The Law of God

“*T have thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies ”’ (Ps. exviii. 59).

MEDITATING upon this most serious and important subject, I picture myself as one who, having just arrived from a far-away country desolate and unknown to the rest of the world, ignorant himself of the ways and doings of the men and women who people the world, suddenly finds himself carried up to the summit of a very high mountain, from which, by the assistance of a power supernatural and divine, he is able to take in at a glance all the vast extent of land and sea spread before him, and to note all that is being done, all that is being planned and executed by their busy inhabitants. (Let me, in passing, observe that the blessed martyr Cyprian makes use of this same imagery when writing to his faithful friend Donatus and desiring him to consider and to avoid the follies and ignorance of the age in which they were living.) Well, from this elevation on which I imagine I find myself, I discover in the first place an infinite multitude of nations and peoples

• This is one of Bossuet’s early sermons. 254 strangely various in temperament, manners, and customs; some of them mere barbarians, uncouth and savage, others men of culture, polished and civilised; so different from one another in every particular, so widely separated by barriers which appear to be immovable, that I can find no words in which to convey a just impression of this marvel-lous variety of characters, dispositions, inclinations, habits, purposes. And if, going a little further, I begin to consider the lives, the occupations, the interests of these men and women, are they less amazing in their variety and their complexity? O Eternal God! to Whom this vast humanity belongs, Who art the Creator of all these busy, restless, self-absorbed multitudes, what strange confusion, what anomalies, what disorders, what contradictions and disturbances seem to agitate them! In the great cities, I see men feverishly engrossed in a thousand different professions, trades, occupations. Here a lawyer or an advocate heated in argument or absorbed in schemes and technicalities of his profession; there a politician with no other thought than that of public questions; tradesmen dealing more largely in lies and trickery than in honest merchandise. Truly, as I consider these things and as my eye wanders from one object to another, the varied proofs of man’s ingenuity and power of invention, coupled with so much chicanery and craftiness, fill me with such amazement and perplexity that I can scarcely believe the evidence of my senses.

Nor is it different if I turn aside from the crowded haunts of men and study the lives of those who make field and forest, hill and valley, their home. The inhabitants of these quiet places are indeed fewer in number, but they are no less busy and striving than the townsfolk. No one is at leisure; one is building, another cultivating the land, ploughing his field, or digging and planting his garden, eager about the improvement and embellishment of his private property, or toiling to put bread into his own mouth or into the mouths of a hungry household. I need not enumerate all the varied occupations of rustic life; you know very well what they are. Even the sea, which nature seemed to have intended to be the empire of the winds and the dwelling-place of the finny tribe; even the sea, I say, men have claimed as their own. So marvellously have they to a certain extent gained the mastery over this fierce and treacherous element, that they have forced it to carry their conquering armies and colonizing energies to the most distant quarters of the globe, fearless and untiring in their audacity; so that we may say: there is in the world no theatre in which they play their parts more boldly and inventively than on this storm-tossed, fickle, ever-varying, wonderful ocean. Let us for a moment now consider the marvellous diversity in the inclinations, passions, characters and dispositions of men. Some, whose natures are impetuous, daring, generous, love danger, adventure, excitement, the tumult, the stir, the risks and even the terrors of battle; if it so happens that they are by force of circumstance compelled to lead a quiet domestic life, they try to content themselves with sport, hunting, shooting, and so forth, which are really a sort of mimic warfare. Others, who are of a quieter and more peaceful turn of mind, prefer the sweets of life, friendly intercourse with their neighbours, the study of letters, the collecting of curios.

You will find some who actually devote their time and energies to the accumulation of a store of bons mots, witty sayings, in order to gain eclat in society. You see one man absolutely absorbed in the pleasures of the gaming table, turning what should be only a relaxation of mind into an affair of the most vital importance, and wasting his money and the greater part of his time. Others pass their whole life in intrigue, never happy unless they are sharing other people’s secrets, always eager to make new acquaintances and friends. You find one man wholly possessed with some mad passion which he calls love, another torn with the most bitter hatred and implacable revenge, another with furious and unreasoning jealousy. One man hoards, another squanders. Some are ambitious and always struggling for high places, they wish to live before the world, to be known and observed; others, of a more retiring nature, prefer the calm and gentle inactivity of private life. Every one has his own hobby, his own peculiar bent of mind, his own desires and inclinations. Characters are even more dissimilar than faces; every one wishes to air his folly according to his own fancy. The waves of the sea when it is agitated by the winds are not more numerous than the varied thoughts that are born in that unfathomable abyss, that storehouse of impenetrable secrecy, the heart of man. This is, as well as I can express it, what I seem to see when I consider attentively the affairs and the circumstances that influence the life of man.

Half-stunned and overwhelmed with amazement at those surprising incongruities and contradictions, I turn my thoughts upon myself; I ask myself, What shall I do? whither shall I turn? I have thought upon my ways. Surely, I say to myself, other living creatures conduct themselves, or are conducted, in a more orderly and uniform manner; how is it that in all human concerns such inequality, such singularity, prevails? Can this be man, the half-divine being of whom such marvels are told? can it be that this soul, endowed as it is with undying vigour and beauty, is yet incapable of rising to a supernatural life, and of remembering what she is and whence she came? All those occupations which I see going on round about me seem to me either servile or frivolous, idle or criminal.* I discern in them stir and activity sufficient to agitate the soul, but neither rule nor safe guidance to calm and settle her. All is vanity and affliction of spirit, said the wisest of men. Can I, then, find nothing in all this world of time and space which could be counted worthy of a creature made to the image of God? I have thought on my ways. I search, I ponder, I study carefully and seriously my ways; when suddenly, in the midst of my doubt and perplexity, I make a wonderful discovery! In my groping, in my distracted seeking after what seemed the impossible, the unattainable, I stumble as it were upon an entirely new order of beings scattered by God’s hand here and there, in scanty numbers (it is true), but all over the world; beings whose whole aim in life seems to be to obey the Law of God and to make its rules the pattern and guide of their daily and hourly conduct. These are the just, the faithful, the blessed. Their whole deportment, their behaviour, their very air and gestures,

• ** Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.’”,—Horaczk WALPOLE.

seem to me different from anything I have yet seen; they are self-restrained, calm, full of dignity and beauty. But then there are so few of these men; their number is so inconsiderable that they make a very poor show in the world. Moreover, generally speaking, I find that they are held in very low esteem; poverty and contempt seem to be their portion, while those who ill-treat and oppress them carry their heads high and are thought much of by men of all ranks and conditions. This consideration throws me into a new state of perplexity! Shall I follow the many or the few? the wise or the fortunate? those who enjoy the favour of the world at large, or those who are satisfied with the testimony of their own conscience? I have thought on my ways.

At last, after battling with many a doubt, many a difficulty, this is the conclusion at which I arrive, this is the anchorage found by my weary soul. I was born in the state of most profound ignorance; I was cast adrift in the world, not knowing what I ought to do there. What I have been able to learn from my surroundings, strange and miserable as they are, is so mingled with error of every sort and kind, that my soul would remain in a state of continual uncertainty if it had but its own lights to guide it. And yet, notwithstanding this uncertainty, I have been constrained to set forth upon a long and perilous journey; it is the journey of this mortal life in which I must of necessity struggle on, treading many and many a devious path, encompassed on all sides by perilous precipices. Blind and feeble as I am, what, oh! what shail I do if some happy fortune does not send me a faithful guide who shall lead my

Ss wandering feet into a safe path and rightly direct my fearful, doubting soul? To find such a guide is the first thing I need, desire, and must do.

But it is not only that my mind is darkened by ignorance; my will also is strangely weakened and disordered. Again and again it is stirred by idle or unruly or evil desires. I am almost continually tossed and shaken by the vehemence of my passions and the violence of my emotions. I must, then, endeavour to find some certain rule of conduct which shall calm and settle my disordered impulses and reduce my actions to a state of reasonable propriety; that is my second need. And now I come to my — third need. My understanding and my will (which are the two principal faculties governing my actions) being thus wounded, the one by ignorance, the other by lawlessness, my whole soul is agitated and troubled by such a condition of things, and is con- _ sequently plunged into fresh miseries, those of perpetual doubt and anxiety. I wander from one desire to another, unable to find anything that can satisfy me. I shall therefore live henceforth without hope of ever putting an end to this long, weary state of perplexity and trouble, unless I find at last some solid object which may give consistency to my movements. by an absolute tranquillity, some clear light to show me my errors, some rule to settle my disorders, some secure rest for my instability, my wavering inconstancy.

Those are the three things which I need, which I must have. O my God! where shall I find them? I have thought on my ways. Human prudence is always unreliable; men’s rules and laws and guiding principles are defective and fallible; this world’s

NS goods are unstable and perishable. I see that I must raise my thoughts, my desires, my aspirations higher. I see, I see in the Law of God an infallible guide, a certain rule of life, an immutable peace. I hear the living voice of Jesus the Saviour of the world. He says: ‘“‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John xiv. 6). I am the sure Way, which you may follow with no uncertainty; I am the infallible Truth, never varying, faultless, which will guide and govern you; I am the Life, the true Life of your soul, which will make all your days full of a perfect peace, most sweet, most calm, most unruffled, most enduring.”’ Why, then, should I hesitate any longer? Away with doubts and perplexities; away with irresolution and delay. I have thought on my ways; and at last, at last, O Lord, I have turned my feet unto Thy testimonies.