Chapter II. Presumption and Discouragement

You will see by the last chapter that I have made a sort of map of the spiritual life in my own mind. I have divided it into three regions of very unequal extent, and of very diversified interest. First, there comes the region of beginnings, a wonderful time, so wonderful that nobody realizes how wonderful it is, till they are out of it, and can look back on it. Then stretches a vast extent of wilderness, full of temptation, struggle, and fatigue, a place of work and suflfering, with angels, good and bad, winging their way in every direction, the roads hard to find and slippery underfoot, and Jesus with the Cross meeting us at every turn. This is four or five times the length of the first region. Then comes a region of beautiful, wooded, watered, yet rocky mountains, lovely yet savage too, liable to terrific tempests and to those sudden overcastings of bright nature, which characterize mountainous districts. This last is the land of high prayer, of brave self-crucifixions, of mystical trials, and of heights of superhuman detachment and abjection, whose rarefied atmosphere only chosen souls cm breathe.

I have joined myself to a soul who is out of the region of beginnings, and has just entered on the great central wilderness, whose long plains of weary sand join the verdant fields of the beginners with the woody mountains of the long-tried and w ell-mortified souls. God calls some to Himself in their first fervours, others mature in grace on the mountain heights. But more die in the wilderness, some at one point of the pilgrimage, some at another. Of course there is only one good time for each of us to die; and that is the exact hour at which God wills that death should find us. But as the great body of devout men die while they are crossing the central wilderness, it is this wilderness of which I wish to speak: the wilderness of long, patient perseverance in the humbling practices of solid virtue.

Persons who are aiming ever so little at perfection are the choice portion of God's creation, and are dear to Him as the apple of His eye. Hence everything that concerns them is of consequence. Thus it was important that they should have some signs furnished them, by means of which they could estimate with some probability the progress they are making in the spiritual life But they often mistake for signs of progress things which taken by themselves do not tell either way; and thus they fall into delusions which take them into bye-paths, tire them out, and then bring them back again into the road miles behind where they were, when they first wandered. These false signs will form the subject of this chapter. The consideration of them is of the more importance, inasmuch as it brings us across a great many facts about the spiritual life which it exceedingly concerns us to know. •

The soul then at this sti ge of its journey is beset by two opposite temptations. Sometimes it is attacked by one, sometimes by another, according to different moods of mind and diversities of character. These temptations are discouragement and piesumption; and our chief business at this point is to be upon our guard against these two things.

Discouragement is an inclination to give up all attempts after the devout life, in consequence of the difficulties by which it is beset, and\ our already numerous failures in it. We lose heart j and partly in ill-temper, partly in real doubt of our own ability to persevere, we first grow querulous and peevish with God, and then relax in our efforts to mortify ourselves and to please Him. It is like the sin of despair, although it is not truly any sin at all. It is a sort of shadow of despair; and it will lead us into numberless venial sins the first half-hour we give way to it. What it shows is that we trusted too much to our own strength, and had a higher opinion of ourselves than we were at all warranted in having. If we had been truly humble, we should have been surprised we did not do worse, instead of being disappointed we did not do better. Many souls are called to perfection, and fail, through the sole and single mischief of discouragement.

Meanwhile persons trying to be spiritual are peculiarly liable to discouragement, because of their great sensitiveness. Their attention is riveted to a degree in which it never was before on two things, minute duties and observances, and exterior motives; and both these things render them uncommonly sensitive. Conscience, acted upon by the Holy Ghost, becomes so fine and delicate that it feels the jar of little infirmities, that never seemed intirmities before; and not only is its perception of sia quickened, but the sense of pain which «iq infliota?s koeter. The difficulty and the hiddenness of the work ia svhich they are engaged augments still more* thij sen:iu;veues8, especially as they are so far from rcewng >^b!« support 3* from those around them, that they must rather make their account to be called enthusiastic and indiscreet, singular and affected, by those even who are good people, but have the incalculable ill-luck to be good in their own way, not in God's way. Moreover early piety is never wise. How should it be, since experience alone can make it wise? The world complains of the mistakes of beginners in religion, not seeing that they only make these mistakes because they are not yet quite so unworldly and anti-worldly, as please God they will be by and by. One of these mistakes is that they exaggerate their own faults, and this at once leads to discouragement. Besides that, they are working to high models, Jesus and the Saints; and when they have done their best, and what is for them really well, it must be so terribly below what they aimed at that they can hardly help being disappointed. What is more trying to spirits and temper than to be invariably playing a losing game? And what else can a man do who has made up his mind to be like his Crucifix?

But the upshot of all this discouragement is that i* Tenders us languid and unjoyous; just the two worsv things that could happen to us, because they make any thing heroic simply impossible. If a man has tight hold of his adversary in a wrestling match, and is suddenly seized with languor, all is over with him; for the victory depended on the play of his muscles and the firmness of his hold. A victorious army can beat a vanquished army of twice its numbers, because the joy of victory is such a moral power. Thus to be languid and unjoyous, and that so early in the day, is quite fatal to us; and it is in these two things that the bane of discouragement consists

As to presumption I believe it is much less common than discouragement. A man must be a fool to be presumptuous in religion. Nevertheless we can be very foolish when we least expect it. St. Theresa says humility is the first requisite for those who wish to lead an ordinarily good life; but that courage is the first requisite for those who aim at any degree of perfection. Now presumption is never very far from courage; and hence we must be upon our guard against it. We may fall into it in many different ways; and I will mention some of them. There is a proverb that the first blow is half th« battle. I do not think it holds in spiritual matters; and the reason I do not think so is that such a number of persons are called to devotion and an interior life, who break down and abandon it. The fault was not in the first blow. It was vigorous enough, loving enough, humble enough. The fault was later on; it was either that they got tired of mortification, or that they fell into a common superstition about grace, and when it did not come true, they were disgusted. This superstition consists in imagining that grace is to work like a charm, almost without the concurrence of our own wills. A man will not get up at his proper time in the morning. He says he cannot; which is absurd, for there is no physical power holding him down in his bed. The fact is he will not; he does not choose to do it; the virtue of it or the obedience of it is not worth the pain of it. He pleads that over night he made a resolution to get up next morning, and asked the souls in Purgatory to get him up. The morning comes; the air is cold; meditation is uninteresting; sleep is pleasant. No souls have come from Purgatory to pull him out of bed, draw his curtains, light his fire, and the rest. It is not therefore his affair. He has done his part. He finished it all last night: hut grace has not worked. What can he do? This is only a picture of a thousand other things. Multitudes who would have been nigh to saints remain nigh to sinners from this singular superstition about grace. What we want is not grace; it is will. We have already a thousand times more grace than we correspond to. God is never wanting on His side. It is the manly persistent will which is wanting on ours.

But to return. The first blow is not half the battle in the devout life. But we think it is. We become impatient with the extreme and mysterious slowness of God's movements, and we think the work begun is as good as the work ended; and knowing what the saints have done, when after long austerities they had consummated their union with God, so far as on earth may be, we presume, and imitate them in the letter, without discerning the spirit. Or again we mistake the vigour of Divine Grace for the fortitude of our own will; and so we turn against God some special accession of supernatural strength which He has compassionately vouchsafed to us. Experience has not yet shown us by how many defeats each spiritual victory is gained. We shall find that out presently) for it is a grand fountain of humility. Moreover there is a peculiar pleasure and an exalting sense of power which for a long time sensibly accompanies co-operation with grace. We bring it with us out of our first fervours, and it does not go away all at once when they do. And we mistake this for acquired habits of solid virtue. Or we dwell on our own good works, and then a mist rises out of them and we see them double. Or injudicious friends praise us and remark how devout we have grown of late, and think they are doing us a kindness while they are thus overthrowing the work of God in our souls. All these causes lead us into presumption, and presumption into indiscreet excesses, and indiscreet excesses into self-trust, and self-trust into an inevitable reaction against the interior life altogether.

Neither must we forget to note, though it belongs rather to a treatise on the Beginnings of the Spiritual Life, that in the earlier stages of our course, and especially in the remains of our first fervours, there are some things which greatly resemble what we read of in advanced saints. The fact is, we are only just settling into our normal state. God has hitherto been doing far Jaore than it is His will to do for a continuance. Our beginnings are sometimes almost as supernatural as our endings may be. We are not to expect that the long interval between the two will be so. We must part company now with a great deal of sensible sweetness, with many secret manifestations of God, and fervent aspirations, which have sometimes perhaps made us fancy that we should soon be saints. Now this likeness of our beginnings to certain features of more advanced states entices us occasionally into a secret presumption. We have no idea how heavy the mere pressure of time will be upon us hereafter, nor how long the road really is, though the mountains look so near. Without one additional duty, without one new temptation, nay I will put it more strongly still, with fewer duties and fewer temptations the mere continuance of going against our natural inclinations, which is implied in the service of God, is a drag upon us more fatiguing and more depressing than c we could have conceived beforehand- Perseverance la the greatest of trials, the heaviest of burdens, the most crushing of crosses.

These two dangers of discouragement and presumption lead us into opposite mistakes with regard to our spiritual progress. Hence it is of consequence to be on our guard against certain symptoms which discouragement will take as proofs we are not advancing, and presumption as proofs we are greatly advancing, when in reality, taken by themselves, they tell neither way. I proceed to consider five of these uncertain signs of progress: and to look at each of them under the double aspect of presumption and discouragement.

1. After watching ourselves for a time, we perceive that we either do or do not conquer some besetting fault. We presume upon this. But let us consider. It may be no real proof of progress, for our temptations ma^ from many causes happen to be weaker at that particular time. The devil by his natural subtilty may foresee that we shall thus examine ourselves, and thus rest upon the result of our examination; and wishing to inspire us with false confidence, which is always fine weather for his campaign, Ls may draw off his forces and leave us in temporary peace. Or again our faults may be changing from some change in our exterior life, or from the force of years, or any other cause. That our faults do change is certain, and these changes give birth to some of the most remarkable phenomena of the spiritual life. Or again, from some little infidelity to grace, the sensitiveness and delicacy of our conscience may be in punishment a little dulled; and hence we may be less conscious of our falls. Is there any one who has not experienced this punish-merit? Hence there is no ground for presumption simply in our perceiving that we have fallen less often into some besetting fault. But then there is also no reason for discouragement because we happen of late to have fallen oftener. We must go on taking observations for a long time before we can safely begin to draw inferences from them. It may be, for many reasons, that we are more conscious of our falls just now than we were before. Or God may allow us to fall in order to keep us humble, or to conceal from us the progress we may be making in some other direction. Or it may be that our great enemy has made a dead set against us in that particular respect. We may be actually supporting a charge, not merely marching through a difficult country. We do not know enough about ourselves to be reasonably discouraged then by this first sign.

2. We presume or are disheartened in proportion as we have or have not sensible sweetness in our religious exercises. But presumption should remember that this sensible sweetness arises very often from physical causes, from good health, fine weather or high spirits, and even when it is an operation of grace it is sometimes a testimony of infirmity, and a mark of spiritual infancy. It is the bait of God's condescension to tempt us on, when we have not sufficient solid virtue to distinguish between Him and His gifts, and to serve Him for His own sake, not for theirs. It is a bait to be eagerly seized, for it brings forth solid fruits. Yet it is God's gift, not our progress. At the same time it is very unreasonable to be discouraged by the absence of this sensible sweetness. For it is a gift, not a virtue; and God gives it to whom He wills, and when He wills, and in what measure He wills. Nay, His very withholding it is sometimes a favour; for it is meant to raise the soul to a higher state to ennoble its love, and to increase its occasions of meriting. Even if it is a chastisement it may be a favour. People very often insist on giving way to low spirits because the\ are sure that such or such a symptom in their spiritual life is a divine punishment. Truly a spiritual mm, when he is peevish, is the most unreasonable of all complainants. I cannot see anything disheartening in being punished by God. On the contrary, when He punishes He does not ignore us; and His ignoring us would be the really terrible thing. And when He punishes, it is a father's punishment, and the hardness of the blow and the number of the stripes are in truth but measures of the affectionateness of the punishment. Never let us wish God to put off His punishments. It is a wish He might easily grant, and for which we should pay dearly in the end. God is interested in us and full of merciful purposes, when He condescends to chastise us. While one hand wields the rod, the other is filled with special graces, which we shall receive when nature has been sufficiently hurt and mortified.

3. Another experience which we are in the habit of making too much of, is our finding or our not finding mental pra}rer and meditation grow easier. For meditation is in itself ordinarily so difficult that anything like an increased facility in it presently awakens presumptuous feelings. But we should recollect that the habit of prayer is a different thing from the grace of prayer; and meditation is such a discursive method of prayer that it is quite easy to form a habit of it without its going at all deeply into us, or affecting our interior life. Instances of this come across us continually in the shape of men who never miss their morning medi ation, yet seem to bo none the better for it, do not lead more mortified lives, or vanquish their dominant passion, or govern their tongues, or become more recollected. Not but that the habit of prayer is an excellent thing; only it is not the gift of prayer, and we are apt to exaggerate its importance from confounding it with the gift. It may also happen at any particular time that the subjects of our meditations may be easier to us, as being more suitable to our genius. The different times of the ecclesiastical year may bring this about. It may be Christmas, or Lent, or Corpus Christi. For some can meditate easily on the Passion who cannot meditate at all on the Infancy; and some find rest and devotion in the Gospel Narratives and Parables who can make nothing of our Lord's Mysteries. Or our bodily health may be better, our sleep sounder, or our circumstances more cheerful, or the excitement of some great feast, coming or gone, may be still upon us and help us. All this is against our presuming simply because for the while meditation goes on more swimmingly and smoothly. At the same time we have no reason to be discouraged if meditation so far from growing easier seems to become impossible to us. It is a long work to gain facility in mental prayer, and it is acquired much more by mortification than it is by habit; and our progress in mortifications, while it must be steady and unsparing, must also be gradual and cautious, erring rather on the side of too little than too much, because of our wretched cowardice. Moreover, as I shall have to show in the sequel, dry meditations are often the most profitable, and of course it is just the dryness that makes 4 the difficulty. And, to put it at the wcrst, there is not necessarily the least venial sin in want of readiness at prayer; and surely it is a great thing for us at this stage, and remembering old times, that God's grace keeps us from offending Him. It is not a sign of a low estate to be immensely joyful at the mere absence of sin. There are better things in store for us; but God grant that as we force our way we may never lose the simplicity of that satisfaction! I will not allow that we have always a right to be discouraged even by our sins, but I am sure we ought not to be discouraged by anything which is short of sin.

4. We are often apt to philosophize on the phenomena of our temptations, and to be elated or cast down by what we fancy we observe in that region. But even if the sky look cloudless and serene, we have no warrant to be elated. Our temptations may at any particular time be fewer in number, as I have observed before. They may also be of a less attractive character, in consequence of some change in our outward circumstances. Or our minds may be full of some interesting occupation which completely possesses them and so distracts them from the temptations, without there being anything meritorious or supernatural in it. It is sometimes true that the world helps us as well as hinders us by its multifarious distractions. They prevent much sin, though they spoil much recollection. It is this which makes solitude so dangerous except to tried virtue. But suppose a very tempest of temptations is raging round us; discouragement would be as unreasonable in this case as presumption in the other. The very vehemence of the temptations is a sign of the devil's anger; and he is far too sensible to be angry for nothing. When the Bible speaks of his being angry, it is added that it is because his time is short. We must have provoked him by the way in which we have hung on to God, or by the marks of special love which God has made to shine upon us, and which Satan may be able to see more clearly than ourselves. If the temptations frighten us rather by their obstinacy and long continuance, as if they were determined not to leave us until they had got a fall out of us, we must be on our guard indeed, but with joy and thanksgiving. For the very continuance of the temptation is a proof that so far at least it has not been consented to. The dog goes on barking, says St. Francis of Sales, because he has not been let in. Furthermore, which may be the result of Satan's natural sagacity and foresight, an access of new and unusual temptations is often a sign that a season of reculiar grace is at hand. Therefore, with Jacob, we must wrestle till the dawn.

5. At different seasons we feel the effect of the sacraments more or less decidedly. Certainly there are times when it almost seems as if the sacraments were going to destroy faith, so palpably do we see and hear and taste and touch and handle and realize grace. This is especially true both of confession and communion. Nevertheless there is no room for presumption here. The grace of the sacraments is not our merit; and the sensible effect of them may often be apparent, and yet its being sensible arise actually from other causes, physical or mental. Or God may see that we are unusually weak and so may give us an unusual grace, and make it sensible in order to inspirit the lower part of our soul more effectually. Yet if the sacraments become insipid, losing what little sensible savour they had to our souls before, we must not be discouraged as if some evil were befalling us. It is no proof that we are not receiving in abundant measure the solid grace of the sacraments. The saints have experienced similar things, even after they had become saints. And, moreover, though this perhaps is taking you a little too near the mountains, bare faith is by far the grandest of all spiritual exercises.

Perhaps you will say that this is an unsatisfactory chapter: all negatives. But have you not got far enough to see that inward peace is the great thing you want? and nothing so effectually secures that, as the wise and skilful handling of these two temptations, presumption and discouragement. Besides, if it was a great thing to know what are signs of progress, it is far from a little thing to know what are not signs, especially when thej pretend to be.