Of Tepidity

Tepidity is the ordinary fruit of venial sin, next to which it is, without doubt, the greatest obstacle to solid virtue.

Even as a lingering illness so far enervates the body as to incapacitate it for the least exertion, so tepidity weakens and arrests the soul in the way of perfection.

To stimulate ourselves to attack so dangerous a disease, and promptly rid our soul of it, let us consider its malice and its baneful effects. We shall next study the marks by which it may be recognised and the remedies by which it may be overcome.

Article I

Of the malice of tepidity

1. The tepid soul resembles the field of the slothful man

The irregular affections and frequent faults which each moment inflict new wounds on the tepid soul, liken it to “the field of the slothful man, all filled with nettles;”¹1Prov. xxiv. 30, 31. and to “the vineyard of the foolish man, the face of which was covered with thorns; the stone wall” that defended it—that is, interior recollection and the special protection of God—having been “broken down.”²2Prov. xxiv. 31. “As the boar out of the wood, and the wild beast lays waste”³3Ps. lxxix. 14. and devastates the deserted vineyard, so tepidity effects the most dreadful havoc in the soul of which it has taken possession. It so impairs the germs of virtue that, far from improving with years, it finds itself less virtuous in an advanced age than it was in the days of its youth. Tepid, languishing, sterile soul, well mayest thou be compared to the “barren fig-tree of the Gospel;” tree, accursed by Jesus Christ Himself, and which “immediately withered away.”⁴4Matt. xxi. 19. Thou art that ungrateful “earth that often drinketh in the waters of grace,” but p. 26because it bringeth forth only “the thorns and briars” of vices, “it is very near unto a curse.”⁵5Heb. vi. 7, 8.

Ah! could we but raise the veil which conceals the conscience of the tepid man, we would probably be terrified to see there the “wicked abominations,” figured by the “creeping things and living creatures with which Ezechias beheld the Temple filled.”⁶6Ezech. viii. 9, 10. In reality, is not this but too faithful a picture of the false principles by which we seek to stifle the remorse necessarily awakened by our detractions, quarrels, hatred, jealousy, rivalry, pride, murmurings, acrimony, and that self-love which artfully insinuates itself into all our actions?

2. The life of the tepid man is but a succession of irreligious actions

Let us represent to ourselves the wretched state of the tepid Christian in the discharge of the holiest duties of religion. In approaching the Holy Table he presents us with the spectacle of the “abomination of desolation in the holy place.”⁷7Mark xiii. 14. His countenance, look, gait, in fine, his whole demeanour, indicate the languor which oppresses his soul. The Cherubim burn with love, the Seraphim tremble with awe, and he meantime assumes an irreverent and careless posture. Devoid of every particle of piety, he amuses himself with vain, puerile, frivolous thoughts at the very moment that the most tremendous mysteries are being wrought, at the moment that he is receiving into his heart the Bread of Angels: Does he approach the Sacrament of Penance, his preparation is so careless and negligent that this same act of reconciliation must be atoned for by a new confession. Faithless soul! ere the lapse of an hour he shall have fallen back into those faults he had promised to amend. His vocal prayers are recited with such precipitation, irreverence, and dissipation, that his only object seems to be to get rid of them, and to attract on himself this malediction of the Royal Prophet: “May his prayer be turned to sin.”⁸8Ps. cviii. 7. Truly culpable is his conduct in thus provoking the anger of God by the means most adapted to conciliate him. If deterred by the fear of scandal from omitting his pious exercises, he performs them only through custom, human respect, necessity, to save appearances and to deceive others; his soul, meantime, being weary of them.

Thus he acquires a habit of confessing without amendment, communicating without devotion, meditating without fruit, acting without purity of intention, rule, or order, through the whim of the moment, or some equally unchristian motive. Seated at the very source of grace, but as inert as the “sick man who lay thirty-eight years at the well of Bethsaida,” never is he cured of his spiritual “infirmity.”⁹9John v. 5. The thought of God is irksome to him, he alienates himself from the guidance of Divine Providence. A stranger to himself, he shrinks from investigating the depths of his conscience. Dissipated exteriorly, oblivious of God’s presence without being more present to himself, dreading labour, thinking only of self-gratification, repose, and pleasure, he laughs at the idea of venial sin, committing it without anxiety or regret for the most trifling cause, “for a piece of bread.”¹⁰10Ezech. xiii. 19.

3. God soon begins to vomit him out of His mouth

Leading, as he does, a life full of defects, what wonder is it that the tepid soul exposes itself to an approaching p. 27curse? What wonder that it so disgusts the heart of God that He must soon reject it as something insupportably loathsome? “Because thou art lukewarm I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.”¹¹11Apoc. iii. 16. A fearful anathema confirmed by the lips of God Himself.

Dastardly slave of tepidity, hearken to this threat. Listen and tremble. God is about to reject thee! God! He who so tenderly seeks out and receives sinners, who seats Himself as a friend at their table, entertains such a disgust for thee that, despite His burning love, He can no longer tolerate thee; He is about to vomit thee out of His mouth! Can we image to ourselves a more frightful picture of the consequences of relaxation in piety? Vomiting fatigues us; it sickens and disgusts us in future with the food which has provoked it. Tepid soul, behold thy portrait! This, according to the striking similitude of Scripture, is a vivid illustration of thy state. Hapless being! thou disgustest the heart of thy God, thou exasperatest His paternal charity against thee, and thou art not terrified! Thy God is about to cast thee off, thou art about to become an object of loathing to Him and the whole celestial court, and thou tremblest not! Thou readest these awful warnings which the mercy of God still vouchsafest to thee, without being impressed or animated to fervour! Thou believest that His words shall be verified, and thou sheddest no tears of repentance; thou abidest in thy tepidity! This very meditation itself thou makest without fruit. Slothful soul! If threats like these fail to arouse thee, what shall be able to do so? Alas! absolute coldness, that is mortal sin itself, though the climax of misfortune, is, in some respects, less to be dreaded than tepidity. p. 28True, mortal sin is, in itself, a greater evil, but very often the effects of tepidity are more pernicious. For this reason it is that God seems to be less apprehensive of the former for us, and exclaims, in the anguish of His heart: “I would thou wert cold.”¹²12Apoc. iii. 15. Such is the aversion with which a soul enslaved by spiritual languor inspires Him that He consents to see it the victim of mortal sin rather than endure its lukewarmness.

O my soul! renounce thy tepidity even now, recognising as thou dost its danger and its malice. Redeem lost time, renew thy fervour; “be mindful from whence thou art fallen and do penance, and do the first works. Or else God, to avenge Himself, will come to thee, will move thy candlestick out of its place”¹³13Apoc. ii. 5. and will expel thee for ever from His presence. “Oh! God of mercy,”¹⁴142 Esdras ix. 31. “cast me not away from Thy face.”¹⁵15Ps. l. 13. “I am the barren fig-tree,”¹⁶16Luke xiii. 7. “the unfruitful vine.”¹⁷17John xv. 6. Long since have I deserved to be cut down, to be deprived of the care of the husbandman. But filled with fear at the sight of my ingratitude for all Thy bounty, I firmly purpose to atone for my past tepidity by a uniform and persevering fervour. Thou, my God, “art a consuming fire;”¹⁸18Heb. xii. 29. melt, then, I implore Thee, the ice of my heart, and grant that I may serve Thee with a fervour commensurate with my tardiness in doing so.

Article II

1. Of the effects of tepidity

1. This spiritual malady is exceedingly difficult of cure. So constant and unvarying is the care required for the extirpation of this baneful vice, that St. Paul gives us but little hope of its accomplishment. “It is impossible,” that is, extremely difficult, “for those who were once illuminated and are fallen away to be renewed again to penance.”¹⁹19Heb. vi. 4, 6.

Tepidity is the principle of an almost incurable spiritual disease; because, to cure a malady, it is essential to understand its nature and gravity. Now, the tepid man does not believe himself such; or, at least, he does not fully realise the extent of the evil from which he suffers, since blindness of mind necessarily accompanies tepidity, and a knowledge of his state would be the beginning of fervour. He is in imminent peril and he fancies himself in security; sinful, and he imagines himself innocent; infirm, and he believes himself robust. He has no idea of recurring to remedies. He still each day performs his exercises of piety, but he does so mechanically; he occasionally executes some good, but it is done imperfectly, and, deceived by this illusive appearance of virtue, he perceives not the depth of his misery. A thought of the necessity of extricating himself from it never even dawns upon him, and hence the difficulty of his cure.

2. But even though the tepid man should desire to regain his fervour, his disease is such that it renders the most wholesome food prejudicial. Meditations, examens, confessions, retreats, all spiritual exercises, are performed so slothfully by him that these powerful helps of grace, instead of producing fruit, prove detrimental to him. He incites others to the practice of those virtues which are wanting to himself, preserving them by his admonitions from the vices which dishonour his own soul, and prescribing spiritual remedies for them from which, however, personally he derives no benefit. Immovable as a fingerpost on the roadside, he points out the way but does not follow it; being all the more culpable in that he knows the paths of fervour but will not walk on them.

St. Bernard felt convinced that the conversion of a sinner, however steeped in guilt, presented less obstacles than did that of a tepid religious. The sight of a crucifix, the thought of death, judgment, or the eternal pains of hell, have often moved obdurate sinners to repentance; whilst the tepid man, on the contrary, accustomed to meditate lightly and superficially on these great truths, is as little affected by them as the constant spectators of death are touched by the convulsive struggles of the dying.

3. A last and efficacious remedy for this evil would be a special grace capable of enabling him to shake off his spiritual torpor; but the sloth of which he is the slave renders even this abortive.

Intoxicated by his passions, rarely recollected, he disobeys the movements of the Holy Ghost, turns a deaf ear to the inspirations of grace, and voluntarily continues in his tepidity. Is it then to be wondered at that God ceases His importunities and delivers him up to his unhappy blindness!

More than this: the good effected by the tepid man is badly done. Sinning almost incessantly, he deprives himself of the special favours and visits of the Almighty. Now and then a ray of heavenly light illumines the obscurity of his mind and thaws his frozen heart, but these favours are evanescent, and frequently tepidity lasts for life.

My God! who would not dread this fearful vice? However, I will not despair, for “all things are possible to him that believeth.”²⁰20Mark ix. 22. O Jesus! Thou who didst restore p. 30Lazarus to life, when his body had already become a prey to the corruption of the tomb, I recur to Thee with unbounded confidence. “Thou camest to send fire on earth, and what wouldst Thou but that it be kindled?”²¹21Luke xii. 49. Inflame my heart with its vivifying warmth, and grant that it may never be extinguished.

2. Tepidity exposes the soul to the danger of mortal sin

The second effect of tepidity is to expose us to the proximate danger of mortal sin. The tepid man, accustomed to his defects, commits venial sin without scruple; he reflects but rarely, and then apathetically, on the grievousness of mortal sin and the motives for avoiding it; the horror which he should have of this sin insensibly diminishes till his conscience no longer fears it. He permits his imagination to amuse itself with unchaste thoughts, allows a dangerous liberty to his senses, dallies with temptation, rashly hesitating between resistance and consent till he has even cause to doubt whether he has not taken pleasure in it. He forms for himself lax principles, or rather he “makes vain excuses for his sins.”²²22Ps. cxl. 4. At length, assailed by some more than ordinarily violent temptation, he falls into the gulf of mortal sin. Oh! could we but catch a glimpse of those souls confined within the prisons of purgatory and hell; could the voice of their wailings reach us, how many should we not hear cursing their tepidity and verifying amid groans of anguish the threats of Holy Writ. “He that contemneth small things, shall fall by little and little.”²³23Eccli. xix. 1. But who so reckless of little things as the tepid soul? If, as St. Jerome remarks, sooner or later we must perish in the danger we have long courted, what must be the p. 31fate of the tepid man, walking as he habitually does along the edge of the precipice? who, if not he, incurs the risk of being lost for ever? Here let us recall the awful apostasy of the Prince of the Apostles. Having accompanied the Redeemer to the Garden of Olives, Peter yielded to tepidity. Neglecting prayer, he slept. When the soldier led away the Saviour, the Apostle followed Him, it is true, but it was “afar off,”²⁴24Matt. xxvi. 58. and mingling with the servants of the High Priest, he approached the fire, for “it was cold;”²⁵25John xviii. 18. but far more to be dreaded was the mortal chill which had fallen on Peter’s heart. Before the cock crowed twice he had thrice denied his Master. Thus it was that the odious vice of tepidity overthrew the strongest pillar of the Church.

Christian soul, beware! your lethargy indulged in may lead you on to mortal sin, and in this state you possibly may die!

Lord, my God! Look on me in Thy great mercy, withdraw me from this wretched state, “that I may never sleep in death.”²⁶26Ps. xii. 4.

3. It exposes us to an irreligious death

Death is the echo of life. A holy death after a tepid life would be a kind of miracle.

At the approach of death the tepid man has no desire of heaven; his heart is altogether earthly, he fears death which is about to tear him away from all that he loves; he is filled with dismay, should they venture to broach to him the subject of his approaching dissolution. He feels his strength decaying, the sands of life are ebbing fast, his agony is close at hand, and yet he deludes himself into the belief that he has still a long career before him. Thus, at the supreme moment, with life eluding his grasp and his soul hovering on the confines of eternity, instead of trying to merit a holy death, he is wholly occupied in seeking means for his restoration. The pains incidental to his disease are borne with an impatience which might be looked for in a heathen, to whom the name and sufferings of Jesus Christ were utter strangers, because self-love, personal comfort, and sensual gratification have been the constant subjects of his thoughts. The depraved inclinations of his heart which he has never sought to curb now tyrannise over him more violently than ever. Everything displeases, annoys, is insupportable to him. The priest suggests holy affections; but devoid, as he long has been, of all religious sentiments, he cannot, suffering as he is in mind and body, follow or even understand his admonitions.

He has habituated himself to indifference in the discharge of all his religious duties: can it be hoped that any he may now perform will be supernatural or meritorious?

It is appalling to witness the listlessness and indevotion with which he prepares himself for the last sacraments, if, indeed, in punishment of his tepidity, a sudden death do not deprive him of them. He makes his confession languidly. With the apathy of a heretic he receives into his heart the Lamb of God, who is so soon to be his judge and most formidable adversary. He is anointed with the holy oil, but he is abstracted or asleep. He is supinely indifferent to what is taking place around him. And yet, these are the last, the most powerful helps that shall be granted to him: with what fervour, therefore, should he not receive them, particularly at this all-decisive moment!

And now behold him in his agony. Callous to the things of heaven and yet agitated by remorse of conscience, terrified for the past, he trembles for the future. Finally he expires, leaving the lookers-on but too just grounds for uneasiness. He appears before the judgment-seat of God, to be precipitated, if not into hell, at least into the fires of purgatory, there to suffer multiform and excruciating tortures, it may be, for long years.

O my God! I shudder with horror at the contemplation of the fate to which tepidity has been hurrying me on. Alas! I have served Thee, O King of kings, with a negligence and sloth which the last of men would not tolerate in one of his servants. I have been guilty of an inattention at prayer, which I would not dream of indulging in conversing with my friends. I have repaid by coldness the ardent love which attracts Thee to me in the Blessed Eucharist, and Thy promise of granting most precious graces in this adorable Sacrament to all who love Thee. Thou art the Lord of lords, who standest in need of no one, and yet Thou loadest me with benefits. Like a tender mother Thou claspest me to Thy bosom. Thou co-operatest in all my actions, not one of which I could perform without Thine aid; and all these gifts are the effects of Thy pure, gratuitous, unmerited love! But, oh, base ingratitude! I remain cold and languishing in Thy service, whilst I cheerfully consume my strength in useless labours, in a foolish love of creatures. But I deeply lament my obduracy, O my God, and am firmly resolved that henceforth every moment of my life, every pulsation of my heart, shall be consecrated to Thee alone.

Article III

Of the marks and remedies of tepidity

Tepidity is an offspring and, as it were, a branch of sloth. ‘Sloth,’ says St. Thomas, ‘is a species of disgust for virtue; it is a languor of soul which causes it to neglect its spiritual welfare; a sadness which oppresses and dejects the heart of man, deprives him, so to speak, of the power of doing good,’²⁷27St. Thom. 2. 2, q. 35, a. 1. and renders pious exercises and acts of virtue fatiguing and insipid to him.

‘Tepidity,’ say the holy Fathers, ‘is a profound lethargy which arrests its victims on the road to perfection; a fever which gradually undermines the soul and incapacitates it for devotion.

1. Of the marks of tepidity

They are all delineated by St. Bernard in the following description of a tepid soul. ‘There are,’ says he, ‘in religion, certain slothful and pusillanimous souls, who succumb under the burden of their duty, submit only to the rod of correction, and show occasional and uncertain signs of recollection and compunction. The flesh and the senses engross all their thoughts; their obedience is not the result of faith, their conversations are indiscreet, they pray without attention; they are undeterred by the fear of hell and the scandal of their bad example, they cast off the yoke of discipline and in a great degree the empire of reason; their conduct, in a word, is a guilty license and a perpetual scandal.’ Cassian had already given the chief characteristics of this vice. ‘Tepid religious,’ says he, ‘hate and fear retreat, tire of their cell, despise their brethren, labour slothfully, frequently quit their monastery, are the slaves of sensuality, frequent society, engage in secular business, love idle conversations, are displeased at the charitable admonitions given them, and avail themselves of every pretext for evading them; finally, they bear the yoke of discipline reluctantly, entertain an inordinate attachment for their country and relatives, and indulge in dangerous familiarities.’²⁸28Conf. 22. Examine yourself seriously and impartially, and see whether you recognise in yourself any of these marks.

1. What is your devotion at prayer and at the Holy Sacrifice, whether as assistant or celebrant thereat? In what manner do you make your general and particular examen? Are you faithful in calling yourself to an account for all your thoughts, words, and actions? With what faith and attention do you recite your vocal prayers, particularly the Divine Office? With what fervour do you approach the holy sacraments of Penance and Communion? If you perform these duties negligently and through routine, you are undoubtedly of the number of those tepid souls whom God threatens to reject.

2. Have you habitually regulated your conduct by certain lax principles, by the aid of which you endeavour to stifle your remorse? For example, have you not said, I am no longer a novice? Why should not so-and-so be permitted to me as well as to others? Must not some allowance be made for youth? Why ruin one’s health by voluntary mortifications? It is better to be wrong with the many than right alone. Religious perfection is only a pious chimera. It is well to court the favour of the great who, should I succeed in pleasing them, may prefer me to my equals. Each one should look after his own interests and not confide them to others. For my part, I will accept of no employments which are likely to be prejudicial to my amusement or aggrandisement; these I will willingly cede to others. There can be no surer proof than this of your being thoroughly tepid.

3. Are you wont to yield to sloth? Do you indulge in too much sleep? Do you study your ease and self-gratification? Are you not too fastidious with regard to food, seeking the gratification of your palate and senses on all occasions? Once more, should such immortification be the rule of your conduct, it is another proof that you are tepid, you are the victim of a most dangerous disease, and will require a most skilful and enlightened physician to prescribe efficacious remedies for you.

Amongst those remedies the principal are an undeviating fidelity to daily meditation, spiritual reading, and the habit of devoting one day of each month to retreat.

I name these the principal remedies because there are also others which are very beneficial, as, for example, to frequent the society of the most fervent, and avoid that of the tepid, edifying conversations, seclusion from the world, the practice of mortifications, great zeal in daily visiting the Blessed Sacrament, and, lastly, the pious custom of making aspirations, particularly when the clock strikes. I merely glance at these last, in order more fully to develop the three first, which I regard as the most efficacious and important.

2. Of the remedies for tepidity

If the total abandonment of prayer, or even a mere inconsistency in this holy exercise, is one of the chief p. 35sources of tepidity, so a generous and persevering performance of it is the most excellent and certain means of extirpating this vice. Prayer is as indispensable for the preservation of fervour as food is for the life of the body. This simile is beautifully expressed by St. Augustine, who says: ‘As material food constitutes the sustenance of the body, so a spirit of prayer and union with God is the food and life of the interior man.’²⁹29Serm. And, to remove all doubt of the efficacy and importance of meditation, he adds: ‘A reasonable soul cannot live any other life than that which it draws from its communion with God in prayer.’³⁰30Serm.

Here, then, we have an irrefragable authority for the absolute necessity for this holy exercise. It is clear that as the soul derives its life from its communings with God in prayer, it must expose itself to inevitable shipwreck the moment it deprives itself of this spiritual nutriment. The Royal Prophet assures us of his personal experience of this truth. ‘My heart,’ says he, ‘is withered because I forgot to eat my bread.’³¹31Ps. ci. 5. Mark well the words—as soon as he ceased to take his food his heart withered! What the sinews are to the limbs, what an invigorating beverage is to the fainting heart, what blood is to the body, such is meditation to the soul, and without it there is ‘no means left of advancing in the spiritual life.’³²32St. Aug. Treat. on St. John.

Besides, reason renders the same testimony, for it is impossible to preserve the fervour of our soul in all its vigour unless our mind meditates frequently on the eternal truths, and our will excites itself to the constant practice of them. Now, we accomplish this twofold exercise of the mind and will by mental prayer, which St. Ambrose styles on this account ‘the substantial food of our soul.’ Let us acknowledge, therefore, that meditation is an equally essential and potent remedy against tepidity. Let us now examine whether we have devoted to meditation the full time prescribed for it. Have we made it in a respectful posture, with attention and fervour? Devoted sufficient time and care to its preparation? Made a short review at its close of the way in which we have performed it, and the fruit we have derived from it? Recalled frequently during the day the thought selected by us for the spiritual bouquet? We should lose no time in correcting whatever defects we may observe in any of these points. For the rest, this matter is so important that we shall resume and treat of it at greater length in the second part of this work. We have said that spiritual reading is another powerful antidote against tepidity. Let us see with what assiduity we apply ourselves to it. Have we not, by a neglect of it, exposed ourselves to the danger of falling into or continuing in tepidity? Have we devoted at least a quarter of an hour to it daily? The Holy Scriptures, say the Fathers, are faithful mirrors in which the soul may, without fear of illusion, discover the stains it has contracted, and from which it should purify itself. They are letters from our heavenly country, written by the finger of God, containing the true principles and solid maxims of sanctity; friendly monitors which freely reprehend our vices; skilful physicians which teach us the most effectual remedies for our spiritual maladies. In a word, the reading of good books provides us with excellent weapons against temptation, renews the fervour of the tepid, augments the charity of the just, confirms the constancy of the perfect, and renders the practice of p. 36meditation easy and profitable to us. St. Paul makes it strictly obligatory on Timothy: ‘Attend unto reading;’³³331 Tim. iv. 13. and St. Jerome exhorts Celantia to it: ‘I advise and recommend above all things, I even earnestly entreat you, to nourish your soul assiduously with spiritual reading: it is the surest means of conducting you to the perfection of justice.’³⁴34Letter. But that this exercise may be profitable to us, we should understand how to make a suitable selection of books and to pursue a good method of reading. The same book does not suit all persons, nor is it even adapted to the same individual under all circumstances. A choice, therefore, is absolutely essential. We should prefer those which abound more in unction than in erudition; those which are more calculated to inflame the heart and determine the will than to gratify curiosity; those most in accordance with our actual wants, and which most forcibly inculcate the mortification of the senses, hatred of vice, and love of virtue. ‘The object of a spiritual lecture is not to make us more learned, but to make us live better; not to enable us to speak more eloquently, but to help us to advance more rapidly in perfection. In effect, what avails it to learn one’s duty and not to do it?’³⁵35Letter to Celantia. For this reason I do not approve of spending the time destined for spiritual reading in making extracts or taking notes, as this would degrade it to a study; it would be preferring the letter to the spirit. We should, on the contrary, read in order to become holy rather than learned, for as Hugh of St. Victor remarks: ‘A pious lecture should not be an object of study for the Christian philosopher, but an exhortation to virtue.’

This exercise cannot fail to be profitable to us if we p. 37make it with attention, a religious spirit, and perseverance. St. Augustine demands attention to reading, and shows its importance in his letter to Demetrius: ‘You shall have made a good use of spiritual reading,’ says he, ‘if it is a sincere mirror in which your soul, beholding itself, endeavours to efface the stains which it discovers, and to enhance the beauty of the virtues with which grace has adorned it.’ We should read spiritual books carefully and attentively, not hastily or superficially. We should pause occasionally on those truths which make most impression on us, the better to remember the holy lessons they convey. Above all, we should take care to make practical resolutions during the lecture, in accordance with the good thoughts it suggests, such as to perform such and such an act of virtue, to correct such or such a defect, and to acquit ourselves more faithfully of the obligations of our state or employment.

What testimony does our conscience give on this matter? Has our lecture, penetrating our soul like a soft-refreshing dew, fructified our good desires? or has it, like an impetuous torrent, dashed rapidly through our minds without leaving any trace of it behind? Do we reflect from time to time on the lessons it imparts, for the purpose of reducing them to practice? Do we not resemble ‘a man who, beholding his own countenance in a glass, goes away, and presently forgets what sort of man he is?’³⁶36James i. 23, 24. Let us, at least, who read these lines, avoid such culpable carelessness. The religious spirit which ought to pervade our spiritual reading should be manifested exteriorly by the recollection and gravity of our deportment. ‘Read the Holy Scripture,’ says St. Augustine, ‘remembering that it is the Word of God;’³⁷37Letter. ‘it is a letter from our country,’³⁸38Sermon. adds St. Bernard; ‘and in the divine pages of the Sacred Book,’ subjoins St. Ambrose, ‘it is Jesus Christ who speaks to us.’ Is it not evident that so holy a lecture should be made in a respectful posture, with the heart elevated to God, and the soul permeated with holy affections and desires?

Our lecture must be characterised by perseverance both as to time and method.

Let us not emulate the inconstancy of the butterfly, flitting lightly from page to page, and from book to book, without gathering fruit from any. Never lay a book aside till you have read it through, otherwise your lecture will only be a source of distraction to you. We should regulate the hour at which we are to make and the length of time we are to spend at it every day without exception. We should, at least, devote a quarter of an hour to it, and, if possible, make it immediately after meditation. Such is the assiduity required by St. Jerome to this exercise, that, writing to St. Paula, he says: ‘Do not lay down the Holy Book till overcome by sleep, and then let your head rest on the sacred pages.’³⁹39Letter. However, this advice must not be followed literally, for the same doctor teaches that, ‘an excessive love of reading may prove a source of danger by inducing satiety and disgust.’ Writing to Eustochium, he says: ‘Read with moderation, and let it not be weariness, but the rule you have imposed upon yourself, which shall cause you to lay down the Book.’

With what attention, devotion, and perseverance do we purpose making our spiritual lecture in future? For p. 38what length of time, and at what hour, will we make it? Finally, what advantage do we propose to reap from this remedy against tepidity? The Fathers place this exercise on an equality with meditation, and even give it the preference over the hearing of the word of God, naming it the nourishment, light, and life of the soul. Our holy founder, St. Ignatius, advises, nay, prescribes it to us as a duty of the utmost importance. The masters of the spiritual life, taught by constant experience, recommend a day’s retreat every month as a very efficient means for conquering tepidity, and acquiring fervour. Should we think well of adopting this advice, we must arrange beforehand the day most convenient for this purpose.

Two hours will be sufficient to devote to it, one being given to the usual morning meditation, and the other divided between the examen, which should be made on the eve, and the consideration, which should be made on the day itself. God will amply indemnify us for these two hours taken from our ordinary occupations by the success with which He will bless our undertakings, and the signal graces with which He will enrich our souls. Let us not, therefore, be so inimical to our eternal interests and the glory of God as to refuse a few brief moments to our spiritual welfare, we who waste whole months and years on our material wants, and even on nonsensical trifles. As I intend to revert to this subject in the second part of this work, I shall not insist further on it here. I will barely add that generous and voluntary corporal mortification is another very efficacious remedy for tepidity and a very powerful weapon against the demon of sloth. However, as I am addressing tepid souls, whom the mere mention of mortification fills with dismay, I will not venture to broach this subject.

To conclude, I am fully persuaded that the faithful observance of the rules just indicated will enable us to triumph over tepidity, and soon make us formidable to hell by our fervour. Let us, then, avail ourselves of them, and soon every vestige of this odious vice shall vanish.