­ sirable that men have been led into disheartening exag­ gerations about it. But I remember that Da Ponte io his Spiritual Guido says that, while in the highest states of perfection such a zeal is always found, nevertheless there arc very good people whose memory of their own sins is so vivid, and their timid vigilance about their own souls so engrossing, that they are utterly without zeal for the souls of others. And Bicbard of St. Victor, in bis Preparation for Contemplation, states that, tbe case is Μ EXTERNAL conduct. not an infrequent one of souls poor in spirit, rejoicing in hope, fervent in charity, and eminent- in works of sane tity, who yet are quite tepid and almost lazy (valdè tepidæ ac desides) in their zeal for souls. This doctrine will serve for some of us as a weapon against discourage­ ment, and for others as a caution against temerarious judgments. Both Richard of St. Victor and Da Ponte belong to the unexaggerating school of spiritual writers. ΓΗΕ RULING PASSION. 95 CHAPTER VII. THE RULING PASSION. We come now to the last of the five secret obstacles which we accused of hindering our progress, and prevent­ ing our making way with the favourable breezes of the Holy Spirit. It may be said to belong to our interior as well as our exterior life ; though it is chiefly in the exte­ rior that we have to combat it. Every one who is well read in old-fashioned spiritual books remembers the dis­ tinguished place which the remora always occupied in them. This was a certain mysterious and mischievous little fish, who by fastening itself to a huge ship in full sail could bring it to a dead stand-still. Our belief in the laws.of mechanics and of natural history are unfor­ tunately fatal to the remora : would that anything might turn up which would be equally fatal to the ruling pas­ sion, of which this hidden and almost omnipotent little fish was the figure ! But alas 1 while we may safely expunge the remora from our catalogue of fishes, thw ruling passion still remains a subject for continual ana weary legislation and police on the part of those who desire to grow in holiness. It seems an exaggeration to say that every man in the world has a decidedly ruling passion; and the best writers do not go so far. It is however undeniably true that almost all men have such a passion ; and the fact of its being bidden from them is no proof to the contrary; for flfl THE RULING PASSION. it is ite nature to conceal itself. While it exists in thn soul, dominant and unattacked, its influence may be called universal. It forms tbe motive for apparently contradict­ ing actions and gives a tone and colour to the whole life. It is the cause of at least two-thirds of a man’s sins. The other passions are obliged to acknowledge its empire; and as domination, not mere sin, is the object of its ambition, it will actually help us in combating our other passions; by so doing, it extends its tyranny, and moreover creates a diversion in favour of itself. Other passions blind us to our sins. But the ruling passion is not content with this. It goes so far as to make our vices look like virtues. Hence it is a direct road to final impenitence. It , this which gives the fearful character to the ruling passion. It is with our souls, as it is with a ship, when the current is stronger than the wind. She keeps setting upon tbe rocks, and if she cannot get her anchors to hold, she is lost. Nay, it is worse with the soul, whose means of safety are less; for there is no such thing as an an­ chorage in the spiritual life. Now if this be true, few subjects can be more interest­ ing to an earnest man than this of the ruling passion ; for no obstacle to progress is more common, or more secret, and therefore none more dangerous. But let us under­ stand at the outset that it would be untrue to say that there could be no progress in the spiritual life until the ruling passion is vanquished. Perfection will hardly attain this entire victory after years of manly perseve­ rance. But it is true that there can be no progress until an active war is being waged against it. Hence this war is a duty which brooks no delay. Here then is one of the most important businesses of THE RULING PASSION »7 our lives, to discover what is our ruling passion; and it is as difficult as it is important, because of the secrecy in which that artful passion invariably wraps itself There are, however, two methods, either of which pursued honestly and for a sufficiently long time, will probably bring us to the knowledge we desire. The daily practice of self-examination soon furnishet ns with very numerous observations regarding ourselves. It is not however safe to draw any practical inferences from them, until time and vigilance have verified them under different circumstances and perhaps even opposite temptations. We shall then come at last to perceive that there is one passion within us more conformable than any other to our whole natural temperament, one which, taken by itself, expresses far more of our entire character than any other. We shall find that such a passion as this is further characterized by our feeling a peculiar repugnance to combat it, and when accused of it by others, we shall prcbably answer that while we acknowledge we have many aults, yet certainly we cannot charge ourselves with this. Moreover this passion is found to have an extraordinary power of instantaneously kindling our other passions, and of strangely making its appearance in almost all our thoughts and plans, as self-love perceptibly does with at least half mankind. While it makes a livelier impression upon our interior life than any other passion, it also causes the greater number of the disorders which disgrace oui external conduct. The majority of our falls, and all our greatest falls, are attributable to it, while it habitually exposes us to the greatest dangers and the most frequen· occasions of sin, and thus has more lasting and troubleicime consequences than any other of our passions, bad 9 a 98 ΤΠΕ RULING PASSION ind ruinous as they may be. It takes some time to find out all this. But we may be sure that, any passion, of which all or the greater number of these things are true, is in reality our ruling passion, a principle of spiritual death within cor souls. The other method of discovering our ruling passion necessarily resembles the first in many respects, and fixes its attention upon the same symptoms; but it is easier because it does not imply so universal or so incessant a watchfulness. Perhaps because it is easier, it is less suc­ cessful, or is longer at least in attaining success. Some writers of ascetical theology recommend the one, and some the other. This second method then consists of waiting for any unusual joy or sadness which stirs our soul with­ out an obvious reason, and to enquire whence either of these emotions arises. Even if there should be an app; rent cause, the joy or the sadness may be so dispropoitioned to it as to lead us to suspect some additional hidden cause; and the probability is that it lies in some satisfac­ tion or displeasure of our ruling passion. We must be strangely unobservant of ourselves if we have not expe­ rienced these vicissitudes of high and low spirits, for which there was not sufficient on the surface of our lives to account; and whatever be the result of our examina­ tion of them, we may be quite sure such phenomena arc never without an important bearing on our spiritual life. Then, again, we go to confession more or less frequently ; and certain venial sins and faulty imperfections form the matter of our self-accusations. Particular faults arc per­ petually recurring. It is even a subject of annoyance to us that the matter of our confessions does not vary moro than it does. They arc always turning on three nr fou’ ΤΠΕ RULING PASSION. Μ faults. Now when we have satisfied ourselves deliberately what. the»e three or four things are, we are naturally in proportion to our earnestness led to examine them, to see from what roots they spring, and what circumstances develope them. Almost always it will be found that they come from one common root; and the discovery of thia common root will bo the discovery of our ruling pasricn. A fault which is both an abundant and a persisting source of venial sins can hardly be anything less than our ruling passion. Again, there is a kind of low spirits which differ from the sadness spoken of before. There are times when everything seems to come to an end. We are tired of strictness. Prayer weighs upon us as intolerably heavy. Spiritual reading inspires disgust. We feel reckless about temptation, and even the habitual fear of sin has so com­ pletely ceased to be sensible, that it appears as if we could fall at any moment. The thought of God does not arouse us as it has been wont to do. Care for souls and loyal zeal for the Church are sentiments so passed from us that we have almost forgotten what they are like, just as men in winter cannot clothe the landscape in verdure and foliage, and imagine it as it was in summer, so as to satisfy themselves. We yearn for the sights and sounds of worldliness as if they would be a relief; and our heart leaps up at any consolation which has not to do with spiritual things. Our very associations have faded oui from us, and anything like a habit of godliness to all appearance has dropped away as though it had never been. An intense weariness comes over us, and a nausea for spirituality, which makes us ill-tempered with God, rather than afraid of offending Him. The misery of these 100 THK RULING PASSION. fife of low-spirits can hardly be exaggerated Can thr danger of them be exaggerated either? For they are accompanied, not so much with sadness, which is more or less softening, as with irritability, which is no home for grace, but rather a proximate preparation for all kinds of venial sin. It is of God’s sheer mercy if the evil is stayed even there. Miserably unhinged and unfitted for the task as we are, then, we must even in our wretched­ ness attempt some kind of self-examination, and question ourselves as to the cause of this dismal oppression. It has none of the marks of a divine subtraction of sensible sweetness. Its features are not like those of a passive purgation of spirit, as mystical theologians call them. It is an operation, possibly diabolical, but most probwoly entirely human. If we can arrive at the cause, the pro­ bability is that we have discovered our ruling passion It is too fundamental a mischief, to come from anything short of it. Persons of soft and effeminate character, »eusitive and sentimental, loving bodily comforts, not pvactising any regular mortifications, and careful of tSe.»’ eating, drinking, and sleeping, are peculiarly liable to these spiritual visitations of waking nightmare. In other words, to be attacked by them is a symptom, though not an infallible one, that our ruling passion is sensual’ty, which almost rivals self-love both for its universality and its successful artifices to disguise itself and appear other than it is. How many are there whose apparent enjoyment in religion, together with their mild views of moral theology, their familial ity with God, their comfortable intimacy with our Blessed Lady, their aspirations of dis­ interested love, their depreciation of mere dry precept and hard conscientiousness; their facility in making saints TUE au LI NCI PASSION |(Π words and feelings their own,—all come, though the} little think it, from the luxurious refinements of modern ea-ie, and a secret ruling passion of sensuality I Thus this second method of discovering our ruling passion is not so much a continuous examination of our whole conduct, as a waiting for, and seizing upon, certain salient points of it, as those which are likely beforehand to be developments of this dominant inclination. But hidden as its presence and influence are, there are certain things of almost daily occurrence in which this serpent, in spite of itself, discloses its operations. It mixes with all our sins, no matter against what virtue or command­ ment. It is the feature which all our sins will be found to have in common. Self-love in one man, sensuality in another, vanity in a third, ambition in a fourth, or in a fifth that most unconquerable of monsters, simple indo­ lence. So, too, wc often resist temptations, without supernatural motives, and as it would seem, without call­ ing grace to our aid. Or, to speak more accurately, suggestions of evil that in some moods would be tempta­ tions to us, in other moods have no such magnetic character, and hence they fall off from us harmlessly, like spent arrows off a shield. It is often our ruling passion which is our shield. It distracts us from the pleasures offered to us, or it turns them aside as inter· fering with some deeper scheme of its own. We are pre­ occupied men, who do not see and hear. We do not notice these temptations, so that strictly they never become temptations at all. There are some persons who are so strongly persuaded ihat everything about them is as it ought to be, that they are prepared to defend themselves on all points, and as a 1Λ2 THE RULING PASSION. matter of fact do so. These are few in number, because the blindness of self-love, though universal, is seldom total. Still, such specimens are to be met with and studied; for there is much in them, which, doing no good to themselves, is a capital warning to others. To these, what I am now going to say will not apply. But men, who are satisfied that their conduct is not uniformly and on all points defensible, will find that there arc certain points on which they invariably defend themselves, cer­ tain points on which they are morbidly sensitive. The soreness discloses the ruling passion. This is almost an infallible method of detection. Separate the circum­ stances, the conversation, the excitement, whatever it may be, see on what subject you defend yourself in all manner of circumstances, hot or cool, taken by surprise or with deliberation, and you may be sure that the subject indi­ cates the ruling passion : though, of course, a good many symptoms must be observed, as the same symptom may point to vanity or to self-love, to sensuality or to indolence While we are conducting these all-important investiga tions, we must remember likewise to take our director into our council. We arc very blind in matters which concern ourselves, even when we have to do with mere external interests. Still more are we blind in things pertaining to self-correction. And when we consider the peculiar characteristic of the ruling passion that it passes vice off for virtue, we have additional reasons for dis­ trusting our own solitary judgment in the matter. Hence it is that a director frequently discovers a penitent’s ruling passion, before the penitent has discovered it him­ self. But under any circumstances we must consult him He must help us iu the search. He must approve the THE RULING PASSION. discovery. 108 He must guide us in the warfare which we must forthwith wage against our domestic enemy. It docs not come within the scope or brevity of this treatise to urge persuasive motives for a scrupulous and almost frightened attention to this subject of the ruling passion. My object is, as you know, merely to describe symptoms and to suggest means. But so much must be said. They who have not a ruling passion are very few in number ; and they who have can have no more im­ portant or pressing affair than the discovery of it and the warfare against it. Saul was ruined, and Solomon fell for the want of this. The lost vocation of Judas was the work of his ruling passion, which had coexisted, remem ber, with all the immense graces implied in bis having had a true vocation to that unequalled apostolic office and that his vocation was true is, by some theologians considered to be of faith, because of our Lord’s words, . have elected you. The punishment of not seeing th promised land, under which Moses ended his days, wu the work of his ruling passion, which he had come so near to utterly vanquishing, that whereas by nature he was the hastiest of men, by grace be became what tbo Holy Spirit calls him, the meekest of men. Other por­ tions then of the spiritual life may bave superior attrac­ tions to this, others may seem to urge us more swiftly along our road, or give at once a more supernatural turn to our character. But none can compete in urgency and importance with this duty of overcoming our ruling passion. You must stop at this. You can never think of leaving such a fortress untaken iu your rear God will go no further. His current of graces will cease flowing upon you. It will be by nature and by temperament 104 ΤΠΕ RUIJNO PASSION. that you nre advancing, not by grace. With you or with out you, lie will sit down before that citadel, and when He has waited long enough for you to sec the error and to come back and to cast up your entrenchments against it, and you do not come, He will in the awful language of Scripture give you over to your own desires, and leave the field, and you will wander on, in your own strength, and along your own road, till you fall fainting and dio by the way, and they that come after shall see you and say, Lol another frustrate saint, another broken instrument, another lost vocation ! The dryness then of this duty must not repel us, nor its difficulties discourage us. We must consider them wed, but our hearts must not sink at the consideration. Ph? greatest difficulty is that of discovering this ruling paision. To a brave man that should be half the battle ; and we have already considered the methods by which thst knowledge may in ordinary cases be attained. The blindness this passion causes both as to itself and other sins is an outwork as strong as the fort itself ; and its pretence of virtuous indignation against the other passions is but the dust it raises and flings into our eyes, as we advance to the attack. The treachery of our own hearts, willing to acknowledge any passion to be our ruling passion rather than the one which really is so, is a domestic enemy that must be strictly watched, lest in the very heat of the assault it play us false. But I have seen many overcome these difficulties with a little manly effort. They have got so far without a check, and with­ out a wound. The difficulty I fear still remains to bo considered, the difficulty which has been so fatal to many, and continues to be fatal to numbers of «oils daily. THE RULING PASSION. 105 It is the cowardice and pusillanimity which lead us to oelieve thart we never shall really overcome our ruling passion. At first men try to persuade themselves that there is a great deal of unreality and exaggeration in what is said on this subject, and that far too much stress is laid upon its importance and success. Now be it ob­ served I lay no stress upon the success of our warfare, but only on the importance of our being really at war. Not that success is not to be looked for at last, and that it is an immense gain. But I lay the stress on the war­ fare, not on the victory. Presently a series of defects and a complete check of their spiritual progress lead π en to see that the matter was not exaggerated ; indeed t) ey feel that the difficulties of the work have been estinv ted too cheaply. They are then inclined to despair of the whole matter, and to abandon the task as useless. They fall into low spirits from being continually beaten, until they are as pusillanimous as cowed children. Every defeat is a loss of moral power and so leads to d< feat again. The very means which we are urged to adopt Ook fearful to us, and we have not the heart to adopt th un, and use them with that unshrinking firmness wbicl is necessary. But, are we prepared to abandon the spiri'ual life altogether, and not to aim at perfection ? If not, we must 1« up and doing. Delay is making matters less hopeful every hour. What is hard now, may soon become impossible. The means which we must adopt are certainly of a painful kind. We could hardly expect it to be otherwise in expelling such an enemy. Cutting, burning, and lying wakeful, what else can do us any good ? The first means is to repress instantaneously the very first movements of 10Π THE RULING ΓΑ88ΪΟΝ. wbnt we have now discovered to bo our ruling passion We must not wait till they gain strength, or bring delec­ tation with them and so become downright temptations. But we must cut them down at once; and this work is endless and continual. There is no resting over it or sleeping at it. Secondly, we must take great pains to foresee and avoid the occasions of this ruling passion. We must legislate for this, spend time upon it, and shape aur daily life accordingly, so far as the relative duties of our station will permit us to do so. Thirdly, our strict­ ness with ourselves on this subject must be persevering and intermitting. An interval will let all go at once, and we shall almost have to begin over again. And fourthly, as I have said before, we must penance ourselves for each wilful carelessness and guilty fall, and our penances must be such as will make us feel them and fear them. They must go to the quick, if it be but an instant. All this is not very encouraging, it must be admitted. But nothing is insurmountable to him who loves God. Beware of the delusion into which Satan will try to lead you. It is that of believing all this pains about our ruling passion a work fit only for saints, and belonging to the higher stages of the spiritual life. This is one of the devil’s choice axioms in almost everything. A wise man will distrust it whenever he bears it. So far is it from being true in the present case, that it would be more true to say that until this work has advanced a good way to­ wards its completion, the soul never can enter the higher stages of the spiritual life at all. It is an indispensable work. It must be done ; and moreover it must be done now. It is true that some of the hardest work of the spiritual life comes early on. This is an instance of it THE RULING FASHION. I æt nothing mislead you. Prayer is tempting, and liberty of spirit is inviting. There is a dignity about austerity, which allures even while it appals. The love of bumilia· tiens is attractive to the enthusiastic heart, and a first taste of calumny makes us thirst for more, as one savour of bitterness gives us an appetite, while much of it clogs us with sickliness. But let nothing draw you off either to the right hand or the left. There is your ruling passion. That is the work ; there is your vocation ; there is your grace, and at present not elsewhere. Visions and raptures, miracles and mortifications, and the bright lights of con­ templation, will not succeed in moving us one step on­ wards, unless we are the while keeping up a tedious run­ ning fight with our ruling passion. I have seen many men who have brought their ruling passion into very tolerable subjection : I never saw one yet whose ruling passion was indolence, and who had made any satisfactory progress in bringing the incorrigible unresisting rebel be­ neath the sway of grace. Yet I do not say that even that enemy is invincible. MS OUR NORMAL STATR. CHAPTER VIII. OUR NORMAL STATE. Everything in the world seems to have a peculiar beginning and a peculiar ending, with a normal state be­ tween them; and it is always this normal state which gives the truest character of a thing; for it expresses its nature and ruling idea. Yet the phenomena of the spi­ ritual life appear to be of a different kind. It seems at first sight as if the spiritual life could have no normal statexcept the being a perpetual dissatisfied progress, whcse highest mark would always be a disappointment, as falling so far below even reasonable and legitimate ex­ pectation. The greater part of its time and attention is taken up with mere preliminaries. What with means, vigilances, reparations, commandments, prohibitions and warnings, almost the whole of a spiritual book is occupied with studying the chart, rather than starting us on our voyage. Th» last chapter of many books gets no further than a fah launch. Then it seems as if we never did get into a fixui state, such as we could call normal or habitual. What follows no rule can give no rule ; how then can it be normal? Fallen nature cannot go to God either in a groove or down an inclined plane, any more than men can march through an embarrassed country or fight % battle on mathematical lines. OUR NORMAL STATE. 109 Moreover, the experiences of the saints are nothing more than a continually shifting scene of vicissitudes, and alternations of bright and dark, which baffle all induction, so various, perplexing, unruly and contradicting are they. Even as a panorama gradually unfolded, the spiritual life has no apparent unity, completeness, or dramatic comple tion. As a journey it is up-hill ; and its paths, therefore, like all mountain-tracks, devious, winding, and seemingly capricious. Hence there is no feeling of working up to a table-land, where we may hope to try other sinews, and enjoy the level. Yet for all this the spiritual life has a kind of normal state ; and we shall find the knowledge of it a help to us. It consists in a perpetual interchange of three dis­ positions, sometimes succeeding each other, and reigning in tarns, sometimes two of them occupying the throne at once, and sometimes all three at the same time exer­ cising their influence conjoined. These three dispositions are struggle, fatigue, and rest; and each of them requires an attendant satellite to give them light in the night-time of their revolutions. Struggle requires patience. Fatigue must be proof against human respect. Rest must lean upon mortification, for nowhere else can she safely sleep. So I have now in this chapter to describe these three dis­ positions which make up our normal state; and in the three following chapters to consider patience, human respect, and mortification. 1. I must speak first of struggle. There seems theo­ retically to be no difficulty in this idea; yet practically it is not an easy one to realize. If the tradition of the Universal Church is harmonious and conclusive on any one point concerning the spiritual life, it is that it is · 10 110 OUR NORMAT. STATE. struggle, strife, combat, battle, warfare, whichever word you may choose. No one doubts it. A man would be out of his scuses who should doubt it. Reason proves it, authority proves it, experience proves it. Yet sec what an awkward practical question for each one of us rises out of this universal admission. At any moment we may turn round upon ourselves and say, Is my religious life a struggle? Do I feel it to be so? What am I struggling against? Do I see my enemy? Do I feel the weight of his opposition ? If my life is not sensibly a fight, can it be a spiritual life at all ? Or rather am I not in one of the common delusions of easy devotion and im mortified effeminacy ? If I am not fighting, I am conquered ; and surely I can hardly be fighting, and not know it. These .are very serious questions to ask ourselves, and we ought to be frightened if at any time we cannot obtain satisfac­ tory answers to them. A good frightening I what an excellent thing it is now and then in the spiritual life I Yet in these times it seems as if we were all to be inva­ lids in holiness; for spiritual direction expends its efforts in producing a composing silence round about our sick­ beds, as if the great thing was not to awake us ; and the little table near has a tiny homoeopathic opiate for each devout scruple as it rises, to lay it to sleep again, as if it were not true that these scruples are often, like the irrita­ bility of a patient, signs of returning strength. Is simple convalescence from mortal sin to be the model holiness of the nineteenth century, at least for luckless souls living in the world ? Ob, how one comes to love this great huge London, when God has thrown us into it as our vineyard ! The monster ! it looks so unmanageable, and it is positively OTTR NORMAL ATATI. lit ■••w fully wicked, so hopelessly magnificent, so heietically wise and proud after its own fashion. Yet after a fashion it is good also. Such a multitudinous remnant who have never bowed the knee to Baal, such numbers seeking their way to the light, such hearts grace-touched, so much secret holiness, such supernatural lives, such loyalty, mercy, sacrifice, sweetness, greatness ! St. Vincent Fer­ rer preached in its streets, and Father Colombière in its mows. Do not keep down what is good in it, only be­ cause it is trying to be higher. Help people to be saints. Not all who ask for help really wish it, when it comes t/ be painful. But some do. Raise ten souls to detachment from creatures, and to close union with God, and what will happen to this monster city? Who can tell ? Monster as it is, it is not altogether unamiable. It means well often, even when it is cruel. Well-meaning persons are unavoidably cruel. Yet it is often as helpless and as de­ serving of compassion as it is of wrath and malediction. Poor Babylon ! would she might have a blessing from her unknown God, and that grace might find its way even into her Areopagus ! But what does our struggle consist of? Mostly of five things ; and if there were time for it, we might write a chapter on each of them. First, there is positive fighting. You see I am letting you off easily, for some would say that the Christian life is always a fight, ever an actual battle; and that doctrine, sought to be verified in your practice, might often be very discouraging. I call it a struggle, and I make positive fighting only one part of it. Secondly, there is taking pains, such as pitching tents, cleaning arms, gathering fuel, cooking rations, recon· D’ritering Thirdly, there are forced marches. If I ask 112 OÜR NORMAL STATE. yoa whether you are fighting, and you answer, No, but 1 am footsore, I shall be quite content, and will not tease you any more. I do not even object to an occasional bivouac; it all comes into my largo and generous sense )f the word warfare. Fourthly, there is a definite enemy. Bv this I do not· mean that you must always know your enemy when you see him. A vice may come ami play the spy in the clothes of a dead virtue. But you must have an enemy in view, and know what you are about with him. To invade the world, and then look round for an enemy, is not the business-like thing I understand by the spiritual combat. Fifthly, there must be an almost continual sensible strain upon you, whichever of your military duties you may be performing. If you feel no differently on your battle-field from what you used to feel in the hay-field, you will not come up to my mark. TXese are the five things of which our struggle consists. But you will ask, what are the enemies against whom I have to struggle ? Seven ; and the natural history of each of them might occupy a little treatise by itself. We must now despatch them with a few words. First, we have to fight against sin, not only with actual temptations in times when they press us hard, but at all times with the habits which old sins have wound so tightly and so fearfully round us, and with the weakness which is a con­ sequence of our past defeats. The reason why men are so often surprised into grave sins is not always to be found in the vehemence of the temptation, and their want of attention to it at the time; but in their want of attention to the general moral weakness which past and even for­ given sin has left behind it. Secondly, we must struggle with temptations, and we OUR NORMAL STATE. 113 must struggle with them with amazing courage, not m foes whose lines we have to break, and then the country will be clear before us, but as foes who will thicken as we advance. The weakest come first, at least if we except those which tried to binder our giving ourselves up to God at the first. The stronger come next. The robustness of our temptations seems to be in proportion to our growth in grace. The choicest are kept to the last. We shall one day have to give battle to the pretorians, to the devil’s bodyguard; and probably it will be when we are lying, white and weak, on a death-bed. We must bear this in mind about temptations, else we shall make too much of our victories, and be disheartened by the smallness of their results. No victory that we gain is worth anything to the victories we have yet to gain. ' Still, a victory is always a victory. Our third enemies are our trials; and our trials, like our temptations, grow as we advance. We are forcing our way into a moie difficult country. We see evil where we did not see it· before. Thus we have more things tc avoid than formerly. We are attempting greater things, and climbing higher hills. All this has its encouraging side. But then in proportion to the greatness and the height, so is the difficulty. Then holiness has a whole brood of trials and troubles of its own, the like to which do not exist in the free-living, easy-mannered, fair-spoken world. Its interior trials are enough of themselves to keep a stout saint occupied all his life long. Scaramelli wrote an entire treatise on them. Some men have more, some less. What is necessary to remember is that we have not faced our worst yet. We must not cry victory when the battle is in truth but just begun. * 10 114 oun NORMAL STATE. Fourthly, wo have to struggle against, the changes of our own faults. After all, there is something very < "in Portable in a habit, when once the labour of acquiring il has been surmounted. We have got into a particular way, and it is a trouble to be put out of it. Improve­ ments in tools only make them more awkward at first to old workmen. David felt so little at ease in Saul’s armour, that he went back to his shepherd’s dress and his favour ite old sling. So it is with ourselves. We get into a certain way with ourselves, a certain hatred of ourselves, and a certain severity with ourselves. It was hard to get used to it; but we did so at last, and now do pretty well. Then by age or outward circumstances, or through some interior crisis, our faults change, and we have a new warfare to learn. Moreover, these changes of our faults are often imperceptible at the time. We are not conscious of what is going on. And as our characters sometimes turu right round, we may go on neglecting something which we ought to observe, and observing something we may now safely neglect; nay, we may even be playing the game of some new passion, while we think we are mortifying old ones. This is a perplexity. It annoys and distracts us in our struggle, even if it does nothing more. We must be prepared for it. Teasing imperfections are our fifth enemy. The war­ fare against them is neither dangerous nor dignified ; but wearing, harassing, and annoying. Certain infirmities seem at times to be endowed with a supernatural vitality, and will not be put down even by our most earnest and persevering efforts. Habits of carelessness in saying office or rosary, slight immortifications at meals, the use of par­ ticular expressions, matters connected with external oom· DUR NORMAL STATE. 115 ponuro and recollection, are all instances of this n' time· It seems vexatious that we should be in bondage to eucb very little things, and it is a trial both of faith atd tem­ per. But God sometimes allows that we should entirely miss our aim when striking at them, in order that our devotion may be hidden from the eyes of others, who might wither it by praise, or that we ourselves should bear about a thorn in the flesh, as the apostle did, to keep us humble, and make us truly despise ourselves. Per­ haps grace is often saved under the shadow of an imper­ fection ; and there are many imperfections which are more obvious and humiliating than really guilty or unworthy in the sight of God. Under any circumstances, the tire­ some struggle with our imperfections will not end, even with Extreme Unction. It will cease only with our breath, only when we are actually laid to rest in the bosom of our indulgent and heavenly Father. The sixth object with which we have to struggle is the subtraction of divine light and sensible aid, whether it come upon us as a purifying trial or as a chastisement for unfaithfulness. This is like Jacob’s struggle when he wrestled with God ; or rather it is a wrestling with God, self, and the evil one, all at once. For no sooner does God withdraw His sensible assistance from us than the devil attacks us with renewed violence, and we ourselves give way to wounded self-love and to despondency. It is with us as with the Israelites in Egypt : we have mor· bricks to make, and the straw not found us as of old. At least it seems so. Yet God is with us when we know it not. We could not so much as hold cn, if He were not so. But it is hard to realize this with a sheer and simple faith when sensation and sentiment are quite the other nd OUR NORMAL STATE. way. Mercifully this struggle is not perpetual. It comes and goes; and if we could get ourselves to look on it beforehand as a significant visitation of mysterious love, we should be able to bear up against it more gently and more manfully than we do. Ordinarily we weary our­ selves by too much of violent effort, and then lie helpless and supine in a kind of petulant despair. Losing our temper with God is a more common thing in the spiritual life than many men suppose. It dashes back to earth many a rising prayer, and vitiates many a brave mortiii cation. Happy they who can wrestle with God in uncom­ plaining prayer, in self-collected reverence, and yet by His grace with the vigorous will to have tbe better of Him. This brings me to the seventh enemy with whom we have to struggle. It is familiarity; and familiarity espe­ cially with three things, prayer, sacraments, and tempta­ tions. As I have said before, to have relations with God is a very fearful thing. To love God is a bold and ardu­ ous thing. It was of His compassion that He made that to be of precept which was in itself so unspeakable a privilege. Yet it is hard to love warmly and tenderly, and to love reverently as well. Hence it is that, with so many, familiarity fastens upon love, and blights it. Familiarity in prayer consists of meditating without pre­ paring, of using words without weighing them, of slouch­ ing postures, of indeliberate epithets, of peevish complaint, and of lightly making the petitions of saints our own. All this is an intolerable familiarity with the great ma­ jesty of God. It grows upon us. Use brings slovenli­ ness, and slovenliness makes us profane. Familiarity with the sacraments consists in going to confession with OUR NORMAL STATE. 1Π very cursory examination, and a mere flying act of con­ trition, making no thanksgiving afterwards and setting no store by our penance ; as if we were privileged people, and were entitled to take liberties with the Precious Blood. With the Blessed Eucharist it consists of fre­ quent Communion without leave, or forcing leave, or making no preparation, or careless thanksgiving, as if forsooth our whole life were to be considered adequate preparation and adequate thanksgiving, and that it shows liberty of spirit to be on such free and easy terms with the Adorable Sacrament. Familiarity with temptations is to lose our horror of their defiling character, to be remiss and dilatory in repelling them, to feel our loathing of them diminish, not to be sufficiently afraid of them, and to take for granted that we are so established in any particular virtue that our falling is out of all question. These familiarities grow upon us like the insidious approaches of sleep. We feel an increasing reluctance to throw them off and shake them from us. It will not be so much the thoughts of hell and purgatory, wholesome as they are, which will keep us right, as frequent medi­ tation on the adorable attributes of God. Oh if our flesh were but alway pierced with the arrows of holy fear, how much more angelic would our lives become ! 2. Such is our struggle, and such the seven principal enemies with whom we have to contend. The second disposition in which I make our normal state to reside is fatigue. This is something more than the pleasant feel­ ing of being tired. Indeed if there is pleasure in it sometime, it is far more often a weary and oppressive pain. For the fatigue of which 1 speak is caused by the "truggle which we have just been considering. It consists λ 118 OUR NORMAL 8TATK first .’f faintness, which the mere continuity of the con.hat superinduces; secondly, of disgust, a loathing for all sacred things; thirdly, of irritability, not only from fre­ quent defeat, but from the harassing nature of the war­ fare; fourthly, of low spirits, especially when the arm f grace is less sensibly upholding us; and fifthly, of a feeling of the impossibility of persevering, which is not despair, because we do not cease our efforts, only we make them with the mere force of the grace-assisted will, not with the hope and energy of the heart. This fatigue maj obviously be felt during a battle as well as after it: and as we may both offend God, and also do very foolish things injurious to our own interests, under the heavy hand of this fatigue, it is important for us to get a clear idea of it, and to investigate its causes. These causes are seven in number, and each of them is accompanied by its own peculiar trials, dangers, and temptations. The first cause is the constant opposition to nature which the spiritual life implies. I am not speaking so much of voluntary mortification, though that also must be taken into the account. But everything we do in the spiritual life is contrary to the will and propen­ sions of our corrupt nature. There is no pleasure to which we dare yield an unlimited assent. There is no spiritual enjoyment which is not more or less suffering to poor nature. What a joy is prayer; yet to nature morti­ fication even is less irksome than prayer. Our tastes, wishes, inclinations, instincts, what we seek and what we shun, are all more or less thwarted by the effort to be holy. When nature offers us any assistance, we doubt her and suspect her intentions, and when we use the force she supplies, we do it in a harsh, ungraceful manner OUB NORMAL STATE. 119 towards her. Her very activity, which is the making of go many of us, we regard almost as an enemy, hurrying us as it does out of the calm presence of God, and into endless indiscretions. The custody of the senses, even such an amount of it as is an absolute duty, is a bondage which nature is ill able to bear. In a word, in propor­ tion as grace takes possession of us, we grow out of sympathy with our own very nature, and in some respects with the outward creation generally. This becomes visible to the eye when it reaches the point which it does often attain in saints and extatic persons. Their illnesses, sufferings, and apparently unnatural valetudinarian states are simply the result of the supernatural and mystical character of their lives. As mystical theologians teach, the nutritive, nervous, and cerebral systems are ak deranged by the entire possession which grace has taken of the soul, especially in those whose lives are contem­ plative and interior. But this begins in a slight measure, as soon as we commence the spiritual life in good earnest, and it must obviously produce fatigue. The mere rowing against the stream perpetually must make us stiff and tired. And not only can there be no peace with nature, but, except in an extasy, no truce either ; and from what the saints tell us, it appears that nature takes a terrific vengeance on them for their extasies, when they ar< passed. /Another cause of fatigue is in the uncertainty in which temptation so often leaves us, as to whether we have con­ sented or not. To walk blindfold or to find our way in the dark is in itself a tiring thing. Clear light mitigate· fatigue. But when wc are uncertain whether we havt offended God or not. whether such or such an action was 120 OÜR NORMAL STATE. against our vows or resolutions, wc lose our elasticity, if wc bave really conquered, we have no sense of victory to buoy us up; and if wc were vanquished, we should be better able to face the disaster manfully, if there was no doubt about it. But as a mile’s walk with the sun in our faces or the dust in our eyes is longer than ten with out such annoyances, so is it with this uncertainty which temptation casts over us in spite, as it goes away. It tires and unnerves us. A third cause of fatigue is to be found in the daily monotonous renewal of the combat. Sameness is weari­ some in itself. This is in great measure the wretched­ ness of imprisonment, however comfortable and roomy our dungeon may be. The sun shines in at our window, tbe morning breeze comes there, and the little birds sing without; and for a moment our waking thoughts do not realize where we are or what we have to encounter. But when we are fully aware that we have another day before us of unchequered monotonous confinement, the soul sinks within us, forlorn and weary, even after long hours of refreshing sleep. So it is in the spiritual life. Is it to be always combat ? Is the pressure never to be taken off? Is the strain never to be relaxed? Is the hold never to be let go? And when we are obliged to answer ourselves with the simple Never, this hourly renewal of the old, old strife, becomes almost insupportable. Take any one besetting infirmity, for instance want of govern­ ment of the tongue, or unworthy pleasure in eating and drinking, how jaded and disgusted we become long beforo wc have made any sensible impression upon the strength of the evil habit ! A fourth cause of fatigue is in the little progress we OUR NORMAL STATE. 121 π nke in a long time. Success hinders fatigue. The excitement carries us on, and supplies fresh forces to nature, enabling her to draw on the secret funds of her constitution, which, otherwise, nothing but tbe death­ struggle would have brought, out. On the contrary, de­ feat is akin to lassitude. Besides this, slow walking is more tiring than fast. Men hurry up and down a short quarter-deck, because a funeral pace makes them lowspirited and footsore. These are all types of what the spirit feels. Our small progress deprives us of all natural encouragement. For our minds must be thoroughly satu­ rated with supernatural principles, always to realize that one evil thought repelled, one angry humour smartly chastised, one base envy well warred down, one thorough Deo gratias in a piece of ill-luck, may be really hundreds of leagues of progress ; and each of them worth more than the whole world to us, as something which pleases God, and which God alone has enabled us to do. Un­ fortunately we usually realize our supernatural principles most when we feel fatigue least; and it is for this reason that our slow progress is so wearisome. A calm at sea is fatiguing, even though no physical effort is called for on our part. To scale Parnassus in the face of a blus­ tering wind and a drenching rain is less tiring than to rock idly and helplessly for a day in the Gulf of Corinth, with beauty enough in sight to feed mind and eye fot weeks. The universality of the vigilance which is required in the spiritual life is a fifth source of fatigue. We have not only to be always on the alert, but our watchfulness has such a wide extent of ground to cover. Everything else in the spiritual life we can concentrate, except our 11 122 OUR NORMAL STATE. vigilance,· ai.d that we cannot concentrate. The nearest approach to it is the practice of particular examen of conscience, quite one of the most helpful and operative practices of the spiritual life. But that is not in reality so much a concentration of our vigilance, as that the fixing our attention very earnestly on one fault helps to keep us awake, and makes our eyes quick to see anything stir and our oars sharp for the slightest sound. And who will say that particular examen is not fatiguing in itself? He is a happy man who keeps to it without missing, for as much as one single moon. Truly vigilance is a tiring thing in itself: what then must it be, when we add to it universality and uninterruptedness? Yet such is the vigilance the world, the flesh, and the devil exact from us continually. Liberty of spirit is a mighty boon. It dispenses with many things. But woe be to him who dreams that it dispenses him from watchfulness ! A sixth cause of fatigue is in the mere wear and tear of duration. A light work will tire, if it is sufficiently prolonged; and the work of the spiritual life is simply unending, and the pressure of it continuous. It is true that this fatigue is easier to bear than some of the others, because there is something consoling in the thought that we have persevered so far. Nevertheless it forms one of the difficulties of perseverance. For while we feel fa­ tigued at the present moment, the future presents us with no other prospect. A life-long vista of work stretches before us: long or short as it may please God; still always work. There is no retiring on a pension or half­ pay from the military service of the spiritual life. Seventhly, fatigue is generated by fatigue itself. We get tired of being tired. And this produces a sort of torpor most dangerous to the soul. We become indifle- 0T1R NORMAL BTATF.. 123 rent te thingt We grow callous to the feeling of oui own unworthineee, to the horror of sin, to the glorious desirableness of God and of union with Him. We are like a broken musical instrument. We give no sound when wc are fingered. There is something in this state analogous to the swept and garnished heart of which our Saviour speaks, into which seven devils might easily enter, worse than the first who had been ejected from it. The only safety in this kind of fatigue is more occupa­ tion. We must burden still more the already overbur­ dened spirit. This remedy requires faith. Nothing but snow itself will draw the frost out of the bitten limbs of the sealer of the Antarctic. It is a cruel cure, but a specific. So it is with this tiring of being tired. If you do not load it more, even to making it restless, angry, rebellious, if you will, — in a short time you will be on the brink of seriously throwing up the service of God altogether. These are our seven fatigues ; and I am almost afraid of what I have written. I fear lest it should discourage you. Alas ! it is not the truest kindness to throw a false rose-coloured light over the harsh and rocky portions of the spiritual landscape. Man must not represent as wholly ease, what God has made in part most difficult. But you must remember, this is only one side of the pic­ ture, and the dark side. I have had to dwell upon it here, because this was the place for it; and I have put it at the worst, for I have assumed throughout that God uniformly subtracted «sensible sweetness and interior con­ solation from you all the while. Yet this is hardly ever so, perhaps never, and certainly never with any souls to whom he has not first given immense gifts of courage, fortitude and endurance, or a peculiar attraction to walk 124 OFR NORMAL STATU. by faith only. When Iconic to the chapter on Spiritual Idleness, I shall show you how to avoid the dangers with which this fatigue is fraught. Meanwhile I will say na more than this, first, that the spiritual joys of holiness fat more than counterbalance its fatigue, and secondly, that whatever you do, I counsel you not to rush from the momentary and apparent dulness and uninterestingnesR ef the things of God to seek refuge and consolation in créa, tores. The consequences of such a step are dreadful. I had almost said irremediable. But I have seen things which show that it is not quite irremediable. I hope no mistake of any kind in the spiritual life is irremediable. The case of a tepid religious has been quoted as such. But we know that even such cases are curable, because they have been cured. And what can be incurable, if they are not ? 3. The third disposition which makes up our norijial state is Rest, seemingly the very opposite of the Fatigue of which I have just spoken. But we must not imagino this rest to consist either in a cessation from struggle, or a deliverance from fatigue. This is contrary to the idea of the spiritual life. The rest of which I speak is a truer rest, a higher rest, a rest of altogether a different kind It has these five characteristics. First, it is supernatural Tired nature cannot supply it. It were no rest at all if it came from any fountain short of heaven. If it comes from any human heart, it can only be from the Sacred Heart of God made Man. Secondly, it lasts but for a little while at a time. It comes and goes like an angel’s visitation. Yet, thirdly, brief as its visit is, its effects are lasting. It refreshes and animates us in a way which no earthly consolation can even imitate, much less rival. It is food in the strength of which we can go all the way OUR NORMAL fflTATB. 125 to the mount «in of God. Fourthly, it is very peace­ ful Tt produces no excitement. It moves away nona of our existing devotions or spiritual exercises. It is no disturbing force to our vocation, no overruling impulse to our discretion. And last of all, it unites ns to God : and what is that union but a participation of His eternal tran­ quillity, a foretaste of the Sabbath in His paternal lap for evermore ? In trying to draw out for you the varieties of this welcome and beautiful rest, I must caution yon not to be cast down if I make it consist in thing· which seem far abive your present attainments. The factis that these hijçh things are begun in you. It may still be with them th :ir day of small beginnings. Nevertheless they are be» pin ; and with them comes the gift of rest, to increase a* they increase, but to be from the very first a substa» ti>t gift of our compassionate Father who is in heaven. This div.ne rest consists first in detachment from cr» itures. As we grow in holiness our attachments to cn atures weaken, and those that remain riveted are li­ ves '.d in God. It is not that sanctity lies in unfeelingness. *· k at St. Francis of Sales stretched on the floor of the Lt roo supernatural tokens is nearly always an indiscretion Present grace is not only the field of our labour ; it i? also the haven of our rest. We must trust God and be childlike with Him even in our spiritual progress. We must make a bed of our vileness and a pillow of our im­ perfections; and nothing can soil us while humility isour rest. Ambition is not the less wrong, nor greediness the Jose repulsive, because they are spiritual. When God OUR NORMAL STATE. 127 feeds ns win His hand, is that a time for eagerness? When Spiritual ambition is mortified, not into indifferent», but into patience, prayer, and calm hope, then there is rest. One consequence of all these dispositions is a readiness to die ; and this is in itself a fourth source of rest. What is there to keep us? Why should we linger on? Dare we pray with St. Martin to stay tnd work if we are ne­ cessary to God’s people? Are we so foolish as to dream we have a mission, which is to delay us like Mary after the Ascension, or the Evangelist St. .John till the first century was run out? When we are going a journey, and are not ready, we are all bustle and heat. Prepara­ tions have to be made, our last orders given, and our farewells said. But when all is done, and it is not time yet, we sit down and rest. The rooms do not look like home, because we are going, and our attachments are packed up, like the works, merits, and forgiven sins of a dying man. If we have any feeling besides that of rest, it is rather impatience. But in a spiritual man impatience to die would be no trifling im mortification. Consequently the readiness to die, without impatience, is rest. The contented animal that stretches itself in the shade of the noonday field does not rest with greater sensible enjoy­ ment than the immortal soul that is bravely detached from mortal things. It belongs to our nature to incline to rest in ends, and not in means. This opens out to us a fifth source of rest. For everything is an end, no matter how transient, if only it be referred to God. Indeed it is an end in asensr in which no merely earthly thing can be so; for it parti­ cipates in the end of all ends and ultimate rest of all things, God himself Hence our very struggle is real, 128 OUR NORMAL STATE. Mir very fatigue rest; for they are both made up of couni less things each of which is in itself a resting-place am an end. Has not every one felt at times, only too raiely, the joy steal over him that he has no wish or will before Mm ? Nothing is unfulfilled, because God is everywhere He feels for God and has found Him; and so he has nothing to seek, nothing to desire. Possible evils are al lowed to present themselves to bis imagination, only that he may realize more utterly the gladness of his complete indifference to them. He is at rest. Earth has hold of none of his heart-strings. The whole world is full of ends to him. He can lie down anywhere; for everything is a bod, because he refers all things to God. If this kind of rr.Bt would sometimes last a little longer—but God knows bast. Even the wish would break the deliciousness ot tbit heavenly rest. Humility furnishes us with a sixth source of rest. And this in two ways. First of all, it makes us contented, contented with our infirmities, though not contented with ourselves. God forbid this last should ever be ! Thus it makes us unanxious, ungrasping, childlike, and calm ; end there is rest in the very sound of all those words. Secondly, it brings us rest in another way. For it not only subdues us by keeping us down in the sense of our own nothingness, but it exhilarates us by pouring the pnre light of grace around us and making us feel how entirely we owe everthing to God. Did any one ever see a humble man with an unquiet heart? Except when some storm of grief or loss swept over him, never ! Humility is rest, sweet rest and safe, and which leaves no reproaches or misgivings behind, and it is a rest within the reach of the lowest of us. There is a seventh source of rest, of which it is hard OUR NORMAL STATE. 128 h. upcak, because words cannot tell it. They only s’and for signs, which give some idea of it. It is the rest which comes from the bare thought of God, or rather which is itself the bare thought of God. Sometimes, in a beautiful climate, we come upon a scene, which by its surpassing beauty so satisfies mind, heart and senses, that we sit entranced, taking it in without understanding it, and resting in the simple enjoyment of the sight. Thus for a while a man may sit amid the folds of Etna, be­ neath a shady tree, on the marvellous mountain-shelf of Taormina, and look out upon the scene. Everything thxt wood and water, rock and mountain, dazzling sky and translucent air can do, with the grand spirit of old history brooding over all, is there. It cannot be analyzed or ex­ plained. We are taken in the nets of a beauty which masters us ; and the sheer thought of it is a joy without thought for hours. This is a poor way of typifying ihe rest which is in the glorious, overshadowing thought of God. It is a self-sufficing rest, not only because Hi is almighty, all-holy and all-wise, nor because He is our own near and fatherly God, but simply and sheerly because Ke is God. Words will make it no clearer. God gives it to us sometimes and we know it; and seen through it, brighter than Sicilian air, more limpid than Arethusa’e fountain, our struggle and fatigue look fair and delectable in that heavenly medium. But in whatever measure God visits us with this sort of light, true it is that such is the normal state of our spiritual life, — struggle and fatigue, and not only after these but also during these there remaineth a sabbath for the people of God : for they rest in the languors of love here, till their rest deepens into His eternal bosom hereafter. 130 PATIENCE. CHAPTER IX. PATIENCE. The three dispositions which compose the .lornial state of the spiritual life, struggle, fatigue, and rest, are each of them beset with a darkness and difficulty of their own, requiring attendant virtues to enlighten them. Struggle obviously requires patience; fatigue is only safely endured when singleness of purpose secures us from human respect; and rest is in need of courageous mortification. Tn this chapter, therefore, we must speak of patience. Is it not true that we do not ordinarily appreciate the importance of this virtue in the spiritual life ? We readily admit the importance of prayer, examen, mortification, and spiritual reading, as means of holy living, and as forming a necessary portion of the ascetical exercises of each day; but it is to be doubted whether we allow its proper place to the exercise of patience. I am speaking especially to persons living in the world; and whose holi­ ness consequently is of a more hidden character than that of religious, external circumstances concentrating it within, and not providing it with the almost hourly beautiful de­ velopments in which it would display itself with graceful freedom in conventual life. I say that the holiness of a holy person in the world is of a more hidden character than that of a religious; and it would seem at first sight as if this gave the secular the advantage. God forbid I If external circumstances make holiness in the world PATIENCE. 131 more hidden, ».nd so form it into an interior spirit, th * religious enjoys the inestimable privilege of obedience, which is a continual supernatural pressure upon the soul, training it in the most delicate interior spirit, and for the absence of which nothing else can compensate, and which is unlike any obedience a secular can pay to his director. But I make much of the fact, which both experience and the published lives of holy persons attest, that the holi­ ness of a person in the world is more hidden ; because it has sometimes been the fashion to write spiritual books in a strain of hyperbole and exaggeration, quite alien to the calm discretion and sober moderation which is need­ ful in handling such matters, and the upshot of which h to represent all holiness to be in the cloister, and all the world beside a reprobate mass. Besides being unsounl doctrine, the exaggeration is foolish in every way, and leads infallibly to a low standard of monastic perfection· just as in the days of Tronson, worldly priests tried to put the whole burden of sacerdotal perfection upon reli­ gious, in order that their own lives might be more easy and more free. There is hardly any subject in the spiritual life more unfairly dealt with than this ; yet if we refer to older writers, especially the three great Jesuit ascetics, Platus, Alvarez de Paz, and Da Ponte, there is no portion of spi­ ritual theology in which the principles are more clearly laid down than here. Monastic perfection is something far higher than any which can be aimed at in the world. Yet if we were to tell a nun that certain practices of per­ fection, which as a matter of fact are practised by secu­ lars, were only tit for the convent, we should at once 132 PATIENCE. lower her standard of her own obligations; and it won *. J he much if nature did not get the better of grace, and cause her to settle down in a level of life no higher than that of holy seculars in society. So, if we represent the perfection attainable by a secular priest as the property of a religious, we injure at once both the religious and the secular, by lowering their standards. The religious recognizes in the portrait of a perfect secular the picture of a perfect monk, and the secular does not recognize himself at all. And, as Tronson shrewdly remarks, all this is the more mischievous because spiritual writers have often observed that, while it is a sign of a relaxed religious order to run down perfection in the world and among the secular clergy, because of the obvious conse­ quences to the order itself of allowing this doctrine, the secular clergy, “far from testifying,” I am using Tronsou’s words, “ this esteem of their own vocation, are often thw first to combat it. If you do not believe me, make the experiment yourselves. Put forward an ecclesiastical maxim which tends to establish you (he is speaking to secular priests) in perfection, whether it concerns detach­ ment from the world, or the flight from worldhness, or * condemnation of the world’s maxims, to which eccle­ th siastics are more particularly and more strictly obliged, and you will see that ecclesiastics themselves will be the first to oppose you; so that they who ought to defend these truths, and who are engaged by their state to main­ tain them with the utmost vigour, are those who will con test them with the greatest heat and vehemence. See what we are come to!” * The same principles are laid • Entretiens, tome ii., p. 11. PATIENCE. 133 down by Alvarez de Paz, * by Da Ponte,f and by I’latU8.| This last writer says that the Church is made up of three orders, laymen, religious,and clerics; and he says of this last, that “ it has all the disadvantages, without the advantages of the other two states, ior clerics have the same obligation of attaining perfection which reli­ gious have, and without doubt even a greater one, because of the excellence of their ministry, the divinity of the sacraments, and the government of souls. Yet they have not the helps which religious have, nor the influx of a richer grace.” All these writers, with the exception of Tronson, were Jesuits: I quote one more, also a Jesuit, as spiritual theology has been one of their many excel· lences, and their writers are generally the most clear and defined, uniting science with their unction. It is F. Surin.§ He says of the condition of a secular priest that his “ state demands all the purity of life of religious and of solitaries; and the priest would delude himself extremely, who, to excuse the little care he takes to aim at the highest sanctity (la plus haute saintété), when any one speaks to him of a point of perfection, such as recol­ lection, prayer, mortification, and zeal for the glory of God, should say that that is good for a Carthusian, a Ca• De Vita Spirituali, 1. ii., Pars v. de Statu Clericali. f De Perfectione Ecclesiasticorum, being tbe first of tbe seven tracts of the fourth vol. de Perfectione. J Do Bono Status Religiosi, lib. i., cap. xxxvii. Comparatio status religiosi cum ordine clericorum simplicium. See also Walter Hilton, the English Carthusian’s Treatise to a Devout Man of Secular Estate, teaching him how to lead a spiritual life therein. London, 1659, |Λ· little north door of St. Paul’t. Q Lettres Spirituelles. Lett. xiv. 12 1β4 PATIENCE. puoliin, or ft Jesuit, but that for himself he does not aim so high." But in truth these great Jesuit ascetics were not in any way departing from the spiritual tradition of the more ancient doctors. They have not got beyond the grand light of the Church, St. Thomas, the angel of the schools; and he professes to give us the tradition of Am­ brose, Chrysostom, and the older fathers. He who de­ fended the religious state and its perfection in his won­ derful tract on Perfection says, “ If then a religious is unordained, as is the case with lay brothers, it is manifest that the pre-eminence of order excels as to dignity. For by holy orders a man is deputed to the most dignified ministries, to serve Christ in the Sacrament of the altar For this a greater interior sanetitg is required than even * the the religious state demands ; for as Dionysius says, monastic order ought to follow the sacerdotal orders, and after their imitation ascend to divine things. Hence, other things being equal, a cleric in holy orders, when he does anything contrary to sanctity, sins more gravely than a religious who is not in holy orders, although the lay religious is bound to regular observances, and tho clerk is not.”f I have dwelt upon this, because unless we have our first principles clear on the subject of perfection in and out of the religious state, nearly everything that iu said • In cap vt Eccles. Hierarch. t Ad quod (the priesthood, diaconate and subdiaconate) requiritur major eanctitae interior quam requirat etiam religionie etatue. Quia, lient Dionyeiue dicit, Jfonaeticue ordo debet eequi tacerdutalee ordinee, tt ad eorum imitationem ad divina aecendere. (Secunda Secundas. ^ihbsU clxxxiv. Art. viiL, in which he undertakes to show that ■ religions Is more perfect thuc an archdeacon.) PATIENCE. 135 is capable of being taken the wrong way ; and it has much to do with the subject of patience. For what I want to say is that while obedience, community life, exact ob· fiervaucc of primitive rule, fidelity to the original spirit of the canonized founder, and above all the practice of evangelical poverty, put the perfection of religious far above the reach of seculars in kind, there can be n« question or comparison between them at all as to degree. Λ person may have a higher degree of a lower kind of perfection than another. Theologians say that probably some saints on earth have loved God more than some angels in heaven. This illustrates my meaning; for no one will say that an angel in heaven is not higher in kind than a saint upon earth. Thus a man in the world may attain a higher degree of perfection in bis kind than a certain religious may have attained in the cloister in hit kind ; and so have corresponded more faithfully to grace, and be more acceptable to God. To deny this seems to be a simple confusion of principles. Men who dispute about it must be using words in two different senses. The thing itself is surely self-evident. Is there any one who would rather be a very ordinary religious than a very holy secular ? * • St. Thomas may be said to have exhausted the subject of th· comparative states of perfection in the last seven question· of th· Secunda Secund». Spiritual books are mostly written by religion·, «nd for the use of religious. Hence it ie that St Thoma·’· doctrine on the perfection of the Secular Clergy is so often, not misrepre­ sented, but simply pretermitted ; although the non-recognition of it, Injurious ns it is to the best interest· of the clergy, is almost equally •o to the religious as lowering their standard of monaetio perfection. A religious who ie a priest has an obligation to a double perfection ; yet loosely-written books sometimes refer what belongs to bls eacer * fotal perfection to the obligations of bis monastic state. Th· prao Iffff PATIENCE. Furthermore, what obedience is to religious (not all that it is, but the functions it perforins), that path n< r is to seculars. Independently of its directly supm. .tm.j virtue, obedience sanctifies the religious for four i . in principally : because it comes from without, becau ·< the religious has no control over its requirements, bemuse he must be ready at all moments, and because it involves the giving up of his own will and way. Now all these four offices patience discharges in its measure to the secular. The circumstances which exact its exercise come upon us from without; we have no control over them ; they may come upon us at all moments; and they always involve the sacrifice or the mortification of our own will and way. I do not say that patience equals religious obedience ; but that it is itself the obedience of seculars. It is necessary to their perfection. What obedience is to the higher and different perfection of monks and nuns, that patience is to the indubitably lower, yet genuine perfection of men in the world. A few words must be said of all the four exercises of patience, patience with others, patience with self, patience with our director, and patience with God. We may say that, partly from our own badness and partly from theirs, all mankind, far and near, kindred and strangers, are a trial to our patience in some way or other. If those who are above us exercise our patience, our na­ tural inclination is immediately to revolt, and we arc quite as much kept in subordination by human respect, by fear and the consequence to our own interests, as by the real tic· of evangelical poverty is a height unapproachable by seculars, to soy coining of the sanctification of vowed obedience. The superiority of the religious state over the secular is immeasurable out, I repeat, the difference \s one of kind, not of degree. PATIENCE. 187 grace of patience. Even when we obey we take th) binon) <41 our obedience by a sulky manner, or by a sullen word or a downcast look, or a complaint to others, or a general reproachful sadness of demeanour by which we manage make superiors unhappy and disquieted, and to show them what an exercise of authority they are putting forward when they constrain us to what we do not like. The ..auctifying power of half our life is lost by this single ungracefulness. If the trial of our patience comes from those below us, we sometimes proudly exhibit our sense of their inferiority. We crush them by a reprimand, or wither them by a look, or sting them with coldness. If the trial comes from our equals, how often do we offend by rudeness, abruptness, unkindliness, and a want of mu­ tual respect! When we are engaged with others in any kind of work, or are constantly in society with others, our patience is often exercised. We encounter stupid, pas­ sionate or importunate people ; and we do not look at each of these meetings as a gift from God, who is going to watch how we behave and visit us accordingly. Almost every circumstance in life has a manner, time, place and degree, by which it tries our patience ; and it is not too much to say, especially in the earlier stages of the devout life, that this exercise does more for us than fast or disci­ pline ; and that when we can go through with it for lova of the sweetness of Jesus, we are not far from interior holiness. The blessings which result from this practice in the interior life are manifold. The English spirit of always standing up for our rights is fatal to perfection. It is the opposite of that charity of which the apostle says, that it seeks not its own. Now this spirit is admirably * 12 I8R PATIENCE. mortified by the exercise of patience. It. involvos also a continual practice of the presence of God; for we may be come upon at any moment for an almost heroic dis­ play of good temper. And it is a short road to unself­ ishness; for nothing is left to self. All that seems to belong most intimately to self, to be self’s private pro­ perty, such as time, home, and rest, are invaded by these continual trials of patience. The family is full of such opportunities, and the sanctity of marriage abounds with them. It may be added, for it is no slight thing, that there is not a spiritual exercise less open to delusion than is this, though the subtle, disheartening Guilloré fills three whole chapters with them. In truth there are certain admonitions which are neces­ sary concerning this exercise of patience with others. It is a practice which requires a long apprenticeship, so that it is in itself an exercise of patience. To be impatient because they are not patient is no uncommon exhibition in spiritual persons. Progress in the acquirement of this virtue is not easily perceived, as in the substantial self-denial there is often much inward trouble and heat Hence we must take comfort and go on making efforts It is a matter in which every effort is in reality an ad­ vance. There are also particular times when we must be very cautious not to be irritable and impatient. After long prayer, great sweetness in meditation, or an unusu ally fervent communion, or, indeed, any spiritual effort, we are extremely liable to lose our temper, partly through a law of our physical constitution, and partly because tbe devil wants to repair tbe losses we have just made him suffer. We must be content, therefore, at first with material patience, irritable patience. We must not be PATIENCE. IRQ vexed or cast (Iowl about it. Something belter wih eome of it presently It is well to accuse ourselves of tbe slightest fault against patience at confession, to make frequent acts of contrition about it during tbe day, and to cast many a loving look at our Crucifix, that touching emblem of the patience of God. Strange to say, not­ withstanding God is impassible, there is something pe­ culiarly Godlike in the virtue of patience. If it is true of any one grace, beside charity, it is true of patience, that it is the beauty of holiness. But if it is a hard thing to be patient with others, how much harder is it to be patient with ourselves! Indeed, so much is this branch of the virtue neglected that we seem almost to think its opposite a merit, as if impatience with self were a heroism or a meritorious mortification. There is a vast difference between hatred of self and im­ patience with self. The more of the first we have the better, and the less of the last. Once let us surmount the difficulty of being patient with ourselves and the road to perfection lies clear and unobstructed before us. But what do we mean by impatience with self? Fret­ ting under temptations, and mistaking their real nature, and their real value also. — In actual sin being more vexed at tbe lowering of our own self-esteem than being grieved at God’s dishonour. — In being surprised and irritated at our own want of self-control because of our subjection to unworthy habits.—Being depressed because w» experience lively movements of anger or give way to fits of sadness, even where, as is possible, there is no sin, either in the one or the other.— Being annoyed with our own want of sensible devotion, as if it was at all in oui own power, and as if patience in dryness was not :ust th· 140 PATIENCE. very way to earn sweetness and spiritual consolation — Being disquieted because we do not find the remedies we have applied to our faults act as we expected, forgetting that they need time, and that wc often put secret obsia clcs in the way. To these symptoms wc may add a sort of querulousness about the want of spiritual progress, as if we were to be saints in a month. All these dangerous symptoms of impatience with self come from one or other of four causes, and it is there wo must seek them, and kill them in the nest, before they are able to fly. Verily they are birds of prey to our spi­ ritual life. The first cause is self-love, which is unable to brook the disappointment of not seeing ourselves iu times of trial come out beautiful, erect and admirable. The second is want of humility, which causes us not to appreciate our own real meanness, or to comprehend the incapacitating effects of our past sins. The third is the absence of a true estimate of the huge difficulties of the spiritual life, and therefore of the necessity of an utter divorce with the world and a formal abjuration of its maxims, before we can really give ourselves to God. The fourth is an obstinate disinclination to walk by faith. We fret under it. We want, nature wants, self-love wants, everything in short, except faith itself, wants,— to see, to know, to be sure, to reason, to ascertain that success is inevitable. To be patient with self is au almost incalculable blessing, and the shortest road to improvement, as well as the quickest means by which an interior spirit can be formed within us, short of that immediate touch of God which makes some souls interior all at once. It breeds •onsideratencss and softness of manner towards others patience. 141 ft disinclines ns to censoriousness, bccanse of the abiding sense of our own imperfections. It quickens our percep­ tion of utterest dependence on God and grace, and pro­ duces at the same time evenness of temper and equality of spirits, because it is at once an effort, and yet a quiet sustained effort. It is a constant source of acts of the mM genuine humility. In a word, by it we act upon seif from without, as if we were not self, but self’s master, or self’s guardian angel. And when this is done in the exterior life as well as the interior, what remains in order to perfection ? There are various means by which we may cultivate this patience with ourselves. Frequent meditation on our own nothingness is a great help to it; and an espreial dwelling upon any meanness and vileness and deceit of inr past lives, the reconsideration of which can be attei ded with no danger because of the intrinsic disgust and /Utting shame which the details of such meanness a^ake within us. When we hear of some great crime, we may consider that we might have done it ourselves, or perl ips worse, were it not for grace. We must be careful als. ■ at confession, and in preparing for it, not to mistake self­ vexation for real contrition : and then wc may persevere in asking for patience in a special way after communion. We must try, it is very hard, but time wins its way through hard things, to rejoice in all encounters which show us our need of grace, and the possibility of dreadful sins which we always carry about with us. Neither must we be in a hurry to forget past sin, and to force oar way into the sunshine. If God gives us quite a depressing sense of sin, let us cherish it and stagger on beneath the burden. Blessed is any weight, however ^verwheliriug. 142 ΓΛΤΓΕΜΠί. which God has been so good as fasten with His own hand upon our shoulders. Γη a word, patience with self is almost a condition of spiritual progress; and St. Cathe­ rine of Genoa is its patron saint. From patience with self we must pass to patience with our director. Patience with superiors is of the essence jf religious obedience; and a director is something like 1 superior without the overawing insignia of authority; but our obedience to him is and ought to be limited, and we may transfer it elsewhere any day without sin, if not without indiscretion. Now we have first of all to subject our understanding to our director, and this in many ways and under many different circumstances. He often differs from us in our own view of ourselves, and puts a low price upon what we think rare and precious. He keeps us back when wc are for bounding forward, and he spurs us on when wc wish to sit down and rest, and admire the view which wc have now climbed high enough to see. He persists that some­ thing we make much of is a delusion, and he will not agree with us as to what is really our ruling passion. He changes our line, and we think he is making a serious mistake with us, and while we are detailing to him some supposed inspiration, he looks cold and distracted, and as if he wished we would go away. There is surely ample room for the understanding to practise patience here. The subjection of our will is not less trying. He thwarts our desires and gives us no reason but his own will, so that there are many things we repent we ever asked him. He refuses us austerities aud extra-commu­ nions, neither will he confer with us as often as we wish, π for as long time as lur own self-love deems reasonable PATIENCE. 14« for persons of sucn importance to the Church as we are. He will not let us read the books we like to read, and be is provokingly slow in making up his mind on questions we have laid before him. When self-will has patiently gone through this, will it be far from being tamed into Christian docility? We must be patient also with him when he is evi­ dently mortifying us. This is not so hard, because it is more direct. He mortifies us by refusing us consolations, by giving us absolution without a word, when we have expected a conference, and are full of words which we want to pour out, and yet to let it seem as if he drew them out. He mortifies us by sending us to communion without absolution, and otherwise ridiculing our scruples, by speaking harshly to us with manifest exaggeration, and by keeping us under monotonous mortifications which have long ceased to be mortifications, till we are almost wearied out, in other words, till they have become morti­ fications again, and of a better and more killing kind. But it is a harder task to be patient with him when we are in doubt, half suspecting he is mortifying us, and yet not being quite sure whether it is not laziness or indiffer­ ence. This takes place when he seems, almost studiously, to take no interest in us, and treats us as an annoyance to him, or when he contradicts, interrupts, or appears purposely to misunderstand us. At other times he says he quite forgets our case, and bids us repeat it, and looks as if he were making no effort to listen even then. Another while he contradicts himself, counter-orders things, and gives opposite advice different weeks. Then be hints he would have us leave him, and when we refuse, eubmita to keep us with a languid and inattentive air. 144 PATIENCE. But be may try our patience barder still. He may be and often is, plainly in fault. Impatience, discourtesy, and irritability, arc always faults, whatever amount of extenuation may be pleaded in their behalf. He may bo guilty of occasional acts of substantial unkindness, ami at times be may be destitute of the grace to bear with our weaknesses and to sympathize with our sorrows. Oppor­ tunities may offer when it becomes a duty on his part to make exertions and to take trouble for us, and he refuses to do so. Or he may visit us hastily with the fatal pun­ ishment of leaving us to direct ourselves, because we have been surprised into taking ourselves in hand, when we thought him listless and forgetful, and all the while he was praying and saying mass for us. In all this he is clearly wrong, and yet we must have patience with him. And if direction were altogether a supernatural thing, patience would be easier, because it would be dignified. But with the great bulk both of penitents and directors, direction is, and ought to be, and ought never to pretend not to be, almost as much natural as supernatural. We have still to speak of patience with God. The very word sounds strange. Let it not breed familiar or irreverent thoughts. It is a very serious question, and must be approached with the profoundest respect, remem­ bering of what an infinite majesty and unfathomable con­ descension it is of which with all abasement we are ven­ turing to speak. Again and again I have said, it is an uwful thing to have dealings with Almighty God. His favours are our fears. And yet let us think of this with the intensest filial and confiding love. Oh that we could always speak reverently of Him whom we do far more than either fear or love, whom we worship as our God ! PATIENCE. 14& God condescends to try our patience, who are dust and ashes, in various ways; and some of them are peculiar or belong chiefly, to the spiritual life. His ordinary providence, therefore, the ways of His justice, and the darkness of His decrees, do not now concern us: His majesty is adorable, Ilia glory inscrutable in them all. In the spiritual life He vouchsafes to try our patience first of all by His slowness. Slowness is the grand characteristic of the Creator as seen by the side of His creatures. Were it not for His slowless, where should wc have been long since ? We forget this, when His slowness makes us impatient. He is slow; we are swift and precipitate. It is because we are but for a time, and He has been from eternity. Thus grace for the most part acts slowly, and mortification is as long as levelling a mountain, and prayer as the growth of an old oak. He works by little and by little, and sweetly and strongly He compasses His ends, but with a slowness which tries onr faith, because it is so great a mystery. We must fasten upon this attribute of God in our growth in holiness. It must be at once our worship and our exemplar. Thert is something greatly overawing in the extreme slowness of God. Let it overshadow our souls, but let it not disquiet them. He tries us also by His hiddenness and by the impe­ netrable obscurity in which He shrouds almost all His supernatural processes, both in the sacraments and out of them. As the Bible says, He is a God who conceals Himself. If we could see Him, so we say, 0 then cheer­ fully would we follow Him ! 0 were we but sure it was He ! But we cannot see Him. Often He could not show Himself to ua if He would. That is, His mercy could IS K 146 ΓΛΤΙΒΝΟΕ. not, for the sight would slay us. Darkncsu is good for us when light would blind us. But look over the exercises, the trials, the temptations, and the vicissitude» of t|KI spiritual life, and what a gain it seems as if it would be to us, could we only sec Him ! It is not so. It is best as it is. The enigma is our life. Wo must be patient with it. Sometimes He condescends to look mutable and fickle. He lets the moon amid the driving clouds of night be His emblem. He entices us into a road, and then leaves us just where it branches into two. He shows His face and then He hides it. We see it for a moment, and it is gone before we have caught the expression of it. Or the light so pleased us, we did not look at the dark objects it was meant to enlighten. Why does lie interweave His bright and dark with us so perpetually ? Sometimes He puzzles us as to His will. He lets half words fall into our hearts. He sends us what look like leadings, and are not so. He feigns, as our Lord did when He made as if He would pass the boat that stormy night on the water. He lets us think that He has contradicted Himself, He who is eternal truth, unchangeable simplicity. He looks as though He were entrapping us, getting us to commit ourselves to Him, and then reproaching us, and going away as if we had offended Him, or changing his mien and throwing us into prison and making slaves of us, as if in contempt of our generosity, as if our best were an insult to Him, as it would bo but for the infiniteness of His amazing compassion. One while He is the most in­ dulgent of fathers, another while the least forbearing of masters : now the most patient of teachers, and again the sharpest of critics: here the most gracious of sovereigns there the most exacting of despots : now almost a plain- PATIENCE. 14: t:tf te our human hearts, and again the moat vindictive of persecutors. Look as Thou wilt, most gracious Lord’, nothing of Thee will wo believe but that Thou art an icfinitely good God, in Thy wrath remembering mercy, and as unchangeably a Father as Thou art eternally a God I IIis chastisements also try our patience. Not only b * eause they are never really light; for He never punish *» in vain ; but because they are unexpected, and seem in­ consistent with what we have heard, and look dispropor­ tionate to such little failings. For if He caressed us when we greatly sinned, and forgave us even when we longed to be chastised, why for a trifling infidelity or an almost natural defect does the slow, heavy, regular lash endure so long ? Does He forget we are creatures made of clay, and that if He does not mind, He will break us? Any chastisement which seems out of keeping with His usual dispensations tries our patience and is specially hard to bear. In the matter of answers to prayer we are equally bewildered. If He does not answer, faith faints. If He does, the answer is like Himself, it is slow and obscure and a riddle. Sometimes it is as if He answered in anger and took us at our word in a strange way for a Father. At last He abandons us. At all events there would be no bewilderment here, were we not told that this is precisely the hour of His especial and sustaining grace. Strange ! for it is like a mountain falling on our hearts. It wrung a cry even from the silence-loving Heart of our everblessed Saviour on the Cross. Shall I say then, be patient with God ? Better say, Let us worship as heretofore ; for is He not still God ? There are various ways in which we offend against this sublime exercise of patience. The first is by petu- 148 PATIENCE. lance in prayer, bold words of complaint, as if God had injured us, or as if lie liked them, and that it was for every one to dare to bo with Him as Job was of old, and to pour out his heart in those bitter burning words, whereby God mysteriously acknowledged that he had justified himself. Or our impatience may show itself in an indiscreet and inordinate pursuit of virtue, a greedi­ ness for graces, and a wounded vanity from venial imper­ fections. It makes us capricious and fickle. We give up prayer, because the answer lingers. We weary of sacraments because of their monotony. We shift our spiritual exercises, because they have not wrought mira­ cles. We abandon medicines because health has not fol­ lowed instantaneously. All infidelity is impatience with God. Thus we mar our mortifications by it. We begin them on impulse; we practise them without sobriety ; and we leave them off because we are grown tepid and do not like the pain. So in the same manner a good work sug­ gests itself: we cast up to heaven one ejaculation, far more full of self-will than of pure zeal; and we begin the work forthwith without prayer or counsel or delibera­ tion. What wonder we leave it half done ? Is not tho land round about us all full of these follies of impulse, impatience and conceit, which we ourselves have set up amid the mute wonder of pitying angels? We give our­ selves vocations, and then charge them again. We con­ fer missions on ourselves, tyrannize over ourselves by multiplying our responsibilities, and send ourselves on embassies to the very end of the earth. We can hardly relieve sorrow or allay distress, but there is some impa­ tience in it. We pray God daily not to lead us into temp tation, yet we are daily p) icing ourselves in dangerous oc- PATIENCE. 149 casions which we have reached almost out of breath, leav­ ing H irn far behind, who will not be hasten ïd on His way. Hut what are the remedies for this? We must study God. We must drink of the spirit of His ways. We must love God, ardently, intensely, to the death. But we must fear Him also, with a fear unutterable, abtaing, perpetual. Fear must beat in our blood, and quiver in our limbs, and many a time tongue-tie us and throw us down. 0 how we shall love God, when we fear Him thus! Magnificent fear! thou art a gift of the Holy Ghost! We must wait for God, long, meekly, in the wind and wet, in the thunder and the lightning, in the cold and the dark. Wait, and He will come. He never comes to those who do not wait. He does not go theil road. When He comes, go with Him, but go slowly, fall a little behind ; when He quickens His pace, be sure of it, before you quicken yours. But when He slackens, slacken at once. And do not be slow only, but silent, rnry silent, for He is God. 13· 160 HUMAN RESPECT CHAPTER X. HUMAN RESPEOi. To gm ourselves up to the spiritual life is to put our selves out of harmony with the world around us. We make a discord even with much that is amiable and affec­ tionate, and with which, as natural virtue, we cannot be altogether without sympathy. We live in a different world, have different interests and speak a different lan­ guage, and the two worlds will not mingle. Grace holds us in one world, nature draws us down again into the other. This is the secret of the immense power which human respect has over us; and of the three dispositions which compose the normal state of the spiritual life, fatigue is the one which lays us most open to its attacks. We are weary of interior things and weakened by long combat, and a vigorous charge from an enemy who gets close to us under friendly colours is more than for the most part we can withstand. The good spirit, then, which should be the faithful satellite of our fatigue, is the pre­ sence of God, or singleness of purpose, or siirp.bity, but which I prefer to designate merely the absence of humao respect, because no word seems so exact y to describe this spirit as the negative appellation in question. There is much to be said of human respect. It is a fault most keenly felt by spiritual persons, and compara­ tively little felt by others. It is more like an atmosphere than anything else, and can hardly be caught and HUMAN RESPECT 161 punished in distinct acte. Yet it is a thing of which there can be no doubt. We have an infallible conscious­ ness of it,. It gives undeniable evidences of its own ex· intense. It destroys all liberty, and becomes the positive tyrant of a man’s life. Yet if we look well into it, nothing can be more stupid than our submission to it. For we set little or no value on the separate opinions of individuals ; and when the judgment is in our favour, it fan do us no good, neither, unless true, can it afford us any rational pleasure. Indeed, its power is-altogether in the prospect, and not in the present possession. Yet it is a most universal, and must be dealt with as one of the most inconvenient facts of the spiritual life. Look at a person who is completely under its domination. Watch him in society and public life, or in the bosom of his family, or in the intimacies of friendship, or at con­ fession aud in conference with his director, or even with God in prayer, or in utter solitude. It is as if the omni­ presence of God was spunged out all round him, and that some other powerful eye was fixed upon him, ruling him with a power like that of the solar light, and causing in him at all times an almost preternatural uneasiness. It is not difficult to see the evils of this miserable world-presence, this spirit which gathers all mankind up into an eye, and throws its portentous fascination upon our souls. It causes men to be false and insincere in their mutual relations, and to act inconsiderately with others. It destroys all generous enthusiasm either for charity or penance. It puts a man under the despotism of ridicule, which becomes a kind of false god to him It is the contradictory of perfection, and while it is in force, renders it impossible; for it is always drawing us 152 HUMAN RESPECT. off from God to creatures. A brood of «ins of <.mi n follow it wherever it goes, sprung from «hame ami ih. fear of ridicule, and another brood of «ins of commi i ■ fiom the desire to please. In process of time, ami the process is not slow, it establishes itself as an habitual distraction in prayer and meditation; and as to examina­ tion of conscience, it almost seems to supply food to the voracity of human respect. It is as miserable as it is evil. The bondage of Car thusian austerity would be easier to bear. No slavery is more degraded and unhappy. What a misery to be ashamed of our duties and our principles ! What a misery that every action should have a flaw in it, and a blight upon it! What a misery to lose at last, as we must ine­ vitably do, the very thing for which all our sacrifices have been made, the respect of others ! Misery of miseries, thus to lose even respect for self! Religion, which ought to be our peace, becomes our torment. The very sacra­ ments have a feeling of incompleteness about them, as if we did not, as we do not, use them rightly; and our com­ munication with our director, which should be medicinal, is poisoned by this spirit. Surely we must try to get to the bottom of the matter, and to study the various phases of this disease of pious souls. A general wish to please, a laying ourselves out in particular subject matters in order to please, building castles in the air and imagining heroic acts, reflecting on the praise bestowed upon us, and giving way to low spirits when dispraised,—these are all manifestations of this horrible human respect. Human respect, however, is not so much a particular fault, as a whole world of faults. It is the death of all religion. We shall never have an adequate horror of it HUMAN RESPECT IM until we admit that these hard words arc no exaggeration. Let us therefore look at the place which it occupies in the grand struggle between good and evil. First of all, let us trace its rise; for thia is a difficult problem, considering how in detail wo all disbelieve in each other. The espe· . i.il task of Christians is the realization of the invisible world. They have different standards of right and wrong from the votaries of earth. They live inextricably mixed up with the children of the world, as men using the same language with different meanings, and the confusion and apparent deceit grow worse every day, and the world, the owner of the territory or its lessee, more and more angry, and inclined, in spite of its theory of haughty toleration, to persecute those who thus wilfully put themselves at variance with the public peace. Men feel that religious people are right, and on that very account they will not look the fact in the face, and realize it. They feel it, because they feel that they are not irresponsible. Yet they chafe at the judgments of God, and His incessant interference; at the quiet way in which He gives His judgments, and takes His own time to execute His ver­ dicts. So, not being able to do without the judicial power, they consolidate God from Three Divine Persons into a function, a cause, a pantheistic fluid, or a mechanical force, and transfer the judicial power to mankind in a body. This seems to be the account of human respect in the mind. Men in all generations fret under God’s judicial power. It seems as if, because of this fretfulness, it were one of the most unutterable of His compassions that He should have confided his ultimate judicial rights to our Lord as Man, and that in virtue of the Sacred Humanity He should be our judge. Looked at in a human point 154 HUMAN RESPECT. of view, men’s transfer of the judicial power to themselves may be said to have worked admirably. Social comfort, a standard of endurable morals, and generally what may be called for the moment live-ablenesa, have come of it. It causes a certain amount of individual unhappiness, because its police is harsh and rough, and the procedures of its court unkindly, and of the Draconian school. But men have a compensation for this in its giving over to them, utterly unquestioned, the whole region of thought Under the administration of God, thoughts were acts, nnd were tried and found guilty as such. They furnished the most abundant materials for its tribunals, and were ust what caused His jurisdiction to press so heavily upon the soul. Now all this is free. Calumny, detraction, «ash judgments, spiteful criticism, — they make us winr.-i as they visit our outward acts ; but we may be as base as wo please in thought, and yet walk through human courts with proud eye, and head erect. No wonder that when once human respect bad uken its place among the powers of the world, it should cause especial desolation in the religious mind, and become a worse evil and a greater misery there than elsewhere. For it is itself a sort of spurious counterfeit religion. For what is religiousness but the sensible presence of God, and religion the worship of Him ? In religion, tbe pre­ sence of God is our atmosphere. Sacraments, and prayer, and mortification, and all tbe exercises of the spiritual life are so many appointments, not only for realizing it, but for substantially introducing it both into body and toul. The respiration of our soul depends upon it. It produce·! a certain kind of character, a type of its own sort and easily recognized, a supernatural character widen HUMAN RESPECT. inspires other men with awe, love, hatred, or contempt, according to the different points of view from which they look at it. To the pure-minded, it is the greatest possible amount of happiness on earth; for it infuses into usa certain marvellous unreasoning instinct for another world, as being faith’s sight of Him who is invisible. Yet it is hardly conscious what it is it sees. Now is not human respect, in its own way, a simple copy and caricature of all this ? A something which undertakes to perform for the world every function which the presence of God per­ forms for the enlightened soul ? It is in fact a mental paganism. It is this similarity to a false religion which makes human respect so peculiarly dangerous. It does not alarm us by any grossness. On the contrary it forces sin into concealment. Not that this is any real boon to the best interests of men, for certain of the deadliest sins thrive best under cover. It confuses the boundaries be­ tween public opinion and itself, and pretends an alliance with prudence and discretion. This is a stratagem to be guarded against. For public opinion is within limits a legitimate power; and the man who because he was de­ vout., should lay it down as a principle that he would never respect public opinion or be swayed by it, would be paving the way for the triumphs of delusion. Nothing can be more alien to the moderation of the Church. There is a vast difference between what my fellow-citizens expect of me and show beforehand that they expect and give reasons for expecting, and the criticism they may pass upon my actions and my dcing them rather with reference to that criticism than to the wish of God Moreover, human respect unsupernaturalizes actions 1Λ6 HUMAN RESPECT. which are good in substance. It kills the nene of the intention; but it gives us no such smart warning as flio nerve of a tooth does in dying. It is like a worm in a nut; it eats away the kernel of our motive, and lets th· fruit hang as fairly from the tree as ever Religion is so much a matter of motives that this amounts to destroy­ ing it altogether, and as human respect introduces a directly wrong motive in lieu of the right one, it destroys spirituality in the most fatal way. Thus it is one of the completest instruments, which corrupt nature puts info the devil’s hands and at his disposal for the destruction of souls. What can be more hateful than this, and wh it more odious in the sight of God ? A caricature is al­ ways odious, and it is odious in proportion to the beauty and dignity of what it caricatures ; and as we have seen, human respect is a caricature of the presence and judicial power of God. Few are aware until they honestly turn to God, how completely they are the slaves of this vice. Then they wake up to a sense of it, and see how it is in their blood, as if it were their life and their identity, an inexplicable unconquerable vital thing Its rise is a mystery, for which we can only invent a theory. No one can tell for sure how it rose, or when, or why; it has been like an exhalation from corrupt humanity, the spreading of a silent pestilence that has no external symptoms. There is not a class of society which it has not mastered, no corner of private life that it has not invaded, no convent cell but its air is freighted with the poisonous influence. It rivals, what theologians call the pluri-prcscncc of Satan. Its strength is so great that it can get the better of God’s commandments and of tbe precepts of His Church, nay, HUMAN RESPECT IM >f n man’s own will, which last conquest even grace and p« li nn . find it difficult to achieve. It appears to increase with civilization, and with the extension of all means of I m nu iti<»n and publicity. In modern society men syste­ matize it, acknowledge it as a power, uphold its claims, and punish those who refuse submission. God is an ex­ king amongst us, legitimate perhaps but deposed. It is much if we build Ilim in His own kingdom a house made with hands that He may dwell therein, and keep Him­ self within-doors. Surely if the evil one has not preter­ naturally helped human respect, he has at least concen­ trated his energies on its spread and success. He is never more a prince than when he stoops to be tbe mis­ sionary of humpn respect. Look into your own soul, and see how far this power has brought you into subjection. Is there a nook in your whole being, wherein you can sit down unmolested and breathe fresh air ? Is there any exercise however spiri­ tual, any occupation however sacred, any duty however solemn, over which the attractive influence of human re­ spect is not being exercised ? Have you any sanctuary, the inside of which it has never seen ? When you have thought it conquered, how often has it risen up again, as if defeat refreshed it like sleep? Does it not follow you as your shadow, as a perpetual black spot in the sweet sunshine ? Yet how long is it since you turned to God, and became spiritual ? How many Lents and Months of Mary have you passed, how many sacraments received, how many indulgences gained ? And yet this human re­ spect so active, so robust, so unwearied, so ubiquitous? Can theie be any question nearer your heart than whit concerns the remedies for this evil 1 14 158 HUMAN RESPECT. The Church provides remedies for us in two ways . in her general system, aud in her dealing with individual souls. She begins by boldly pronouncing a sentence of excommunication against the world, ignores its judgments in her own subject-matter of religion, and proclaims its friendship nothing less than a declaration of war against God. She gives her children different standards of right and wrong from the world, and an opposite rule of conduct. All her positive precepts and her obligations of outward profession of faith are so many protests against human respect, and she canonizes just those men who have been heroes in their contempt for it. The world feels and understands the significance of these t brags, and shows it by anger, exhibiting all the quick jealov/y of a conscious usurper. But of far greater efficacy are the remedies which she administers to single souls in the confessional and in spi­ ritual direction. The world dreads the secret power of that benign, cogent, and unreported tribunal. First of all, the practice of the Presence of God is pitted against this universal human respect. We are taught how to act slowly, and to unite all our actions to God by a pure intention. We are bidden to take this fault as the sub­ ject of our particular examination of conscience, to pray earnestly against it, and to be full about our falls when we accuse ourselves in confession. Even in indifferent things we arc recommended to adopt that line of conduct which tells most against human respect, were it only for the sake of mortification. This is often the rationale of the seemiug’.y absurd and childish mortifications imposed in rclignuB houses. For human respect is but a veiled •webijj >f self, which we seem to transfer to the world, HUMAN RESPECT. 159 because self is even to us so small an object. And what * ever kills this worship of eelf, as such mortificatione do, is a blow to human respect. In casting out devils, the saints have often delighted to use puerile means; so also may we cast this devil out of ourselves. Once let our souls be piTssessed by a timid, child-like devotion to the Eye of God, eternal and unsleeping, and human respect will die away and disappear, as the autumnal leaves waste in the rain, and enrich the soil for the coming spring. But the great thing is to understand our real position in the world and relation to it. This knowledge is a per­ fect fortress against human respect, which is one of the chief causes of failure in aiming at perfection. Let us then try to ascertain how pious people stand to the world, and the world to them. When we give ourselves up to God, we deliberately commit ourselves to live a supernatural life. Now what does a supernatural life mean ? It means giving up this life altogether, as seeing we cannot have both worlds. Altogether ! I hear you say. Yes ! altogether. For how would you have me qualify it? Not that we shall not be a thousand times happier and sunnier even in this life; but it is from out the other life that the sunshine and happiness will come. This life must go, and alto­ gether. There is no smoothing the word down. A super­ natural life means that we do not make sin the limit of our freedom, but that we draw the line much nearer home, by the evangelical counsels. It means mortification, and mortification is the inflicting of voluntary punishment od ourselves, as if passing sentence on ourselves and exe­ cuting it before the day of wrath. We put other interests, other loves, other enjoyments, in the place of those of the 160 HUMAN RESPECT. world. A conviction of our own weakness is the ground work of all cur actions, and we loan our whole weight on supernatural aids and sacramental assistances, as depend­ ing solely upon them. To a certain extent wo even become unsocial by silence, or solitude, or penance, or seeming ec­ centricity, or vocation. In a word, we deliberately become members of a minority, knowing we shall suffer for it Now, realizing this significancy of the spiritual life, what is the view the world will naturally take of us and how will it feel towards us? The world, half uncon­ sciously, believes in its own infallibility. Hence it is first of all surprised and then irritated with our venturing to act on different principles from itself. Such a line of action denies the world’s supremacy, and contradicts its narrow code of prudence and discretion. Our conduct is therefore a reflection on the world, as if God had outlawed it, which He has. Its fashions, its sects, its pursuits, its struggles, its tyranny and its conceits are to us no better than a self-important, grandiloquent puerility. Meanwhile, though we ignore tbe world, the world cannot ignore us, for we are a fact, intruding on its domain and interfering with its hypothesis. We ignore tbe world, and ignoring is the policy of tbe extremes of weakness and strength. In our case it is of both, natural weakness, supernatural strength. What sort of treatment then must we expect at the world’s hands? It will have its phases and varieties ac­ cording to circumstances. But on the whole wc must expect as follows. If we succeed in what we undertake for God, or have influence, or convert persons, or take any high line, or reproach others by our examples, we must make our account to be hated. We shall be feared, and HUMAN RESPECT 161 with an angry fear, when men nee we have a view and g< on a principle, which they do not; anil they fear it be cause they prognosticate our success. Men will fear us also, when they think We arc working for God in secret, and they cannot find out how, and this they call Jesuitism, a holy and a good word to ears wise and true ! They will moreover suspect us of all manner of strange misdemean­ ours. They can hardly help it; for the disproportion of means to ends in supernatural conduct is ever a teasing, baffling problem to the carnal mind. They will blame us; for blame is easy; and we swerve from men’s usual stan­ dard of praise. Moreover, condemnation of us is safe; for even so-called moderate men on our own side throw us jverboard. With them indiscretion means provoking the world, and not being friends with that whose friendship the Holy Ghost tells us is enmity with God. We shall be misunderstood, because even those who would naturally take a good-natured view of us cannot see what we see. They have no grasp of our principle a so they often think they have got logical proof ot our inconsistency. Besides which, we cannot even give a good account of our­ selves. We must expect also, hard as wc must strive to hinder it, to be more or less at variance with flesh and blood. Vocations, devotions and penances have a sad though inculpable liability to disturb family peace. Pa­ rents are slow to give in to God, even long after children arc come to years of ripe discretion. For instance, if a son mairies, he will have liberty, because the world bide it; if he enters orders or religion, he will not, because only the Church bids it then. Yet they are good people, and religious in their way; why should not we be fiku them? So they think, and othçrs say. We cannot see things in their light, and they cannot see things in ours * 14 (62 HUMAN RESPECT. Now (o something of this kind, more or less, we com mi tied ourselves when we took up the spiritual life in earnest. We knew what we were about. From that hour we parted company with the world, nevermore to do aught but fly from it as a plague, or face it as a foe. Human respect, therefore, must henceforth be for us either an impossibility, or an inconsistency, or a sin. What have we to do with giving or taking the world’s respect, which we have bound ourselves eternally to disrespect? Enough for us that we have taken ourselves out of the world’s hands, and out of our own, and put ourselves into the Hands of God, and we have felt those hands, 0 happy we ' gJQtly but firmly close over u.«, and hold us fast. MORTIFICATION OCR TRUE PERSEVERANCE 163 CHAPTER XI. MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE. The true idea of mortification is, that it is the love of Jesus, urged into that shape partly in imitation of Him, partly to express its own vehemence, and partly to secure, by an instinct of self-preservation, its own perseverance. There can be no true or enduring love without it, for a certain amount of it is requisite in order to avoid sin and to keep the commandments. Neither without it is there any respectable perseverance in the spiritual life. The rest which forms part of the normal state of the spiritual life is not safe without it, because of the propension of nature to seek repose in natural ways when supernatural are no longer open to it. Mortification is both interior and exterior; and of course the superior excellence of the interior is beyond question. But if there is one doctrine more important than another on this subject, it is that there can be no interior mortification without exterior; and this last must come first. In a word, to be spiritual, bodily mortification is indispensable. Some have spoken as if bodily mortification were less necessary in modern times than it was before, and conse qucntly that the recommendations of spiritual writers under this head are to be taken with considerable abate­ ment. If this means that a less degree of exterior morti­ fication is necessary for holiness now than was necessary for past ages of the Church, nothing can be more untrue. 164 MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE and it comes up to the verge of condemned propositions )f it means that increased valetudinarianism and the uni­ versality of nervous diseases, combined with other causes, discreetly point to a change in the kind of mortifications, the proposition may be assented to, with jealousy, however, and wary limitations. The Lenten Induits of the Church may be taken as an illustration. But this false doctrine is so deep in the minds of many that it is necessary to combat it before we proceed fur­ ther. The degree of mortification and its idea must r.· main the same in all ages of the Church : for penance ig an abiding mark of the Church. To do penance because the kingdom of heaven is at hand is the especial work of a justified soul. To get grace, to keep it and to multiply it, penance is necessary at every step. And when we say that holiness is a note of the Catholic Church, we show forth the necessity of mortification ; for the one implies the other, the first includes the last. The heroic exer­ cise of penance must be proved to the satisfaction of the Church before she will proceed to the canonization of a saint; and the quite recent beatification of Paul of the Cross and Marianna of Gesù show how completely unal­ tered the mind of the Church remains on this point. Marianna’s life is nothing but one unbroken series of the most startling austerities, which make us shudder from the inventive cruelty which they display. The life of St. Rose of Lima, by the side of this other American Vir­ gin, looks soft and comfortable and easy. It seems as if Paul were raised up to alarm the stagnant eighteenth century, and to renew before the eyes of men the austeri­ ties of St. Benedict, St. Bruno, St. Romuald, or St. Peter Damian. He reanimated the old severe monastic spirit. MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERAM JB. 165 ni contempt of all modern usages and mitigations, and fur a hundred years his children have trodden in their father’s steps with undecaying fervour. The existence and primitive vigour of the austere Passioniste is one of the greatest consolations of the Church in these effemi­ nate days. Wc must remember also that, according to the teaching of Scripture, it is quite a mistake to regard, as some unthinkingly do, the practice of mortification as a counsel »f perfection, and a work of supererogation. When carried to a certain degree, or when expressed in certain ways, it is doubtless so. But mortification in itself, and to a certain degree and under given circum­ stances, is of precept and necessary to salvation. This is not only true of the self-inflicted pains which are some­ times of obligation in order to overcome vehement temp­ tations, or of those various mortifications which are need­ ful in order to avoid sin. But a definite amount of fasting and abstinence, irrespective of the temptations or circum­ stances of individuals, is imposed by the Church on all her children under pain of eternal damnation. This ex­ presses the idea of penance for its own sake, and the necessity of it as one of the functions of the Church, as a soul-saving institute. When, therefore, men say that they do not practise mortification, but leave it to those who wish to be saints, they may on being questioned show that they are sound in doctrine, and do not mean the error which their words, strictly taken, imply; but we may be sure that the very use of such loose language is a proof that a real error about mortification is deeply imbedded in their minds. Indeed, modern luxury and effeminacy, which are often 166 MORTIFICATION OUR TKOE PERSEVERANCE pleaded as arguments for an abatement of mortification( may just as well be called forward to maintain the oppo­ site view. For if it be a special office of the Church to bear witness against the world, her witness must especially be borne against the reigning vices of the world ; and therefore in these days, against effeminacy, the worship of comfort and the extravagances of luxury. I believe, if this unhappy land is ever to be converted, of which there are many hopes and no signs, it will be by some religious order or orders who shall exhibit to a degraded and vicious people the vision of evangelical poverty in its sternest perfection. The land that has forsaken Christ must gather to the Baptist first, and be attracted to the Jordan by the simplicity of supernatural strictness, and antique austerity. Other things can do much, intellect, learning, eloquence, the beauties of Catholic charity, the sweet influences of a purified literature, the studiousness of a simple and apostolic preaching. But the great work, if the great work is in the counsels of God, I much think is a triumph in this land reserved only for evangelical poverty. Not poverty in the grotesque attire of mediaeval practice, once hallowed, but which would repel men now and invite contempt, because of certain developments separable from its real self, and at present unseasonable ; but the beautiful poverty of the apostles and first ages of the Church, with the common garb and bright clean face and hands of evangelical austerity. * If the Church has to witness always against the reign­ ing vices of the world, each soul has likewise, if not to witness, at least to defend itself, against them. And how shall it defsnd itself against the worship of bodily • St. Matthew, vL 14. MORTIFICATION OUL TRUE PERSEVERANCE I »57 forts, except bv depriving itself of them? Changeable ns the world is, it is unchanging too. The world, the flesh, and the devil, are practically the same in all ages: and so, practically, mortification has the same offices to perform. Whether we consider the soul in the struggles of its conversion, in the progress of its illumination, or in its variously perfect degrees of union with God, wc shall find that bodily mortifications have their own place, and their proper work to do, and are literally indispensable. But let us look for a moment at the various objection» urged against this. First we are told that the health of the world is not what it is, and that if there is an equal, or even greater longevity, the normal state of health « more uniformly valetudinarian, and that if inflammatory attacks are less frequent, nervous complaints on the other hand are more prevalent, and that the relaxation of church discipline on the subject shows her appreciation of these facts. All this is true, and doubtless many most important deductions are to be drawn from it. Still I maintain, it is more concerned with the kind of mortifi­ cation than the degree. The conduct of the Church in the mitigation of fasting is as wise as the conduct of Leo XII. was marked with the usual practical sagacity of the Holy See, when he caused the possibilities of the old ob­ servance of Lent to be medically investigated. Moreover the plea of health, while it is always to be listened to, is to be listened to with suspicion. We must always be jealous of the side on which nature and self are serving as volunteers. Great then as we must admit the conse­ quences of a state of valetudinarianism to be on the spiri­ tual life, a general and plenary dispensation from corporal austerities is not one of them ; and we must renrembei Îb8 MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE also that our forefathers, who troubled their In-ads little enough about their nerves, and had no tea to drink, were accustomed to hear from Father Baker, who only gave utterance to the old mystical tradition, that a state of robust health was positively a disqualification for the higher stages of the spiritual life. A second objection, and one sometimes urged in be­ half of priests and religious, is that modern hard work is a substitute for ancient penance. The fewness of the clergy and the multitude of souls have certainly brought upon the ecclesiastics of this generation an overwhelming pressure of work; and it is true of them, as it always has been of religious orders engaged in the apostolate, that the measure of bodily austerity to be exacted of them is very different from that which we expect from contempla­ tives and solitaries. I do not say therefore that this ob­ jection expresses no truth, but only that it will not bear all the weight men put upon it. Certain kinds of penance are incompatible with hard work ; while at the same time the excessive exterior propensities which hard work givee us arc so perilous to the soul that certain other kinds of penance are all the more necessary to correct this disturb­ ing force. All great missionaries, Segneri and Pinamonti, Leonard of Port Maurice and Paul of the Cross, have worn instruments of penance. The penalities of life, as Da Ponte calls them, are doubtless an excellent penance when endured with an interior spirit, and worth far more than a hundred self-inflicted pains. Yet be who maintain· that the endurance of the former is a dispensation from the infliction of the latter, will find himself out of har­ mony with the whole stream of approved spiritual teach­ ing in the Church · and the brevity of his perseverance MORTIFICATION OUR TRUK PERSEVERA NCR IGO in the interior life will soon show both himself and othen the completeness of his delusion. Without bodily penance, zealous apostolic work hardens the heart far more than it sanctifies it. Λ third class of objectors tells us to be content with the trials God sends us, which are neither few nor light. If they told us that the gay suffering and graceful wel­ come of these dispensations were of infinitely greater price than the sting of the discipline or the twinge of the catenella, most true and most important would the lesson be, and to many a hot-hearted spiritual suckling quite indis­ pensable. Youth, when it is strong and well and is full of fervour and bathing in devotional sweetness, finds almost a physical pleasure in tormenting its flesh and pinching its redundant health. There is little merit in this, as there is little difficulty and less discretion. And at all times one blow from God is worth a million from ourselves. But the objectors fall into that mistake of exaggeration which runs through so many spiritual books Because A is more important than B, they jump to the conclusion that B is of no importance at all. Because the mortifications which God sends us are more efficacious and less delusive, if rightly taken, than the mortifications we inflict upon ourselves, it d^s not. follow but that these last are, not only an important, but even an indispensable element in the spiritual life. We may answer them briefly as follows. Yes ! the best of all penances is to take in the spirit of interior compunction the mortifica­ tions which the wise and affectionate course of God’s fatherly providence brings upon us ; but unless we have practised ourselves in the generous habit of voluntary penances, the chances are very much indeed against our 15 170 MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE. forming this interior spirit of penance, and therefore of getting the full profit out of the involuntary trials Goa tends us. Besides these objections there is another one latent in many minds, which should be noticed. Our present habits of life and thought lead to an obvious want of sympathy with contemplation. It has no public results on which we can look complacently, or which we can parade boastfully. Everything seems waste which is not visible ; and all is disappointment which is not plain suc­ cess. It is supernatural principles especially which are at a discount in modern days. Now it is easy to see how this want of sympathy with contemplation leads to a mis­ appreciation of austerity. They are connected with each other, and both enter deeply into the region of super­ natural operations. To think lightly of either is to be out of harmony with the mind of the Church, and to in­ jure our own soul, whatever may be its vocation, by nar­ rowing the range of its supernatural vision. From all these considerations it may warrantably be concluded that there is nothing in modern times to dis­ pense us either from the obligation or the counsel of bodily mortification, that on the contrary there is much in modern habits to enforce the obligation and to urge the counsel, and that all the modifications, to which the actual circumstances of modern life point, concern them­ selves wholly with the kind of mortification and not at all with the degree. Something remains to be said on the uses of mortifi­ cation. These are ten in number and all of them de­ serving a serious consideration. Its first use is to tame the body and bring its rebellious passions under the con· MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PFR.IEVERANCT,. 171 trol of grace and of our superior will. Full half the obstacles to a spiritual life are from the body, and the treacherous succour which its senses give to our baser passions. These must be, I do not say altogether re­ moved, but effectually crippled, before we can hope to make much progress. We never find in any one a real arnestness of mind or seriousness of spirit, where honest attempts are not being made to keep the body in subjec­ tion. The reason why men are religious under sorrow and not at other times is that they do not practise bodily mortification, whereas sorrow afflicts and rebukes the flesh, and so for the time performs the functions of mor­ tification. Sorrow acts on the soul through the body as much as through the mind. The second use is to increase the range of our spiritual vision. Sensitiveness of conscience is one of the greatest gifts which God gives us in order to a spiritual life. The things of God, says the apostle, can only be spiritually discerned. The process of our purification by grace depends on our increasing clearness of vision as to what is faulty and imperfect. From the discernment of mortal sin we come to that of venial sin, from venial sin to imperfections, from imperfections to less perfect ways of doing perfect things, and from that to a delicate percep­ tion of the almost invisible infidelities which grieve the Holy Spirit within us. And if bodily mortification is not the sole means by which this sensitiveness of con­ science is obtained, it is one of the chief, as well from its own intrinsic method of operation, as from its power to impetrate the gift from God. This brings me to the third use of mortifications of all kinds, which is to obtain power with God. Suffering 172 MORTIFICATiON OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE. easily becomes power io the things of God. The price He sets upon it is shown by the fact that the world was redeemed by suffering, and that suffering gives their palin to the martyrs and their crown to the confessors. The gift of miracles follows hard upon austerity. When we complain that we have no power with God, that our pray­ ers remain unanswered, that our efforts to root out some besetting sin are unavailing, and that we give way to temptations and to surprises of temper or loquacity, it is for the most part because we are not leading mortified lives. It is in this that mortification so amply repays us for the pain it gives. For not only is it an immense gain to have power with God, but the obvious connection between the mortification and the power enables us not so much to believe in supernatural things as to handle them with our very hands and feel their weight. Indeed even a temptation may come from this If, then, for the sake of our own spiritual growth and the interest we feel in the glory of God, the triumph of the faith, and the salva­ tion of souls near and dear to us, we desire to obtain power with God, we must habitually and consistently practise mortification. Its fourth use is to intensify our love. It is of the nature of love to thrive on no food so well as on the evi­ dence of its own vigour; and nothing testifies to us so securely our love of God, as the infliction of voluntary austerities upon ourselves: and while it manifests our love, it augments it also. Pain, too, of itself prepares the heart for the emotions of love by softening it and making it childlike. And where the object loved and contemplated is one of sorrow and suffering, as Jesus is, love impels us more or less vehemently to imitation. Do MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE. 173 wc complain that our love of our dear Lord is slackening! Forthwith let us mortify ourselves in something, and the smouldering embers will break into a bright flame. A· sure as power follows mortification, so also does love. Its fifth use is to make us unworldly, and to inundate us with spiritual joy. Nothing is in itself so unworldly as mortification, because it is the killing of everything the world most prizes and cherishes. It breaks off ah the inordinate attachments to creatures which we may nave formed, and it hinders us from embarrassing our­ selves with new ties; for mortification is found by expe­ rience to be so difficult that we dread to increase the breadth of the region over which we are compelled to extend it. And what is each new attachment but a fresh horde of savages to be brought painfully beneath control? As to spiritual joy, it flows like a tide into some empty place. In proportion, therefore, as our hearts are void of earthly attachments, and an attachment may be defined to be an affection which is not a duty, in the same pro­ portion arc they capable of enjoying the sweetness of God. Hence it is that mortified persons, when discreet, are always mirthful. The heart is lightened, because the burden of the body is taken off it Nothing can make ui unworldly but mortification. Have we never seen person» clouded round with sorrow so deep and dark, that we approached it reverently as we would a sanctuary, and yet it had not made the sufferer unworldly ? That blessed office is the monopoly of mortification. Its sixth use is to hinder our making a great mistake, which is the leaving the Via Purgativa too soon. This is perhaps the chiefcst danger iu the whole of the spiiituai life. Many try to go so fast when they first begin, that they * 15 174 MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE TERSEV ER Λ N CE. lose their breath, and give up (he race altogether; and even if they do not, they cannot leave behind what they wish to leave, before the appointed time. They are like men running wildly to outstrip their own shadow. I( cannot be. Nature wants to be out of her noviciate. Meditation would fain be thrust up into Affective Prayer, and the captivity of little things longs to expatiate in Jberty of spirit. The bruised flesh asks to be let alone, and interior mortification requests to be allowed its primi­ tive vagueness and to remain undefined. Weekly Com­ munion gravitates to daily, and the soul a little tired of looking after itself, inclines to convert the world. If there is difficult navigation anywhere in the spiritual life, it-is here. See! the reefs are strewn with wrecks, and the waves wash up at every tide the bodies of half-made saints, of broken heroes, and frustrated vocations. No harm comes of keeping long in the lower parts of the spiritual life. All possible evil may come of mounting too quickly. An evil when it is mortified first looks dead. It feigns death, as beetles do. If it succeeds in deceiving us, and we pass on, we shall rue it bitterly. It is only the old story : look well to your foundations, dig them deep and build broad, and plan your building magnifieently large, as if you were a prince. Mortification, of all things, helps us to do this. Its difficulty brings out our weakness. One while clumsy, another while cowardly, we are content to be kept down, when daily failures are telling us what would happen on the giddy heights above us. But how long shall the Via Purgativa last? Who can tell ? It depends upon fervour. Any how, wo must count it by years, not by months. The seventh use of mortification is to bo found in its MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE. 175 connection with prayer. How many complaints arc we daily hearing of the difficulties of mental prayer I Yet how few are seeking the gift of prayer by the single means which can succeed, namely, mortificationi If we do not mortify ourselves, why complain ? Listen to this vision, whioh Da Ponte relates as having happened to a person whom he knew. He gives it at length in the third tract of his Spiritual Guide. God showed this person the state of a tepid and idle soul, which is given to prayer, without mortification. She saw in the middle of a wide plain a very deep and strong foundation, white as ivory, about which a fair, ruddy youth of admirable beauty was walking. He called her to him, and said, I am the son of a powerful king, and I have laid this foundation that I might build a palace for you to dwell in, and to receive me whenever I come to visit you, which I shall do frequently, provided you always have a room ready for me, and open as soon as I knock. In time, however, I shall come and live entirely with you, and you will be delighted to have me for a daily guest. Judge, however, from the magnitude of this foundation what the edifice is to be. Meanwhile I will build, and you must bring me all the materials. The lady began to be sore amazed and afflicted, for she deemed it impossible that she should of herself bring all the requisite materials. The young man, however, said, Do not be afraid; you will be quite able to do it. Begin to bring something at once, and I will help you. So she began to look about for something, but presently stopped and fixed her eyes jn the young man, whose beauty delighted and refreshed her. Yet she took no pains to please him. She feared him very much, when she saw that he wa * watching her. 176 MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE TERSBV ERA NCR Nevertheless she did not blush at, her disobedicn ,e While she was thus loitering, she saw that the foundation was being gradually covered with dust and straws by the wind, and sometimes such whirlwinds of dust arose that she could not see the foundation at all. Sometimes floods of rain covered the whole with mud, which gradually spread over them, and caused a rank vegetation of -veeds to sprout up. At last, nothing of the foundation re­ mained but the spot which the young man’s feet covered, and at last a sudden whirlwind covered him, and the foundation disappeared from her sight beneath a heap of filth. The lady was very much afflicted to find herself alone, especially as she was soon surrounded by ruinous heaps of lime, sand, and stone. She bewailed her tepidity and idleness, but believing that the young man was still hidden in some of the cavities of the foundation, she cried out in a loud voice, Sir ! I am coming : I am bringing materials : I pray you come forth to the build­ ing; fori am deeply penitent for my sloth and delay. While she was in these dispositions, the vision was thus interpreted to her. The foundation signifies faith and the habits of other virtues which Christ infuses into the soul at baptism, desiring to build upon them a fair edifice of lofty perfection, provided the soul co-operates with Him by bringing the necessary materials, observance of the divine precepts and counsels, which by the aid of the same Lord, it can do. But the soul is often so delighted with meditating on the mysteries of Christ, that it becomes tepid and idle in the imitation and obedience of Him, and through this inattention and slovenliness, the habits of virtue arc gradually obscured by venial sins, and the eyes of the soul so dimmed that they cannot sec MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE. 171 oui Lord. In punishment of this sloth He sometime» allows the soul to full into a mortal sin, which stains and th-troys everything. Then by the mercy of God it re­ pents, finds the atones of contrition, the lime of confession, and the sands of satisfaction all around it, and calls on Jesus with a loud voice to pardon the sin and to begin fchc building, for the second time. The eighth use of mortification is to give depth and strength to our sanctity, just as gymnastic exercises give us muscle and play of strength. This is connected with what was said a while ago of not trying to get out of the Via Purgativa too quickly. When Simeon Stylites first began to stand upon his column, so Theodoret tells us, he heard a voice in his sleep which said to him, Arise and dig ! He seemed to dig for a time, and then ceased, when the voice said to him, Dig deeper! Four times he dug, four times he rested, and four times the voice cried, Dig deeper! After that it said, Now build without toil I There can surely be no doubt but that the digging was the humbling toil of mortification. There is such a thing as a thin meagre piety, a religious sentimentality, which cannot go beyond the beauty of taste or the pathos of a ceremonial, a devotion for the sunshine but not for the storm ; and the fault of the lank crazy edifice that is raised by it is the absence of mortification in its original construction. The ninth use of mortification concerns bodily austeri­ ties. Without exterior mortification it is idle to expect that we shall ever attain the higher grace of interior mor­ tification. It is the greatest of delusions to suppose we can mortify judgment and will, if we do not mortify our body also. Interior mortification is certainly the higher: 178 MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PER SEVER \ NOE. yet in some sense exterioris harder. Ft is b.ml-r !·<·< .hi.·* it comes first, and has to be exercised when we hav as yet scarcely any empire over ourselves. It is harder be cause it is more sensible. It is barder because our victo­ ries are at best mean to look at, and our defeats palpable and discouraging. It is harder because habit helps ut less. If our bodily penances are rare, each one has all the difficulties of a new beginning. If they arc frequent, they fall on unhealed wounds. Whereas with interior mortification the victories always look dignified, and ths defeats are surrounded by such a host of extenuating cir­ cumstances as veils their disgrace. We must remember that throughout our spiritual life we have our body for our companion, and none but a very few privileged saints have ever quite subdued it. Moreover, body has to bo saved as well as soul, and so it is not true that, in dev·' tion, exterior things are only a means to interior. They have, beside that instrumental character, an import and significancy of their own. There have always been two classes of heresies with regard to spiritual theology ; and I cannot think of one heresy which has not come either from a disunion of the interior and the exterior, or a dwelling on one of them to the neglect and depression of the other. I tremble when people speak much of inte­ rior mortification, it sounds so like a confession that they are leading comfortable lives. On the other band, when men exaggerate the importance of bodily austerities, the chances are either that they do not practise them at all, jr that, practising them, they rest in them with compla­ cency, and so are fakirs, not Christians, having no spiritual life which can deserve the name. The tenth and last use of mortification is, that it is a MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE- 17« most excellent school for the queenly virtue of discretion The truly mortified man will as little think of not listen­ ing to discretion, as he would think of listening to cowardice. Discretion is a habit of bitting a mark, and there must be a supernatural truth in the eye, and a supernatural steadiness in the hand, in order to attain this. Mortification is the grand subject-matter of these trials of discretion : and the virtue will show itself in obe­ dience, humility, self-distrust, perseverance, and detach­ ment from the penances themselves. This was the trial to which the bishops put Simeon Stylites. They sent a messenger to bid him come down from his pillar. If he hesitated, they should know that bis extraordinary voca­ tion was not from God. But the words were hardly out of the messenger’s mouth, than he put one foot down from his column. In his docility they recognized the call of God, and bade him stay. The details of mortification belong rather to tbe direc­ tion of particular souls. Each one requires a legislation for himself. There seems however to be a consent among spiritual writers that while pleasures, passions, and pains, are the three great fields of mortification, a certain ordei ought to be observed in our application to them. Plea­ sures should be mortified first, passions next, and pains be undertaken last. They do not mean by this that there are three distinct and successive classes of penances, and that we must practise one till we are out of the other, any more than writers when they divide mental prayer into twelve or fifteen states mean that we go out of one into another, as if they were separate rooms. All that is meant is, that upon the whole a certain order is to be observed, and upon the whole one object to be sought at a ?ertain time rath another one. ISO MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE I ERSE V ERA NCR. Mortifications arc divided into exterior and interior Of the exterior there arc five principal classes. First afflictive penances, such as fasting, discipline, hair shirt, catenella, cold, and wakefulness. Of these the one which dost requires jealousy is that which concerns loss of sleep, and next to it the bearing of cold. For the results of these to the health may be and often are permanent. And generally of all these penances, two things may be ob­ served, first that no one should ever take them out of his own bead, without counsel and Obedience ; and secondly, that perseverance in them is of far greater moment than either quantity or quality. It has often been noticed that when a person becomes spiritual, one of the very last in­ firmities which leaves him is an im mortified pleasure in eating and drinking. There is something wonderfully humbling in this: and we must pay particular attention to it, trying to mortify ourselves in something at every meal, and not to eat between meal-times. It ought to be a mortification in itself to read what Brillal-Savarin has cleverly said, as Descuret quotes him in his Medicine des Passions, that there are four classes of men given to gluttony, the financiers, the physicians, the literary, and the devout; the financiers for the sake of ostentation, the physicians by seduction, the literary by way of distraction, and the devout by way of compensation ! The second class of exterior mortifications consists in the custody of the senses, in order to rebuke levity and curiosity, and in these singularity and affectation should be guarded against. Under the third class falls the patient bearing of illness and pain, and especially the acceptation of death in the spirit of penance. Under the fourth class oome fatiguing and self-denying works for the good of our MORTIFICATION OUR TRUK PERSEVERANCE. 181 neighbour, or the relief of the poor, or the exaltation of the faith ; and under the fifth, all that is penal in the common tasks and daily vicissitudes of life, the obligation of work, the inconveniences of poverty, the weather, and like things, all which may become meritorious by being endured in an interior spirit of penance, and united to our Lord’s endurance of them in His Thirty-three years. Under the head of interior mortifications comes first f all the mortification of our own judgment, or rationale, as St. Philip called it. Can there be a harder task in the whole of the spiritual life ? If you ask me how it is to be done, I answer, — the words are easy, not so the practice — Distrust your own opinion, and acquire the habit of surrendering it in doubtful things. In matters about which you are clear, speak modestly and then be silent. Try never to have an opinion contrary to that of your natural and immediate superiors. Let their presence be the death of your own views. With your equals try to agree in matters of no moment, and above all, have no wish to be listened to. Judge favourably of all things, and be ingenuous in giving them a kindly turn. Con­ demn nothing either in the general or the particular; but make all things over to the judgment of God When reason and virtue oblige you to speak, do so with such gentleness and want of emphasis that you may seem rather to despise than value your own opinion. Mortifications of the will form another class. The tongues of others fill a third to overflowing. Spiritual de­ solations are a fourth, and horrible temptations, specially allowed by God, a fifth. All these have their own symp­ toms and require their own method of treatment which it would be out of place here to investigate. Thero is 16 182 MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE little left for tbe work of sanctification to do, when u· will is conformed to the Will of God, and endures humbly and sweetly the adverse wills of others. The strife of tongues is a mortification from which few can b.-pe to escape, especially if they are either endeavouring to du good to others or aiming at a high sanctity for themselves. It was one of the ingredients in our Saviour’s chalice, and was considered by the psalmist as so afflictive that he prayed God to hide him from it beneath the shadow of His wings. Spiritual desolations, so hard to bear, give both courage and humility to our relations with God, while unusual and obstinate temptations purify the soul, as in a very crucible, from all remains of earthly dross. But if mortification has its difficulties, it has its dangers also. Many mortifications are preceded by vain-glory, who blows the trumpet before them. Other mortifications she accompanies; and some even receive from her all theii life, animation and perseverance. It is as if this evil spirit had a standing commission from her master, When­ ever a soul is about to practise a mortification there be thou also 1 The remedy for this is to put all our mortifications under obedience. It is difficult then for either vain-glory, ostentation, singularity, affectation, wilfulness, or indiscre­ tion to fasten upon our penances and corrode their precious inward life. And they are the six chief dangers of mor­ tification. Neither must we forget to be on our guard against a superstitious idea of the value of pain growing up in our minds alongside of our austerities. Many mor tifications remain mortifications when the pain of them has passed away; and the value of them depends upon the intensity of the supernatural intention that was in them, not on the amount of physical pain or bodily discomfort MORTIFICATION 3UR TRUE PERSEVERANCB J83 Mortification is a putting something to death and the pas­ sion that is dead already is more mortified than one that is only dying, and yet the last feels pain, while the first is past all feeling. It is astonishing how many are un­ consciously deceived by this superstitious notion of the value of the mere pain ; not that it is without value; but it is not the gem ; it is only the setting of it. It is this error which has given go much vogue outside tbe Church, and sometimes also to unwary persons in it, to the delu­ sion of thinking that perfection consists in always doing what we dislike, which implies that our affections and passions will never be brought to like the things of God or be in harmony with grace. Thus you hear of persons having a scruple whether they ought to be kind to others because they have so much sensible pleasure in it, or visiting the poor for the same reason, or following a peculiar bent of devotion. Some even impose it as a rule upon the souls they guide. In almost every instance with as much absurdity as indiscretion. In the only sense in which sound mysticism would allow of such a maxim, it would require a special and clearly-marked vocation, and it would be as rare as the call to make St. Theresa’s and St. Andrew Avcllino’s vows, always to do what was most perfect. Yet the Church stopped at those vows when she was called upon to canonize the saints, and would not proceed till evidence was given her of a special operation of the Holy Ghost. No one ever became a saint, or any­ thing like one, by ceasing to cultivate the sweeter parts of his character or his natural virtues, because the doing so was so great a pleasure. Yet Jansenism thought that the secret of perfection lay in this single charm. It is a most odious and uncatholic idea of asceticism. IM MORTIFICATION OUR TRUE PERSEVERANCE To the difficulties and dangers of mortification wc must idd a word on its delusions. It is a fertile subject. Guilloré, who has treated of the subjectat length ami with his usual severity, sums it all up by describing the four classes of persons who are most subject to these delusions. The first class embraces those who have always led an in­ nocent life, and on that account easily dispense themselves from austerities; and not being drawn to them themselves, they make no attempt to draw others that way. They do not see why they should maltreat a body which is so little rebellious, and inflict on it such constant pain when it teases them with but an occasional disturbance. The second class contains those, who, though their lives have been far from innocent, are nevertheless from softness of temperament disinclined to austerities. They can hardly believe that anything, which is so far above their cow­ ardice, as this persecution of self, can be necessary and indispensable. Useful they are willing to admit it to be, but surely not necessary ; for in that case where should they be? And are their intellectual views of perfection, or their sentimental aspirations after it, to end in smoke ? The third class comprises those who have greatly offended God, and therefore think they must set no bounds to their austerities. Hence they go beyond the limits of sage reason on tbe one side, and the inspirations of grace on the other. The fourth class numbers men of fiery zeal and hot-tempered enthusiasm, whose peace is in war and their rest in struggle, and who satisfy nature by the chas­ tisement of their bodies. But when the blood runs oi the face grows pale, they are miserably deceived if :hey consider that to be a true spiritual mortification, which has only been tbe rude satisfaction of a natural and im pulsive passion. THE HUMAN SPIRIT 1RS CHAPTER ΧΠ. THE HUMAN SPIRIT. The three normal dispositions of the spiritual life require patience, mortification, and the absence of human respect, in order rightly to perform the functions allotted them, and to avoid the dangers which beset them. But there are also three evil spirits which haunt the disposi­ tions in question. Not that each disposition has exactly its one bad angel, and is not troubled by the other two ; but on tbe whole, tbe disposition of struggle is liable to the attacks of what may be called tbe human spirit, fatigue to spiritual idleness, and rest to the neglect of prayer, or the unpraying spirit. We have, therefore, now to consider these three things, the human spirit, spiritual idleness and prayer. The kingdom of darkness, the power and wiliness of Satan, the multitude of his subordinate ministers, the ceaselessness of their open or hidden warfare against the servants of God, cannot be too often the subject of our most grave meditations, as well as tbe object of our hum­ blest fears and most prayerful vigilance. Still, it were to be wished that men’s views of this agency of Satan were always kept within the due limits of sane theology. They not unfrequently run into something like Manicheism, and at least give us an idea of Almighty God which has drifted widely from that which Scripture teaches. We forget that the devil is only one of three enemies against * 16 186 ΤΠΕ HUMAN SPIRIT. whom at baptism we vowed to do battle, and thus w# transfer to him all the phenomena which belong rather to the flesh and the world. The same secret vanity which leads us to a superstitious view of grace, as a talisman which is to act without the co-operation of our own r<-so­ ja te will, is the source of these erroneous views of the devil’s agency. It breaks the shame of our falls to believe that in every instance we have wrestled and been thrown by an evil angel of tremendous power, and not that through cowardice, effeminacy and self-love we hav sim­ ply given in to the suggestions of our own irresolute will. Nay, in certain temptations men will allow themselves to be almost passive, from this horrible doctrine about the devil. Were they logical, they would soon come to be­ lieve the blasphemy of the necessity of sin. What, their view really amounts to is this, that man is a certain orga­ nized reasonable instrument, who is possessed by the devil, and that God comes and tries to establish a counter-pos­ session by means of faith, grace, and sacraments, and that man has little to do with the matter except to consent to be the battle-field of the two spiritual powers. Every one shudders when it is put into these words. But follow a soul, who has got this wrong idea, into the whole region of temptations and scruples, and you will see what mis­ takes it makes and what misfortunes it encounters, a.id how at last, to use St. Bernard’s figure, it needs no devil * to tempt it, because it is a devil to itself. • The same doctrine is also taught very strongly by Father de Condrcn, General of the French Oratory. Seo his life by F. Amolote, p. 177, xiv. Of course this side of the question must not ba exaggerated any more than the other. The doctrine of the person­ ality and influence of the devil is peculiarly needed just now in order to meet the Sadduceism of the day, as has been remarked by Dn THF, HUMAN SPIRIT. IBI Tt is neciRsary, therefore, at this poio. that I should ask my readers to remember, what theolcgy tcacbce them, that there is such a thing as a definite human spirit, the spirit of man, and of fallen man, and that it has ways «nd operations of its own which exercise a very material influence over the whole of our spiritual life. What is usually taught about it may be briefly stated as follows. There are three spirits with which men have to do, the Divine, the diabolical, and the human. This last is a definite and distinct spirit of itself; and consists of the inclinations of our fallen nature when not allied to either of the other spirits. So that the mischief which it causes in the spiritual life is chiefly of a negative character, inas­ much as it leads us to act from purely natural motives and in a purely natural way, apart from grace. It is known by its always gravitating, independent of any satanical impulsion, to peace, comfort, ease, liberty, and making ample provision for the body. In a word, it is to good persons, what the spirits of the world and the devil arc to bad people, incessantly acting upon them even when gross temptations would have no effect. It vitiates what they do, without making it wholly evil. Brownson in his Spirit,-Rapper. Even Bayle in bis Dictionnaire (Art. Plotinus) says to Christians, Prove to your adversaries the ex­ istence of evil spirits, and you will soon see them forced to grant you all your dogmas. Mais prouvez-leur l'existence des mauvais esprits, et vous les verrez bientôt forcés de vous accorder tous vos dogmas. Tho blasphemy of Voltaire on tho subject is too well known to need repenting here. Frederick Schlegel well said that history wm nothing more than “an incessant struggle of nations and indivi­ duals against invisible powers." Father Ravignan remarked justly and pithily of the devils of tho nineteenth century, Their masterpiece has been to get themselves denied by the age. Leur chef (•'œuvre, Messieurs, c’est de s'être fait nier par ce siècle. (88 THE HUMAN SPIRIT. The various ways in which this human spirit develojc· itself »n the spiritual life arc deserving of cspe» id study It often causes hot feelings to be mistaken for visitations of the Holy Ghost. Hence it is that determinations taken in moments of exaltation and excitement are so little to be depended on. The words of God in the soul effect what they say. The Divine Voice may have uttered but a single sound, one little word, but the work is done. It is safe to build upon it the edifice of years Judge then what awful consequences follow when the mere effer­ vescence of the human spirit is mistaken for the fire of divine inspiration ! We commit ourselves to a line of action, or to a grave step in life, or even to a vow from which we cannot easily be dispensed, on the strength of a mere natural excitement. We may have put ourselves into a condition in which unusual aids of grace are requi­ site in order to avoid sin, and what wc dream was God’s covenant to give us those graces, was nothing more than a palpitation of the heart, and a bounding of the blood. Many are the great beginnings which are undertaken in the human spirit, and as many and as great the ruins which remain But it is not only in our commencements that the agency of the human spirit is to be remarked. In the shape of self-love it creeps into works well begun, and destroys their purity and saps their strength. Or it comes upon good and singleminded intentions, and warps them from their first direction, and makes them useless for any supernatural purpose. Then when wc find that something has gone wrong, the same human spirit makes us eager and anxious to set matters right and to renew our fervour in its own way. Consequently, as a means to this end, THE HUMAN SPIRIT. 189 we undertake austerities on a mere physical impulse, and out of a humour of natural self-revenge. Λ tendency to talk about ourselves, and to speak of our spiritual state, and to let others know what we are feeling and experi­ encing, is another operation of the human spirit, which docs the devil’s work for him without hie having the trouble of interfering. But the human spirit can do more than give us an im­ pulse towards good, it can furnish a certain amount of facility in doing it. Elihu thought the Holy Ghost moved him to reprove Job, and his spirit gave him no little depth and eloquence in his reproofs. Cardinal Bona says that when a spiritual man finds himself filled with great light, he must not be too quick in concluding that it is the work of grace. * It may come, he says, just as well from the natural vivacity of his disposition, or from the mere habit of meditating on the truths of religion, and the habit of meditation is a very different thing from the grace and gift of it, or it may come from a simple intellectual spe­ culation on natural and divine things. Hence it is that often in the midst of such light our will remains dry and cold, and destitute of all the unction of the Holy Ghost. We do not judge a tree by its branches and flowers, but by its fruits; so we judge of these interior lights by the • The criteria of Cardinal Bona, by which he distinguishes the human spirit from the diabolical, have attracted the notice of M. de Mirville in hie first Mémoire on Pneumatologie, and he baa promieed to consider them at length, and in connection with Catholic theology, in his eecond Mémoire. Nous étudierons aussi la veritable naturo de cet ennemi domestique appelé la chair, ennemi que le nardinal Bona ne craint pas do ranger dans la classe des Eipritt. Nous tâcherons tout il la fuis de bien définir le vrai rôle do ces agents psychologiques et physiologiques, dans les phénomènes magnétiques, et de voir s’ils peuvent jamais y remplacer l'assistance d’un Etranger. Prom. Mem. p. 81. 3me Edition. 190 THE HUMAN SPIRIT. good works which they produco. If wc examino them lights narrowly we shall often find some one little dark streak in them, something, it may be, contrary ♦<> pru­ dence or alien to the principles of Christian perfection. A dash of levity is an illustration of this : for levity is an especial sign of the human spirit. Richard of St. Victor says that when we are impelled to do any good work easily and with a certain feeling of levity, that levity Might to make us fear that our impulsion is rather from the flesh than from the Spirit, especially if it is accom­ panied by anything agreeable to nature. In like manner the joy with which we are attracted to anything might to be suspected, if it be mingled with warmth or impatience ; for the Holy Spirit is moderate, patient, tranquil, and the movements He excites are conformable to what He is in Himself. Another mark of the human spirit is to be found in the self-annoyance or disgust which arises in us at the view of our own faults, which wc shall have especially to con­ sider hereafter. It casts us down also because of the defects of our good works or the ill success of earnest efforts. We wish all to be square and neat; and there are some dispositions which are more tried by the absence of finish and completeness in their works than by an actual sin. There is an obstinate attachment to devo­ tional practices, because we fancy they have done us good, which looks like supernatural perseverance, and yet is in truth nothing but the pertinacity of the human spirit. If sometimes our inward life is inundated with a gushing variety of good thoughts and zealous projects, it is for the most part to be attributed to the human spirit. The Holy Spirit inundates us slowly, noiselessly, and with simplicity THE HUMAN SPIRIT. 191 .ike the flooding of low-lying grounds by an oozing river. One thing at a time, and all things in order, such are the characteristics for the most part of divine operations. Unevenness and fluctuation of spirits is another human operation, which need never be mistaken for divine. The same also may be said of a delusion which leads us to fancy that self-respect requires such or such a course of action in us. I am not saying that where there is such a motive there is always sin, but that the action is purely human, and must be content to take its chance as such. It must not be disappointed if no blessing goes along with it, and it is not allowed to enjoy the rights and immuni­ ties of evangelical prudence. Nothing is so completely left to itself and to its own unassisted efforts by provi­ dence as human prudence, and the reason is obvious. It is, as far as it goes, an attempt on man’s part to do with­ out God, and to walk alone in his own wisdom. Yet how the world admires this human prudence, and the gravity of look and the solemnity of manner and the measured­ ness of words which are mostly its attendant gifts. 0 man ! you are not truly prudent, because you are pomp­ ous, because you do not commit yourself to good people, or because your eye is grave, and your demeanour ieeorous, and your words flow as if they were worth ; silver crown a-piece; but you are prudent because your eye is calmly fixed on God, and your heart whole with Him, and your gait slow lest you should leave Him behind. Human prudence will earn you human respect. Will that bread satisfy you? You did not come into the world in order that you might go to your grave an unoffending and un­ productive man ! God wants something more of you than that you should be unoffending; and alas I to be unpro> 192 THE HUMAN SPIRIT. duclivc is a capital offence against Him and souls. Yet with how many Christians is this unoffending non-produc­ tion their very summum bonum. “To be ever safe is to he ever feeble;” if ever the spirit of evangelical prudence spoke plainly, it spoke in that golden apophthegm. The spirit of unnecessary recreations, the spirit of mix'd intentions, the spirit of dispensations, the spirit of little immortifications practised under the pretext that we do not mean them to be habitual, the spirit which makes us speak lightly and with a false prudence about the enthusiasm of our first fervours in religion, all these are developments of the human spirit. And those pecu­ liar developments, which show themselves most in each one of us, are those which fit themselves most readily to our natural temperament and disposition. It is to this quarter, therefore, that we must look most steadily, and prepare most carefully; for it is there that this “ ignoble” spirit, as Scaramelli calls it, will invade us. But the worst artifice of the human spirit is when it comes upon us in the disguise of virtue. We have a natural aptitude for some particular virtue, and we mis­ take that facility for grace, and so become deluded. Tho worst, says Scaramelli, is when this injurious spirit traNesties some virtue, aud makes us seem in our own eyes different from what we really are. For, as Richard of St Victor says, the nature of man contains within itself a natu­ ral disposition to certain virtues, in the pursuit of which it meets with fewer impediments than in the pursuit of others ; and on the other hand, every man has in himself a peculiar inaptitude and repugnance to the practice of particular virtues. Hence it comes to pass, very often, that a certain promptitude in doing good looks like devo THE HUMAN SPIRIT. IM *r»»n. and is not really bo, but arises from natural inclina * tion. Freni this doctrine, that great mystic infers that the thoughts, words, works, and affections of imperfect persons, ordinarily proceed from this low natural princi­ ple, and are consequently to be attributed to the human spirit. Scaramelli proceeds to give cases in illustration of thia doctrine. Beginners in devotion, and other imperfect per­ sons, are often to be found, who will run here and there all day long in works of mercy, who are all ingenuity in devising plans, and all hands in carrying them into execution. You would believe them to be very portraits of charity and Beal. Yet if you could penetrate into their hearts, you would find that all these anxieties and promptitudes are operations of nature, not of grace, arising in great measure, if not altogether, from an ardent and unquiet tem­ per, which could not live if it were not always embar­ rassed with a thousand occupations. Another person you will find who is quiet and peaceable, and does not even resent an injury. It is as if he did not know how to be angry. You would believe him to be a very model of meekness. Yet if you diligently scrutinized his apparent imperturbability, you would see that it was not grace which moderated and refrained his natural character, but that be was of a cold, heavy, and phlegmatic disposition. Again, you will meet with persons who are full of tender­ ness in prayer, and continually bursting into tears. You would suppose the manna of heaven was being rained upor them by angelic hands. But put these tears into the balance of the sanctuary, and it will soon be evident that grace has the least share in them. They are legiti­ mately claimed by a sanguine, tender, and affectionate 17 » 194 THE HUMAN SPIRIT. nature, whose imagination is vividly acted npon by any lovely or pitiful object. So others arc to be met with who are so attentive at prayer, that they can pass entire hours in it without distraction. Your first thought is that they have arrived at a profound and habitual recol­ lection, and perhaps a high degree of contemplation. But you will be mistaken. This attention may not only come from a heavenly light which fixes the mind on a divine object, but also from a strong imagination, or a profoundly melancholy temperament, and a certain fixed­ ness which nails the mind to the objects on which it is meditating. But let us look at ourselves. On some days we feel an extraordinary fervour, and a great deal of spiritual consolation; and so we believe ourselves to be full of God. But, alas ! our poor soul deceives itself : this great conso­ lation is but a work of nature. Some good fortune has oefallen us, or some piece of happy news arrived, by which our sensitive appetite is dilated, and filled with cheerfulness and natural delectation. With this a slight amount of devotion is combined, which gives a tinge of spirituality to the whole mind. So that the fervour is nothing better than natural high spirits coloured with devotion. We can soon test the truth of this. Let something happen to displease us, and the consolation is gone like lightning, the. fervour cooled in an instant, and our mind hard to be lifted to God. Alas, that it should be so easy to confound the impulses that come from God with those that nature gives, and to take the human spirit for the divine! Poor we! bow shall we blush at the tribunal of God, when we find our actions which we believed to be the pure silver of supernatural virtues, to THE HUMAN SPIRIT. 195 be only the worthies» scoria of natural actione, or a drossy compound of nature and grace, where two-thirds are nature, to one-third grace. So says Isaias, Argentum tun in versu tn est in scoriam, vinum tuum mixtum est * aqua. All these sweetnesses which spring from natural cheerfulness, or quickness of perception, Ar mere habits of meditation, explain why it is that people can feel so much, advance so little, and fall back so often. The corrosive power of this human spirit is shown by the way in which it causes natural temperament to mingle with and mar our good. Thus the zeal of a choleric man becomes bitter. A melancholy man ungraceful in his charity, and a cheerful man unrecollected in his prayers. But let us listen to Scaramelli commenting on that sweetest and most persuasive of mystics, Richard of St. Victor, if St. Bernard will not be angry at my calling him so. It is to be remembered that the human spirit mixes itself with the works of the most devout people, who are in tbe habit of regulating their actions with no slight perfection. Although this ignoble spirit has not the power utterly to spoil them, it nevertheless corrupts them to a certain extent, and lowers their perfection. Thus if a spiritual man is of an irritable disposition, he experiences in his zeal a certain bitterness and natural perturbation. If he is phlegmatic, he is remiss in correcting. If be is melan­ choly, bis charity wants benignity. If be is high-spirited, his virtues are diluted by dissipation. In a word, as the liquor from the bottle of skin tastes of tbe skin, so the virtues taste of the natural disposition of the man in whom they dwell. Let every man, therefore, beware of the spirit that sleeps in his own bosom. L a. 196 the human spirit. First of nil, this human spirit is a most malignant spirit ; for under the pretence of serving God, it is always seeking itself and its own natural satisfactions. And in the next place it is a most subtle spirit, which is always gliding like smooth oil into all our actions. Huge mor­ tification is required to fight it well, and to beat, it. On this matter, St. Bernard quotes the saying of the Wise Man, that be who overcomes himself is more to be esteemed than he who takes a city ; for nature can take a city, but grace alone can take self. Let every one reflect, adds our author, that the greatest enemy of persons advanced in spirituality is neither the devil, nor the world, nor the flesh ; for these three adversaries have either been already overcome, or are actually being combated. Their greatest anemy is the human spirit, which is the ally of self-love ; and it cannot be overcome except by an incessant mortifi- CLtion of the will. To this authority I would add that of Cardinal Bona ; and I will paraphrase the passage in which he speaks of the human spirit, and compares it with the devil. Man has no more pernicious enemy than his own spirit ; for it is full of deceits, artifices, and disguises. It is incon­ stant. It takes different shapes. It is curious, unquiet, the enemy of its own repose, and a lover of novelty. The imagination produces nothing deformed or monstrous, with which it will not occupy itself. There is nothing unruly, vain and ridiculous, which it is not capable of embracing. Sometimes it appears altogether subject to the Spirit of God, sometimes enslaved to the spirit of Satan ; and it never abides long in one stay. As it is full of artifices, it assumes different forms with a most sur­ prising industry and a marvellous subtilty, so as to hido THE HUMAN SPIRIT. 197 iw r* a oonvonience and interesta under the pretexts of the glory of God and of perfection. Under these captions appearances it is nevertheless very far indeed from seek­ ing the glory of God or loving perfection. For it seeks iteilf m everything and loves itself excessively. It posi­ tively adores itself, and turning aside from their true end things the most holy, by a horrible sacrilege it refers them to itself. It is on this account that a man must far more distrust himself, and stand on his guard against himself, than against Satan. For no power external to ourselves is able to hurt us, unless we give him the band at first, furnish him with arms when he begins the atttack, and inwardly acquiesce in his designs and enterprises. Of a truth many enemies push us to our ruin. The world pushes us thither : Satan pushes us : other men push us; but no one pushes us so violently and so dangerously as we push ourselves. St. Bernard, in bis eighty-fifth sermon on the Canti­ cles, writes as follows : Every one is his own enemy. Man urges and precipitates himself into evil in such a way, that if he would only keep bis own hands from sui­ cide, he need fear the violence of no one else. Who can barm you, says St. Peter, if you have no desire except to do good? Your own consent to evil is the only hand which can wound and kill you. If when the devil sug­ gests evil to you, or the world invites you to it, you with­ hold your consent, no misfortune can befall you. The devil may push you, but he cannot throw you down, if you refuse him your consent. How plain it is, then, that man is bis own principal and most dangerous enemy! I still dwell on this all-important subject, and at the risk of some little repetition, T will ask you to examini 17* 198 THE HUMAN SPIRIT with me the marks by which Cardinal Bona distinguishes the human spirit, as wc hare already done those of Scara melli and Richard of St. Victor. First of all, he says, there are persons so touched w.th the remembrance of their sins, and the meditation of the sufferings of Christ, that they shed an abundance of tears, and are suddenly filled with a profound sentiment of com­ punction. This disposition leads them to chastise them­ selves with rude disciplines and macerations of the flesh. Others are touched in a lively way by the consideration of the joys of heaven, and they all at once go into an extasy. Yet specious as these effects are, they do not iome from the Spirit of God, but from the love of self, from the liveliness and application with which the soul has apprehended its objects, and from the natural change which a sudden and extraordinary emotion causes. This is easily seen when the impetuosity and ardour of this emotion is arrested; for then such persons not only re­ lapse into a state of coldness and dryness, but evey fall back into their old passions and vices. On the contrary, the true movements and impressions of the Spirit of God have nothing vain or unprofitable for the conversion of souls, but at once effect great things. Hence we must conclude that the discernment of spirits in these matters is very difficult. For we often attribute to the Spirit of God, and often also to the spirit of the devil, that which really comes only from the dispositions and impressions of nature. Every one, therefore, ought carefully to exa­ mine his heart, so that he may not be deceived by his own spirit, which St Gregory calls a spirit of pride. Now no one can examine and discuss what passes in himself, unless be prepares fur God a cH oiling in his soul by J THE HUMAN SPIRIT. 199 chasing away every kind of presumption, and keeping himself down in distrust of self, and a sincere humility For, as the holy pope excellently says, no one can become the abode of God’s Spirit, who has not first emptied him­ self of his own ; for the Spirit of God rests only in humble minds, in quiet consciences, and in hearts which tremble at His words. Secondly, it sometimes happens that we begin a work truly for God and for His glory. But inasmuch as nature is always secretly seeking itself, insensibly and without our perceiving it we forget the good pleasure of God in the progress of the work which we have begun, and instead of regarding attentively His glory and His will, we let ourselves go about seeking our own conve­ nience and satisfaction. We find this out in the following way. If God arrests the success or completion of our work by any illness or accident, at once we are troubled and disquieted ; and such a sadness and perturbation of our interior peace take possession of us, that it is ae much as ever we can do to acquiesce in the Divine Will. There are few persons who are thoroughly aware of the malignity of that natural inclination which is at the bot­ tom of all self-seeking, because it is so subtle and hidden. The very fact that good is in a certain sense conformable to our natural desires, causes us easily to lean towards ourselves. So that even in the intentions which seem to us the most pure and the most according to the will of God, we often seek ourselves, drawing rather to what suits nur own inclination than what is precisely the most for the glory of God. Λ similar defect may be observed in our love of mor tification, especially when it is too ardent. For many too ΤΠΕ HUMAN SPIRIT. mortify their senses, restrain their affecticmi, punish th< ir bodies, and abstain from pleasures, with an nppcaram * of virtue and zeal, who do all this in reality to be seen of men, or to give their own minds a satisfaction in which eelf-love seeks itself with all the address and artifice <.f which it is capable. For he who is impelled only by the instinct of grace, always desires to be hidden. Nature as invariably seeks to display itself. Yet even those who are really full of supernatural and divine lights are not exempt from this fault, in consequence of their frequent insensible returns upon self, and the views of self which are continually opening upon them, like landscapes seen through sudden openings in a wood, just at times when they ought to be most exclusively occupied with God. Thirdly, it is very certain that we have need of the grace of God to pray and do good works as we ought. But it is certain also that we can do virtuous actions from a human motive, from self-love, or from servile fear. We have moreover so little light in ourselves that we cannot clearly distinguish on what principle we act, whe­ ther it be divine or human. In truth we wish to raise our heart to God, aud to disengage it from these returns upon self which are so full of imperfections. But some­ times this desire arises from a subtle and secret interest which we do not perceive. For we may desire to be stripped of our self-love by another self-love. We can desire and love humility through pride. Without ques­ tion there is in our actions and interior dispositions a per­ petual circle and incessant return of ourselves upon our­ selves, which is almost imperceptible. There always re­ mains in our heart a root of self-love which is extremely fine, subtle and volatile, and which is unknown to us. 60 that we are sometimes very far from guiding ourselves THE HUMAS SPIRIT. 201 by reasons altogether divine and motives purely disinte­ rested, at the very moment when we think we are doing no the most completely. Job’s comforters are examples of this. Pure and true love of God, disengaged from all consideration of self, is extremely rare and exceedingly difficult If men could hide themselves from the eyes of God and from the eyes of the world, there are very few indeed who would do good, and very few who would abstain from evil. Fourthly, when we tease and worry ourselves, and are as it were in despair about our spiritual progress after we have fallen, all these dispositions come only from a secret self-confidence and pride. For he who is truly bumble is never astonished at his falls. He knows that man is so feeble he can do nothing without the assistance of God. So that he asks the divine aid, detesting bis sin with a heart at once tranquil and contrite; and rising from his fall with courage and diligence, he renews his course with fresh fervour. It is also a mark of tbe human spirit to attach itself to its exercises and functions, however good and holy, to such a degree that when superiors withdraw us from them and apply us to others, we indulge in murmurs and com­ plaints, and imagine that we can never reach the perfec­ tion befitting our state, as if not to allow us always to do what we like were depriving us of the necessary means to attain perfection. For the pain which we feel under these circumstances does not come really from the fact that the things we have been forced to abandon were more suitable and efficacious for our perfection, but because we rested in them and leaned upon them with a vicious affection, and were complacently enjoying therein our own interest and satisfaction rather than the glory of God 202 THE U UM AN SPIRIT. Nature lives what is beautiful, what is good, what is per feet, and seeks to be pleasing and attractive to itself it· these things. Hence it conies to pass that it hates every­ thing that is defective in its enterprises and designs, and even io its most spiritual works: insomuch that these defects, as has been said before, torment and disquiet it, which is a sign that the love of the good and the perfect, however specious it seemed, was only the produce of nature. Fifthly, the human spirit instigates men who are learned and desirous of becoming more so, to learn tho science of divine and supernatural things, partly to give them consideration from others, and partly to satisfy their curiosity. From this eagerness to appear learned in high matters proceed many rare, magnificent and subtle dis­ courses whose only fruit is to tickle the ears, not to save the souls, of others. Hence also those writings of philo­ sophers who treat of virtue in a pompous style, without spirit and without life, filling the soul with distractions, and dissipating it in an infinity of speculations and ideas, and without the least gift of inflaming it with love of God. Works which emanate from the natural capacity of the mind, and in the production of which grace has had no share, may doubtless contain an abundance of good things, but the fruit of them is very small. They are like the apostle's sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Whereas the words which are animated by the Spirit of God, although they have nothing lofty or elevated in themselves, nay on the contrary are far from anything of the sort, bring forth in their simplicity abundant fruit. The human spirit on the other hand is accustomed to dis­ tribute itself readily among external things, and to plume itself on the multitude and variety of its fine thoughts. THE HOMAN SPIRIT. 208 and this causes it to swerve from the unity which is m desirable and so necessary. Sixthly, in matters relating to virtue the prudence of the flesh is the inseparable companion of the human spirit. This is the reason why so many content them­ selves with mediocrity in the spiritual life, without aspiring to a perfect state. They measure everything by themselves and by their own weakness, and not by the power and efficacy of the grace of God. They fear suffer­ ing and contempt, and ardently love riches, honours and bodily comforts, and to these things they refer all they do, or say, or think. They wish to make an enjoyment of themselves, as if they were their own ultimate end; and forming an idol of themselves, they pay it the wor­ ship which is due to God. They let their soul be charmed by the enchantments of the world, and sell it as a slave to the goods of this present life. As charity never seeks its own interests, so blind self love seeks no interests but its own. And the power of this pernicious love over the soul is at once so malignant and so penetrating, that it not only mingles with temporal and earthly things, but even with heavenly and spiritual things, infecting with its venom the love of prayer, the usage of the sacraments, and the exercise of virtues. Even in these things men seek for praise and the reputa tion of sanctity, o'? secretly hope to obtain from God cer­ tain lights and spiritual luxuries and joys of soul, which only make them soft and vain. This venom of self-love taints even our works of penance ; for frequently after a fall a sinner is touched with extreme sorrow, and chastises his budy fiercely, not because of the offence against God, but because of the note of infamy which he has himself incurred, or through the fear of losing his reputation ΛΜ ΤΠΚ HUMAN SPIRIT. amongst- men, or at least because he wishes to seem inno­ cent in his own eyes. Yet as no solid peace is to he found among the perishable things of this life, there is so much inconstancy in a man’s love of himself, that he is incessantly changing bis affections and pleasures, and knows neither what be wishes nor what he is doing. Sometimes lie lets himself be rashly buoyed up by hope; sometimes he falls into despair; sometimes he breaks out into a vain joy; sometimes he is out of bis depth in sad­ ness. There is neither moderation nor measure in his con­ duct, and instead of being in a mean, he is always in ex­ tremes. He resembles a vessel, tossed hither and thither uncertainly on the waves, and at last striking on a rock, and becoming a miserable wreck. For as our Saviour has taught us, He that loves his own soul shall lose it. Now all that is said of the human spirit must be referred to this pernicious self-love; for it is the exciting cause of all the merely natural movements of the soul. It is plain that Scaramelli and Bona drew fiorn a single source, that that source was Richard of St. Victor, and that he spoke the spiritual tradition of his day, on a subject about which, more than almost any other in the spiritual life, it is needful to have clear and decided views. You may ask bow we are to test this human spirit, and how we are to rectify it. I answer briefly, that we may test it in two ways and rectify it in two ways. Our first test must be whether we will or will not allow ourselves to be despoiled of our habits and practices by obedience The second is whether a virtue is accompanied in us by its congruous virtues, which in the order of the Holy Spirit it would be, and is not an isolated and exceptional thing. The first means of rectifying it is to redirect our intention to the glory of God. even when in act wc are obliged to ΤΠΕ HUMAN βΓΠΙΓΓ 201 abstain from what, we desire; and the second means is to strive I·· put grace by degrees in the place of all other prin ciples of action. But more of this in the next chanter We must remember that to be in a state of grace and to act from a principle of grace are two very different things To act from a principle of grace is to make the pleasure of God the sole motive of our actions, to the exclusion of all mere natural motives; and to learn to know God more and more is the means towards the accomplishment of this mag­ nificent end. In such a work as this, there can be nc rapidity, no vehemence, nothing sudden, nothing revolu­ tionary. Grace must occupy as fastas it destroys; it must fill the void as it creates it. The aborigines must waste to the presence of the white man ; but it must be a waste, not an extermination, else the wild beasts will be down upon the settlements. Some men turn away from this slow superna­ tural life, because they weary of the yoke which is never off their necks ; and some because they are persuaded such a life is impossible to man. Yet the saints and the saintlike lived it, and were at large and at ease in it. Why not we ? The state of grace seeks God and all other things in Him : the principle of grace seeks God and nothing else but Him. The state of grace is satisfied with clearness from sin : the principle of grace is ever forcing its way upwards to divine union. The state of grace has calm and storm alternately : the principle of grace, if it oscillates at all, oscillates like the needle, in fidelity to its centre. In the beginning it is hard, yet with many consolations. Its progress is like the dawning of day. Its end is the eternal sunrise. Why are there so few that live it ? Because so tew have Faith. “ Thy truths, 0 Lord, arc diminished from among the children of men/' 18 toe THF, HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED CHAPTRR XIII THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. If we are willing to take the authority of St. Bernard and Richard of St. Victor, of Cardinal Bona and Scar»· melli, we must suppose that the devil is guiltless of by far the greater part of the sins of good people, and that even temptation is far less exclusively his domain than we are often in the habit of considering it. We must not, however, push this doctrine too far, nor extend it neyond the limits, surely wide enough, within which ap­ proved writers confine it. Nevertheless, admitted even so far, we shall find if we have hitherto neglected it, that it is a doctrine full of practical results to us in the spiritual life. It gives us quite a different idea of our warfare. It throws a new light on scruples. It makes us change our tactics against temptation ; and above all, t facilitates the practices of humility and self-distrust. When we refer everything to the devil, and he is in our thoughts and on our lips at every moment, we may be lure that wc are as yet but on the threshold of tbe spiritual life, and have but a shallow knowledge either of it or of ourselves. There is hardly any point of spirituality which has suffered more from the customary exaggerations of men than this one of the devil’s share in our temptations and our falls. Verily, he may truly elaim the lion’s share with most of men, and his office with holy people is both constant and arduous ; so that be may well allow to his ally the human spirit its own infortunate and independent prerogatives. THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. 207 But we have not done with the human spirit yernaJ 208 THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. things. ¥et sec what folly it is 1 For if wo get what we wish, what does it amount to in nine cases out of ten, but being better thought of than we deferve, looking differently to man’s eye and to God’s eye ? And surely in reality we are what we are in the judgment of God, and we are nothing more. Thus, of all unreal satisfac­ tions the preservation for the moment of our reputation ib at once the most unfruitful, the most anxious and the most precarious. The only decent pretence for such a jealousy is that we may not lose the means of serving God; and to act with a single eye to His good pleasure would be a safer and more successful rule of conduct than to put our reputation out to nurse with the thousand tongues of men. Hence it was that saints, who were silent under all other calumnies, would not for the most part rest quiet under the imputation of heresy. Everything which is corrective of the human spirit iu general, is a remedy for this touchiness about our reputa­ tion. But there are some remedies for it as a peculiar disease of itself. Special prayer for that end is obvious ; and the same may be said of making it the subject of our particular examen, to find out how much we really offend in this matter. But the principal remedy of all is to keep our eye steadily fixed on the beautiful and potent example of our Blessed Lord in this very respect. As to His reputation as a teacher of doctrine, lie was called a * fool, and the questions of Caiaphas express the public opinion about Him. As to His morals, He was called seditious, drunkard, and glutton.·!· As to His truth, He was esteemed a heretic and a Samaritan,^ and was openly accused of witchcraft and when condemned to death * John T. t Luke vii. | John vni. $ Mark ÜL THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. 20\ lie made no defence. The lives of the sainte hardly seem wonderful, when we have well studied the excessive humiliations of Jesus with regard to His reputation. Even to those who are far from saints it may be given by God to know the sweetness of calumny, when we feel ourselves sinking out of man’s sight into the divine deepi of our Saviour’s dear and awful Passion. Wc must now proceed to examine the ways in which we are to combat the human spirit. And here it is of importance that we should put clearly before ourselves once more the position which we occupy in the spiritual life, inasmuch as the human spirit, though the enemy of every man born into the world, is especially the plague of the spiritual man. Who and where are we then ? There are many Christians who seem to go no further than a hatred of mortal sin. We are not supposed to belong to them. There are others who strive conscien­ tiously to avoid venial sin. Wc are not contented even with this. We are drawn to love, to love God and to love perfection, and to have no reserves with God. As to whether we shall be saints or not, our mind never rests on the subject. We should fling the thought off from us as a miserable temptation. All we see clearly before us is the resolution to have no reserves with God, and then to leave all else to Him. This attraction grew upon us, and now we have little doubt it is from God For a time we had little or no sensible fear of God, because sensible love was so strong, but the fear is ieturn­ ing, without disquietude. We seldom thought of he.'l. and the thought of it hardly affects us now. We some­ times caught ourselves making acts of love when we intended to make acts of contrition. We were curiously * 18 £10 ΙΠΕ HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED attracted towards the sacraments, as if they were magnets, and we found it a great trial to leave prayer for our daily duties. Indeed, we are only beginning to find out now that the relative duties of our station in life are almost an eighth sacrament. We began to care very little for man's judgment )f us, and we saw it was wise to bo really obedient to our directors. It was plain that, however much of this was natural, much also was supernatural. These dispositions amounted to a vocation, and this vocation was a gift which we might compare with creation or with baptism, without doing them dishonour. To correspond to it was plainly a primary duty; but we made up our minds that it would cost us something to do this. Paradise was not mean * for cowards. And so we began. And what were our beginnings like ? All day long we had a sensible heat of Divine Love in our hearts. We desired to do great things, very great things, foolishly great things, for God. We believed we should never grow tired of spiritual exercises. We were impatient to be saints, and we undervalued the grace of perseverance. We were continually wondering at the beauty of Jesus, and wanted to stand still and look at it, while we were wearied and fatigued by our ordinary actions and relative duties. 0 happy days 1 Days of power, that passed, but left their fruits behind them ! Sometimes we were tempted to undervalue them. But we soon saw how stupid it was to esteem lightly any of God’s gifts, because some day they would band us on fro others. We knew that these first fervours were a spiritual childhood ; but nevertheless that God meant something by them We felt that they were burning, felling, and THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED 211 ilcaring a great deal of the past, ploughiug he present, and sowing for the future. We knew they would never return, that the saints bad had them, and that they were a shelter from the world, just when its hot suns would have withered our souls and stricken them with barren­ ness. We were not, however, blind to the dangers of these fervours. We knew it would be dangerous to fall too much in love with sensible sweetness. We might become censorious. We might neglect the duties of our state. We might trust too much to self, and not be suffi­ ciently dependent upon grace. We might take rash vows, or choose a state of life, or make some great change, in a heat. We knew also that some day there would be a reaction, and we could not tell what shape it might take. Hence we made some effort, but not so much as we might have done, to mortify self-love, to be cheerful when we fell, to be frightened of ourselves, to be open with oui director, not to read high books, or to attempt out-of-the way methods of prayer, to avoid singularity, not to argue about religion, or to talk of spirituality, and to have a special devotion to the silence of Jesus. So at last we left the nurse’s arms and tottered about the floor, often asking to be taken back again, not seldom with our little heads broken against hard tables and inconvenient chairs. Our strong good will for perfection remained, though the foresight of its difficulties was much less confused. We began to discern the difference between Jourage and presumption, and we saw that courage was always accompanied with a clear view and a keen «ense of our own nothingness. We began to acquire some so­ lidity in devotion, by sticking for a year or more to the acquisition of a single virtue, or the extirpation of a singl» 312 τπε ηυΜΛΝ spirit defeated finiit. We became more recollected, without knowing ir. •ml without seeming so. We grew modestly timid of adopting too many practices and committing ourselves to too many vocal prayers, scapulars, confraternities, and the like. We saw the importance of gentleness, because the practice of so many other virtues is involved in it, because it is by far the most powerful interior motive-power, and because our Lord proposes it to us in a special way. Yet in practising this gentleness, we studiously mortified natu­ ral tendernesses, perceiving that they wound the jealousy of God, and make the heart effeminate and incapable of grace. There was a day, it was a day of revolution, when we ceased making general resolutions, and only made par ticular ones. We cultivated the spirit of faith, for it dawned upon us that it was a gift capable of increase by culture. We learned prayer, as boys learn a lesson, and never minded its being for the time actually a hot-bed of new imperfections. We were careful not to make a show of being spiritual. We began to dislike our ruling passion and instinctively to strike blows at it whenever we had the opportunity. We were tolerably patient with the slowness of our own progress, and attended to our present grace. We became more and more reverently devoted to the Sa­ cred Humanity; and while somehow caring less about lights, flowers and epithets, we were conscious of a won­ derfully grave and business-like confidence in our dearest Lady. Through all this we felt great sensible sweetness almost continuously, were unconscious of much progress, were dreadfully tempted to self-trust, and were periodically liable to spiritual panics. Still the work was all right ap far as it went. All it had to do now was to wear. This THE ni:MAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. 213 m the one question in all spiritual things, How will il wear? Alas! the world and cloister 1 how choked up they both are with worn-out and shabby spiritualities, and m’ver a Jew to go round to buy them I But did all this go smoothly? Did we make no mistakes after all ? 0 far from smoothly, and plenty of mis­ takes ! 0 so many heart-aches, doubts, panics, wearinesses, and waywardnesses ! First of all we did not, though we meant it, give ourselves up unreservedly to God. We kept back some attachments that were not sinful, some things which we thought our circumstances admitted of. We struck a balance between prudence and principle, and forgot that concession and dispensation are for the later, not the earlier stages, of the spiritual life. We adopted fresh practices and strictnesses, egged on by self-love, not the simple view of God’s will, and we did not remember that we ought to consult and investigate our purity of in­ tention as much in adopting a strictness, as in asking a dispensation. We permitted ourselves in little laxities, with regard to the custody of the senses, dress, talking, bodily fatigue, health, and such matters. We gave way to discouragements, because of our faults, our increased self-knowledge, our multiplied temptations, our inability to keep our own resolutions, and the subtraction of spi­ ritual sweetness. Then, losing our hearts in this discou. ragement, we presently lost our heads, and fell into ah manner of scruples, from not distinguishing between temptation and consent, from secret tenacity of our own opinions, from an excessive fear of God’s justice and a want of confidence in His mercy, from a morbid desire of avoiding semblances of sin and from an indiscreet austerity, solitude, and sacrifice of recreation. Heart and 214 THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. bead gone, spirits went next. Wc gave way to an inexplicable sadness, and were sorely tempted to change our lives, to discontinue our strictnesses, to talk of our sor­ rows, and to seek worldly consolations. Bad we done any one of these four things, we might have been lost. Tho Badness did us a great mischief as it was ; it drove us into Belf-introveraion. We lost sight of the grand Objects cf faith, and went info an excess with our examinations of conscience; and then to extricate ourselves from this, we plunged into too many designs, and had too many irons in the fire, and were inordinately disappointed when our good works did not succeed. There was altogether a want of childlike abandonment, both of our exterior plans, and of our interior conduct, into the bands of Providence. We wished to attempt to convert others before we bad a right to distract ourselves from ourselves. Even perfec­ tion in the world must have a noviciate of looking aftei itself, as well as perfection in monasteries. However, we determined to set all right by talking very disparagingly of ourselves, and so made tbe worst mistake of all, and lost the few ounces of humility which we bad so painfully scraped together. For it turned out in tbe end to be con­ ceit which made us abuse ourselves. The upshot of it all was that we allowed ourselves to be too much engrossed with the metaphysics of the spiritual life and its exclu­ sively interior things, so as to be drawn off from a loving attention to the sacraments, to Jesus and to God. How­ ever, mistakes, like other things, have their day; and wc can afford now not only to glean wisdom from our blun­ ders, but amusement also. But we have not done yet. The ugliest part is still tc be confessed. These mistakes only concerned ourselves TIfK HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATS!». 215 There w< re others which concerned our neighbours. <) what dis-edification both given and taken ! There were scandals given to others aiming at perfection, scandals taken from others aiming at it, and scandals taken by the world, flow unlovely did we make the work of God ap­ pear ! We talked about religion, and so illustrated by our words the inconsistency of our practice; and doubt­ less, as beginners always do, we talked above our state, and from books rather than experience. We adopted uncommon devotions, which looked still less inviting when exhibited together with our unhumble, unmortified, unobliging manners. We were impatient of contradic­ tion, weary with prayer, irritable with penance, as per­ sons accustomed to have it all their own way with tbeir favourite spiritual books. We envied the spiritual ad vancement of others, took up with self-willed austeritier which interfered with domestic arrangements, unneces sarily provoked the opposition of relatives, and disturbet the comfort of others. The duties of our station wen performed in a precipitate, perfunctory, and ungraceful manner. We did not praise othjrswith simplicity, be­ cause we were dissatisfied with them, and did not realize that God’s leadings are numberless, and that others may not have our light. There was a bitterness in our zeal which was shown both in words and manner, and we were often inclined to threaten mon with the judgments of God. Wc were censorious, and given to preach and moralize; and if we tried to avoid this fault we fell into an opposite one, and gave way too easily, when others for their own convenience wished us to suspend our itrictnessee The world treated us unjustly certainly Yet we did 216 THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. the game in our turn to other spiritual persons. Wmisunderstood them, when we were complaining of b i misunderstood ourselves. We did not remember in th< ir ease how many faults may consist with the bcginniii of real piety. We ought to have known from our wi> experience that they were in all probability fighting a good fight with those very faults which were offending us, or that God was leaving them without aid in those particular respects for their humiliation and trial ; and when all this ought to have been in our own minds, we sat by and allowed worldly people ill-naturedly to exag gerate these faults. In our own case the harsh judgments of the world had much truth in them. They ought to have taught us les­ sons of humility. They were probably far less true when they were doing injustice to others. They should have been moreover warnings to us when wo were un­ consciously becoming lukewarm. We might have ac­ cepted them as chastisements to us for our judgments of others. And at the worst we should have remembered Jesus, and been sweet-mannered. At all events here wo are, having learned thus much from it all, that there are two spirits which effectually hinder all advance in the spiritual life, one is the spirit of taking scandal, and the other is the fidgety desire to give edification. For they both of them deny the five essential principles of the spiritual life, the law of charity which believes all things, the attention to self, the temper of concealment, the care­ lessness of men’s judgments, and the practice of the presence of God. In these five ways they destroy the interior life by a daily noxious infusion of mixed pusil lanimity and pride. And with all these miseries and mistakes we are not ΤΠΕ HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. 211 *i.hipwn ·.)<♦ <1 ? No I that could hardly be to those who love Mary. And now with all this experience, and at this particular point of our growth in holiness, we are face to face with this enemy, the human spirit, seeking about for weapons wherewith to combat it. The first one must be what spiritual writers often call the spirit of captivity. Grace is the opposite of nature; nature everywhere cries liberty, grace cries captivity; and without a resolute good will to take ourselves captive, we shall never beat down the human spirit. The spirit of “aptivity consists, as an eminent mystical writer tells us, sometimes in submission to a written rule, parcelling out our daily actions so far as our state of life will allow, sometimes in subjection to our director, even against our own judgment, and without feints or wiles, sometimes in conformity to tbe law of Providence, especially where it thwarts and mortifies our natural liveliness and inclina­ tions, and sometimes also in submission to that attraction of tbe Holy Spirit which is to many of us like a special revelation. There is also a captivity to frequently recur­ ring, though not daily or obligatory, practices of devotion, a captivity to interior recollection with all its difficulties, trials, and repressions of natural activity ; and all mortifi­ cation is itself but a shape of captivity. The genuine spirit of captivity may be known by tbe following characteristics. It must be universal, extending its jurisdiction even where there is no question of sin. It must jealously include little things as well as great ones. It must be persevering, and not irregular, vehement, or intermitting. It must act even when it has no sensible sweetness to sustain it. In these cases, nature will often get angry and gnash her teeth : but this is no real offence 19 Σ18 ΤΗΒ HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED of our superior nature against the spirit of captivity. Lc re of God must be its motive and principle, even though it will not always be sensibly perceived. This spirit of captivity is very needful, and commits blessed ravage on the human spirit. Yet it is not with­ out its dangers. Indeed, if it had nodangers it would be good for nothing. We must be cautious, therefore, of making things obligatory upon ourselves, and so giving rise to scruples; and still more must we be careful not to take every busy, ingenious suggestion of further mortifi­ cation, which the human spirit will incessantly be whisper­ ing, as a divine inspiration. Captivity does not mean that we are always to do what we dislike. That for the most part is Jansenist perfection, the perfection of the Theologia Sanctorum, * a perfection which is on the Index. I have spoken of it before. In order to provide against excesses we must let our director legislate for us on the matter. If he allows us in numerous daily petty mortifications, be must fix the number, and give us an obedience always to interpret the doubts in our own fa­ vour. When this captivity discourages us, or forms a distraction at prayer, it is best to neglect it totally for a while, in those particular matters in which it most troubles us. We shall find that a sort of habit of discernment will gradually grow up in us about it. We must pray for that gift of the Holy Ghost which is termed fortitude, St. Teresa’s favourite gift of the seven. Liberty of spirit consists in exemption from cares, from remorse and from attachments ; and captivity is the only road to this royal liberty. • This famous book in three folio roiumes was written by Henry of St. Ignatius, a Carmelite, published at Liege in 1709, and con­ demned at Rome In 1714. THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. 219 The second weapon against the human spirit is the repose of the soul in its present grace and state. Our present grace does not mean unconquered infirmities in which we arc to acquiesce. But it consists of the inevi­ table circumstances which surround us, considered as the oidinance and dispensation of God. It is the exact and infallible Will of God with regard to us. In the present grace God gives us so much, and He gives us no more; He leads us so far, and no further; He means this, and He does not mean that. Now to repose on our present grace is to look at it, and think of it, and measure ourselves by it. It is quite strange how little men think of the present as compared with the past and the future. It is the genius of the human spirit, and it subserves its interests. It dies in this repose and acquiescence in the present; it expires when it is allowed to take no thought for the morrow; and in spiritual things especially it abhors this mystical death. The life of God Himself consists in an unbroken complacence in the present; and we must faintly imitate this adorable life in our souls. Moreover to acquiesce in it is to make it our occupation, no matter with what baying wolves of temptation we are beleagured, or in what crucible of interior pains we are being tormented, or in what furnace of external persecutions we are being an­ nealed. Indeed in this apparent standing still all manner of progress is involved. For the spirit of faith is fed by it, the habits of patience with God and ourselves are formed and strengthened, our ordinary actions are done in the most perfect way, heroic humility is admirably prac­ tised, and there is in our souls an incessant quiet multipli­ cation of the degrees of sanctifving grace. 220 THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED If we examine attentively our spiritual troubles, shall find that almost all of them arise from the want f this acquiescence in our present grace. Take no thought for the morrow, is a heavenly maxim quite as applicabit to our interior conduct as to our exterior. Peace of heai ( is gained by it; for it is the most perfect remedy for all those things which disturb interior peace, which are chiefly precipitation, agitation, and outward disasters. It checks precipitation, calms agitation, and often prevents or miti­ gates the outward disasters. The opposite line of conduct is the very master piece of the human spirit. It involves habitual opposition to the divine will. It destroys interior peace. It causes discontent with God, with others, with our directors, and with ourselves. It is a fertile source of spiritual envy of others. Under its influence all things are done ill, be­ cause they are done greedily, unquietly, and hurriedly, as if the end of everything was nothing more than to get to the next thing; so that always being an intention ahead of our actions, all life is spoiled. It envelopes us in a fog of languor and sadness, which take all the nerve out of our mortifications; and its last stroke is to fill us with a gradually increasing nausea of the sacraments, as over praised recipes. The acquiescence in our present grace, on the contrary, seems to me to have been the grand gift of the great quiet-hearted St. Philip; and compared with the heavenly treasure of its solidity, what were his visions, extasies, and night-long colloquies with bis dear Madonna ? It may seem almost like a play upon words to say that hatred of self is a remedy for self-love, which always lies at the Irtittom of the human spirit. So it may be put iu THE HOMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED 221 another shape. As I have said before, we are always in haste to get out of the Purgative Way in religion, and to enter the Illuminative, just as novices wish to be out of their noviciate, and long for the graver responsibilities of profession, because of its greater liberty. We are espe­ cially anxious to abandon the humbling subjects of medi­ tation, which belong to that state, and especially medita­ tions on the four last things. Now, a long continuance of these very meditations, or at least a frequent recurrence to them, is a great means of combating the human spirit. St. Francis Borgia used to meditate as much as two hours daily on his own nothingness. Hence his characteristic virtue was humility. He was probably refreshed by supernatural lights, which enabled him to spend so long a time profitably on that subject. With him it was most likely contemplation rather than meditation. Still, it is an example to is. A mind well exercised in the conside­ ration of its own nothingness, will be proof against many au arrow shot against it by the human spirit. It is not easy to hate ourselves; but until we come to do so with a good hearty hatred, we shall never consent to mortify our­ selves, and so never be capable of union with God. This hatred is, by the grace of God, the inevitable product of deep reflection on our own nothingness. The thoughts among which we should live familiarly, are such as these. What are we in the order of nature ? Simply created out of nothing, and so with no rights, but such as come from God’s gratuitous covenant. To the degradation of our nothingness, we have added the guilt of rebellion. Wo arc inferior to the angels, and akin to the beasts: mutable, and almost without self-control; subj !ct to sufferings and indignities; helpless in childhood, * 19 222 ΤΠΕ ΠϋΜΑΝ SPIRIT DEFEATED. and dishonourable in old ago; cur bodies tending t«> cor ruption, and our souls gravitating heavily to sin. What are we in the order of grace? Without it we are outca -t ■< and exiles. Sanctifying place is altogether foreign to us, and from God; and actual grace must be superadded to habitual, and even then our will can destroy its ellicaey. And in our best estate, self mingles with and mars our holiest actions. We have senses, but it is as much as we can do to keep custody over them; they are sources of temptation and sin, which often tyrannically overbear the soul Our understanding is blind and stupid, imprudent, conceited, and in a great measure dependent on our bodily health. Our affections are insubordinate and wild, and iheir tastes ignoble, continually fastening on low objects [f we could only come to judge ourselves by the same standard according to which we judge others, how royally should we hate ourselves ! Ah ! if we only demanded, and as severely exacted, from ourselves, what we exact from others, the same unselfishness all day and night, the same promptitude in generous deeds, the same high prin­ ciples, the same pure motives I Alas ! if we could onlylook upon ourselves from without, and at the same time have the knowledge of ourselves which we possess from within, we should soon be saints ! If we compare ourselves with a beast, the latter is no spot in God’s creation. It is more patient than we are, and apparently has more self-control in pain. It corres­ ponds Utter to the end of its creation than we do to ours. If we look at ourselves by the side of a fallen angel, ho fell but once, and had no room given him for repentance. Many classes of sins are unknown to him, such as glut­ tony and drunkenness, because of the spirituality of his THE HUMAN SPIRIT DEFEATED. 228 naturo He pines after God, even in bis rebellion. He is without hope, and so has more show of right to be wicked God does not love him, and the hapless creature knows that He never will love him. But by God’s grace we are kept from great wickedness, and these comparisons do not move us. Then let us measure ourselves by the side of holy men, by their inno­ cence or heroic penance, by their generous zeal and ardu­ ous labours for God and souls, by their self-sacrifice and perseverance. Or let us take the angels, and think of their strength, their beauty, their understanding, their power, the wonderfulness and purity of their spiritual nature and its gifts. Cast an eye on our Blessed Lady, who is a mere creature, and sum up her dignity, her sanctity, her prerogatives, her sinlessness, her present empire. Kneel before the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, and scrutinize its definite grace, its merits, its beauty, its elevation, its Body, its Soul, its Union with the Word, and how it is the apex of the universe, the culminating point of all creation. Or go walk by the shore of that unresounding sea, the Immense and Incomprehensible God, cast a bewildered glance over the awful infinite abyss of His Perfections, known and named, or unknown and unnamed. And then, poor heart! think of what thou hast been, from youth upward, in thought, feeling, and act, think of what thou art at this moment to the eye of God, even as thou knowest thyself, (and how little dost thou know !) and think of what at best thou art likely to be ! We could wrestle better with the human spirit, if we could keep ourselves down more. We sun ourselves iu the brightness of high things, and this tells upon us like the enervating climate of southern latitudes upon th# children of the north «4 SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. CHAPTER XIV. SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. If, of all graces, that of perseverance is the m>et pre 40U9, because it is the one which makes all the others of lasting value, certainly among tbe vices which beset the devout life, spiritual idleness is one of the chief; for it is the contradictory of perseverance. Yet I doubt whether, practically, we regard it with the fear which it deserves. All the three dispositions of our normal state, fatigue especially, are desolated by it. Struggle is tempted to give way to laziness, and to take recreation away from Christ. Fatigue is sorely drawn in its aching lassitude to fall off from dry interior faith, and to seek consolation in creatures, a step almost as fatal as going to sleep in the snow. And rest murmurs when the trumpet sounds to renew the fight, and would fain prolong itself by natural means when supernatural means have ceased. I suppose it may be said that every man is an idle man. Did any one ever see a man who did not naturally gravitate to idleness, unless perchance he had a heart­ complaint? Nay, so natural is it, that very idle men plead its very naturalness as a proof that it is almost irresistible. No man does hard work naturally. He must be driven to it, no matter whether it be by the love of money, or tbe fear of hell. Idleness of its own nature is sweet, sweeter than the brightest gift the gay world can give. But spiritual men have a special inclination to be SPIRITUAL IDLENESS 224 .die, which they do not always sufficiently ccneider. No thing is more rare in the Church than a true contempla­ tive vocation. Consequently, it is almost impossible for the generality of devout persons to spend their whole time in direct acts of the virtue of religion, and the cul­ tivation of interior motives and dispositions. Then, on the other hand, they conceive, not always judiciously, that their former habits of recreation, and their old amuse­ ments, are to be altogether eschewed. So that their piety creates a sort of void in them, and gives them nothing to fill it up with. This is one great reason why those who have no regular profession, or adequate domestic occupa­ tion, should engage themselves in some external work of zeal and mercy. However, if this theory to explain the phenomenon be not true, the fact is undeniable, and the world has long ill-naturedly pointed to it, that religiouu people, as a class, are uncommonly idle. As this idleness is an effectual bar to progress, it is important that we should examine the matter narrowly; and if we do so, we shall find that there are seven developements of this spiritual idleness, about each of which something shall be said. The first of them is what is usually called dissipation It is easy to describe, but not easy to define. It is a sir. without a body. It can make a body of anything and animate it. It works quietly, and hardly allows itself to be felt. Indeed one of its most dangerous characteristics is that a person is rarely aware, at the time, that be is guilty of dissipation. Its effects upon our devotion are quite disproportioned to the insignificance of its appear­ ance. It can destroy in a few hours the hard-earned graces of months, or the fruit of a whole retreat; and lbs p SPIRITUAL IDLENESS time immediately following a retreat is one of its favourite and chosen seasons. Let us see in what it consists Every one knows after ho has been dissipated, that such has been the case; but he docs not always sec in what his dissipation has consisted. The desolation of his soul is a proof to him that something has been wrong; but he cannot always give the wrong its name. Dissipation consists, first of all, in putting things off beyond their proper times. So that one duty treads upon the heels of another, and all duties are felt as irksome obligations, a yoke beneath which we fret and lose our peace. In most cases the consequence of this is, that we have no time to do the work as it ought to be done. It is therefore done precipitately, with natural eagerness, with a greater desire to get it simply done than to do it well, and with very little thought of God throughout. The French statesman’s maxim, Never do to-day what you can put off tjll to-morrow, admira­ ble as it is for the prudent discharge of worldly duties, can seldom be safely practised in the spiritual lite. Neither would anything but confusion come of Lord Nel­ son’s opposite rule, that a man should always be a quarter of an hour before his time. The great thing is to do each duty as it comes, quietly, perseveringly and with our eyes fixed on God. Without our having any set rule to ob­ serve, daily life has a tendency to settle itself into a groove, and thus each duty has a time which may be called its right time ; and by observing this we shall avoid, on the one hand, being pressed by an accumulation of duties in arrear, and on the other being dissipated by having gaps of time not filled up An unoccupied man can neither be a happy man nor a spiritual man SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. 2’?1 Another symptom of dissipation consiste in overtalking and prolonging immoderately visits of civility. By thii» is not meant that there is any point at which a person is bound to stop, or wheie anything positively wrong begins; but that there is such a thing as moderation in those mat­ ters, which is guided in each case by circumstances. Again, indulging in idle and indolent postures of body when we are alone, tends to dissipate the mind, and weakens the hold which the presence of God ought to have upon us. We must also be upon our guard against a habit, which is far from uncommon, of being always about to begin some occupation, and yet not beginning it. This wears and wastes our moral strength, and causes us to fritter our lives away in sections, being idle to-day be­ cause we have something in view to-morrow, which cannot be begun until to-morrow. The same dissipating result will be produced, if we burden ourselves with too many vocal prayers and external observances of devotion. We shall always be in a hurry, and under a sense of pressure, which will soon lead to disgust and low spirits. A want of jealousy of ourselves at times and places of recreation is another source of dissipation. Recreation is itself a dangerous thing; because in one sense it ought to distract and dissipate us, if it is to do us any good ; and of such consequence is this distraction, that recreation well managed is one of the greatest powers of the spiritual life, ^fountain of excellent cheerfulness, and a powerful enemy M’ sins of thought. But I must speak of this hereafter All that need be said here is that a want of jealousy over ourselves at recreation is a cause of dissipation. Tbe same may be said of building castles in the air; and of that lax spirit which is always desiring dispensations from little obligations and self-imposed rules. I say self-imposed /28 SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. rules; for why impose them if they are not to be kept, and how can they be kept unless we be more jealous of seeking a dispensation when we ourselves are the dispensing power than when it must be sought from some one else ? The consequences of this dissipation are unfortunately oo well known to all of us to require any long descrip tion. First comes self-dissatisfaction which is the canker worm of all devotion. Then captiousness and self-defence, after which we feel that tbe power to pray is gone from us, as our strength goes from us in an illness. These are followed by positive illtemper, in an hour of which we Jose weeks of struggle and progress. With this is coupled a morbid inclination to judge and criticise others. Or if we have grace to keep down these more gross evils, our dissipation shows its power in multiplying our distractions at prayer, in making us peevish after communion, or re­ served with our director, or in drawing us into an effemi­ nate way of performing our duties, and giving us a great distaste for penance. The second development of spiritual idleness is sadness and low-spirits. It is no uncommon thing for spiritual persons to speak of sadness as if it were some dignified interior trial, or as if it were something to call out pine sympathy, kindness, and commiseration. Whereas in by far the greater number of instances it is true to say that no state of the spiritual life represents so much venial sin and unworthy imperfection as this very sadness. It is not humility, for it makes us querulous rather than patient. It is not repentauce, for it is rather vexation with self than aorrow for the offence against God. The soul of sadness is self-love. We are sad because wc are weary of well doing and of strict living. The great secret of our cheer {SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. 220 fulness was our anxiety and diligence to avoid venial sine, and our ingenious industry to root them out. We have now become negligent on that very point, and therefor· we are sad. If indeed we still try, as much as we did before, to avoid actual venial sins, we have lost the courage to keep ourselves away from many pleasant times and places which wc know to be to us occasions of venial sin We content ourselves with an indistinct self-confidence that we shall not fall ; and at once tbe light of God’s Countenance becomes indistinct also, and the fountain of inward joy ceases to flow. We desire to be praised, and are unhappy if no notice is taken of what we do. We seek publicity as something which will console, rest, and satisfy us. We want those we love to know what we are feeling and suffering, or what we are doing and planning. The world is our sunbeam and we come out to bask in it What wonder we are sad ? How many are there whose real end in the spiritual life is self-improvement rather than God, and how little they suspect it! Now perhaps it is true to say that we never attain in the way of self-improvement a point which seems to us quite easy of attainment. We are always below the mark we aimed at. Here again is another source of sadness. But whatever way we look at this miserable disposition we shall find that the secret fountain of all its phases is the want of mortification, and more especially of external mortification. In a word, who ever found any spiritual sadness in men trying to be good, which did not come either from a want of humility, or from habitually acting without distinct reference to God f But the consequences of sadness are of the most fear­ ful description Nothing gives tbe devil so much power 20 230 SPIRITUAL IDLENESS over us. Mortal sin itself very often gives him less pur chase over our souls. It blunts the sacrament , * and de­ stroys their influence upon us. It turns all sweet things bitter, and makes even the remedies of the spiritual life act ns if they were poisons. Under its morbid action we become so tender that we are unable to bear pain, and tremble at the very idea of bodily mortification. The oouragc which is so necessary for growth in holiness oozes out of us, and we become timid and passive where w<· ought to be bold and venturesome. The vision of God is clouded in our soul, and every day the fit of sadness lasts it is carrying us further and further out of our depth, and beyond the reach of rational consolation. It seems a strong thing to say, but it is in reality no exag­ geration, that spiritual sadness is a tendency towards the state of Cain and Judas. The impenitence of both took root in a sadness, which came out of a want of humility, and that want was itself the fruit of acting with a view to self rather than a view to God. Above all things we must be careful not to let sadness force us away from our regular communions, or from any of the strictnesses we may practise. We must be all the more faithful to them because we are sad ; and we must beware of adopting any change while the cloud is on us. Exactness in little duties is a wonderful source of cheer­ fulness; and set mortifications, few and not severe, but quietly persevered in, will cast out the evil spirit. Wo must look out for opportunities of giving way to others ; for that brings with it softness of heart and a spirit of prayer. We must make the use of our time a subject of particular examination of conscience, and always have vu hand some standing book or occupation with which U SPIRITUAL IDT.ENF.8R. 231 fill ap gaps of vacant time. We must never omit out devotions to our Blessed Lady, whom the Church so sweetly calls “ the cause of our joyj” and we must con­ sider that day bst on which wc have not thus done homage to her. Finally, we must regard, not the act only which wc do, but the time which obedience has fixed for doing it, whether it be the obedience of self, rule, family, or director; for the marvellous virtue of obedience resides often more in the time and manner of an act, than in the act itself, just as the spiritual life itself consists not so much in an assemblage of certain actions, as in the way in which we do all our actions. To these two idlenesses, dissipation and sadness, wo must add a third ; it is a kind of sloth, or general languor, which it is very hard to describe; but the main features of which every one will recognize. Some time has passed since we had a clear view of ourselves. We have got out of sight of ourselves, and are journeying on like men driving in the dark. Then something occurs which wakes us up to a consciousness of our position. We find that we are continually making resolutions, and as con­ tinually breaking them. They form, as usual, part of our morning prayer, and in an hour or two they have passed from our minds as though we had never made them. Even if we reflect upon them, and make some little effort to put them into execution, we find that they are utterly nerveless, and without power or animation. Wc do not exactly turn a deaf ear to the inspirations which wc are receiving at ail hours, but we are dilatory in carrying them out, and so the time for them passes by, and another duty comes in the way, and it is too late -’32 SPIRITUAL IDLENESS 80 that on flic whole wc hardly correspond to any of our inspirations All this is bad enough. But there is added to it a physical feeling of incapacity to make any exertion h seems to us as if any effort was out of the question ; and what is in truth merely a moral malady puts on all the semblance and feeling of a bodily indisposition, and soon causes one. We then begin to make light of serious twinges of conscience, and we are peevish and impatient of any warning or admonition, or of any attempt to bring spiritual matters before us. Everything that every body does seems inopportune, and out of good taste. Without rhyme or reason we have an almost universal nausea of men and things, and we give in to “ the spirit of causeless irritation” which characterizes the paralytic, as Sir Walter Scott tells us of Chrystal Croftangry. It is as if life were worn out and we had got to the end of things, as if we had worked our way through the upper coats of existence down to what Bossuet calls “ the in­ exorable ennui which forms the basis of human life.” In this state we are not only distracted at prayer, but slovenly also; and even the sacraments we treat with a kind of lazy irreverence and formal familiarity, which it is frightening to think of. In fact our state is a kind of passive possession of the spirit of disgust and sloth ; it is as if we had lost the power of being serious, and were numb, or in a trance, so far as spiritual things are con­ cerned. It is this state to which dissipation is always tending; and if we are so unfortunate as not to have checked it in its earlier stages, but find ourselves actually under this oppression, we must rouse ourselves and act with as much vigour as if we had fallen into mortal sin SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. 288 A fourth kind of spiritual idleness may be called use­ less industry, which is a great temptation to active-minded men ; for, as I said before, idleness is natural and pleasant to all temperaments, but has different phases for different characters. There is nothing in recreation which hinders our uniting ourselves to God; but there are a variety of unmeritorious occupations in which we can fritter away our time, and in which it is almost impossible for us to have any deliberate or distinct intention to glo­ rify God. It is difficult to specify, but every one knows that recreating and idling are very different things, and that idling much more often consists in doing useless or childish things, than in doing nothing at all. There are many kinds of reading, which are not wrong in them­ selves, but which for some reasons in our own particular case will dissipate us, or prepare distractions for our me­ ditation, or will feed future temptations, and supply them with images ready at hand, or will be dangerous to us because they will inordinately engross us; and in which, in spite of our intellectual conviction that they are not wrong, we have an interior reproach, which, if we were in a right state of mind, would act as a prohibition. So in these days of cheap and rapid postage we ought to be more jealous of our correspondence than we are. Is it too much to say that every letter we write is more or less a drain upon our spirituality ? And if this be so, ought we not to make a rule to ourselves against unne­ cessary letter-writing, against the writing of any letter which either business or social propriety or affection does not render practically unavoidable? Time is precious, aid we have little of it, and how much ie spent in writing letters, and how many pretend that all their letter-writing * 20 £34 SPIh/TUAL IDLENESS is safe because it is, they say, a veritable mortificatii ».i I Attachments are multiplied and strengthened by corre­ spondence, while it increases our objects of anxiety, mag­ nifies our reasons for being nervous and restless, and caters for that idolatry of family ties which nowadays wages such a vigorous warfare against the manliness of Christ ian sanctity. Letter-writing tends also to increase the natural exaggeration of our character. We express ourselves in an exaggerated manner, and our style at last transfers its exaggeration to our feelings. We thus form a false esti­ mate of things; and are greatly troubled about small events, or highly excited about low expectations. What is the family circle generally, but ineffable trifles seen through a hugely magnifying medium ? It reminds us at every turn of Wordsworth’s real sufferer in the workhouse when she says, I beard my neighbours in their beds complain Of many things which never troubled me ! Unreality is another obvious effect of excessive corre­ spondence; for to make much of little things is to be unreal. Sacraments and prayer cease to have their natural and legitimate proportions, when we are so eager, and decisive, and communicative about children, residences, visits, summer plans and winter projects. We make a romance of ourselves in our letters, and paint life with an artificial rouge because its native complexion is for the most part unhealthy and dull. If our letters turn on religious subjects, so much the worse; for then they are full of detraction, levity, and spiritual gossip. Building castles in the air is another branch of this use SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. 23β '.crr industry, and by far the least innocent Did any one ever catch himself building a castle in the air, which did not in some way redound to bis own honour and praise? Can religious men spend an hour in giving magnificent mental alms, or bearing crosses heroically, or undergoing martyrdom, or evangelizing continents, or ruling churches, r founding hospitals, or entering austere orders, or arranging edifying death-beds, or working miracles at their own tombs, without their being essentially lower and grosser, vainer and sillier men, than they were when the hour began ? They acquire a habit of admiring fine things without practising them. It is worse than novel­ reading, for here men write as well as read them. They become intoxicated with conceit and sentimentality. It gives a tincture of puerility to all they do, and lowers them in thought, feeling and purpose. Do not be startled at the strong words, but this castle-building literally de­ solates and debauches the soul. It passes over it like a ruinous eruption, leaving nothing fresh, green, or fruit­ bearing behind it, but a general languor, peevishness and weariness with God. The not managing our recreations well is of sufficient importance to form a fifth kind of spiritual idleness. I have already said that recreation is a matter of immense importance in the spiritual life. The whole tradition of the Church is in favour of it ; and I doubt if ever there was a religious house which persevered in strict observance for any length of time, without the recreations which are traditional in each order. For an order without traditions is an order without life, at least without the full life of maturity. It is either dead, or still an infant. It sounds strange to a man in the world that recreation should U 286 SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. eomjulsory in religious bouses; yet that it is so, is part of the universal heavenly wisdom common to all inouasfio legislators. But in the world recreation is an affair > f much greater difficulty, because so few rules can be given about it. All wc can say is, that one very important question concerns the kind of recreation in which wc shall indulge. It must be suited to our state of life, and no less so to the particular point of advancement which we have reached in the spiritual life. It must be conformed to our natural character, and it must not throw us with eompanions who will do our souls an injury. The degree of it is another problem. God’s glory must be kept in view, and we must never emancipate ourselves from a moderate fear of dissipation : and above all things it must be seasonable. For an inopportune recreation is always a loss of grace. It is difficult to exaggerate tbe results of well-managed recreations. The spirit cannot always be on the stretch The bow must be unstrung sometimes, or it will spoil. Now a well-managed recreation does three things; it pre­ serves all the grace already acquired without suffering one fraction of it to be lost, or one degree of fervour to evapo­ rate. The love of God runs on from the work into the recreation, and thus the habit of recollection remains un­ broken, and we are keeping to tbe side of our heavenly Father in our amusements as closely as in our work or in our trials. Secondly, it not only keeps together the past, and preserves its spirit, but it gains us strength and freshness, bravery and promptitude, for the future. Old grace is consolidated, and the appetite for new is quickened. Children are said to grow more while they are sleeping than while they are awako So it is with us SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. 237 in recreation. This is it» third function. We grow on it It is no standing still. It is not only a blessing for the past, and a blessing for the future; it is a present blessing, because it is present growth. It increases our cheerfulness; and whatever makes us cheerful in devo­ tion gives us more power. It would be a great thing if recreation merely kept us from sin, by filling up and oc­ cupying vacant hours when the infirmity of human nature compels us to intermit our direct attention to religious things. We should owe to it our preservation from a thousand sins of thought, and dissipating inutilities both of mind and heart. But this is far below its real work. Its function is not less important in the spiritual life than is that of sleep in the natural life; and like sleep it has need of a wise, considerate, and firm legislation. 1 shall conclude the subject of recreation with the ad­ vice of Scaramelli. If our spirit ask of us imperfect things, such as diversions, conversation and superfluous alleviations, which arc not called for either by our health or the discharge of our relative duties, the laws of per­ fection require us to mortify ourselves. I know that these recreations are the very food of those who are weak in spirit; as the apostle says, He that is weak, let him eat herbs : for being deprived of the consolations which grace brings to pure souls, they feed their hunger and weariness with these earthly consolations. Richard of St. Victor says that a man finds food in his own nature, the food of sweetness, and food in accidental causes, such as prosperity and success. But this is not tbe spiritual food wherewith Christ refreshed Himself. Nevertheless it is the food of the imperfect, the potherbs of the weak· 288 SPIRITUAL IDLENESS and is often useful food : for it partly heals and sotthea the disease of sloth, which the mind suffers because of tbe penury of grace. But persons who are seriously bent on the attainment of perfection must deprive them­ selves of these useless recreations, so as to dispose them­ selves to receive from God a greater abundance of grace and heavenly benedictions. If our spirit asks of us any­ thing concerning food, sleep, clothing and diversion, which is necessary to the maintenance of life or the pre­ servation of health or tbe right performance of our duties, or anything which obedience, fittingness, and right reason also require, we must condescend to its requests and in­ dulge ourselves in the necessary recreations. But in these cases a spiritual man must be careful to purify his intention, and to protest to himself that he only conde­ scends to these things in order to do God’s holy will, not to satisfy his own natural inclination, to please Him, not to please himself. So that his condescension may bo ratber to tbe instincts of nature than to its affections ’· and even in bis condescension he may contrive to con­ tradict his own satisfaction, and seek only the will and pleasure of God. In this manner the human spirit may have its appetite satisfied, without its satisfaction being any impediment to spiritual progress. I am aware that these things are difficult to put in practice, but St. Ber­ nard says that we have but to lean confidently on God, and all will be accomplished, according to that word, 1 can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me. * A g »ueral indifference about the use of our time is a sixth manifestation of spiritual idleness. The use of Ume ii » -.arge subject; and it is one of far greater con· • Diecemimento degli spirit. Mot. 272, 278. SPIRITUAL IDLENESS 23θ sequence dieu many suppose, in those who are aiming at perfection, bellecius in his work on Solid Virtue giver a whole book to tbe one act of early rising, which is but a single instance of Gur use of time. We have to remember that time is the stuff out of which eternity if made, that it is at once precious and irrevocable, and that we shall have to give tne strictest account of it at the lust. Very few faults are irreparable, but tbe loss of time is one of those few ; and when we consider how easy a fault it is, how frequent, how silent, how alluring, we shall discern something of its real danger. Idleness moreover, when it has fastened upon us, is a perfect tyranny, a slavery whose shackles are felt whatever limb we move, or even when we are lying still. It is a capti­ vating bondage also, whose very sweetness renders it more perilous. But the worst feature about it is its deceitfulneos. No idle man believes himself to be idle, ex­ cept in the lucid intervals of grace. No one will credit bow strong the habit of losing time will rapidly become. To break away from it requires a vehemence and a con­ tinuity of effort to which few are equal. Meanwhile the iebatcable land which lies between it and lukewarmness is swiftly traversed. The hourly accumulation of minute carelessnesses is clogging and hampering the soul, while it is also running us fearfully into ^ebt to the temporal justice of God. It makes our life tlx. very opposite of His. His minute notice of us stands in dreadful con­ trast with our half-intentional and balf-unintentiouai oblivion and disregard of Him. I doubt if a jealous and conscientious use of time can ever, as many spiritual excellencies can, become a habit. I suspect time is a thing which has to be watched all through life. It is a 240 SPIRITUAL IDLENESS. running stream every ripple of which is freighted will some tell-tale evidence which it hastens to depose with unerring fidelity in that sea which circles the throne of God. It makes us tremble to think of St. Alphonso just after he had made his solemn vow never to waste a mo­ ment of time. We feel that a man who with his hu­ mility and discretion dared to commit himself to such a life, could only end by being raised upon the altars of the Church. The seventh and last developement of spiritual idle­ ness is loquacity. Thomas à Kempis says that he never returned to his cell after a conversation, without entering it a worse man than he had left it; and another holy person said that he never in his life had repented of hold­ ing his tongue, whereas he had rarely ever spoken without being sorry for it afterwards. What an insight this gives us into the very core of a saint’s life! In spirituality when the tired soul seeks some undue vent or recreation, there is no relief, except castlebuilding, more dangerous than loquacity; and it is one of the commonest of temp­ tations. Some are tempted to be loquacious with every­ body who will be a listener; others only with certain people, who are sympathetic, and with whom to exchange sentiments is to rest their minds. Others are only tempted to talk at wrong times and on wrong subjects ; and this is sometimes from the devil, and sometimes from the human spirit. As a general maxim it may be laid down that in a spiritual person all effusion of heart is undesirable, except to God, and that it is equally unde­ sirable whether it be about God or about some indifferent subject There is nothing to choose between them The evil is in the. effusion. We fancy it relieves us id SPIRITUAL IDLENEHS. 241 temptation. But there never was a greater mistake. With the exception of certain temj tations, solitude brace * uh up, where effusion weakens and enervates us. Pious people, before they begin to be saint-like, are notably loquacious; and it is often loquacity which retards the hour when the likeness of the saints will pass upon them, or frustrates the process altogether. It is plain that every one of these seven idlenesses might be made the subject of a little treatise ; but 1 have said enough for my purpose. Perfection in the world is a difficult affair, and many things are fatal to it. Idleness perhaps slaughters more growths in holi­ ness than anything else ; because it is so very hard for persons in the world not to be idle. Everything around us is pusillanimous and exaggerated. The ideas which pass current are little and low. The air we breathe is languor. The types we behold are pompous follies. Of spiritual romance there is enough, of spiritual fop­ pery more than enough, but of healthy mortification and sincere manly devotion less than would seem possible, if the fact were not certain. Thus everything draws us to dleness and to inutility. It is a common observation that religious, of both sexes, are strikingly cheerful. This is owing in no slight degree to the preservation from idle­ ness which rule and community life ensure. We have none of those helps, and therefore we have more to dread from this particular enemy. In fact the danger and the fatal character of idleness may be reckoned among the prominent characteristics of the attempt to attain perfection in the world. We have already found that for perfection in the world a peculiar exercise of patience is necessary in order to supplv the dace of a re 21 242 eriRTTUAb ideenerr. ligious rule. So now we must give a more than (omniot attention to the industrious use of time and tlio discreet management of recreations, in order to meet dangers which religious are beautifully defended from by com munity life, and a community life invented by a saintly founder. Idleness must be a very prominent object in our warfare, else wo shall never attain to the perfection which the saints tell us is open to people in the world. FRAYER 243 CHAPTER XV. PRAYER. The spiritual life is quite a cognizably distinct thing ‘rom the worldly life ; and the difference comes from prayer. When grace lovingly drives a man to give him­ self up to prayer, he gets into the power of prayer, and prayer makes a new man of him ; and so completely does he find that his life is prayer, that at last he prays always. His life itself becomes one unbroken prayer. Unbroken, because it does not altogether nor so much reside in methods of mental or forms of vocal prayer; but it is an attitude of heart by which all bis actions and sufferings become living prayers. The life of prayer, therefore, which is the badge of the supernatural man, is the praying always. But what is it to pray always? What did our Lord mean by it? To pray always is always to feel the sweet urgency of prayer, and to hunger after it. Grace is palpably felt and touched in prayer; hence it strengthens our faith and inflames our love. The peculiar trial of hard work is that it keeps us so much from prayer, and takes away the flower of our strength before we have time for prayer, and physical strength is very needful for praying well. In consequence of this attraction we acquire habits of prayer by having set times for it, whether mental or vocal. Not that a mere habit of praying will make any one a man of prayer. But God will not send His fire if we do not first lay the sacrifice in order. We must 244 PRAYER. •Iso practise ejaculatory prayer, and have certain fixed ejaculations, as well as make frequent spontaneous aspi­ rations to heaven during the day, at will, and out of the fervid abundance of our hearts. Besides this, there is a certain gravitation of the mind to God in a prayerfu. way, which comes from Jove and from the practice of tin, divine presence, and which ranges from intercession to thanksgiving, and from thanksgiving to praise, and from praise to petition, according as the moods of our mind change, and with hardly any trouble or any conscious process. To pray always is, furthermore, to renew fre­ quently our acts of pure intention for the glory of God, and thus to animate with tbe life of prayer our actions, conversations, studies, and sufferings. This is to pray always : and sec what comes of it 1 Into what a supernatural state it throws a man ! He lives in a different world from other men. Different dwellers are round about him, and are his familiars, God, Jesus, Mary, Angels, and Saints. They are the under­ current of his mind, and often preside over the very expression of his thoughts. He has not the same inter­ ests, hopes, and aims as other men. When he wishes to do anything, he goes to work in a different way from others, and he tests his success differently. Indeed, in nothing is he so remote from men of the world as in his tests of success, which are wholly supernatural and full of the unearthly spirit of the Incarnation. His views of the world are strange, although they are definite and clear, because somehow be sees the world confusedly through the vision of the Church ; and he judges of the relations and distances of things according as they group wound tbe central faith- His affection1' become shifted. PRAYER. 24h so that he is regarded even by these near him as an im­ passible man, and by those further off as a co.d heart that is destitute of natural affections and the keen sympathies af kindred. Moreover tbe temper of repose which prayer breeds is unfavourable to success and advancement in a worldly sense, because it is unfavourable to the eager desire and restless pursuit of them. This influence of prayer comes out in a man’s opinion· and judgments of men, measures, and things. It is heard in his language. It is seen in his tranquillity. It is recognized in bis dealings with others, and is tbe ruling principle of his occasional apparent want of sympathy with others. Such is a man whose faculties, affections, and in some degree even bis senses, have been mastered by the spirit of prayer. We should expect it would win men by its gracefulness, like an angel’s presence. But it is not so, because its beauty requires a spiritual discern­ ment. To the eyes of the world such a man has all the strangeness and awkwardness of a foreigner, which in sober truth he is. Yet such a man is striking to others in after-thought, as the Blessed Sacrament so often is to Protestants, when they have come unawares into His presence and gone again. It is the way uf God, and of the things of God, to be striking in after-thought. The most serious business of the interior life is mental prayer, of which I will speak first. Spiritual writers, and even saints, have sometimes spoken as if meditation were almost necessary to salvation ; and there are senses and oases in which this may be true. It is, however, quite certain that mental prayer is necessary to perfection, and that there can be nothing like a spiritual life without it. For mental prayer means the occupation of our faculties * ’ 21 246 PRAYER upon God, notin the way of thinking or speculating abmit Him, bit stirring up the will to conform itself to Him and the affections to love Him. The subjects on whirl· it is engaged are all the works of God, as well as Hi *» own perfections; but above all, the Sacred Humanity of our Blessed Lord. The length of time to be spent in it will vary with individual cases; and there are a variety of methods out of which a man may choose. But it is most important he should keep to his method when he nas chosen it. Of this, however, something shall be eaid hereafter. Mental prayer, in itself difficult, is rendered still more so by the temptations which beset it. It is irksome, quite beyond all explanation as well as expectation ; and its irksomeness tempts us to abandon it. Very often when we try to meditate, a sheer inability to think at all comes over us in a most unaccountable manner. What­ ever may be the bodily posture which we are recommended to assume at prayer, its sameness becomes wearisome ; and if we keep changing, anything worthy of the name of prayer is out of the question. Distractions torment us at every turn, and their name is legion. Sensible devotion is our only hope, and it is continually being withdrawn, without apparent fault of ours. Temptations to intermit our meditation seem specious, when tempta­ tions to abandon it altogether would be rejected. At other times we are tempted to think its importance ha» been exaggerated. And if we dare disturb nothing else about it, we satisfy our restlessness by varying our times for it, and even for this slight concession we often pay dearly. Now the remedy for all these temptations consists in sur considering our meditation as the great feature cf FRAYER. 247 our day, in our spending all the time we can in spiritual reading, in being full, open, and obedient to our directe! in all questione concerning it, in weaning ourselves by degrees from sensible consolations, and in estimating at their proper value the fruits of a dry, or, as we often per­ versely call it, a bad meditation. We must throw our whole strength into this matter; for the practice of the presence of God, our strength against evil angels and evil habits, our habitual cheerfulness, our ability to carry crosses, and all that we can do ourselves towards final perseverance, depend on prayer. If we attentively examine the various methods of prayer which approved writers have given us, we shall see that they may be resolved into two, the Ignatian and the Sulpician, if we may call them by those names. The advantages of the Ignatian method are, that it is more adapted to modern habits of mind, that it suits the greater number of persons, that it can be taught as an art, and that most meditation-books are framed upon it. The advantages of the Sulpician method are, that it is a more faithful transcript of the tradition of the old Fathers and the saints of the desert, that it supplies a want for those who on the one hand can make no way with the Igna­ tian method, and on the other have no aptitude for what is called Affective Prayer, and that it is in some respects more suitable for those who are often interrupted at medi­ tation, inasmuch as it is a perfect work wherever it is broken off, whereas the power of the Ignatian method is in its conclusion. These are the characteristics of the two methods. No comparison can be instituted be­ tween them because both are holy, both have schooled 248 TRAVER. Minii, and the use of /hem is λ matter cither cf choice <»r of vocation. 1 will speak briefly of both those methods, and first of the Ignatian, which is by far the most, widely spread Meditation is a gift for which wc must make special prayer; and with this prayer we must join an ardent de sire for perfection in general. We must make a diligent use of the means recommended, and we must regard spi­ ritual reading as being to meditation what oil is to the lamp. There are, therefore, two preparations to médita tion ; one is remote, the other proximate. Remote pre­ paration consists partly in removing obstacles, and partly in obtaining the aids requisite. The obstacles to be re­ moved are, a good opinion of ourselves, and a want of concealment of our austerities and devotions, all affections to habitual infirmities, even though the infirmities them­ selves for tbe present remain habitual, dissipation of mind, negligent custody of the senses, and an off-hand way of performing our ordinary actions. The aids which we re­ quire are the lower degrees of humility, simplicity, and purity of intention in a general way, sufficient custody of the senses to insure tranquillity of mind, and a certain inconsiderable degree of mortification. Proximate prepa­ ration consists in reading, hearing, or getting ready our meditation over-night, and especially in noting what fruit naturally comes of it, or is most suited to our present spi­ ritual needs ; before wc compose ourselves to sleep we arc to think briefly over it, and make some suitable ejacula­ tion ; when wc awake wc arc instantly to recall the sub­ ject of meditation ; while we are dressing, to think of it or nourish sentiments akin to it, to quiet our minds by making an act of tbe presence of God or of the Sacred PRAYER. 249 Flumni.ity for about the apace of an Ave Maria, and tbii should be done before we kneel down, and to observe a strict silence from tbe time we have prepared our medi­ tation till the next morning, so as to exclude dissipating thoughts and images. They who have submitted to the bondage of these regulations have found a blessing in then.. Many minds cannot brook them. Without a know­ ledge of the individual case, no one can see how far, or from what particulars, persons may without prejudice be dispensed. There are not many to whom tbe whole array of the Tgnatian method is necessary for any long time, but there are many who can never make good meditations now, but who would have done so if they would have con­ strained themselves and borne the yoke for a little while at first. These two preparations are followed by an act of adoration and a preparatory prayer. After the preparations come the preludes, of which there are always two, and sometimes three. The first prelude consists in sketching to ourselves a rapid picture of the subject of our meditation. This helps to keep off distractions just as looking hard at a thing makes us think of it. If we are distracted during the course of our meditation, then we revert to our picture, just as we look back to anything we are copying when a noise has made us look up. Some writers tell us always to put ourselves into these pictures, and to take care that tbe pictures are congenial with the special fruit we look for in that medi­ tation The second prelude is a direct petition for that fruit, which it is well to ask through the saint whom the Church honours that day. In histories, there is a third prelude, which consists in very briefly going through the story. All the preludes together should not occupy above five minutes. a50 PRATER. The preludes are followed by the body of the rncdila tion, which consists of three things, the use cf the mem­ ory, the use of the understanding, and the use of the will The use of the memory seems much the same thing as the first prelude, but it differs from it in length, in accu­ racy, and in particularity. It consists, to put it as briefly as possible, in asking seven questions, Who? What? Where? With what means? Why? How? When? And this is applicable either to texts or mysteries. We need not take very long in this first part of the meditation, else it will pass off into a mere diversion of the imagina­ tion. Nevertheless, we must go through it very accurately, and with scrupulous exactness. For we shall find here­ after that the root of our affections and resolutions is here. A careless and perfunctory use of our memory will bring barrenness of reflections, dry formality in affections, and a want of compunction and nerve in resolutions. We must not be disturbed when we find memory trenching on the province of understanding. One is meant to glide off into the other; and there will be always left for the un­ derstanding the particular application of the general truth to ourselves and our present spiritual necessities. For, by the understanding, which is the second part if the meditation, we do these five things. We apply the subject of our meditation to ourselves, we draw conclu­ sions, we weigh motives, we examine past and present conduct, and we anticipate future dispositions. The main thing in tbe use of our understanding is to be exceedingly simple. Like the use of tbe memory, it also consists in asking seven questions. First, What am I to think about ^hin ? Secondly, What practical lesson am I to draw from it? And tbe lesson must be particular, not general, and PRATER. 251 it must he adap'.ed to our employment, character, and condition. Thirdly, What motives persuade me to this practice? And they must be such as these, convenience, by which I mean fittingness, utility, at least on superna­ tural grounds, satisfaction, easiness, or necessity. Fourthly, How have I acted up to this hitherto? And here we must be disinclined to let conscience answer satisfactorily, and only give way to irresistible evidence when it is favourable. We must insist on our own confusion. We must descend to particulars, and we must jealously sift our present dis­ positions. Fifthly, How must I act for the future? Here we must put imaginary cases, not wild, unlikely, or far­ fetched, but such as may easily happen that same day. Sixthly, What impediments must I remove? Here we must use the self-knowledge which our daily examination of conscience gives us. On the whole our impediments are mostly three, conceit, sensuality and dissipation. Seventhly, What means am I to choose? Here we must be careful to be particular, not general and vague ; and above all, we must be discreet, and not load ourselves with too much. Many are found in the evening without any cross at all because the one they fastened on their shoul­ ders in their morning meditation was heavier than they could bear ; so they threw it down and were our Lord’s disciples only half that day. The third part of the meditation is the use of the will. Without this, meditation is not mental prayer, but either a speculation or an incomplete examination of conscience. The use of the will is twofold, the production of affec­ tions, and the production of resolutiona In reality affec­ tions may find their place all over the meditation, in the application of the memory, and even in the preludes 252 FRAYER. They can hardly ever be out of place wherever they er rae It is a good thing to have texts or sayings of the saints in our minds for the more ready expression of holy affec­ tions; but we must have collected them for ourselves, or they will not have half the unction. We should never break off an affection which has to do with humility, so long as there is any sweetness in it. The whole hour would be excellently spent in it, even to the neglect of the rest of the meditation. The same, however, cannot be said of joy and triumph, which are open to snares and delusions, and should be kept within bounds. Even com­ punction cannot have the reins given up to it, desirable as are its affections; for they tend to be immoderate and easily coalesce with self-love. If affections are slow in coming, we must not lose our peace of mind and begin to be restless, but quietly excite them by acts of faith. But precious as arc the affections of prayer, the reso­ lutions are still more valuable. Their place should be not only in each point of our meditation, but at the close of each practical doctrine in each point. They must be prac­ tical, and must not consist in promising certain devotions and prayers, but in resolving to avoid this or to mortify that. They must be particular, and not general. They must have to do with our present state and with imme­ diate action. To resolve to do so and so when you arrive at such a point, or when such a time comes, is castle­ building, not resolving. If possible, our resolutions should have to do with the probable events of the very day, so that our particular examen may entwine itself with our meditation. They must be founded on solid motives, and have been often meditated, not rash, or off-hand, or above our courage when we cool down out of prayer. If any­ PRAYER 25B thing, they should be below what, we might reasonably hope to do, and very bumble. For things seem easy in meditation, so that we do not distrust ourselves suffi­ ciently; and God rarely strengthens an over confident rioul, and so we fail. How many of the downcast tales which people tell about their not advancing, should go to the account of reckless resolutions in the half-natural, half-supernatural heat of prayer I We have now come to the conclusion of the meditation. This is important, and must be gone through calmly and fervently. If done in baste, so as to be within the hour, or for any other reason, it often spoils the whole médita * tion. We must first collect all our resolutions together, and renew them. This will often quicken with fervour the end of the hour that was perhaps flagging through dryness and languor. The colloquies with God, our Lady, or the Saints, follow next. In them we must be particu­ lar to ask for the special and predetermined fruit of the meditation ; and with this we may couple any petition we have much at heart, and also a humble oblation of the resolutions we have made. A Pater, Ave, and the Anima Christi are next prescribed in most of the meditation books written on this system. We then leave off con­ versing directly with God ; but we do not leave His pre­ sence. On the contrary, we are more than usually careful at that moment, lest the spirit of dissipation should come upon us, and there should be too sudden a reaction from the recollectedness of prayer. If St. Ignatius could have his will, the meditation would not end here. lie would have us sit down or walk about, and make what he calls the consideration of our meditation. The want of this he looks upon as the reason 22 254 PRATER. of continued bad meditations. If we rcffccteil on them, and found out they were bad at the time, we should pro­ bably find out what it was that made them bad, and sn avoid it for the future. Indeed, of such importance is this consideration deemed, that we are recommended t<> make it later on in the day, if wc have omitted it in the morning. The consideration is divided into two parts, the examen and the recapitulation. In the examen wc briefly review our over-night preparation, our first thoughts on rising, our beginnings, preparatory prayer, preludes, choice of fruit, the progress of the meditation, how wc dealt with distractions in all the three parts, whether our collo­ quies were fervent and humble, whether we have listened to hear if God would speak in our hearts, and whether we have been free from irreverence of body, or rashness of speech, or precipitation of mind. If all this has been done fairly well, we thank Almighty God for the grace in the strength of which alone we bave been successful. If it has been done ill, we make an act of contrition and a modest resolution for the future, without giving way to sadness or disquietude. We must always bear in mind that the time of prayer is God’s punishment time. It is then that venial sins, little infidelities, inordinate friend­ ships, and. worldly attachments, will rise up and complain of us, and we shall be chastised for them. The recapitulation revolves the lessons we have learned, the resolutions we have made, and the fruit we hoped to obtain ; and it implores once more the grace to keep our resolutions. We are then to take an ejaculation for the day, or some thought which shall be a spiritual nosegay to refresh us in the dust and turmoil of the world. Finally we are to write down the lights we have received PRAYER. 25ô «..id the resolutions we have made, so as to rekindle our fervour when it flags, by the perusal of them. Thia last practice, however, requires great discretion, and is not suitable for all. This consideration, St. Ignatius says, should occupy “about” a quarter of an hour. The first perusal of the Ignatian plan is like a cleric’s hrst look into a breviary. It seems as if we should never find our way about in it. But the processes are io reality so natural that they soon become easy to us, and follow each other in legitimate succession almost without effort or reflection. It is much more easy than it seems. The method of St. Francis of Sales is substantially the same, with some of the peculiarities of his own character thrown into it. The same may be said of the method of St. Alphonso, which is that of St. Ignatius with somewhat more freedom, such as we should expect from the charac­ ter of that glorious saint, who, to his many other cities to tho gratitude of the modern Church, might add that of the apostle of prayer. Beginners are always inclined to dispense themselves from the mechanical parts of the system. But it is well worth our while to be patient for a few weeks. We shall never be sorry for it, whereas we shall regret the contrary line of conduct as long as we live. We must beware also of kneeling vacantly and doing nothing, which adds the fault of irreverence to that of idleness. We must not look out for interior voices, or marked experiences, or decided impressions of the divine will upon our minds, nor give in to the temptation of leaving the plain road of pains-taking meditation in order to reach God by some shorter way. At first it is not well to read many books about prayer; but keep to the few irai advices of our director. We must always be trying. ÎM PRATER. yet in a quiet way, to be shorter with our considerationi and longer with our affections; and if all our meditation should be unmanageably dry, we must make some parti­ cular resolution before we leave our Crucifix, and so the time will not have been without fruit. One word on what we call bad meditations. They aro generally tho most fruitful. The mere persevering at, iur priedieu the full time is an excellent and meritorious act of obedience. The mystery, which seems to lay no hold of us, is in reality soaking into our minds, and keeping us throughout the day more in the presence of God than we otherwise should have been. We ask something of God, and that is in itself a great action. We make a resolution of some kind, and we meet with an occasion of humiliation. God often thus sends us back, as a master turns back a boy, to re-examine our course and to discover little forgotten infidelities for which we have never done penance. Whenever we have made a bad meditation, and cannot see that it is our own fault, we may be sure God means something by it, and it is our own business to find out what. It is no little thing to be able to endure ourselves and our own imperfections. On the contrary, it is a fine act of humility, and draws us on towards per­ fection. In good truth we may make our bad medita­ tions pay us a usurious interest, if we choose. It is obvious that much of what has been said of the Ignatian method is applicable to all methods, in the way of diiection and guidance. In speaking of the Sulpician method, therefore, I shall confine myself to those things which distinguish it from the other. M. Olier divides prayer into three parts, the preparation, the body of the prayer, and the conclusion ; and he generally uses the PRAYER 257 w rd prayer instead of meditation; and filled with the spirit of the old tradition, he and his interpreters reçut to S. Ambrose, St. John Climacus, 8. Nilus, Cassian, an«l sinilar writers for rules and methods. They make three preparations, the more remote, the less remote, and the proximate. The first is occupied in removing obstacles, the second in preparing what is necessary for praying well, and the third is as it were the entrance into prayer. The more remote preparation may be said to extend over the whole of life, and is principally occupied with three obstacles : sin, the passions, and the thought of creatures. No soul in a state of sin can converse familiarly with God. Tbe unquiet movements of human passions prevent inward peace which is a necessary condition of mental prayer; and the thought of creatures is the foundation of all dis­ sipation and distraction. Thus the abandonment of sin, the mortification of the passions, and the custody of the senses, form the more remote preparation for prayer. The fees remote preparation is concerned with three times, the time when the subject of prayer is given over-night, the time which elapses between then and the waking in the morning, and the third is from our waking to our begin­ ning our prayer. The first requires attention ; the second a review of the subject and a strict silence ; and the third the affections of love and joy wherewith we should ap­ proach prayer. The proximate preparation is almost a part of the prayer itself. It comprises three acts : first, the putting of ourselves in tbe presence of God ; secondly, acknowledging ourselves unworthy to appear in His pre sence; and thirdly, confessing ourselves incapable of praying as wc ought without (he aid of divine grace. For each of these three preparations very minute rules ar< 22 ♦ 258 PRAYER given, which are all taken from ancient snunw, partira larly St. Gregory, St. Chrysostom, St. Bonaventure, St Nilus, St. Bernard, and St. Benedict. But it is in the body of the prayer that its chief clia Tacteristics are to be found. It consists, as the Ignat inn does, of three points; the first is called adoration, the second communion, and the third co-opcration In tho first we adore, praise, love, and thank God. In the second we try to transfer to our own hearts what wc have been praising and loving in God, and to participate in its virtue according to our measure. In the third wc co­ operate with the grace we are receiving by fervent collo­ quies and generous resolutions. The ancient fathers have handed down to us this method of prayer as in itself a perfect compendium of Christian perfection. They call it having Jesus before their eyes, which is the adoration ; Jesus in their hearts, which is the communion ; and Jesus in their bands, which is the co-operation : and in these three things all the Christian life consists. After their accustomed fashion, they deduce it from the precept of God to the children of Israel, that the words of the law were to be before their eyes, in their hearts, and bound upon their hands. Thus St. Ambrose calls these three points the three seals. The adoration he calls signaculum in fronte ut semper confiteamur; the communion, signa­ culum in corde ut semper diligamus ; and the co-operation, signaculum in brachio, ut semper operemur. Others again declare that this method of prayer is according tc the model which our Lord has given us. Thus the ado­ ration answers to Hallowed be Thy Name, the commu­ nion to Thy kingdom come, and the co-operation to Thy Will be done. It seems that this method of prayer is, as PH A VEII. 258 far as we can judge the same which prevailed among t'je lathers of the desert; and it is astonishing how many scrape of ancient tradition there are regarding it. * Its patristic character is quite the distinguishing feature of the 8nlpieian method of prayer. It is a piece of the older spiri­ tuality of the Church. The first point then is adoration. Here we contem­ plate the subject of our meditation in Jesus, and worship Him because of it in a befitting way. Hence there are two things to be observed in this first point. Suppose, to take the instance given by Tronson, that we are medi­ cating on humility. In this point we first of all consider Jesus as humble, and in this consideration we include three things : our Lord’s interior dispositions about humility, the words He said, and the actions He did. Secondly, we lay at His feet six offerings: adoration, admiration, praise, love, joy. and gratitude; sometimes going through all of them, sometimes selecting such as harmonize with the subject of our prayer. This point is extremely im­ portant, as it leads us first to contemplate our Blessed Lord as the source of all virtues; secondly, to regard Him as the original and exemplar, of which grace is to make us copies ; thirdly, of the two ends of prayer, which Tertullian calls the veneration of God and the petition of man, the first he says is the more perfect; fourthly, St Gregory Nyssen says that if we look only to our own in­ terests, of the two roads which lead to perfection, prayer, and imitation, the first is the shortest, the most efficacious, • I may remark by the way that it is nnfortunate that Honoratm à Sancta Maria, who collected the tradition of the fathers on several supernatural states of prayer, shonld have taken the wrong side in the great controversy of charity, and so ehcnld bave dikSgored hû txx'k, and blunted the effect of bis evidence. 260 PRAYER. and the most solid. Speaking of the efficacy of adoral ion ns a part of prayer, tbe Fathers use this compari-..n. They say we may dye a white cloth scarlet in two wavs, first by applying the colour to it, and secondly, by ,./< < j»ing it in the dye; and the last is the shortest and makes the colour fastest: so to dip our souls in the dye of the Heart of Jesus by love and adoration, is a quicker way to imbue them with a virtue than multiplied acts of the virtue itself would be. Tbe reader will see that this doctrine is peculiar, and seems at first sight to differ *) fro» the ordinary tone of modern books. This method if adoration is with slight modifications applicable to all tbe six usual subjects of meditation, tbe attributes and perfections of God, the mysteries and virtues of Jesus, the actions ot the saints, the virtues, the vices, and Christian verities. The second point is communion, by which we endeavour to participate iu what we have been loving and admiring in the first. It contains three things. We have first of all to convince ourselves that the grace we desire to ask is important to us, and we should try to convince ourselves of this chiefly by motives of faith. The second thing is to see bow greatly we are wanting in that grace at pre­ sent, and how many opportunities of acquiring it we have wasted. In this temper we must consider the past, the present, and tbe future. The third and chief thing is the petition itself for the grace in question ; and this pe­ tition may take four shapes, the types of which are in Scripture. First, it may be simple petition : petitiones vestræ innotescant apud Deum. Secondly, it may bo obsecration, which is the adding of some motive or adju­ ration to our demand, ao by tbe merits of our Lord, or the PRAYER. 2β1 graces of our Lady . in omni obsecratione, as the apr«tle speaks. Thirdly, it may be by thanksgiving, cum gra­ tiarum actione; for the saints tell us that thanksgiving for past graces is the most efficacious petition for new ones. Fourthly, it may be by insinuation, as when the sisters of Lazarus said no more than, Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick. All these petitions must be accom­ panied by four conditions: humility, confidence, perseve­ rance, and the union of others in our prayers; as our Lord teaches us to pray for w/r, not my, daily bread, and for give us, not me, our trespasses. St. Nilus lays great stress on this last particular, and says it is tbe fashion in which the angels pray. The third point is the co-operation, io which we make our resolutions. Now three things are required in these resolutions, that they should be particular, that they should be present, that they should be efficacious. They must be particular, because general ones are of very little use ex­ cept in union with particular ones. They must be pre­ sent, that is, we must have some application of our reso­ lution present to our minds, as likely to occur that day They must be efficacious, that is, our subsequent care must be to carry them out with great fidelity, and fully to in­ tend to do so by an explicit intention at the time we make them. The conclusion of the prayer consists of three things, all of which must be very briefly performed. First we must thank God for the graces He has given us in onr prayer, the grace of having endured us in His presence, of having given us the ability to pray, and of all the good thoughts and emotions we have experienced. Se­ condly we must ask pardon for the faults we have com- 262 PRATER. mitted ·η our prayer, negligence, lukewarmness, distrae tion, inattention, and restlessness. Thirdly we must put it all into our Lady’s hands to offer it to God, to supply all defects, and to obtain all blessings. Thon follows the spiritual nosegay of St. Francis of Sales, which St. Nilus appears to have been the first to suggest to men of prayer The Carmelite method, as given by John of JesusMary, forbids any minute composition of place, and re­ commends only one point of meditation. Its component parts are adoration, oblation, thanksgiving, petition and intercession ; but he would not have us take them always in the same order, but take that first which chances to be most congenial to the subject on which we are meditating. On the whole it seems true to say that the contemplative orders hold more to the ancient or as I have called it the Sulpician method, than to the Ignatian ; and all methods seem resolvable into one or other of the two. These two methods of prayer are both of them most holy, even though they are so different. There is a different spirit in them, and they tend to form different characters. But they cannot be set one against the other. They are both from one Spirit, even the Holy Ghost, and ea>ch will find the hearts to which they are sent. Happy is the man who is a faithful disciple of either ! But the class of persons for whom I am writing require something more than these methods of meditation, with­ out their approaching any ot what arc called the superna­ tural states of prayer. Many pass beyond meditation, most men slowly, but some rapidly ; and when a man’s whole life is taken up with God, bis studies principally spiritual books, bis occupations chiefly religious, be often finds that meditation is no longer the right sort of prayer PRAYER. 2M tor nim, and that he must practise what ascetical writers call affective prayer. Of this, therefore, I must say some­ thing. The passage from meditation to affective prayer is ft crisis in the spiritual life. For we may leave meditation too soon, or we may leave it too late, or we may refuse to leave it at all, even when our Lord is bidding us go higher up. All these three mistakes arc fraught with injury to the soul. By the first we fall into delusions, by the se­ cond we lose time, by the third we forfeit grace. Spiritual writers give us the following signs that it is time for us to pass to affective prayer. First, when we are unable to meditate, and feel drawn to affections. Secondly, when, do what we will, we get no fruit from our meditation but weariness and disgust. Thirdly, which I would dwell upon particularly, when we are so thoroughly penetrated with the truths of religion and the maxims of Jesus, that we find it hard to occupy our understanding upon them in prayer, but pass instantaneously and as it were un­ avoidably into affections of the will. Fourthly, when we have made some progress in the horror of sin, the in difference to amusements, the avoiding of occasions of danger, moderation of speech, and mortification of the senses. Then we may begin by little and little to curtail the use of memory and understanding in our prayer, and concentrate ourselves upon the affections of the will ; and bo by safe degrees we shall pass from meditation to affective prayer. Courbon thus describes the difference between these two states of prayer. In the state of meditation we reason upon some subject, or ruminate on a text, or reflect on some truth, or meditate on some mystery, for the purpose PRAYER of eliciting affections on these subjects In affective prayer reasonings and reflections have all erased, and tho soul proceeds of its own accord to elicit, all the necessary affections. Again in meditation the soul prodines th, , affections with a certain amount of pain and labour, and has to keep its attention fixed ; whereas in affective prayer this operation costs us no trouble, but conics freely and spontaneously. So that affective prayer is superior to meditation in ardour, constancy, and continuity. When we have made the change at the right time and in the right way, the fruits of this new prayer very soon become visible in the soul. The first is a great love of God, breaking forth in acts of the love of preference, complacence, and benevolence, and in works of effective love. The next are a desire to do God’s will, a burning seal for His glory, a keen appetite for communion, a hankering after solitude, an avidity to know more about God, a love of speaking of God, an increase of courage, a desire to die, a zeal for souls, and a contempt of the world. At the same time this kind of prayer has its own peculiar dangers. We arc apt to exhaust ourselves by the vehemence of immoderate affections, to make de­ votion consist wholly of fervid feelings, to imagine we are feeling what the saints felt, to believe that everything we do is done by an inspiration, to be too active and pre­ cipitate in our good works, and to be indiscreet in our zeal. In affective prayer distractions tease us more sensibly than in meditation, because our understanding is less occupied. The subtraction of sweetness is far more sensibly felt : and the world and tho devil combine to attack us with greater energy than before. Above all, we arc peculiarly liable, to a degree which surprises us, to vanity, anger PRAYER. 266 ami want, of custody of the senses. Against these, how­ ever, we may set the supernatural favours which usually accompany this state of prayer ; such as the gift of tears, interior colloquies, touches of the soul, the languor of love, the liquefaction of the soul in Cod, the wound of love, the glimpses of our own nothingness, and the super abundance of spiritual sweetness. But full instruction or these points belongs to a treatise on prayer. Enough has been said of mental prayer for our present purpose. It remains to speak of vocal prayer. It is one of the marks of false spirituality, as appears from the Condemned Propositions, to make light of vocal prayer. It is the universal custom of the faithful, even if it be not necessary to salvation, as 8t. Thomas says it is not. St. Augustine seems to bold the contrary opinion, and gives as a reason the model which our Saviour gave us. It is, however, says St. Thomas, of im­ mense utility, and that for three reasons. It awakens interior devotion, and sustains it when awakened. We ought to honour God with all His gifts, and voice is His gift as well as mind. It forms a vent for interior devo­ tion, which increases in vehemence by means of the very vent. In vocal prayer three attentions are requisite, though not always all of them at once, attention to the order and pronunciation of the words, attention to the meaning of the words, and attention to the end of the words which is Him to whom we address them, and that for which we are petitioning. Speaking in a rough way there are commonly four kinds of vocal prayer, with a book, without a book, in­ tercessory, and ejaculatory. If we pray from a prayer­ book ‘t is well to have only one book at a time, and not 28 26ft PRATER. to change it frequently. We should read with pauses, occasionally closing the book and resting on the thought of God ; and we should be careful not to choose a book which is much above our real feelings and present attain­ ments. If we pray without a book, we must be brief •nd of few words, because of God’s majesty ; we must scrupulously use words with forethought, and interpose silent intervals in our prayers. In the matter of inter­ cessory prayer, we must be cautious of promising people we will pray for them. We must be wary of perpetual or multiplied novenas. We must never fix a definite length of time for which we will pray for an object, and abandon it then if God has not vouchsafed to hear our prayers. And in our intercession a prominent place must always be given to the Holy Father, and his intentions for the needs of the Church. Ejaculatory prayers should be frequent, but generally speaking not under rule or of obligation. They must be almost incessant in times of temptation, and it is desirable always to have some chosen ones ready. There are many cautions which are necessary in the nee of vocal prayer. We must be careful not to burden aurselves with too many of them, and it is well to begin them always with a mental act of the divine presence. When we have given way to distractions, and our atten­ tion has been imperceptibly averted from what we are saying, and at last we wake up to a consciousness of it, it very much concerns our peace of mind, that we should not say over again what we said with inattention. We must simply stop and make an act of contrition, and so proceed. The opposite conduct gives rise to many scruples, and ends by making vocal prayer burdensome and odious. FRAYER ‘267 Wneii slovenly habite have crept jver ub, we must set mat. urs right by disallowing ourselves in certain liberties which we have taken, and so cure our slovenliness by taking a few steps in the direction of the other extreme. Thus, if we have been in the habit of saying vocal prayers out of doors, or walking about, or in bed, and some percep­ tible negligence has come of it, it is better for a little while to abstain from doing so, and say them in our own room, or kneeling, or in some slightly penitential way. We must not forget that this blessed right of vocal prayer is not only a frequent source of scruples, but even a most prolific occasion of venial sin ; and it is so almost always from want of reverence and forethought. Hence we should never begin with a probable interruption staring us in the face, and we should keep a strict custody over our eyes. It is said of St. Charles Borromeo that ne would not say off by heart the more familiar parte of the missal and breviary, because he considered that hie keeping his eyes fixed on the book, and reading the words so much conduced to devotion. It is well to meditate occasionally on the dignity of vocal prayers, and the communion of saints into which we enter by reciting them, especially in such world-wide de­ votions as the rosary, and scapular-prayers. They who are much addicted to vocal prayer should cultivate a spe­ cial devotion to the angels before the throne of God, who are ever offering in their sweet thuribles the prayers of the just to His compassionate majesty. We must remem­ ber that, while other means do not always apply to all eases, prayer has not only a fitness but a special fitness for all cases. Some persons, when they have prayed for some virtue or against some vice or temptation for a long while, 2θ8 PRATER. grow disheartened and leave off. The levil suggests to them that their prayers will not be heard, not for lack of goodness in God, but because they arc unworthy to be heard, and that it is true humility iu them to think so. But in truth such an abasement of spirit is not humility, but a delusion contrary both to faith and hope; for thia theological truth is very much to be remembered, that prayer rests solely on God’s goodness, and not at a on our merits. Those who find themselves inapt ax mental prayer should cultivate vocal. But if we have taken upon ourselves a burden of much vocal prayer, and find ourselves growing inattentive in spite of our­ selves, we must lessen the quantity gradually, compen­ sating for this by a more arduous effort of attention. As a general rule it is best to have only a little vocal prayer, but to persevere in that little with extreme fide­ lity. St. Theresa says, that comfortable postures are best for mental prayer, penitential postures for vocal. Under any circumstances reverential postures are half the battle of vocal prayer. If a man finds vocal prayer an aid to inward recollection, it is a sign he has a vocation to it; but St. Thomas says, if it be a hindrance to inward recol­ lection, be bad best abandon what is not of obligation Finally, those who have for a long time been tepidly neglecting meditation, have no better means to refresh themselves, and so get back to mental prayer, than by giving themselves up for a season to habits, perhaps long abandoned, of childlike vocal prayer. Now a few words on answers to prayer, a subject which teases so many devout souls. St. Bernard says in his Lent sermons that all bad prayers are bad for one of three reasons: either they are timid, cr they are tepid, or thsv PRAYER. are temerarious. We may dismiss therefore these three kinds of prayer as not likely to be answered. Answers to prayer have several characteristics which we ought to bear in mind. For the most part they are long in coming·, and the thing asked, when it docs come, comes often in soother shape; and as often, something else comes in­ stead of it. Answers come quickest when the prayer is secret and undivulged, or when crosses are asked for, so we ne jst be cautious, or when we ask through our Blessed Lady, or as St. Catherine of Bologna tells us, through the Souls in Purgatory, or as S. Theresa tells us, through St. Joseph. It is false spirituality which teaches us not to pray, and to pray perseveriogly, for the good of indivi­ duals. But our power of impétration depends very much on two things, our having habits of prayer and being in habitual communication with God, and our praying in the pure spirit of simple faith. We always receive three gifts from God when we pray humbly and earnestly. The first, S. Nilus says, is the gift of prayer itself. “ God wishes to bless thee for longer time while thou art persevering in thy prayer; for what more blessed than to be detained in colloquy with God ?” We pretend for awhile not to hear the petitions of those we love, because we so love to hear them asking. So Joseph feigned with his brethren. You say, says St John Climacus, I have received nothing from God, when all the while you have received one of His greatest gifts, perseverance in prayer. It is often because He so loves prayer, that God delays to answer it. The second gift is the increase of our merits by persevering in unanswered prater. He delays to hear His saints, says St. Gregory, tbit He may increase their merits. Eo magis exaudiun * 28 *70 PRATER. hir ad meritum, quo citius non exauliunfur nd votum Tbe thiid gift is that by this perseverance we prepare our selves to receive the grace with much greater fruit than if it were given us at once. S Isidore says, God delays to hear your prayer either because you arc not in good dispositions to receive what you ask, or that you may be able to receive more excellent gifts which he is desirous of conferring upon you. So, says Gerson, it happens to us as it does sometimes to a beggar, to whom men give a more liberal alms because they have kept him waiting at their door so long. Moreover the relics of our old un­ converted lives, not yet burned out of us, cause prayer to operate more slowly than if our penance had been more brisk and vigorous. Mystical writers give us various signs by which we may know, even at the time, that our prayers have been an­ swered. We often have an heroic confidence that our prayers have been answered, without knowing to what we may attribute it, and when this confidence is coupled with a great love of God, a contempt of ourselves, and an almost irresistible propensity to break forth into thanksgiving, we may for the most part assume that our prayer has been answered. Very often this confidence is preceded by a vehement inspiration to pray for the object in question, and God, says St. Augustine, would not thus impel us tc pray for a thing He was not about to grant. Sometimes God sends in addition to these internal marks an outward sign in the shape of a sorrow or disgrace ; such were the rebuke of Heli to Anna, and of our Lord to Mary at the marriage feast in Cana, and of our Lord to the Chananæan woman. They were the precursors of answered prayer. As Job says, He who is mocked by his friend as I am, PRAYER. 271 * ill call upon God, and He will hear him. Richsrdof St. Victor mentions an unusual strength of faith, or depth of humility, or earnestness of importunity, as inward signs of answered prayer. But S. Bonaventure fears that in judging of them we may too readily attribute to the Holy Ghost what are only the movements of excited nature. Lastly St. Ambrose gives the following rule. Tn comment­ ing on the words, If two of you shall agree upon earth, concerning anything whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven : for where there are two or three gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them, be says, What are these two or three but the body, the soul, and the Holy Ghost? For when the soul collects all its interior powers within the sanctuary of its heart, that it may pray to the Father in secret, and when the body collects its external senses and unites them to the soul, the Holy Spirit ap­ proaches and breathes into this union quietude and peace, so that the prayer may be fervent and efficacious; and then it is that Jesus is present in the midst of the three. 0 happy union in which so many combine to supplicate the Eternal Father ! What more could be desired, what more efficacious be proposed? Delight in the Lord, and He will grant thee thy petitions, says David. Forif it is your joy to please God, it will be His joy to hear your prayers. We must be careful however not to fret ourselves over­ much about the answers to our prayers. We should pray in faith and with a deep sense of our own unworthi­ ness, and leave the rest to God. Even in a self-interested pent of view no prayer has such a power of impétration as that whieh comes from a will conformed to the will of 272 PRAYER. God. This was the secret of St. Gertrude’s potent inter cession. There is one subject more which demands our attc.n. tion when we are speaking of vocal prayer. Λ man who is much given to vocal prayer is in no slight degree in the power of bis prayer-book.· The choice of favourite devotions is therefore a matter of great importance ; and what devotions can we choose so safely as those which are approved by the Church, and those which are indulgenced by the Church. There is a great connection be­ tween indulgences and the spiritual life, and the use of indulgenced devotions is almost an infallible test of a good catholic. St. Alphonso says that in order to become a saint nothing more is needed than to gain all the in­ dulgences we can; and the Blessed Leonard of Port Maurice has something to tbe same effect. The private and approved revelations of the Saints throw consider­ able light upon this subject. St. Bridget was raised up in great measure, as she says herself, to propagate the honour of indulgences; and so St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi saw souls punished in purgatory for nothing else but a light esteem of them. In the spiritual life there are what I may call eight beatitudes of indulgences. First, as they have to do • When there are eo many excellent manuals of devotion, it may seem invidious to single out one for commendation. Yet without meaning in the least to criticize others, I would venture to call the attention of my readers to a little book, published by Messrs. Burns and Lambert, under the title of A Few Flowers from the Garden. Its merits are that it is simple, practical, not overloaded, well se­ eded, suitable to all, contains many indulgenced devotions, and oaa evidently grown up from long personal use. It is not a fanciful or merely litera-y compilation : and its merits will grow upon thes * who use i.L PH A Y ER 27* with Bin, God’s justice, and the temporal pain of ein, they keep us among thoughts which belong to the pur­ gative way, and which are safest for us, although we are continually and impatiently trying to get out of them. Secondly, they have a peculiarly unworldly effect upon us. They lead us into the invisible world ; they sur­ round us with images of a supernatural character; they fill our minds with a class of ideas, which detach us from worldly things and rebuke earthly pleasures. Thirdly, they keep the doctrine of purgatory constantly before us, and so force upon us a perpetual exercise of faith, as well as suggest to us motives of holy fear. Fourthly, they are an exercise of charity to the faithful departed, which may easily become heroic, which may be practised by those who can give no other alms, and which has all the effects upon our own souls that accompany works of mercy. Fifthly, God’s glory is very much concerned in them, and that in two ways, in the release of the souls from purgatory and their earlieradmission to His heavenly court, and also in the manifestation of His perfections which indulgences display, such as His infinite purity and detestation of sin, even the slightest, and the exact­ ness of His justice coupled with the ingenuity of His mercy. Sixthly, they honour the satisfactions of Jesus. They are to His satisfactions what the doctrine that all forgiveness of sin is due to Him is to His merits. So to speak, they leave nothing of Him unused ; and thus they illustrate the copiousness of His redemption. They honour likewise the satisfactions of Mary and the saints, in such a way as still more to honour Him. Seventhly, they deepen our views of sin, and cause us to grow in horror of it. For they constantly keep befcre uj that 3 S74 PRAYER. punishment is due even to forgiven sin, and that, that punishment is one of the most intolerable kind, and though it be but temporal, it needs the satisfactions of Jesus to deliver us from it. Eighthly, they keep us in harmony with the spirit of the Church, which is of para­ mount importance to those who are striving to live in­ terior lives, and are threading their way among the diffi­ culties of asceticism and inward holiness. For to under­ value indulgences is a sign of heresy ; and the hatred which heresy has for them is an index of the devil’s dis­ like of them, and that, in its turn, is a measure of their power and of their accepfableness with God. They mix ns up with so many peculiarities of the Church, from the jurisdiction of the Holy See to the belief in purgatory good works, the saints, and satisfaction, that they almost insure our orthodoxy. And the whole history of the un­ happy errors which have vexed the Church on the sub­ ject of the spiritual life shows us that, to be thoroughly holy, we must be thoroughly catholic, and thoroughly Roman catholic, for otherwise than Roman we can be neither catholic nor holy at all. Then, as to the indulgenced devotions themselves, there are these advantages in them. We are sure they are approved by the Church, because they are more than approved. We know that numbers of holy souls in tho world are using them every day, and by uniting ourselves with them we enter more deeply into the communion of saints, and the life of the Church which is her unity. For the reasons I have already given, we spiritualize our minds and quicken our faith very much by the use of them. They lead us to pray in a manner and about subjects which th» Church desires ; and we attain so many ends PRAYER. 275 at once when we us? them. For by the same act we not only pray, but we revere the keys of the Church, we honour Jesus, His Mother and the saints, we get rid of our own temporal punishment, or, which is a greater thing, we release the dead and so glorify God, and as may be seen by looking over the devotions which the Church has indulgenced, we transfer into our minds a great amount of touching doctrine which serves as an aliment for mental prayer and reverential love. Let us take one instance of this. I cannot conceive a man being spiritual who does not habitually say the Rosary. It may be called the queen of indulgenced de­ votions. First consider its importance, as a specially catholic devotion, as so peculiarly giving us a catholic turn of mind by keeping Jesus and Mary perpetually before us, and as a singular help to final perseverance, if we continue the recital of it, as various revelations show Next consider its institution by St. Dominic in 1214, by revelation, for the purpose of combating heresy, and the success which attended it. Its matter and form are not less striking. Its matter consists of the Pater, the Ave and the Gloria, whose authors are our Blessed Lord Him­ self, St. Gabriel, St. Elizabeth, the Council of Ephesus, and the whole Church, led in the west by St. Damasus. Its form is a complete abridgment of the Gospel, consist­ ing of fifteen mysteries in decades, expressing the. three great phases of the work of redemption, joy, sorrow, and glory. Its peculiarity is the next attractive feature about it. It unites mental with vocal prayer. It is a devotional compendium of theology. It is an efficacious practice of the presence of God. It is one chief channel of the traditions of the Incarnation among the faithful. It shows 27σ PRATER the true nature, of devotion to our Blessed Lady ; and is a means of realizing the communion of saints. Its ends are the love of Jesus, reparation to the Sacred Humanity for the outrages of heresy, and a continual affectionate thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity for the benefit of the Incarnation. It is sanctioned by the Church, by in dulgences, by miracles, by the conversion of sinners, ami by the usage of the saints. See also how much the me­ thod of reciting it involves. We should first make a picture of the mystery, and always put our Blessed Lady into the picture; for the rosary is hers. We should couple rome duty or virtue with each mystery; and fix beforehand on some soul in purgatory to whom to apply the vast in­ dulgences. Meanwhile, we must not strain our minds, or be scrupulous; for to say the Rosary well is quite a thing which requires learning. Remember always, as the Raccolta teaches, that the fifteenth mystery is the coronation of Mary, and not merely the glory of the saints. Our beads land us and leave us at the feet of Mary Crowned. I should not wish to say anything that would seem to limit the devotion of others; but, all things considered, why should we have any vocal prayers which are not indulgcnced devotions, now that the Church has indulgenccd them in such abundance ? TEMPTATIONS. 277 CHAPTER XVL TEMPTATIO N 0. Temptations are the raw material of glory; and the management of them is as great a work as the government )f an empire, and requires a vigilance as incessant and as universal. It is a startling thing to look out into the world and study its ways, and then to think that God was made Man and died upon the cross for its redemption. But it is equally startling to look at the lives of good men and examine their dispositions, and then to put one jf the maxims of the Gospel alongside of them. At this very hour thousands of souls are earnestly complaining to God of their temptations, and hundreds of confessionals are filled with whispered and impatient murmurings against the vehemence or the perseverance of them. Yet, St. James says, My brethren, count it all joy when you nail fall into divers temptations. It is plain, therefore, that we either do not know or do not always bear in mind the true nature and character of temptations. They are nearly as multitudinous as our thoughts, and our only victory over them is through persisting courage, and an indomitable spirit of cheerfulness. The arrows of temp­ tation fall harmless and blunted from a gay heart, which has first of all cast itself so low in its humility that nothing can cast it lower. Be joyous, or, to use scripture words, 11 rejoice, and again I say rejoice,” and you will not heed your temptations, neither will they harm you. 24 278 TEMPTATIONS. But let us obtain a clear idea of the nature of tempta lions. It seems an obvious thing to say that in the first place they are not sins; yet it nine cases out of ten our unhappiness comes from not discerning this fact. Some defilement seems to come from the touch of a mere temp­ tation; and at the same time it reveals to us, as nothing else does, our extreme feebleness and constant need of grace and of very great grace. We are like men who do not know how sore their bruises are until they ar.,· pressed, and then we exaggerate the evil. So when temptation presses our fallen and infirm nature, the ten derness is so sensible and so acute that it gives us al once the feeling of a wound or a disease. Yet wc must be careful always to distinguish between a sin and a temptation. Temptations are either in ourselves, or outside of uh, or partly the one and partly the other. Those from within ourselves arise, either from our senses, which are free and undisciplined, or from our passions which aro wild and uncorrected. Those which are outside assail us, either by delighting us, as riches, honours, attachments and distractions, or by attacking us as the demons do ; and those which partake of the nature of both possess the attractions of both. In one sense, however, all tempta­ tions consist in an alliance between what is within us, and what is without us. As I have said before, we must not put too much upon the devil; yet neither on the other band must we be without fear of him, or without a true and scriptural estimate of his awful and malignant office. He goes about seeking whom he may devour, lie is a roaring lion, when the roar will affright us, and a noiseless serpent when success is to be ensured by secrecy. He him TEMPT ATTONA. 279 reduced the possibilities and probabilities of our destruc­ tion to a science which he applies with the most unrelent­ ing vigour, the most masterly intelligence, almost unfailing power, and with the most ubiquitous variety. If it were not for the thought of grace, its abundance and its sove­ reignty, we should not dare to contemplate the ways and means of the Satanic kingdom. Yet nowhere is it a mere fight between man and the devil. Wherever temptation is, there God is also There is not one which His will has not permitted, and there is not a permission which is not an act of love as well. He has given His whole wisdom to each tempta­ tion. He has calculated its effects, and often diminishes its power. He has weighed and measured each by the infirmity of each tempted soul. He has deliberately con­ templated the consequences of each, in union with its circumstances. The minutest feature has not escaped Him. The most hidden danger has been an element in His judgment. All this while the devil is passive and powerless. He cannot lay a finger on the child until its loving Father has prescribed the exact conditions, and has forewarned the soul by His inspirations, and fore­ armed it with proportionable succour» of grace. Nothing is at random, as if temptations were hurrying here and there, like the bullets in the air of a battle-field. More­ over, each temptation has its own crown prepared for it, if we correspond to grace and are victorious. I do not know any picture of God more affecting, or more fatherly, than the vision of Him which faith gives us in His assiduous solicitudes and paternal occupations while we are being tempted. Where wert Thou, Lord! while I was being tempted? cried the saint of the desert. Cloee 280 TEMPTATIONS to you, my son, all the while, was the tender reply As men feel sorrow to be at times a privilege, because 1' draws them into the sympathies of their superiors, so is it a joy to be tempted because it occupies God so iiitcir, and so lovingly with our little interests and cares. The highest saint in heaven can never attain to love God, a» He loves a soul struggling with temptations. Nevertheless, temptation is exquisite suffering, above that of sickness and adversity. There is something loath some in the breath which it breathes upon us, something horribly fascinating in its eye, and paralyzing in its touch. We are faint and sick with the sense of our own corrup­ tion, and helpless weakness; and the thrilling interests involved in our resisting or succumbing agitate the most inward life of our soul. It is foolish either to deny the suffering or to make light of it. In either case we shall be less able to endure it. It must be in the nearness of God, and in the prompt superfluity of grace, that we must find our cheerfulness and our consolation. With all his wisdom, the devil is constantly overreach­ ing himself in temptations, not from stupidity, though perhaps God may stupify him from time to time, but from his ignorance of the invisible amount of grace which has been mercifully sent us. God’s love is always so far above either our merits or even our expectations, that neither the tempter nor ourselves can overcome to believe it beforehand. Thus the devil sometimes tempts us too openly, and we are on our guard ; or he sends us the wrong kind of temptation, as one man sometimes gets a letter intended for another; or he sends the right temp­ tation at the wrong time; or, as he cannot always read our thoughts, he puts a wrong interpretation on our out TEMPTATIONS. 2M ward actions; or he leaves off loo soon ; or he persiste too long ; or he under-estimates the effect of penance and onr love of God on the old habits of past sin. So it is that from one cause or other he is continually over-reaching himself. This is a fact to be dwelt upon. For there are many who would, if questioned, answer quite correctly about Satan and the limitations of his power, who never­ theless practically in their own minds entertain a wrong idea of him, and their conduct under temptation shows the influence which this false view has upon them. Sometimes they are not nearly so much grieved at their falls as they ought to be, and sometimes they are panicstricken as soon as they feel themselves in his grasp ; so that for him to touch them is to conquer them. I am persuaded that a great deal of this is from their being possessed, half unconsciously, with a wrong idea of the devil, who acts upon them as the dread of ghosts acte upon children, unreasonably yet irresistibly. They look upon him as God’s rival, a sort of wicked god, with god­ like attributes all evil, and an omnipotence of iniquity They do not remember that he is simply our fellow­ creature, and a conquered and blighted creature. Wo have reason to fear him. Yet we are not panic-stricken with the hourly companionship of our own corrupt nature. And we have far more to fear from it than from him. Great however as are the pain and annoyance which the soul experiences from temptation, it is very often a gift of God not to be delivered from them. Sometimes it is even wise not to pray for deliverance, but only for valour to fight a good fight. St. Paul three times asked to have his thorn removed, in imitation doubtless of our LonYs triple prayer to have ITis chalice pass from Him; * 24 282 TEMPTATIONS. and the answer which God vouchsafed was » proof how groJ a gift the temptation, or its permission, really was [t has been remarked by an eminent writer on the interior life, and it may be a great consolation to many to know it, that when tbe devil attacks our body it is often a sign that he has been secretly attacking our soul, and has been foiled. It is also a characteristic of his efforts rather to turn us from virtue than to impel us to vice. This is par­ ticularly tbe case with spiritual people. With them sins of omission make more for him than sins of commission, not only because it is less easy to lead a spiritual man into the former than into the latter, but also because the latter more effectually rouse him to repentance. Luke­ warmness is often nothing more than a clogging up of the avenues of the soul with sins of omission, so that tbe cool and salutary inundations of grace are hindered. Nevertheless the approaches of tbe devil need hardly ever take the vigilant by surprise. Whether it be of the spiritual nature of our soul, or of the forewarnings of grace, we have almost always a presentiment of his coming, provided we have a habit of self-recollection. Tbe great thing when wc feel that presentiment is not to be perturbed, but to meet him in the calmness of humility. This calmness must never desert us during tbe whole of the fight, least of all when we feel the de­ lectation which in many cases the temptation will infal­ libly excite. I say in many cases, because there are whole classes of temptations which would not be tempta­ tions, at all were it not for the delectation. But the de­ lectation is not consent. We are not the masters of tho first indeliberate movements of our own hearts and minds. Tbe enemy may run his hand flourishingly over the keyq TEMPTATIONS. 283 before wo are aware. But there must bi a deliberate ac reptation and retention of the delectation before it can amount to conscit or become a sin. All men have their temptations, and all men’s tempta­ tions are multitudinous. But among the various paths by which God cjnducts chosen souls, one is the way of temptations. These souls then are not in the case of other men. Temptation is their road, and their only road. They pass through crowds of them, and from one crowd into another, each surpassing its predecessor in horror and ugliness. But this is not God’s ordinary way, and we are not concerned with legislating for it here. Yet the fact that God can make a way of perfection consist of temptations only, throws considerable light on the nature of temptation generally. But from the nature let us pass to the times of temp­ tation. It is to be observed that we may often have seasons of great grace, without being at all aware of it, from the extreme hiddenness of the operations of the Holy Ghost in our souls. But temptation is a much more obvious thing than grace j and it is generally tbe case that a season of peculiar temptation is also a season of peculiar grace. And this it is a consolation to know. Thus, when St. Stephen’s heroic faith was passing through its extremest temptations, he beheld our Lord, not sitting, but standing, at the right hand of the Father, expressive of the aid He was rendering to Hie servant in his hour of need. Temptations also vary with tbe times of the spiritual life to which they belong. Tbe temptations of beginners are not those of proficients, nor those of proficients the temptations of the perfect If all are terrible, all are io God's hands, and so we may 28ί TEMPTATIONS. be tranquil and of good cheer. There are also times i»‘ temptation, when our own past sin, or our present culpab n inadvertence, is the cause of them. We have brought them upon ourselves; and this makes them all the hard.r for our self-love to bear. Still, even though they an· the just and immediate chastisement of our own faults, the patient endurance of them is not the less meritorious ; and disquietude forms no part of accepted penance. Times of prayer are also times of peculiar temptation. This was naturally to be expected, inasmuch as there is nothing the devil so much desires to interrupt as our communication with God. Indeed, the access and vehe­ mence of temptations form a part of the supernatural difficulties of prayer. The spiritual life itself, with its times of retreat or of increased recollection, brings us into seasons of peculiar temptation. The world with its out ward attractions is removed from us, and the devil, in dread of these epochs of recollection, more than supplies their place with his inward appliances of temptation. There are times also when he teases us with temptations to which he knows beforehand that we shall not yield ; yet in which he finds his account because they disquiet us, or dishearten us, or throw us intr a general irritability. There are other times in which he tempts us in the grace we have just used to overcome him, and in the strength of which we actually have overcome him. The reason of this is that our success has thrown us off our guard, and we never dream of failing in a virtue which but a moment before has flushed us with the joy of victory Thus, our Lord having put His confidence in His Father the devil first tempted Him by it. From the times of temptation we pass to its kink TEMPTATIONS. 28ft Some temptations arc frequent: and there is a peculiat danger in their frequency. They dissipate us, and break up the calm of our recollection. Or they tire us, and al last wc sit down and give up tho battle out of weariness Or wc get used to them, and lose our wholesome fear of them. These frequent temptations have generally some connection with our ruling passion. Some temptations ar· durable, and they also have dangers of their own, and con­ solations of their own. Their chief danger is their out­ living our powers of perseverance; and their chief conso­ lation is that their very durability is a sign they have not triumphed. The pressure is removed the moment we consent; and consequently the lasting of the burden is a measure of the grace God has given us to resist it. Although Jesus seems fast asleep in the boat, yet that it is not submerged in the dark angry waters is because He is there. There are other temptations which are brief, brief and gentle, or brief and violent. The brief and gentle leave us in doubt whether we have not consented, and so perplex us : the brief and violent stun us for the moment, and leave us in an amazement during which other temptations may come and surprise us. Each virtue has its own attendant temptations, set like spies round about it by the devil. The great object of these is to make us retire from holy enterprise, and reduce us to an unmeritorious inaction. We must meet these as Bt. Bernard met the devil when he tempted him to vain­ glory in the middle of a sermon, “I did not begin for you, and so I shall not leave off for you.” Temptations which approach us by the senses are proof against all weapons except those of mortification and the sacraments. Temptations against faith and chastity are two classes .<86 TEMPTATIONS. apart, and bave this peculiarity, that they are never t<> U directly resisted, but fled from. We must distract our selves from them instead of striking them. There are other temptations, which are merely feelers to explore our possibilities of sin. Tbe devil sends these out to gain knowledge of us, as be cannot read our hearts ■* just as a besieging army sends rockets here and there into a city to try for the powder magazines. But among all these kinds of temptations, there is no one class, which is any sign that our souls are in an evil state. Spiritual writers lay this down as an undoubted fact; and yet how much self-torment there is in the world because silly peevish souls will persist in acting as if its contrary were true. But what are the uses of tempations ? So many and so great that I can do no more than indicate a few of them here. They try us, and we are worth nothing if wo are not tried. Our trial is the one thing God cares for, and it is the only thing which gives us the least knowledge of ourselves. They disgust us with the world almost as effectually as tbe sweetnesses which God gives us in prayer. And bow bard it is to become thoroughly disgusted with tbe world : and bow very much more we really love the world than we have any idea of! Oh, of what price ought anything to be which helps us to a true and final divorce from this seductive world ! They enable us to merit more, that is, they increase God’s love of us, and our love of God, and our glory with God hereafter. They punish us for past sins; and we ought to court such • Surin says be can ; but tbe consent of theologians is against him; and bis phenomena are explicable without denying the ad­ mitted maxima of the schools. TEMPTATIONS 287 punishments eagerly, for five minutes of free-will suffer­ ing on earth are worth five years of the tardy cruelties of purgatory. They purify us for God’s presence, which is the very office of purgatory itself, and anticipate its work and so prevent its fires. They prepare us for spi­ ritual consolations, perhaps they even earn them for ns. St. Philip says that God gives us first a dark and then a bright day all through life. Can words tell the joy it is to be consoled by God? Are not souls whom He has touched obliged to hold their tongues, because they have no words to express the happiness it was? And probably without the temptation, the consolation never would have come. Or if it had come, it might have harmed us. Tbe temptation has made us capable of bearing it without loss, and tasting it and not fainting away with its unearthly sweetness. Temptations teach us our own weakness, and so humble us ; and could our guardian angels do more than this for us, in all the variety of their affectionate ministrations ? Dear Prince, more than brother ! I say it not in light esteem of his unutterable kindness, who never leaves me a solitary speck in this huge creation of God, and whose services I shall never know till they all meet me at the doom brighter than a thousand suns, and whose love will come to a head rather than to an end when he embraces me in the first moment of the resur rection of tbe flesh ! But he wishes nothing so much as to keep me bumble, and temptations help him to do the work. They give us also a greater esteem of grace, and the want of this is daily the cause of more evil in tbe world than the devil can cause in a whole century. Grace grows by being îstecmed. It multiplies itself when it is honoured, just as faith merits miracles, while infidelity 288 TEMPTATIONS. hinders even our Lord from working them. They make virtue take deeper root, and so they play their part in the grand grace of final perseverance. How shallow would all spirituality be if it were not for temptations . How shallow good men actually are, who are not much tempted I Ths Church can never trust them in her hour of need. They are always on the side on which St. Tho­ mas of Canterbury would not have been. Temptations again make us more watchful, and so instead of leading into sin, they hinder shoals of sins. They make us more fervent, and kindle in us such a fire of love as burns away the hay and straw of venial sin, and cauteri-ies the half­ healed wounds which mortal sin has made. A transport of generous love can do a work as great, and the great work as well, as a year’s fast on bread and water, with a discipline a day. Lastly, they teach us spiritual science : for wbat we know of self, of the world, of the demons, and of the artifices of divine grace, is chiefly from the pheno mena of temptation, and from our defeats quite as mucl as from our victories. These are the uses of temptations, and they leave seven permanent blessings behind them. They leave us merit, which is no transient thing. Nay, such is its vitality that when mortal sin has put it to death, penance can bring it to life again. They leave us love, both God’s love of us and our love of Him. They leave us humility; and with that all other gifts of God; for tbe Holy Spirit Himself rests upon the humble, and makes His dwelling in theii hearts. They leave us solidity. Our building is so much higher than it was, and its foundations more safely and more permanently settled. They leave us self-knowledge, without wbiîh al’ we do is done in the dark, and the TEMPTATIONS. 2*9 never shines up-in the soul, and the ground is n;ver clear for the operations of grace. They leave us self-love killed; and has life a fairer task than the burial of ite worst and most odious enemy? Its dead body is more to us than the relic of an apostle, and surely that is saying much. They leave us thrown upon God. For no nurse ever put a babe into its father’s arms more carefully or more securely than temptations put us into the extended arms of God. And yet we complain — complain of our temptations ! Perverse race ! it has always been so; from beneath the apple-tree in Eden to this hour, we do not know our own happiness, and in our ignorance we pick a special quarrel with it ! Mistakes can be made about temptations as about every thing else in the spiritual life; and many have been already implied and explained in what has been said. There are, however, four particular mistakes on which a few words may be of use. The first mistake is that we are apt to think the time spent in combating temptations is time lost. We are all very well and very tranquil, and more or less consciously in the presence of God, at our ordinary occupations; but the time comes for visiting the Blessed Sacrament, and all at once we are assailed with a multiplicity of temptations. We have but a quarter of an hour to be there, and the whole time has gone in doing battle with these miserable temptations; or we rise in tbe morning, full of the thought of God, and say prayers while we arc dressing. We then kneel down to begin our meditation, and a host of temptations forthwith assail us The hour-glass runs down, and what have we done? No­ thing but fight, and it seems, too, unsatisfactorily, with these pestering temptations. Now we must remember 25 T rui. 290 TEMPTATIONS. that wJ me not to serve God for consolations, or affor ouf own fashion, and according to our own taste; but accord ing to Ilis wisdom and His will, Ilis rewards arc not attached to the good works we prescribe to ourselves, but to the combats in which it is Ilis good pleasure to involve us. Time can never be lost which is spent, in doing the will of God. On the contrary, all time is lost which is spent otherwise. What is our object ? It is either to bo glorifying God, or to be perfect, or to reach heaven. Fighting a temptation is the shortest road to all these three ends. The second mistake is the misapprehension of tempta­ tions by negligent souls. Sometimes they think it a mark of spiritual advancement to be inactive and almost passive under temptations. They apply to themselves advices which belong only to the perfect, or maxims which were intended for the scrupulous. Thus they fall into a perni­ cious habit of letting dangerous thoughts pass through their minds, without demanding or examining their pass­ ports; and this not only weakens their mind, but seems to saturate it with undesirable images and inclinations. Their feeling about sin ceases to be what it was, and their confidence in themselves increases as the probabilities of a fall increase also. The consequence of all this is a state of torpor and of general slovenliness with God, from which if they are roused at all, it is probably by the commission of mortal sin. Lukewarm souls have sometimes been renewed to holiness in this dreadful way, and God has shown them mercy even in the judicial chastisement of this adorable permission. But it is -a process, the verj thought of which should make us shudder, and which probably never happened to any one who was negligent TEMPTATIONS. 291 because he trusted to repentance wilfully delayed, and tn the uncertain possibilities of an eventual reconciliation with God. Whoever has familiarized himself with what he knows are temptations, and has domesticated the thought of them in his mind, no matter of what class they may be, has taken a decided step towards that state of tepidity whose logical development is final impenitence. The third mistake concerns our use of the calms which come between the storms of periodical temptations. Every one knows by his own experience that be is subject to particular classes, or to one particular class of tempta­ tions, which come round in perfect hurricanes, like circu­ lar storms with fair and tranquil weather between. We have been going on in our ordinary way. We see no reason for a change, either in ourselves or in external cir­ cumstances, when all at once the storm is down upon us, with the same sort of panic the heathen felt when it thundered out of a clear sky. We are possessed with the images of the temptation. Every outward object turns into them. We hear voices, as we think, and inar­ ticulate sounds shape themselves into intelligible words. The lines of books run into the ideas of temptation, and prayers and holy names seem only fresh food for the beleaguered imagination. We are sunk, overhead, deep down, in temptations, and the masterful current is sweep­ ing in eddies above us. It is not as with Peter that a Hand was held out as we were in the act of sinking. We are sunk. Yes ! and Jesus is with us in the d»< *p where we are. Now in the storm we have simply nothing to do but to hold fast to God with all our might and main. There is no help for it. We cannot legislate for a hurri­ cane. The real work of the storm must be done in the 21*2 TF.MPTAT IO NN. preceding caln.. It is a mistake to look upon these caln. as a time of rest when we may give ourselves up to ths simple enjoyment of the absence of the temptations, or of the spiritual sweetness with which these tempests are commonly followed. We must lay our plans then, and make our resolutions, with a foresight of what we have to encounter. We must fix on occasions to avoid, increase our mortifications, and redouble our prayers. If we have gone down in many a storm, it has been because we made holydays of our calms. Remember, in the spiritual life there are recreations; but there are no holydays. That school breaks up but once, and the home afterwards is eternal. A fourth mistake is tbe delusion with which tbe devil tries to possess us, that if we give way in some of the circumstances of the temptation, or to the temptation itself short of sin, we shall weaken it. Our whole mind seems so completely overlaid with the images of tempta­ tion, that we think we shall suffer some permanent moral injury, if it lasts, and that anything short of sin is not allowable only, but desirable also, which will release us from it. It is strange that so gross a snare should ever succeed; yet it does so in many cases. We must remem­ ber, therefore, that to yield is to weaken ourselves, not the temptation. We shall get no foothold so strong as our first; and men often discover to their cost that even a change of position, without abandoning an attitude of defence, is as good as a defeat in the time of temptation. But how arc we to overcome temptations ? Cheerful­ ness is the first thing, cheerfulness the second, and cheer­ fulness tbe third. The devil is chained. He can bark, but he cannot bite, unless we go up to him and let him TK.M STATIONS 293 ο » bo We must be of good courage The power of temptation is in the fainting of our ow *i hearts. Confi­ dence in God is another spiritual weapon, the more potent because no one can have confidence in God who has not th·· com pietest diffidence of himself. God’s cause is ours fjr temptation is more really the devil’s wrath against God who has punished him, than against us, whom he only envies. Our ruin is imposant to him only as it is a blow at God’s glory. Thus God is bound to us, as it were; as it is for His sake that we are thus persecuted. We may be sure, indeed we know infallibly, that we shall never be tried beyond our strength. Prayer, especially ejaculatory prayer, is another obvious means of victory, together with mortification and the frequenting of the sacraments, which are all of them wells of supernatural fortitude. Examination of conscience must help us to detect the weak and vulnerable parts of our nature; and then we must exercise ourselves in acts contrary not only to oui peculiar infirmities, but also to our besetting temptations We must avoid idleness, and crush beginnings. We must not speak of our temptations indiscriminately to persons who have no right to know anything about them, nor even to our spiritual friends. It gives no real relief, and it feeds the ideas. Neither must we be cast down if our director treats our temptations more lightly than we think they deserve. What is the good of speaking to him at all about them, if we are not going to obey bis rules and adopt his view and follow his advice? In times of temptation we must be very careful not tn retrench any of our spiritual exercises, a line of conduct or which the evil one may suggest very specious reasons * 25 294 ΛΜΓΤΑΤΙ0Ν8. We haxe neea 01 all our strength at that moment; βτ . we never know to which of our ordinary exercises God attaches His grace. It would have been better for the apostles to have struggled through a drowsy, dry, dis­ tracted prayer, than to have simply gone to sleep in the garden of Gethsemane. We must remember also that all our spiritual exorcises are less prompt and pleasant when we are under temptations ; because wc are teased and puzzled by them. Hence nature is more likely to suggest the abridgment or discontinuance of some of them, on the ground of their being useless and spiritless But although things are established by the mouth of two witnesses, those two must not be the devil and the human spirit. We must also be cautious not to change our pur­ poses at such times. The dust and smoke of the battle bang over us, and darken all things. It is not a time for us to see God’s will about changes and vocations His will just then is that we resist the evil, and therefore that is the single thing for us to do. Nay, we must befrare even of any new good which makes its appearance, knocks at the door of our heart, or puts itself ready­ made into our hands, at such a season. St. Ignatius long since warned us of a family of temptations which present themselves in the disguise of good. God would not send us the good then, or in that way. Ilis will, once more, is that we should resist the evil. The good will keep, if it be real good ; and He will send us peace­ able times when we can calmly and deliberately take it upon ourselves. We must also be upon our guard against very little temptations, or such as we should call little. For things must have comparative magnitudes, even where our souli TEMPTATIONS. 2»5 i»Ti concerned. It is no uncommon thing {or a man who has resisted great temptations to fall in little ones. This is very intelligible. Wherever there is dignity in an action or a suffering we can the better brace ourselves up to it; for we can draw largely upon nature as well as grace. Self-love likes dignity, and will go through end­ less pain, as if it were an insensible thing, in order to obtain it. Hence comes the importance of little things in religion. Nature has less to do with them, and so they rivet our union with God more closely. The con­ version of souls, works of mercy on a grand scale, visit­ ing prisons, preaching, hearing confessions, and even establishing religious institutes, are comparatively easy works when put by the side of exactitude in daily duties, observation of petty rules, minute custody of the senses, kind words and modest exterior which preach the pre­ sence of God. We gain more supernatural glory in little things, because more fortitude is required, as they are continuous, uninterrupted, and with no dignity about them to spur us on. All the strength we require must be found within. We have no outward place or praise of men, to rest our lever on, and furthermore heroism in little things is more a matter of endurance than of action. Lt is a perpetual constraint Moreover, our spirit is more effectually taken captive in little things. Its defeats are more frequent. The very continuity of the actions forms a linked chain, which extends to many things. No attachment is to be merely natural, no word unweigbed, no step precipitate, no plea­ sure enjoyed sensually, no joy to evaporate in dissipation, the heart never to rest on carnal tenderness alone, no action to have its spring in self-will. We tremble at such RES CLAMAT DOMINO 290 TEMPTATIONS. seeming impossibilities of perfection;—yet it is only flic perfection of little things! Then, again, there is somo thing so humbling and secret in little things. Who kn if we count our words, or what feelings wc arc cm bing ? God will let us fall in these very respects to hide us more in Himself, and from the eyes of men. We carry tho mortification of Jesus about us unseen. It is a slow martyrdom of love. God is the only spectator of our agony. Nay, we ourselves find it hard to realize that we are doing purely for God such a multitude of trivial things; hence we have no room for vain-glory, no falla­ cious support of conscious human rectitude. But in these little things we not only gain more glory for ourselves, but we give more glory to God. We show more esteem for Ilim in them ; for there must necessarily be more pure motive and sheer faith in little than in great things. Great things by their greatness often hide God ; and at the best the esteem in great things is mostly divided Detween God and the glory of the action, and so the whole work is tainted Whereas tbe littleness and vileness of small things, their apparent facility and men’s contempt for them, leave the soul face to face with God in the dis enchanting twilight of interior mortification. But it is not merely esteem. More actual tribute is paid to God in little things. In great things wc have more help given us, and we give God less because wc have to labour less. The abundance of grace, the sweetness of it, and tbe animation of spirit from the pursuit of a great object, are three things which lessen our own labour. Yet it is our own toil that is the real tribute to God, just as dry prayers are said to be more meritorious than sweet ones. In great things too we seldom have tbe liberty of acting as we please. ΤΕΜΡΤΛΤΙΟΝΗ. 297 !η little ones wc have, and we pay that liberty away hoot by h'>ur to Gad as a tribute of fidelity and love. But esteem and tribute are not all. We sacrifice more to God in little things. We think little of little things, and so wc make the sacrifice, not in swelling thoughts of mightiness, but out of a subdued feeling of our own utter nothingness, and of the immensity of our being allowed to make any sacrifice to God at all. We sacrifice also our self-interest, which is not attracted by anything in these ignoble victims; and so we seek God only, and put aside the pursuit of praise and self. We forego also the enjoy­ ment of strenuous manly action ; for what manliness, as men count things, is there in regularity, littleness, exact * ness, and obscurity? Yet this is the only road to solid virtue. It was not what we read of in the saints that made them saints : it was what we do not read of them that enabled them to be what we wonder at while we read. Words cannot tell the abhorrence nature has of the piece­ meal captivity of little constraints. And as to little temp­ tations, I can readily conceive a man having the grace to be roasted over a slow fire for our dearest Mother’s Im­ maculate Conception or the Pope’s Supremacy, who would not have the grace to keep his temper in a theological conversation on either of those points of the catholic faith. One more question remains about temptations. How shall we behave when we ourselves are overcome ? There is but one answer, one advice : it is childish : but is there any other ? When we fall we must rise again, and go on our way, wishing ourselves, after a Christian fashion, better luck another time. 298 SCRUPLES CHAPTER XVII SCRUPLES. A SCRUPULOUS man teases God, irritates his neigh hour, torments himself, and oppresses his director. It Æould require a whole volume to prove these four infalli­ ble propositions; the reader must, therefore, either take them on faith, or make the acquaintance of a scrupulous man. Every one who is in trouble and disgrace deserves commiseration ; but our pity is lessened when the sufferer has no one to blame but himself, and it well-nigh departs altogether when he remains in his suffering of his own obstinate will. Now this is the case with scrupulous per­ lions during all the earlier stages of their complaint, before they become incurable. They are the opprobrium of spiritual physicians, and so intensely difficult is their cure that God has sometimes allowed those, who were hereafter to be the guides of souls, to pass through a supernatural state of scruples, that they might be the better able tc minister to the disease in others. It is a great part of the science of the spiritual life to know a temptation from a sin ; and a scruple may almost be defined to be the culpa ble ignorance of this Another man may discern that my scruple is not a ein ; but if I discerned it for myself, it would not be a scruple ; and if I took it on faith when my director.told me, I should not be a scrupulous man This lets us into the secret of the malice of scruples. They are not sins, but they are so full of wrong disposi RCR1TPLF.B. 2OT tions that they can become sins at a moment’s notice, be­ sides being sources of many sins under the pretext of good. They are little centres of spiritual death spotting the soul, a kind of moral erysipelas. It is unfortunate that scrupulous persons are always spoken of with great compassion, far more than they deerve. Ilcnce they elevate their scruples to an interior trial of the soul; which they sometimes are, but very seldom. It is unfortunate also that in common conver­ sation the word scruple is often used in a good sense, as if it were something respectable, and a sort of vague syno­ nym for conscientiousness. It would, therefore, be a great thing if men could get well into their minds this ascetical truth, that there is nothing respectable about a scruple. It has no intellectual worth. It merits no moral esteem. It has not the faintest element of spiritual good in it. It is simply a perversity and a wrongness, deserving of pity certainly, but of the same kind and amount as we have for a man who is going to be hung. Francesca of Pam pcluna saw many souls in purgatory only for scruples; and when this surprised her, our Lord told her there never was a scruple which was wholly without sin. This was, of course, not meant to apply to supernatural scru­ ples, which we shall consider presently. But scruples are not only bad in themselves. They give rise to countless other mischiefs ; and one of the most provoking of them is, that men are often deterred from the pursuit of per­ fection and the constraints of the interior life by the fear of scruples. A scruple is defined in theology to be a vain fear of sin where there is no reason nor reasonable ground for suspecting sin ; and it is sometimes explained in etymo- «00 RCnUriiRS. logy to mean a stone in a man’s shoe which makes hin walk lame, and wounds him at every step, which is not an inapt figure for expressing its consequences in the spi ritual life. We may also compare a scrupulous man to r norse shying at shadows, and so making little progress, backing, disobeying the rein, often endangering the ridei, and always trying his temper. Moreover, he runs into real sin from startling at the shadow of imaginary sin ; and all this is so connected with pride that the tcndei St. Philip gave no quarter to scrupulous persons who would not pay blind obedience to the rules given them Thus scruples are quite distinct from delicacy of con science, which is known by its not only being reasonable but much more by its being tranquil; neither is a scrupk the same thing as laxity, but Gerson thinks that it ii almost worse. The first question for us to consider regards the causes of scruples. These are three : God, the devil, and our selves, or the human spirit ; and to these last the body eontributes as well as the soul. First, then, scruples may be from God. These are what T have called supernatural scruples. God may per mit us to fall into them for various reasons. Sometimes it is to prepare us for the office of directing souls, in which it is important that we should have an experimental knowledge of scruples, so as to guide others safely through them. Sometimes it is as an exterior trial, or what mystics call a purgation of spirit; and their use is ono while to wean us from an excessive attachment to spiri­ tual sweetnesses and the extraordinary favours of God, and another while to let us have our purgatory on earth, and another whi\e to destroy the lingering activity of snlf- RCRUPTÆ8. 301 love. He thug cleanses us from our ptst faults by a most apt, yet extremely severe penance, confirme us in a salu­ tary fear, an