What Faith Teaches Us Concerning the Excellence of Solid Virtue

Faith, according to the Fathers, is the foundation of perfection and the chief means of attaining it; it is also p. 260the first of the spiritual weapons with which we should provide ourselves, to combat and vanquish the sloth and inertia of our will in the practice of good.

Unless the mind be very destitute of reason, and but little susceptible of laudable inclination, it is impossible to believe firmly in the excellence of solid virtue, and contrast its principles with our lives, without desiring to endeavour to amend the one and labour to acquire the other. Whence, I conclude, that this belief is a very powerful incentive to perfection. To confirm ourselves in this happy disposition—1, let us consider the excellence of solid virtue; 2, let us, under this point of view, compare our conduct with our faith; and 3, let us study the causes of the contradiction which exists between them, in order to apply a proper remedy thereto.

Article I

Of the excellence of solid virtue

First proof.—The judgment of God. Since I am addressing Christians, who believe that God possesses an infinite knowledge, and who adore His infallible veracity, the safest rule that I can adopt to cause them duly to appreciate the excellence of solid virtue is the judgment of this God, who cannot be deceived. “The judgments of the Lord,” says the Prophet, “are true, justified in themselves;”¹1Ps. xviii. 10. consequently, things are valuable in proportion to the esteem in which they are held by the Eternal Wisdom. That which it prefers to all things, and to which it assigns the first rank in its esteem, must doubtless be the most excellent. Christian perfection merits, therefore, in the esteem of men, not that kind of p. 261preference accorded to it by a deluded world, but that with which the supreme and incorruptible Arbiter honours it. A denial of this truth would be atheism.

Actuated by this principle, let us study in Holy Writ the judgment which that omniscient and infinitely wise God, who penetrates and beholds all things as they are in reality, passes on the excellence of virtue: and let us learn thence to know its price, to understand its dignity, and to love its beauty and prefer it to all things else. “Earth, earth, earth, which judgeth according to the look of a man,”²21 Kings xvi. 7. “hear the word of the Lord.”³3Jerem. xxii. 29. The Lord says: “the possession” of wisdom, which eminently consists in true piety, “is better than the merchandise of silver, and its fruit than the purest gold: it is more precious than all riches: and all things that are desired are not to be compared with it: it is the tree of life to them that lay hold on it: and he that shall retain it is blessed:”⁴4Prov. iii. 14 and fol. “it is an infinite treasure to men.”⁵5Wisd. vii. 14. Behold the judgment of God, but mark the consequence that must follow thence; “gold,” then, “in comparison” of virtue, “is as a little sand, and silver in respect of it shall be counted as clay:” therefore, “it is to be preferred before kingdoms and thrones; riches are to be esteemed nothing in comparison of it, neither can any precious stone be compared to it.”⁶6Wisd. vii. 8. Who will presume to gainsay these divine oracles, or to deny consequences so evident? The Lord says, also through the prophet Jeremias: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength, and let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, for I am the Lord.”⁷7Jerem. ix. 23. Hence it follows that the practical knowledge of God and of self, which constitutes true virtue, is far preferable to all the riches of the world, to the valour of warriors, the grandeur of kings, the prudence of the flesh, and to all profane sciences, since it alone is the basis of all real glory. It is the Holy Ghost who affirms it. Who would have the folly to dispute it?

The Doctor of the Nations, writing under divine inspiration, develops this truth at still greater length, and enters into still greater details of its consequences: “If,” says he, “I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and if I should have prophecy, and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity” (which is the beginning and first degree of perfection), “I am nothing, all that profiteth me nothing; I am but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.”⁸81 Cor. xiii. 1 and fol. Such is the doctrine of the apostle; but, if the gift of prophecy, of tongues, and miracles, if an infused knowledge of all things, a comprehension of all mysteries, equalling that of the angels, if these gifts which, in our estimation, are the most excellent that can be enjoyed on earth, are valueless before God compared with the least degree of sanctifying grace, what will all purely natural advantages be compared with the countless degrees of grace with which consummate virtue adorns our soul?

Heaven has spoken, let the earth remain silent. Truth has made His voice heard, let error hide itself in shame. The infinite majesty of Him who has pronounced these oracles demands of us a blind faith. Let the earth keep silence, therefore, let reason submit, let “the wisdom of the world” bow down, let it cease to oppose its vain p. 262sophistry to the decisions from on High. Sanctity possesses an incontestable superiority over all other goods. God has said it. Compared with it all other advantages are less than nothing: so the God infinitely wise and true has declared. However, the Almighty has not merely attested the superexcellence of sanctity, He has even deigned to demonstrate it by numberless facts. Let us select from amongst them some taken from Sacred History. Let us compare Solomon and Job, the wicked rich man and Lazarus, Herod and John the Baptist: what a contrast! how different the judgment of Heaven concerning these and those! “Solomon surpassed all men in riches and wisdom;”⁹93 Kings x. 23. Job, on the contrary, “was struck with a grievous ulcer from the sole of the foot to the top of his head; and, sitting on a dung-hill, he took a potsherd and scraped the corrupt matter from his wound.”¹⁰10Job ii. 7, 8. The bad rich man “was clothed in purple and fine linen: and feasted sumptuously every day,” while the “poor Lazarus lay at his gate full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs which fell from his table.”¹¹11Luke xvi. 19 and fol. “Herod, being arrayed in kingly apparel, sat in the judgment seat, and the people made acclamation, saying: It is the voice of a god and not of a man;”¹²12Acts xii. 21. and already he had caused John the Baptist to be “apprehended, imprisoned, and beheaded,”¹³13Matt. xiv. 3, 11. “who came” upon earth “neither eating nor drinking.”¹⁴14Ibid. xi. 18. What a contrast! The former endowed with intellectual gifts, power, wealth, seemed to shine as stars above the rest of men; the latter, though perfect in sanctity, were, nevertheless, poor, wretched, despised, the sport of fate and the scorn of the world. Humanly speaking, nothing was more exalted than the p. 263former, nothing more abject than the latter. Solomon’s wisdom, the rich man’s opulence, Herod’s glory, were in their eyes deluded by error and adulation, goods which exalted them to the skies; while Job’s patience, Lazarus’ poverty, and John’s constancy were subjects of contempt to them.

The world applauds a judgment which depreciates the virtues of the latter and extols the natural advantages of the former. But how different is the judgment of God! Hear, oh mortals, and adore the judgment of the Most High! Solomon is a wicked man, whom He rejects; the rich man a fool, whom He “buries in hell;”¹⁵15Luke xvi. 22. Herod a deceitful wretch, whom He condemns to die, “devoured by worms:”¹⁶16Acts xii. 23. with all their grandeur, riches, eloquence, and profound wisdom, these three individuals were but little, or rather nothing, in the sight of the All Wise; but, on the contrary, Job was regarded by the Sovereign Arbiter of all things as “a simple and upright man,”¹⁷17Job i. 8. “whom He loaded with benedictions.”¹⁸18Ibid. xlii. 12. Lazarus was an object of predilection of the angels, “who carried him into Abraham’s bosom;”¹⁹19Luke xvi. 22. John was “the greatest of the children of men, and more than a prophet,”²⁰20Matt. xi. 9, 11. and God adorned him with the crown of martyrdom. These three illustrious saints, with their ulcers, poverty, bonds, and anguish, “shall shine” before the adorable Trinity “as the brightness of the firmament, as stars for all eternity.”²¹21Dan. xii. 3. This is the judgment of God: “as far as the East is from the West,”²²22Ps. cii. 12. “as much as light differs from darkness,”²³23Eccli. ii. 12. so far does solid virtue excel all the gifts of nature, wealth, and genius.

Unite, if you will, in one man the prudence of legislators, the wisdom of philosophers, the science of mathematicians, the eloquence of orators, invest him with the tact of courtiers, the experience of men of the world, a perfect aptitude for all kinds of knowledge, let him abound in riches and honours, endow him with the prerogatives of pontiffs, and the power of kings; still if virtue is lacking to him, he is before God “wretched, poor, blind, and naked.”²⁴24Apoc. iii. 17. But the dumb, the poor, the lame, the paralytic, the mendicant, the illiterate, who shall have promoted the work of their perfection, shall be accounted the friends of Jesus Christ, children of God, and heirs of heaven. For it is virtue alone that can endear and render us pleasing to God: this alone is the golden key which is able to open to the soul the Heart of the Divine Spouse.

Lucifer is another still more striking example of this truth. This rebel angel had received “the seal of the divine resemblance, full of wisdom and perfect beauty, he was in the pleasures of the paradise of God: every precious stone was his covering; as a mighty Cherub which stretched out his wings, he was set in the holy mountain of God in the midst of stones of fire.”²⁵25Ezech. xxviii. 12. But the very moment that his audacious revolt causes him to fall from sanctity, that moment he is torn from heaven, “laden with chains and cast into hell to be eternally tormented.”²⁶262 Pet. ii. 4. His intelligence, beauty, subtlety, all his natural gifts, cannot retard the execution of the divine vengeance for one second, and though still possessing all these gifts which are the appanage of a spiritual nature, still from that fatal moment he is but a wretched and despicable demon: the Almighty has even left all these gifts to this haughty and reprobate spirit to manifest to the universe how worthless they are in His sight when unaccompanied by sanctity. Behold why it is that Divine Providence often dispenses them with a sort of prodigality to the greatest sinners, to those whom the Scripture does not hesitate to compare to the vile animals which “return to their vomit,” those unclean animals which after being washed “wallow again in the mire;”²⁷272 Pet. ii. 22. thus would it teach us how lightly those gifts weigh in the scales of the sanctuary, if unfreighted by virtue.

Oh! who will grant me that these words of Scripture may be indelibly engraved on my heart: “that which is high to men is an abomination before God.”²⁸28Luke xvi. 15. “The wisdom of this world is but folly in the sight of God.”²⁹291 Cor. iv. 19. Salutary thoughts drawn from the book which the prophet saw “sealed with seven seals,”³⁰30Apoc. v. 1. thoughts worthy of engrossing every moment of our life! Attend, then, all you who esteem the excellence of perfection according to human wisdom, and imprint this oracle of heaven deeply on your mind: that which you esteem as great, noble, exalted, is not only vile, little, pure nothingness before God, it is an abomination and a folly. Yes, foolish slaves of vanity, so it is, the pride of riches, the ambition of renown, the vanity of knowledge are an abomination before God; the art of courtiers, worldly cunning, insinuating manners are a folly in His eyes: virtue is the only sacrifice which is agreeable to Him. It is only “the poor in spirit, the meek, the pacific, the merciful, the clean of heart, those who hunger and thirst after justice that are blessed.”³¹31Matt. v. 3 and fol. What is mean, abject, loathsome in our eyes is noble, glorious, and precious in the sight of God. This truth is a dogma of faith as p. 265incontestable as that of the Blessed Trinity itself. But what practical results do we derive from this reflection? “Lord, glorious in holiness,”³²32Exod. xv. 12. I am filled with confusion and fear; confusion for my faults, fear for the punishment they merit. If I do not believe Thy oracles I am guilty of heresy; if I believe them without forming more correct ideas of the excellence of virtue, I am amenable to Thy justice for my preposterous folly; I deserve to be bound and handed over to Thy justice. My God, deliver me from this twofold misfortune. Grant me in Thy mercy a faith docile to the equity of Thy judgment concerning the excellence of sanctity.

2. Second proof.—The example of Jesus Christ. The example of Jesus Christ is a striking proof of the excellence of sanctity. This Divine Saviour deigned to be born in a stable, to live unknown, to be nailed to the cross, and die in the midst of unheard-of torments, in order to teach us the superiority of solid virtue over all the gifts of nature.

It is certain that the Eternal Father combined all natural perfections in a supereminent degree in the person of our Redeemer; that He exalted Him in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, above all angels and men. This being so, does it not seem that, on coming into the world, the Incarnate Word should have appeared in the maturity of perfect manhood, have shone in the schools, traversed seas, taken His seat on the tribunals of the judges of the earth, frequented royal palaces, to dispense in every direction the lights of eloquence, prudence, knowledge, and sound morality, to dispel ignorance, to reform morals, to inaugurate the reign of justice, to punish crime, and by the fame of these achievements, p. 266the report of which would resound throughout the universe, to subjugate the faith of all peoples, and prove incontestably that He was the Messiah. But instead of this display, He comes in the weakness of infancy, He is born between two animals in the corner of an obscure stable, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, destitute of all things, an exile from His country. More advanced in age, He continues unknown, humble, despised. He shuts Himself up in a humble workshop for the greater part of His life. The reputed son of a simple artisan, He embraces that profession; He abides as constantly in the poor house of Nazareth as though He were but a servant. “God obeys the voice of man,”³³33Josue x. 14. “He is subject”³⁴34Luke ii. 51. to His creatures. O prodigy! incomprehensible to the angels themselves. The Word utters only wailings; concealed under infantine lineaments, Wisdom lisps; Strength clothed in our weakness, like us “utters His first voice in crying.”³⁵35Wisd. vii. 3. The hands which have fashioned the universe debase themselves to the performance of the most menial offices of the household. “He who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance,”³⁶36Isaias xl. 12. hews wood, carves, and works it.

O heavens! The Increated Eloquence keeps silence; the Creator of the universe debases Himself to the profession of a humiliating trade; the true Treasure of wisdom and knowledge lies concealed in a servile condition: He continues thus for thirty years. And this august Master, descended from heaven, adopts this line of conduct to impress us still more with the excellence of sanctity: to divest us of the erroneous ideas which we form to ourselves of natural gifts to the prejudice of virtue: to teach us by His example that the glory of brilliant reputation, the pride of distinguished talents, the conveniences of life, are infinitely inferior to one pious action practised secretly by a virtuous soul in the lowest place in the universe. After so striking and practical an instruction, a Christian who still seeks to be esteemed and preferred to others for his natural qualities; who sets his heart on these vanities, who admires, desires, and covets them more than the possession of virtue, either does not believe in the life led by Jesus Christ, or else he concludes that Wisdom itself has been deceived in His choice. For to avow that Jesus Christ has performed all things holily and perfectly, to confess that He desires that His actions should be the model of ours, and yet, despite this firm belief, to persevere in refusing to admit the superiority of virtue over every other good, to presume to despise or neglect its practice, is an inexcusable perversity and folly.

But that this conviction may penetrate to the depth of our soul, let us cast our eyes upon Mount Calvary, let us fathom this ocean of sufferings of the Man-God, let us contemplate the streams of Blood which flow from all His members, let us consider the multitude and violence of the wounds which disfigure His body, and let us examine the cause for which the only Son of God has deigned to die in torments and ignominy, suspended to the cross between two thieves. “Ah!” replies the apostle to us: “He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from our iniquities and might cleanse to Himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works.”³⁷37Titus ii. 12, 14. Yes, answer “the angels of peace, weeping bitterly,”³⁸38Isaias xxxiii. 7. the Innocent has endured these excruciating torments, not for p. 267the purpose of loading men with riches, honours, and worldly gratifications: not in order to enrich them with the gifts of nature: to acquire for them a reputation for eloquence, wit, superior knowledge, a marvellous aptitude for success in every undertaking; but to make them esteem, love, and desire virtue, contemn the world, and cultivate the spirit of penance; to teach them that one ray of divine grace is of incomparably more value than all the goods of nature taken collectively.

Come now all you who, blinded by the illusions of vanity, bend the knee before the fortunate and sparkling geniuses of this world, come listen to your Divine Saviour saying to you by the suffering and ignominy of His death: “Learn of me not to create the universe, to draw all visible and invisible things from nothing, to work miracles, to raise the dead; but learn of me that I am meek and humble of heart,”³⁹39St. Aug. Serm. learn of me the true and solid virtue which I have taught you at the price of so much anguish and opprobrium, at the cost of my life, and of all the blood that I have shed. Thus it is that “I have given you an example, that as I have done you do also.”⁴⁰40John xiii. 13.

What inference are we to draw from these reasonings? Either Jesus Christ has made a mistake in giving the infinite price of His blood and life for a thing of so little value in human estimation; or virtue, notwithstanding its worthlessness in the eyes of men, is a good incomparably greater than all earthly possessions. Come, then, my soul, come to the foot of the cross, purify thy mental vision, weigh seriously the justice of this conclusion—the argument is irrefragable.

My Jesus, what reply can I make to Thee? The p. 268divine judgment and Thy example, O my adorable Master, are incontrovertible evidences of the incomparable excellence of sanctity. I firmly believe in its superiority over all the gifts of fortune and of genius. I believe that one ray of heavenly light penetrating into our hearts is of more value than all the secular sciences; that one meritorious action is of greater price than all natural endowments; that the faintest ray of grace is preferable to all the treasures of the world; that the lowest degree of supernatural glory is more sublime than all the pageantry and honours of earth. I firmly believe this doctrine, because Thou hast taught it, O Sovereign Truth! But “help my unbelief,”⁴¹41Mark ix. 23. for from high heaven, where Thou reignest, Thou beholdest that my faith wavers the moment I am called upon to reduce it to practice, and daily experience incessantly augments my sense of weakness. By the might of Thine arm assist me in my infirmity, grant me grace “to unite rectitude of conduct to that of faith, and to confess Thee both by words and actions—by words in confessing the truth, by actions in practising justice.”⁴²42St. Aug. Serm.

Article II

Of the opposition between our faith and our life

1. Proof of this truth by induction

We assent, it is true, to all the Scripture teaches concerning the excellence of virtue. We admire its beauty, vaunt its merit, acknowledge its necessity, esteem its advantages, earnestly desire the happiness and glory it imparts. We allow that sanctity is the lost drachma, the pearl of price, the treasure hidden in the field of religion, a treasure for the acquisition of which we should spare neither trouble nor expense—we admit that all natural gifts, compared with perfection, lose their lustre as stars pale in presence of the sun.

In the person of Jesus Christ we adore sanctity fastened to the cross, we honour it placed on our altars with the relics of the saints; we pay it our homage concealed beneath the ashes of the friends of God, in their tombs and precious remains. We do not presume to impugn the truth of these oracles of Holy Writ: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful,” etc. In a word, we readily believe and confess that nothing is more useful or charming than piety; but does our life square with our faith? Do our actions coincide with our words? Is our conduct conformable to our principles? Do we do what we believe we are bound to do?—behold the important point. “True faith,” says St. Gregory the Great, “consists in not belying our words by our behaviour: he alone believes truly who practises what he professes?”⁴³43Homil. on Gosp. Is it thus we act? Does our demeanour correspond with our faith? “Faith and good works,” says St. Eucherius, “depend so closely on one another that either must necessarily perish if unsustained by the other.” Does this union exist in us? Do the belief of our understanding and the acts of our will go hand in hand? St. Augustine styles “faith without love, the faith of demons.”⁴⁴44City of God. St. Bernard tells us that “faith which worketh not is a dead body.” A most just metaphor, since, according to St. James, “Faith without works is dead.”⁴⁵45James ii. 17. In what state is ours? Let us test it by our works, and see p. 269whether we be not in danger of shipwreck. Oh! how I fear lest I be of the number of those “who profess that they know God, but in their works deny Him.”⁴⁶46Titus i. 16. “The voice is the voice of Jacob,” nothing could be more Catholic than our words; but “the hands are the hands of Esau.”⁴⁷47Serm. on Epiph. Alas! how vast the disparity between our actions and our sentiments. Let us prove it by some examples.

We believe that the acquisition of solid virtue is in reality our great, most important, and only necessary affair; for which the Eternal Father has sent us His Son; Jesus Christ ransomed us, the Holy Ghost has enlightened us with His grace and called us to the religious state: the affair compared with which all others are childish and trifling. We believe this, and yet, as a general rule, this is the affair which is of all others the most neglected by us. We know that the exercises of devotion, especially meditation, spiritual lecture and examen of conscience, are the most effectual means of accomplishing this affair; and yet from some frivolous excuse, a useless occupation, a slight inconvenience, we defer, abridge, and even altogether omit these holy exercises; or at most we acquit ourselves of them tepidly and carelessly. Interior recollection, the perfection of our ordinary actions, and the particular examen, are also most excellent aids for acquiring virtue; nevertheless, their very name is almost a dead letter to us, so unaccustomed are we to make use of them. What is such behaviour if not a direct contradiction of our faith? The science of the saints is the only thing that avails aught before God: without it all secular learning is but smoke. And yet, oh, the folly! we spend nights and days, to the prejudice of our health, p. 270in intellectual pursuits, which will probably never be called into requisition by us; while the study of heavenly wisdom wearies and disgusts us. Oblivious of eternity, we dilate upon time; indifferent about heaven, all our thoughts concentrate upon earth. We investigate the nature of light, and our soul is enveloped in darkness. True, “knowledge is not to be blamed, as it is a good thing in itself; but a good conscience and a virtuous life are always to be preferred.”⁴⁸48Imit. b. i. ch. 3. We must never neglect our soul for the study of literature, or abandon our spiritual exercises for any cause; otherwise our virtue shall suffer serious detriment. “Many,” says the Imitation, “go astray because they take more pains to know much than to live well. They are lost in their own imaginings, because they love to be great rather than humble. How many perish in the world by vain learning who take little care of the service of God! Would to God that their lives had been in keeping with their learning, they would then have studied to good purpose. Oh! had they been as diligent in the extirpation of their vices and the grafting in of virtues as they are in mooting questions, there would not be so many evils and scandals among the people, or such laxity in monasteries.” But because the reverse of this is often the case, the tempests which agitate the Church are excited by learned but impious leaders. From these unworthy leaders it is that she sustains the greatest injuries.

And I ask you, when death arrives, of what avail to us will be all the knowledge we have acquired during our life at the cost of so much toil, anxiety, vigils, and labour, and especially to the prejudice of our sanctity? What will the study of so many works, the publication of so many fine maxims, so many carefully written pages of ostentatious erudition, profit us? Of what advantage, I say, will all these things be except to occasion us bitter remorse for having exhausted our energies, consumed our strength, sacrificed our health and repose for the acquirement of so much worthless knowledge, and neglected the study of the only thing capable of consoling us at the hour of death? “When the day of judgment cometh it will not be asked of us what we have read, but what we have done; not what splendid orations we have made, but how religiously we have lived. It is therefore great folly to neglect the things that are useful and necessary and dive into those that are injurious.”⁴⁹49Imit. b. i. ch. 3. It is folly to be preoccupied about what argument we shall adduce against an adversary in a public thesis and not consider what reply we shall make to the Sovereign Judge in the day of His wrath. Finally, it is madness to neglect our sanctification, to squander so many days, weeks, and months perusing works and taking notes which perhaps we afterwards destroy. Could a pagan believe such behaviour possible in a Christian?

Unhappy you whose conduct is a tacit denial of your belief. You are aware that a single supernatural act of virtue merits a new degree of grace, to which is attached the right to a new degree of glory: you are aware that a single degree of grace and glory infinitely transcends in value all the kingdoms of the world, all the gifts of nature, intellect, and fortune: you know that were you, in exchange for such a degree of grace and glory, to be offered the wisdom, riches, and royal power of Solomon: were you, on the same condition, to be exalted to the highest dignities, to attain to the summit of earthly p. 271happiness, by accepting it you would relinquish a peerless pearl for a piece of glass, refined gold for worthless tinsel.

O heavens! “to obtain a scanty sustenance men run a great way; for eternal life, to tend to perfection, many will scarce take a step; a petty gain is sought after; for a single coin men sometimes quarrel; yea, for some mere trifle or a slight promise, men will toil night and day; but alas! for an unchangeable good, for an imperishable glory,” in a word, for solid virtue, “they are loath to undergo a little fatigue.”⁵⁰50Imit. b. iii. ch. 3.

Moreover, it is only temporal advantages and natural gifts that attract us in others. We ask if a man is endowed with courage, wealth, beauty, learning, if he writes or sings well, if he is clever in his profession, but we rarely inquire if he is meek, humble, patient, devout, interior; we look only to the exterior, and are indifferent as to the interior. What is still more to be lamented is that this error obtains not merely with those who occupy the lowest ranks of the religious hierarchy, it even frequently influences its heads. Too often superiors accord an unjust preference to such of their inferiors as are endowed with brilliant qualities, though they be marred by serious defects; they favour them, extol them, and elevate them to the prejudice of religious whose only recommendation is their piety. Such a mode of behaviour scandalises the weak, who imagine and proclaim that virtue is ignored here below, that those who practise it remain in the last ranks, that superiors prefer and attach more importance to natural gifts than to the observance of rule. Could Satan himself suggest thoughts more conducive to the subversion of even the most flourishing religious orders? But we have given sufficient proofs p. 272of the opposition between our life and faith; it is sufficiently demonstrated that frequently our conduct and morals are a formal denial of the truths we believe.

2. The contradiction between our life and our faith is disgraceful to us

“Brethren,” says the apostle St. James, “what shall it profit if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works?”⁵¹51James ii. 14. “What avails it,” says St. Jerome, “for a bad catholic to possess the treasure of faith, and despoil his soul of the possession of wisdom and piety?”⁵²52On Proverbs. Of what use to us is the conviction of the superior excellence of virtue, if our habits are perpetually at variance with our belief? What fruits can we gather from this blighted tree save those of confusion and remorse?

“It is a senseless obstinacy,” says Picus of Mirandola, “not to believe a Gospel whose truth is proclaimed by the blood of martyrs, proved by miracles, confirmed by reason, confessed by demons, attested by myriad examples of the obedience of the elements themselves to the voice of faith, but it is a criminal inconsistency to believe firmly in the truth of the Gospel and yet to live as though we had no doubt of its falsehood. Yes, it is an excess of folly to believe all that is taught concerning the excellence of piety, and still to neglect its practice as though the divine oracles were but the delirium of an exaggerated devotion. It is most iniquitous to know, honour, and applaud the morality of Jesus Christ, and regulate our lives on principles which are diametrically opposed thereto. Is it not a preposterous absurdity to believe that God is infinitely good, and not to love Him ardently; infinitely just, and not fear His justice; infinitely holy, ubiquitous, omniscient, and yet to dare to sin even venially in His presence; to believe that our Redeemer has made true riches to consist in poverty, joy in penance, happiness in perfection, and yet to dread poverty, fly penance, neglect perfection; to believe that we are bound to practise humility, mortify the flesh, subdue and annihilate our will, and yet to desire honours, gratifications, and pleasures, to be worshippers at the shrine of our own opinions?”

“Be just and judge yourselves,” whether reason or justice authorises such behaviour, whether believing as we do, it is not incompatible with prudence to ally so much tepidity, abuse of grace, and neglect of spiritual things with the morality of the Gospel? Oh! how calculated to confound the culpable and inexcusable folly of the Christians of the present time is the example of the primitive faithful! Their faith triumphed even in chains despite the rage of tyrants. These illustrious children of the Church “wandered about in sheep-skins, and in goat-skins, being in want, distress, and affliction; they suffered mockeries and bonds, they were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted; they were put to death by the sword,”⁵³53Heb. xi. 36 and fol. and yet they deviated not from the path of virtue on which they had entered; they hungered and thirsted after justice, beneath the sword of the executioner, stretched on the red-hot gridiron, on the rack, and on the scaffold, in the midst of waves and flames. “They served God in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in persecution and reproaches; they renounced all they possessed, they desired nothing, and it grieved them to serve the body even in necessity.”⁵⁴54Imit. b. i. ch. 18. In a word, they practised what their faith prescribed. But we are arrested in the path of perfection by the most trifling impediment. ‘There is a lion in the way,’⁵⁵55Prov. xxvi. 13. ‘death is in this pot,’⁵⁶564 Kings iv. 40. such are the ordinary excuses which our sloth alleges. Yes, our lives are a perpetual denial of our faith. Unfortunate that we are! what shall one day be our consternation, when the Sovereign Judge, addressing us in a voice of thunder, and with a wrath depicted on His countenance, shall say to us: ‘Wicked servant, I judge thee by thy own mouth; behold what thou hast believed; behold how thou hast acted;’ behold thy faith; behold thy conduct. What reply shall we make? What a terrific awakening when this faith which is now dead in our heart shall arise to accuse us? St. Augustine assures us that faith shall one day return to avenge its rights at the divine tribunal, not against the persecutors of the Church, since ‘the blood of martyrs was the seed of Christianity,’⁵⁷57Tertull. nor against pagans who can plead the excuse of their ignorance, nor against heretics, because, ‘he that doth not believe is already judged,’⁵⁸58John iii. 18. but against ‘those who are of the household of the faith,’⁵⁹59Gal. vi. 10. against bad Christians: it shall depose against us who have been ‘nourished in good doctrine,’⁶⁰601 Tim. iv. 6. against us, I say, in whom it has lain dead and as it were buried during so many years, who have dishonoured it before men and robbed it even of the vestige of esteem in which they held it.

Nothing, in fact, brings so much discredit and odium on religion in the opinion of worldlings, nothing so promptly divests it of their esteem and respect as the forgetfulness and contempt in which it is held by those who, by the obligation of their state, make profession of cultivating it, and whose lives should be a continual study, an assiduous practice of perfection. But how sad it would be if those who ought to be the ‘corner stones’⁶¹611 Pet. ii. 3. of the house of God, should become ‘rocks of scandal?’⁶²62Ibid. ii. 8. What danger if those who are the ‘shield of faith,’⁶³63Ephes. vi. 16. serve as ‘snares of the devil’⁶⁴641 Tim. iii. 7. against souls? What have we not to apprehend, should faith, the safeguard of our salvation, form the basis of our accusation? Such a thought fills us with shame and dread, and yet we neglect to conform our conduct to our faith.

‘Lord God of Truth,’⁶⁵65Ps. xxx. 6. who didst so often ‘upbraid’ Thy disciples with ‘their incredulity and hardness of heart,’⁶⁶66Mark xvi. 14. ‘augment our faith, and grant that, confessing it with our lips, we may likewise verify it in our conduct. Vivify us by the fervour of Thy spirit, grant that we may be found stable in faith, and faithful in works, and that aided by Thy grace, we may fulfil the obligations which Thy divine light has revealed to us.’⁶⁷67Prayers of Church at Mass. Suffer not, we conjure Thee, that our faith become a ‘millstone fastened round our neck to drag us into perdition, or at least into purgatory.’⁶⁸68Luke x. 15.

Article III

Of the sources of the contradiction between our life and our faith and the remedies for them

Faith is to the Christian what the sun is to the universe. The sun illumines all bodies by its light, and heats them by its warmth, so likewise faith enlightens the understanding of the faithful soul by communicating to it the science of salvation, and inflames its will while inviting it to accomplish the duties which it inculcates. p. 275Therefore it is that faith is styled by the Fathers the eye of the soul. The infernal fowler spares no pains to pluck out this eye, or so far cloud and obscure it as to destroy its action. This ruthless tyrant knows that there is no more fatal blindness for the human heart than that of faith. Let us, then, take salutary precaution against his machinations by studying the sources of this disease and the remedies for it.

1. Causes of the diminution of our faith

The diminution of our faith has its origin in the darkness of the understanding which refuses to receive the heavenly light, and the disorder of the will whose passions resist the inspirations of grace. The one prevents our knowing what is good, the other impedes our practising the good that we know. Both defects combined destroy all conformity between our life and faith.

First. It is to the obscurity of the understanding, the unhappy darkness in which their souls are immersed, that we are to attribute that dead and sterile faith, that depravity of life which characterises the great bulk of mankind. The Scripture itself teaches: ‘There are now no saints’ upon earth, because ‘truths are decayed from among the children of men,’⁶⁹69Ps. xi. 1. ‘they walk in the vanity of their mind,’⁷⁰70Ephes. iv. 17. ‘they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.’⁷¹71Rom. i. 21. Doubtless, then, the absence of the divine light is one of the sources of the malady we are now investigating. But how can we realise the possibility of such a state of things existing amongst Christians, and above all amongst religious, seated as they are at ‘the source of light,’⁷²72Josue xv. 7. who read pious books, hear sermons, meditate in solitude on the means of practising their faith, and who frequently receive interior revelations of it by the vivid lights with which grace penetrates their souls? What then are the roots of so baneful an evil? They are as follows:

1. We neglect our pious exercises, which are the channels through which grace is wont to reach us, or we perform them tepidly, and consequently without fruit. The result is, that the Almighty punishes us by refusing to us subsequently the lights which were destined for us.

2. We have contracted a certain habit of dissimulating the holy maxims of virtue from ourselves, even while listening to them, of meditating on them without attention, reading them without reflection; thus when, like a flash of lightning emanating from the divine mercy, they shine interiorly on our soul, they strike upon our heart, it is true, but are unable to find admission there.

3. Our cowardice recoils from the efforts necessary to become thorough converts, and we deliberately close our eyes to the arguments which would convince us of the necessity of a serious repentance. We cherish our disease and refuse all remedies. We shudder lest the importunities of grace should succeed in rousing us from our lethargy: we shrink from that brightness which would dispel the darkness that we love: we are displeased if the cushions be removed whereon our sloth reposes. We shun the exterior aids which God so frequently offers us in order to make His light reach us, such as sermons, retreats, spiritual reading, meditation; but we entertain a special aversion for those zealous ministers of penance, those spiritual masters who would understand how to lay the finger on the wound, to discern the fire which still smoulders beneath the ashes, to discover the lurking places of those rapacious reptiles which prey upon our soul. In a word, we do not wish to amend, and consequently we fear nothing more than to be enlightened.

4. When, like new Sauls, we are forced to a momentary self-introspection, because a ‘great sudden’ and unexpected ‘light from heaven surrounds us,’⁷³73Acts xxii. 6. strikes us despite our reluctance, and displays the incomparable beauty of solid virtue, when the sting of remorse, penetrating our soul, awakens us to the contrast that exists between our lives and our faith; we still obstinately resist the manifestation of truth; we steel ourselves against its sweet insinuations; we seek in society and in the hurry of business subjects of distraction which dim, stifle, and extinguish the light of grace which sought to irradiate our heart.

Is it surprising, therefore, that a Christian soul remains immersed in darkness though daily exposed to the brilliant rays of grace? that religious so far forget themselves as to think and speak like the world concerning the maxims of the Gospel? and that for very many amongst us the Sun of Justice should be so often eclipsed? We close all the apertures by which its divine brightness might reach our heart, thus we always remain deprived of its light. Behold the real sources whence proceeds the obscurity of our understanding, and consequently the inutility of our faith, or rather the deplorable contradiction which exists between it and our conduct.

Secondly. The second cause of the diminution of our faith is the perversity and disorder of a will swayed by the tyranny of its passions. It is as true that no one shall enter heaven unless he offer violence to himself, abhor the spirit of the world, and love his enemies, as p. 277it is certain that he shall have no part in the kingdom of God if he has not been regenerated by baptism: nevertheless, we do not concede our adhesion to both these points of doctrine with equal unreserve and candour. We voluntarily subscribe to the oracles of Scripture, which demand the sacrifice of the mind and a speculative faith. But the truths which require the submission of the will and a practical faith, which tend to confirm our lives in the principles of our belief, do not obtain access to our hearts without much resistance. For example, we confess with a perfect conviction the unity of God, the trinity of the Divine Persons; we adore the annihilations of the Word in the mystery of the Incarnation, the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist: we unhesitatingly admit all the truths of this description. But when it is said to us: ‘Blessed are they that mourn, that hunger and thirst after justice, that suffer persecution,’⁷⁴74Matt. v. 3 and fol. ‘woe to those that are rich, woe to those that laugh,’⁷⁵75Luke vi. 24. ‘woe to those that spend their days in wealth,’⁷⁶76Job xxi. 13. ‘pluck out your eye, cut off your hand and foot,’⁷⁷77Mark ix. 42 and fol. if they are to you a subject of scandal. To believe these maxims, to confess them as incontrovertible dogmas, to submit our judgment in this point to the yoke of the Gospel, there it is that the difficulty begins: it is a goal to which we cannot attain without an effort.

The secret of this difference is easily solved. The faith in the first of these truths is a speculative one: it does not interfere with our evil inclinations, neither does it so directly attack our self-love, nor so openly declare war against our senses. Behold why it is that our depraved passions are less antagonistic to them; but the second truths are practical: they demand actions conformable to our belief, they ordain the accomplishment of what we believe. Condemned by these immutable rules of virtue, all our wicked propensities rebel and rise up against them. Self-love, the flesh, and the senses fly to arms and engage in the combat: our heart allows itself to be drawn into the conspiracy with all the more pliancy in that the enemy already possesses a secret understanding with it, so that it willingly consents to be bribed and won over by their perfidious and deceitful insinuations. Succumbing to its own weakness, our will, the queen and first of the faculties of the soul, leagues with its foes to stifle the voice of faith, whose holy exactions are become irksome to it: it has not the courage to reprobate as an evil that which its carnal eyes represent as a good; it would gladly descry falsehood, or at least exaggeration in a morality which religion holds to be alone true: it regards perfection as a mere chimera, and rejects the practice of solid virtue as a dream.

Plunging deeper still into the abyss, it seeks to shroud reason in darkness, in order to escape the inflexibility of its decrees; it endeavours to circumvent it, to engage it in its interests; it tries to blind it, to impose its depraved opinions on it and force it to approve of, as good and virtuous, whatever gratifies self-love, the senses and the flesh. Finally, it contrives to envelop our mind in such obscurity that it is, as it were, impossible for the truth to penetrate it. Not content with these sad results, the will, emboldened by its success, compels the understanding, by a sacrilegious manœuvre, to arraign faith before an incompetent tribunal; there it is interrogated, constrained to justify itself, bring forward its proofs, and it is our weak intellect which has the audacity to p. 278arrogate to itself the office of judge and pronounce sentence; but, as the whole proceedings of this tribunal are irregular, since it is only the testimony of the passions that is listened to, can it be wondered at that faith and virtue succumb when it is with earth that the sentence lies? and that it is obliged to exile itself, or at least to withdraw passive, silent, and almost lifeless into some obscure corner of the soul, while self-love, assuming a decisive supremacy, interprets the maxims of Jesus Christ according to its caprice, softens the severity of the Gospel, accommodates devotion to the ideas of the age, confounds the spirit of God with the spirit of the world, strives to make a compact betwixt light and darkness, the Ark and Dagon, Jesus Christ and Belial, nature and grace? Meantime, what can be the result of this heterogeneous mixture, save a monstrous and perpetual contradiction between our life and our faith? We must admit, therefore, that the revolt of our passions, the perversity and disorder of our will, as well as the darkening of our understanding, are the ordinary sources of the languor, the defection, and the ruin of our faith.

Let us trace idolatry, infidelity, and heresy to their origin, and we shall find they all take their rise in the ascendancy of vice over man’s will. St. John relates that ‘several amongst’ the Jews, even ‘of the chief men, believed in Jesus Christ, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him in public.’⁷⁸78John xii. 42. Why this dissimulation? Because pride and human respect predominated over them and that ‘they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.’⁷⁹79Ibid. xii. 43. The pagans themselves, whose brutal passions, lust, ambition, avarice, saw only ‘folly,’⁸⁰801 Cor. i. 23. in the mystery of the cross, did not hesitate p. 279to offer incense to an adulterous Jupiter, a pilfering Mercury, an unchaste Venus, because they were enamoured of the vices of these odious divinities. The predominant passion was the sacrificer which erected sacrilegious altars to these idols. Heresy, it is true, has its seat in the understanding, but it is to the depravity of the heart that it owes its birth and its progress. It is from evil passions that the most culpable and contradictory doctrines have emanated, and all heretical sects, the daughters of licentiousness, violence, and envy, invariably bear upon their brow the impress of their origin. Every new religion is uniformly the offspring of some monstrous passion.

How many are to be found, even among Catholics, who are unworthy of the name, who do not believe as they ought because they do not wish, who refuse to do what they know they are bound to do. They allow themselves the liberty of doubting, that they may act with less restraint; they shrink from being enlightened because the idea of conversion terrifies them; they pray for their cure but fear to be heard; they pretend to seek what they have no desire to find. Alas! this is occasioned by the rebellion of the passions and the corruption of the heart. ‘It is difficult to live badly,’ says St. Augustine, when ‘one believes well.’ I confidently add that it is almost impossible to live well when we believe badly.

These are so many irrefragable proofs that the disorder of the will and the darkening of the understanding are the empoisoned source whence the deplorable contradiction between our life and our faith proceeds.

2. Remedies

The first remedy to be applied to the ravages of so baneful an evil is fidelity to the divine inspirations, the prompt and vigorous repression of the revolt of the passions. This generosity will dissipate the mortal darkness which obscures our understanding, liberate our hearts from the perversity which enthrals our will, and prepare these two faculties of the soul, the one to understand more clearly the maxims of faith, the other to practise them better. As this point refers to what we have already explained in the first part of this work, Chapter III., of the Abuse of Grace, and Chapter IV., of the Predominant Passion, we shall not develop it further.

The second remedy consists in making acts of faith in the practical truths of religion, especially when tepidity or disgust for spiritual things begins to take possession of our soul; it is in these circumstances especially that it is most expedient to reanimate the fervour of our faith by saying, for instance: ‘I believe, Lord, on the authority of Thy word, that those are blessed who hunger and thirst after justice; that a single act of virtue is incomparably more estimable than all the treasures of the world. I believe that the care of my soul and advancement in perfection are my greatest, most useful, and only necessary affair. I believe that all is vanity of vanities, that there is nothing solid save the love and service of God alone.’ A frequent repetition of these or similar acts will rectify our erroneous ideas of sanctity, overcome our difficulties in the practice of virtue, and put an end to the unhappy contradiction between our life and our faith.

The third remedy is a generous resolution, fortified p. 280occasionally by a temporary vow, to perform our exercises of piety each day with perseverance, integrity and fervour; never to omit, defer, or curtail them without a very urgent and serious cause; to have a fixed time consecrated to these holy exercises, and to apply with a scrupulous exactitude the moment we have leisure for anything we may have been obliged to postpone. Though it would not be a mortal sin, it would nevertheless be a very serious fault to fail to fulfil this resolution under the pretext of study or any other business.

Accursed, then, be all knowledge which I would have acquired at the expense of virtue, anathema those occupations which I could only have fulfilled by neglecting my religious exercises! May they, like the mountains of Gelboa, be struck with a malediction: ‘may the dew’ of grace, may ‘the rain’ of the divine benedictions ‘no longer descend on them!’ May an eternal condemnation, a mark of reprobation, pursue that study, that action to which I devoted myself to the prejudice of my spiritual interests! May those employments, offices, labours, cares, solicitudes, which have absorbed me to the detriment of piety and virtue be destitute of fruit, success, and honour: may a thousand obstacles thwart them and disgust me with them for ever! And this is what usually happens; for experience teaches us that very frequently, by a just judgment of God, one does not acquire the knowledge for which he abandons virtue and the care of his own sanctification; and should he do so, it is neutralized by illness or rejected by God, who does not make use of the learning of such persons for the promotion of His glory. He seems to take a kind of pleasure in paralyzing by means as secret as they are admirable, those labours which are undertaken to the prejudice of virtue. For any one who does not prefer his spiritual advancement to these superfluous occupations wounds our Lord in the apple of the eye.

For our part, let us shun a similar excess by always performing the spiritual exercises we have prescribed for ourselves before everything else. A lively and active faith is a precious gift from God: let us frequently implore it of the Father of lights by ardent desire and fervent prayer, saying with the blind man of the Gospel: ‘Lord, grant that I may see;’⁸¹81Luke xviii. 41. or with the apostles: ‘increase my faith.’⁸²82John xvii. 5. We deceive ourselves much if we imagine that the acquisition of the priceless treasure of faith is above our strength, and that we can no more aspire to it than to the power of working miracles, the possession of the gift of tongues, of prophecy, of tears, and of the discernment of spirits. We admire the heroic and practical faith of the saints: we even envy it as a source of happiness; we long to participate in those bright interior lights which they have received, but, idiot-like, we cross our arms, we remain listless, we seem to expect a miracle to be wrought in our favour; we imitate the sluggard who ‘hideth his hand under his armpit,’ and whose ‘indolent desires kill him.’⁸³83Prov. xix. 24. Let us then entreat, let us make constant efforts, let us labour, let us knock with unbounded confidence at the door of the divine mercy, for Jesus Christ has promised that ‘the Father from heaven will give a good spirit to them that ask Him.’⁸⁴84Luke xi. 13.

Aided by these means, we shall preserve our faith from the double misfortune of a darkening of the understanding and disorder of the will; from this twofold evil, which, depriving us of the divine inspirations and p. 281exciting the revolt of the passions, occasions this lamentable contradiction which exists between our faith and our life. Let us engrave these means deeply in our memory for the purpose of reducing them to practice. Otherwise, let us beware lest our faith, whose teaching should lead us, as it were, by steps to heaven, shall have only exalted us, in order to cause us to fall from the greater height into hell.

Let us beware lest our Saviour, instead of saying to us as to the blind man of Jericho, ‘Go, thy faith hath saved thee,’⁸⁵85Luke vii. 50. should say to us, ‘Go, thy faith hath damned thee;’ for, says St. Augustine, ‘the dignity of the name of Christian alone does not constitute a Christian, and it avails us nothing to bear the title if we do not perform the works.’ It was the realisation of this truth that elicited from St. Jerome the following prayer: ‘O Jesus! I remember that Thou didst say to the two blind men, “Be it done to you according to your faith;” Lord, these words make me tremble, for if I be treated according to my faith I shall perish.’ O heavens! if a St. Jerome, the intrepid defender of the Church, the steadfast pillar and perfect model of faith, trembles thus, what should be our terror? How should we not fear, whose lives are a practical denial of our belief? O God, who desirest our sanctification, penetrate our soul with the strength of the reasons we have just been meditating, grant us the grace to prove by the remainder of our life that we are truly convinced of the high excellence of solid virtue!