Chapter XXI. The Irreligious and the Elect

It is the most unconverting thing in the world to tell a man there is nothing in his objection. This is partly the reason of its being easier to convince a man who has a valid objection, than one who has only an invalid one. Not only because we have something definite and intelligible to answer, but also because our candor and fairness in admitting what is real in his objection, softens and wins our opponent's heart. Hence those who will not admit that the Catholic system presents many reasonable difficulties to an external mind, do not only themselves admit a strong argument against its divinity, but will not usually be very fertile of converts, or have much cause to rejoice either in the progress, or perseverance, or thorough Catholicism, of the converts they make.

The same principle is the reason of the present chapter. It is strange that when a man has been so engrossed with interior things, he should be plagued with external difficulties. Yet as he never can get rid of his liability to presumption and discouragement, they each of them find vent in a difficulty which has nothing to do with himself, and is a distraction and an unhappiness to him. It is remarkable how many and what clear-sighted spiritual persons find a real temptation in seeing how wicked the world is, and how good they are in comparison with it, which leads them to presumption, or in the doctrine of the fewness of the elect which casts them into dejection I cannot say that there is nothing in an objection which teases so many, or nothing reasonable in what men urge, whom I could only call unreasonable by using the word in the usual sense of controversialists, with whom it means a man who is hardy enough to differ from themselves. I shall admit the objections and go into them, and so I hope to blunt them.

The progress of spirituality is the growth of detachment from the world) and there is much that is imperfect and ungraceful on our part in many of the processes. We do not all at once hate the world with a supernatural hatred, when we have ceased to love it. We tremble with our old habitual respect for its judgments, or we regard it with the critical eye of a mere natural aversion. It is when we are in this last stage, that the utter badness of the world is a temptation to us to think ourselves saints.

There are as it were, five visions of the world's wickedness which distress us. For men either harden their hearts, or they pass God over altogether, or they are not converted when they ought to be, or they positively hate God, or they profess to serve Him and are inconsistent, as devotees often are.

The first state is that of impenitence, the state of hardened hearts. Men know that they ought to leave off sin, and refuse to do so, not that they have any conscious hatred of God, or any conscious aversion to morality, but because they like sin, and are willing to have it with its costs and risks. To a man who is well and high-spirited, there is a great deal of natural enjoyment in sin, and to those who are ailing or unhappy, there is both repose and consolation in sensuality. The world is also extremelj graceful and attractive in its bearing. A man must be already converted, before he can see the truth of the harsh judgments we pass upon the world in our pulpits and confessionals; they cannot convert him. Such men wilfully stifle conscience when it speaks, yet there is a blind notion of the duty of repentance left at last, which few can entirely extirpate; and which, if it is allowed to discharge no kindlier office, will at least justify God in the severity of their eternal doom. Christians would do well to remember that all confessions without sorrow, and all relapses into sin, are in reality energetic tendencies to this state of impenitence. There is something in the peculiar malice of a relapse very congenial to final impenitence.

The second phase of the world is indifference. Men pass God over, and that too without being infidels. This is compatible, not only with an external profession of Christianity, but also with an intellectual belief in it. Spiritual men find something irritatingly odious in this state. Indifferent men arrogate to themselves all the candor and moderation in the world. They imagine themselves to be on a height, so that they look up at nothing, but down upon everything. Inside the Church they care very little about doctrines, and wish to stand well with all parties. They have no keen sense of the Church, no susceptibility about the poor, no instinct about the heinousness of sin. They intend to hang on to God by just the necessary duties, and no more. They theologize for themselves, and strike out a road to heaven without love, except that radical love which is in the soul, will, reason, brain, blood, bones, and marrow of organized man towards his Creator. All their views and all their interests, are Bteeped in materialism; and in religion they think themselves amazingly prudent in not aiming at too much, or committing themselves to God. They are always ready to damp every zealous work, and throw a dash of chill, which is their notion of moderation, into everything. To hear them talk, you would suppose the world was on fire with a romantic love of God, and that our merciful Creator had deputed them to come and play upon the conflagration with cold water, which they do with all the calmness and dignity conceivable. It makes spiritual people sea-sick to watch these men, and yet they will watch them, they often cannot help watching them, with a kind of fascination.

The third state of the world is unconversion. Men simply do not think of God at all, or they push His grace from them as men repel a shock in the street, without knowing whether it is man or thing they are resisting. They do not wish to make up their minds to be either for or against God, not so much because they are indifferent about it, but because they are deterred by its difficulties. They live as if there were no spiritual world, and no invisible powers. They have all that unsuspiciousness of supernatural things, which is the effect of long self-indulgence, even independent of positive sin. Indeed, they are often outwardly moral; for the characters which shine most in domestic life often belong to this class. When religiousness is obtruded upon them, they rest in vague views of God, and profane generalities about His attribute of mercy, or they make the existence of religious differences an excuse for not fairly meeting the question. Good people themselves should remember that all reserves with 83 z

God, no matter with how much other excellence combined, are so many steps to unconversion.

The fourth state is irreligion. God is an object of positive aversion to many. They are fidgeted by the mention of Him. They rise up in arms when his claims are urged, however modestly. They are vexed with holiness, even where it can cause no practical inconvenience to them. The definition of the Immaculate Conception sours them: so much so, that they cannot sneer. The canonization of a saint provokes them, though how it concerns them it is difficult to see. They have a strong feeling that religion must be put down, and they look to the newspapers to do it. A good word for God they take as a personal affront to themselves, and, if intellectual convictions have moral qualities, they have an ill-tempered disbelief in hell.

The assertion of the supernatural makes them fretful, and they pronounce very strongly against mortification, as superstitious and undignified. They are vehement against Church authority, and all ecclesiastical arrangements and jurisdiction are gall to them. Yet they cannot shake off an uneasy and insecure feeling that they are not so infallible as they wish to seem. They feel as if there was an enemy in the rear, who would come up with them some day, as He will do. This perhaps explains the ill-humor which is their prominent characteristic. A man who loses his temper because our Lady has appeared on the steeps of La Salette is evidently not at ease about his own religious convictions; else he would smile, not frown. Everyone likes to be good-humored, and is so, when he can afford to be.

From all these states comes judicial blindness Men are in a mist, and do not know it: only those, who can look upon the mist from without, perceive that there is any mist at all. In this blindness they neither see the evil they do, nor the good they might do. They are in darkness as to the real state of their souls, the truths of religion, the character of God, and His dispositions towards them. And so they go into eternity, and their eyes are opened, and at last they see.

A melancholy world! No wonder we look to ourselves so good in the middle of it. But to get rid of the temptation we fix our eyes upon the few good men in it, and with the most unsatisfactory result. There is something especially unpleasant in the faults of pious persons. Their inconsistency grates very harshty upon us. They ought to be humble, and they are proud. They should be grave, and they are frivolous. They should be overflowing with mercy, and they are abstracted and unsympathetic. They are peevish, and bear less well than other men either contradiction or interruption. There is an annoying littleness about their faults, which sometimes makes us sigh for the world's great sins. They make sacred things grotesque, and there is a charmed atmosphere of exaggeration round about them. They judge each other, and all walk different roads. Now the sting of the temptation is in this last vision. If we thought ourselves good, when we measured ourselves by the bad people, we are saints by the side of the good. The more we try to do for God the more forcibly all this comes upon us, and times of prayer and penance are its choicest seasons. I admit it is a trial, enough of a trial to be a temptation; and that we had better arm ourselves with some considerations against it.

OOO THE IRRELIGIOUS AND THE ELECT.

We must consider, first of all, that men are very dif« ferent from what they seem, and that our real knowledge of them is very small indeed. Moreover, even when they wish to do the reverse, men put out their bad and draw in their good; although badness is in itself a much more demonstrative thing than goodness. Then what should we have been without grace? And we did not merit it for ourselves at first. It has often failed to move us even when its impulses have been strong and lasting. Had any one of these men ever one such single impulse? Who knows? We cannot apply the doctrine of chance to grace. What would they have been if they had had our grace? It is inconceivable that any one should have corresponded less faithfully to it than we have done. So far as supernatural things are concerned, look at what an advantageous position we occupy, from our own past experience of God's operations in our souls. Have they anything they can parallel with that? Who knows? And what are they to us? Will not our judgment be solitary? We shall not pass muster in a crowd. We shall each stand alone and apart before the "great white throne" when the books are opened; and as Christ died for each one of us as completely as if He had no one else to die for, so we are judged each by himself as if he were the only one to be judged. There is in this temptation, therefore, an unconscious reference to the world as a standard and measure, which shows the imperfection of our state. By our own grace, by our own light, according to our own works, and to our own Master, we shall stand or fall; and by His mercy only shall even His chosen be set up in that day.

We are as ignorant of the future of these rasn as we

THE IRRELIGIOUS AND THE ELECT. 38C are of their past; and this added to our exaggeration of their present, leaves us in a total incapacity of judging. They may be converted; and who knows whether they will not then be great saints? In the fervor of their penance, it will be no hard matter for them to overshoot us, and throw our attainments completely into the shade. They will love more, because more has been forgiven them. We who minister to souls must often have been surprised when bold unblushing sinners, whose very bearing even inspires us with human respect, have fallen into our hands, to see what sweetness of disposition, and childlike character, and attractive moral timidity were covered by that external effrontery of voice, of swagger, of eye, and of evil deed. They have as many capabilities of being saints as we have possibilities of being demons Besides which, if the worst comes to the worst, we surely knew beforehand that the world was God's enemy; for in our baptismal engagements we had pledged ourselves to renounce it. We ought not, therefore, to be surprised at that of which we were not forewarned, but against which we were solemnly forearmed.

As to the criticism of the faults of good people, is not this perhaps rather a sin than only a temptation? We have no business with them. It is not our affair. When the world has become really and genuinely our enemy, we participate in God's right to judge it. But it is not bo with His own servants. It is an injury to ourselves, because it takes off our attention from our own souls. But the main thing to consider is, that we can come to no fair estimate of devout people, or test their progress in holiness. This is partly for the same reasons which applied to worldly men, and partly f }r others peculiar to themselves. The spiritual life is greatly a matter of ex« terior motives and interior combats. Now we can know only the outside; faults are plainer to see than virtues. One sin docs not make a habit, perhaps not even many. Falls may be surprises, or they may be violences. Old manners often remain after inward conversion, just as strong scents linger in jars and bottles. God leads men bo differently, that there are almost as many diversities in the spiritual life, as there are human faces and features in the world. To know a man's progress we must know his besetting sin, and we do not know it. It is not always the amount of grace given, which is the index, but the proportion of correspondence to what is given. Even the saints seem paradoxical; and in one word charity means breadth, and a charity which is not broad is not charity at all. There is no one in the world who does not excel us in some one thing; and charity believes in that one thing against sight, and conjectures more.

So much for the temptation to presumption. I do not say I have answered it; for I began by allowing it. But I have fastened a counter-weight to it, which ought to make it slide easily, and not let it jerk us out of our place. I have now to meet the other temptation to discouragement, which is based in a continual, ever-present, depressing thought of the number of the elect. I allow the temptation; I do not think anything can exaggerate its misery, and shall only endeavor to balance it.

We ought to be less inclined to treat this temptation lightly, because it comes so frequently from physical temperament or the present state of health, and those who are most affected by it are the least to blame, either for briAging it on themselves or idly magnifying it when it has come. The same questions which cast a salutary fear into the lukewarm, tease, bewilder, and sadden the good. If the temptation to think ourselves good because the world is bad, may be rather a sin than a temptation, the temptation to despair because the elect are so few, may be called more a suffering than a temptation.

The way in which this temptation comes about, seems to be as follows. In most cases the subject is prepared by indisposition, nervousness, bodily ailments, an accumulation of temporal misfortunes, or the oppression of some sadness. Then we begin to calculate our own chances of salvation as nearly as it is in our power to do so, which is foolish; but the attraction to do so at times is irresistible. We put the greatness of the reward, and our own demerits, alongside of each other. We measure our actual practice by the requirements of God's law. We stand by the side of the saints, and see how tall we are. And what is the inevitable consequence of these processes? Do we look as if we were picked out, or elect? Can any one possibly think so? The occupations of eternity are to a certain extent revealed to us; should we be happy and our tastes suited in them? Then we get darker and darker as we go along. Are we really in any habitual anxiety about the salvation of our souls? Is the spiritual life in any sense a contest with us? If it is, what are we contesting, and with whom?

Then we are snatched away from ourselves, and borne far off, and put down amid uninhabited mountains by a dark sea, whose angry breakers wake eternal echoes. We are in the midst of the everlasting predestination of the Divine Mind. It is the scene of the first act of God towards ourselves. How immense that act, on any view how potent, and how utterly unknown! The freedom of our will is as clearly uninjured by that act as the elouds are unpolluted by the sunbeam. Nevertheless, how awful is the mere fact that the doom we shall eventually work out for ourselves is known already by Him, who has prepared our place for us. Somewhere in creation a lodging is ready, and is empty. It is ours j but where? Above? Below? He must have an impenetrably exterior mind through whom this doubt does not often thrill, like a current of electricity. At first sight and first sound, Scripture seems to speak of the fewness of the elect and of the difficulty of salvation, and what we actually observe among men bears this out. How few promise well for heaven! The freedom of our own will only adds nervousness to the question. God being the Father He is, there would be more security for us in His absolute sovereignty. But he knows best. He has put our souls into our hands, but He has still mercifully kept them in His own. Free will without grace would be demoniacal despair.

Now, not in answer to, but in palliation of, all this, I tmall make two observations. The first is this. If we can know nothing about the future, we can at least know a great deal about the present. In spiritual matters God;s pleased to instruct His Church by His saints, and the Church before canonizing them, sets her seal upon their writings. Now the saints mention seven things, which they call the signs of predestination. This means something more than that they are symptoms of our being at present in a state of grace and the way of holiness. It means that they are to a certain extent prophecies of the future, not infallibly true but supernaturally hopeful. Jt means that they are the sort of things to be expected in the elect, and not to be expected in others; things essential to the elect, and which through all the centuries of the Church have distinguished the elect. Hence if we find all, many, or a few of them in ourselves, we are legitimately entitled to proportionate consolation. They are, the imitation of Christ, devotion to our Blessed Lady, works of mercy, love of prayer, self-distrust, the gift of faith, and past mercies from God. We must also bear in mind of all these things, that it is not the plenary possession of them which counts with God, and so is a sign of predestination, but the earnest desire of them and the sincere endeavor after them. What wonder the theologian Viva should make the number of the saved so large, and the saint of Geneva almost doubt if any Catholics were lost?

My second observation is this. We are discussing a temptation of the catholic spiritual life; and we may keep to what is strictly practical. Consequently we are dispensed from touching on the question of the fewness-of the elect out of the whole number of mankind. We have nothing to do with curiosity about the future destinies of heathen and of heretics. I do not want to lose my soul by losing my temper with God because He has not told me how He is going to manage His own creation. Their chances will obviously be regulated by the greatness of the boon which the gift of faith is to the soul. To us there can be no trouble in this. The grave opinions of theologians will teach us all we need either know or tc surmise, which is very little. Our business is with the doubt whether few Catholics will be saved, and how far we may reverently take comfort from the indications?

of God's will in His Holy Word, and in the reasons of theology.

First of all we have St. John's Vidi turbam magnam, which sounds in our ears at Sext through the octave of All Saints. I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands.* Secondly, a Spanish theologian says, we may surely with great reverence suppose, that it befits the goodness of God that the number of the elect should equal, or surpass, that of the lost. This would carry the benignant interpretation far beyond what the interests of catholics only would require; and it certainly seems to involve in obscurity certain words of our Lord's which seem very plain. However it is something to know what so holy and enlightened a man as Da Ponte thought. He must have taken into account the multitude of baptized infants. Thirdly, there may be an analogy between the angels and ourselves; and only a third of them fell, as the Apocalypse tells us. Neither is it true that the places in heaven are only the vacancies left by the angels. There is a huge multitude beside. This nearly all theologians teach j and some have said that as many men will be saved as angels, if not more. Of course these are only opinions. But then our temptation is only an opinion also. It is ours against theirs, and ours only so long as it torments us, for we should be glad to get rid of it, if we could. Fourthly, the glory of our Lord seems to require that the fruit of His Passion should be very multitudinous. The Holy Innocents are a sample of thi» * Apoc. vii. 9

Isaias says of His Passion,* If He shall lay down His life for sin, He shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be prosperous in His hand Because His soul hath labored, He shall see and be filled. Fifthly, the glory and joy of the Blessed themselves seem to require multitude, especially too as they are arranged in different orders and degrees; and multitude is also suitable to the magnificence of place, as Baruch saysf 0 Israel, how great is the house of God, and how vast is the place of His possession. It is great and hath no end* it is high and immense. Sixthly, of the two thieves one was saved, and of the twelve apostles only one fell. These are all bad arguments, taken simply, but collectively they establish a lawful benignant supposition. Seventhly, our Lord Himself says, In my Father's house are many mansions, and then as if he foresaw all our trouble, He adds with deep and sweet significancy, If it were not so, I would have told you. It was these considerations which led St. Francis of Sales and Viva to the belief that by far the greater number of catholics would b* saved.

We read in the life of St. Philip that in the monastery of Santa Marta, a nun named Scholastica Gazzi, went to speak to him at the grate, and to lay open to him a thought she had never mentioned to any one else, which was a conviction that she should be damned. As soon as St. Philip saw her, he said to her, What are you doing, Scholastica, what are you doing? Paradise is yours. Nay, father, replied the nun, I fear the contrary will be the ease: I feel as though I should be damned. No, answered the saint, J. tell you that paradise is yours, and *UU. 10. fiii.24

I will prove it to you: tell me, for whom did Christ die? For sinners, said she. Well! said Philip, and what are you? A sinner, replied the sister. Then, concluded the saint, Paradise is yours, yours because you repent of your Bins. This conclusion restored peace to Sister Scholar tica's mind. The temptation left her and never troubled her again; but on the contrary, the words Paradise is yours, yours, seemed always sounding in her ears. Gentle reader! may St. Philip do the same for you and me!

Now, here is no answer to our temptation; but here is another side to it. Let us pray for the gift of holy and discerning fear. Then let us go on joyously, adding grace to grace, and love to love, and doubt not of our eternity. Heaven will come soon. The temptation is, to be impatient because it does not come sooner. Yet as God wills. It shall be our act of love to Him that we *?ait where we are, and for his sake be content to live. Life is a hardship, but not a very grievous one; for it does not hinder our loving God. And short of that, aU griefs can be but light.