As in corporal distempers a total loss of appetite, which no medicines
can restore, forebodes certain decay and death; so in the spiritual life
of the soul, a neglect or disrelish of pious reading and instruction is
a most fatal symptom. What hopes can we entertain of a person to whom
the science of virtue and of eternal salvation doth not seem
interesting, or worth his application? "It is impossible," says St.
Chrysostom,[1] "that a man should be saved, who neglects assiduous pious
reading or consideration. Handicraftsmen will rather suffer hunger and
all other hardships than lose the instruments of their trade, knowing
them to be the means of their subsistence." No less criminal and
dangerous is the disposition of those who misspend their precious
moments in reading romances and play-books, which fill the mind with a
worldly spirit, with a love of vanity, pleasure, idleness, and trifling;
which destroy and lay waste all the generous sentiments of virtue in the
heart, and sow there the seeds of every vice, which extend their baneful
roots over the whole soil. Who seeks nourishment from poisons? What food
is to the body, that our thoughts and reflections are to the mind: by
them the affections of the soul are nourished. The chameleon changes its
color as it is affected by sadness, anger, or joy; or by the color upon
which it sits: and we see an insect borrow its lustre and hue from the
plant or leaf upon which it feeds. In like manner, what our meditations
and affections are, such will our souls become, either holy and
spiritual or earthly and carnal. By pious reading the mind is instructed
and enlightened, and the affections of the heart are purified and
inflamed. It is recommended by St. Paul as the summary of spiritual
advice.[2] Devout persons never want a spur to assiduous reading or
meditation. They are insatiable in this exercise, and, according to the
golden motto of Thomas a Kempis, they find their chief delight _in a
closet, with a good book_.[3] Worldly and tepid Christians stand
certainly in the utmost need of this help to virtue. The world is a
whirlpool of business, pleasure, and sin. Its torrent is always beating
upon their hearts, ready to break in and bury them under its flood,
unless frequent pious reading and consideration oppose a strong fence to
its waves. The more deeply a person is immersed in its tumultuous cares,
so much the greater ought to be his solicitude to find leisure to
breathe, after the fatigues and dissipation of business and company; to
plunge his heart, by secret prayer, in the ocean of the divine
immensity, and, by pious reading, to afford his soul some spiritual
refection; as the wearied husbandman, returning from his labor, recruits
his spent vigor and exhausted strength, by allowing his body necessary
refreshment and repose.
The lives of the saints furnish the Christian with a daily spiritual
entertainment, {046} which is not less agreeable than affecting and
instructive. For in sacred biography the advantages of devotion and
piety are joined with the most attractive charms of history. The method
of forming men to virtue by example, is, of all others, the shortest,
the most easy, and the best adapted to all circumstances and
dispositions. Pride recoils at precepts, but example instructs without
usurping the authoritative air of a master; for, by example, a man seems
to advise and teach himself. It does its work unperceived, and therefore
with less opposition from the passions, which take not the alarm. Its
influence is communicated with pleasure. Nor does virtue here appear
barren and dry as in discourses, but animated and living, arrayed with
all her charms, exerting all her powers, and secretly obviating the
pretences, and removing the difficulties which self-love never fails to
raise. In the lives of the saints we see the most perfect maxims of the
gospel reduced to practice, and the most heroic virtue made the object
of our senses, clothed as it were with a body, and exhibited to view in
its most attractive dress. Here, moreover, we are taught the means by
which virtue is obtained, and learn the precipices and snares which we
are to shun, and the blinds and by-ways in which many are bewildered and
misled in its pursuit. The example of the servants of God points out to
us the true path, and leads us as it were by the hand into it, sweetly
inviting and encouraging us to walk cheerfully in the steps of those
that are gone before us.
Neither is it a small advantage that, by reading the history of the
saints, we are introduced into the acquaintance of the greatest
personages who have ever adorned the world, the brightest ornaments of
the church militant, and the shining stars and suns of the triumphant,
our future companions in eternal glory. While we admire the wonders of
grace and mercy, which God hath displayed in their favor, we are
strongly moved to praise his adorable goodness. And, in their
penitential lives and holy maxims, we learn the sublime lessons of
practical virtue, which their assiduous meditation on the divine word,
the most consummate experience in their deserts, watchings, and commerce
with heaven, and the lights of the Holy Ghost, their interior Master,
discovered to them. But it is superfluous to show from reason the
eminent usefulness of the example, and the history of the saints, which
the most sacred authority recommends to us as one of the most powerful
helps to virtue. It is the admonition of St. Paul, that we remember our
holy teachers, and that, having the end of their conversation before our
eyes, we imitate their faith.[4]
For our instruction the Holy Ghost himself inspired the prophets to
record the lives and actions of many illustrious saints in the holy
scriptures. The church could not, in a more solemn manner, recommend to
us to have these great models often before our eyes, than by inserting
in her daily office an abstract of the lives of the martyrs and other
saints; which constant sacred custom is derived from the primitive ages,
in which the histories of the martyrs were publicly read at the divine
office, in the assemblies of the faithful, on their annual festivals.
This is testified of the acts of St. Polycarp in the life of St.
Pionius, and, by St. Austin,[5] of those of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas,
&c. The council of Africa, under Aurelius, archbishop of Carthage, in
397, mentions the acts of the martyrs being allowed to be read in the
church on their anniversary days.[6] St. Caesarius permitted persons that
were sick and weak, to hear the histories of the martyrs sitting, when
they were of an uncommon length; but complained that some who were
healthful unreasonably took the same liberty.[7]
{047}
All great masters of a spiritual life exceedingly extol the advantages
which accrue to souls from the devout reading of the lives of eminent
saints; witness St. Nilus,[8] St. Chrysostom, and others. Many fathers
have employed their pens in transmitting down to posterity the actions
of holy men. And the histories of saints were the frequent entertainment
and delight of all pious persons, who ever found in them a most powerful
means of their encouragement and advancement in virtue, as St.
Bonaventure writes of St. Francis of Assisium. "By the remembrance of
the saints, as by the touch of glowing stones of fire, he was himself
enkindled, and converted into a divine flame." St. Stephen of Grandmont
read their lives every day, and often on his knees. The abbot St.
Junian, St. Antoninus, St. Thomas, and other holy men are recorded to
have read assiduously the lives of the saints, and by their example to
have daily inflamed themselves with fervor in all virtues. St. Boniface
of Mentz sent over to England for books of the lives of saints,[9] and,
by reading the acts of the martyrs, animated himself with the spirit of
martyrdom. This great apostle of Germany, St. Sigiran and others, always
carried with them in their journeys the acts of the martyrs, that they
might read them wherever they travelled. It is related of St. Anastasius
the martyr, that "while he read the conflicts and victories of the
martyrs, he watered the book with his tears, and prayed that he might
suffer the like for Christ. And so much was he delighted with this
exercise that he employed in it all his leisure hours." St. Teresa
declares how much the love of virtue was kindled in her breast by this
reading, even when she was a child. Joseph Scaliger, a rigid Calvinist
critic, writes as follows on the acts of certain primitive martyrs:[10]
"The souls of pious persons are so strongly affected in reading them,
that they always lay down the book with regret. This every one may
experience in himself. I with truth aver, that there is nothing in the
whole history of the church with which I am so much moved: when I read
them I seem no longer to possess myself."
It would be very easy to compile a volume of the remarkable testimonies
of eminent and holy men concerning this most powerful help to virtue,
and to produce many examples of sinners, who have been converted by it
to an heroic practice of piety. St. Austin mentions two courtiers who
were moved on the spot to forsake the world, and became fervent monks,
by accidentally reading the life of St. Antony.[11] St. John Columbin,
from a rich, covetous, and passionate nobleman, was changed into a
saint, by casually reading the life of St. Mary of Egypt.[12] The duke
of Joyeuse, marshal of France, owed his perfect conversion to the
reading of the life of St. Francis Borgia, which his servant had one
evening laid on the table. To these the example of St. Ignatius of
Loyola, and innumerable others might be added. Dr. Palafox, the pious
Binni of Osma, in his preface to the fourth tome of the letters of St.
Teresa, relates, that an eminent Lutheran minister at Bremen, famous for
several works which he had printed against the Catholic church,
purchased the life of St. Teresa, written by herself, with a view of
attempting to confute it; but, by attentively reading it over, was
converted to the Catholic faith, and from that time led a most edifying
life. The examples of Mr. Abraham Woodhead and others were not less
illustrious.
But, to appeal to our own experience--who is not awakened from his
spiritual lethargy, and confounded at his own cowardice, when he
considers the fervor and courage of the saints? All our pretences and
foolish objections are silenced, when we see the most perfect maxims of
the gospel {048} demonstrated to be easy by example. When we read how
many young noblemen and tender virgins have despised the world, and
joyfully embraced the cross and the labors of penance, we feel a glowing
flame kindled in our own breasts, and are encouraged to suffer
afflictions with patience, and cheerfully to undertake suitable
practices of penance. While we see many sanctifying themselves in all
states, and making the very circumstances of their condition, whether on
the throne, in the army, in the state of marriage, or in the deserts,
the means of their virtue and penance, we are persuaded that the
practice of perfection is possible also to us, in every lawful
profession, and that we need only sanctify our employments by a perfect
spirit, and the fervent exercises of religion, to become saints
ourselves, without quitting our state in the world. When we behold
others, framed of the same frail mould with ourselves, many in age or
other circumstances weaker than ourselves, and struggling with greater
difficulties, yet courageously surmounting, and trampling upon all the
obstacles by which the world endeavored to obstruct their virtuous
choice, we are secretly stung within our breasts, feel the reproaches of
our sloth, are roused from our state of insensibility, and are forced to
cry out, "Cannot you do what such and such have done?" But to wind up
this discourse, and draw to a conclusion; whether we consult reason,
authority, or experience, we may boldly affirm that, except the sacred
writings, no book has reclaimed so many sinners, or formed so many holy
men to perfect virtue, as that of _The Lives of Saints_.
If we would read to the spiritual profit of our souls, our motive must
be a sincere desire of improving ourselves in divine love, in humility,
meekness, and other virtues. Curiosity or vanity shuts the door of the
heart to the Holy Ghost, and stifles in it all affections of piety. A
short and humble petition of the divine light ought to be our
preparation; for which we may say with the prophet, "Open thou mine
eyes, and I will consider the wonderful things of thy law."[13] We must
make the application of what we read to ourselves, entertain pious
affections, and form particular resolutions for the practice of virtue.
It is the admonition of a great servant of God,[14] "Whatever good
instructions you read, unless you resolve and effectually endeavor to
practise them with your whole heart, you have not read to the benefit of
your soul. For knowledge without works only accuseth and condemneth."
Though we cannot imitate all the actions of the saints, we can learn
from them to practise humility, patience, and other virtues in a manner
suiting our circumstances and state of life; and can pray that we may
receive a share in the benedictions and glory of the saints. As they who
have seen a beautiful flower-garden, gather a nosegay to smell at the
whole day; so ought we, in reading, to cull out some flowers, by
selecting certain pious reflections and sentiments with which we are
most affected; and these we should often renew during the day; lest we
resemble a man who, having looked at him self in the glass, goeth away,
and forgetteth what he had seen of himself.
Footnotes:
1. St. Chrys. Conc. 3, de Lazaro. t. 1, p. 738, ed. Montfauc.
2. 1 Tim. iv. 13.
3. In angelo cum libello.
4. Heb. xii.
5. St. Aug. Serm. 280, t. 5, p. 1134.
6. Can. 47, Conc. t. 2, p. 1072.
7. St. Caesar. Serm. 95, vel apud St. Aug. t. 5, Append. Serm. 300.
8. St. Nilius, l. 4, ep. 1, Discipulo suo, p. 458. Item, Tr. e
Monastica Exercitatione, c. 34 et c. 43, p. 40 et Peristeria, sect. 4,
p. 99.
9. St. Bonif. ep. 35, Bibl. Patr.
10. Animadv. in Chronic. Eus. ad ann 2187.
11. Conf. l. 8, c. 6.
12. Fleury, l. 97, n. 2, t. 20.
13. Ps. cviii. 18.
14. Lansperg. Enchir. c. 11.
{049}