The Abiding Presence of the Holy Ghost in the Soul Part 3

3. Then I must yield myself into His arms. I shall not know very often the way He wishes me to go. It may be only one step at a time, and then darkness again; or I may be taken swiftly and surely and openly along a clear road. That is His business, not mine, only I must be prepared not to be able to follow always the meaning of what He wants of me. It is not necessary at all that I should know. If I am faithful and loyal and full of trust, things will gradually settle themselves, and I shall at least be able to look back and understand the significance and purpose of many things that at first appeared accidental, and even in opposition to the end I considered G.o.d had in view for me. Thus by looking back I can sometimes get a shrewd idea of what is to follow; but often it is only a guess, nothing more than that. Still, generally, it would seem that people who surrender themselves to G.o.d do get a sense or a feeling which leads them right and makes them sure. It is the divine tenderness stooping to poor muddled humanity and making it transfigured with G.o.d's own glory. The advance, then, whether consciously grasped or not, is in due proportion to the purity and fidelity of the soul, purity in its act of cleansing, fidelity in its subjection to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

1. To live the spiritual life to its fullness we need the instinctive governances of the Holy Ghost. All day long, and even all through the hours when consciousness is asleep, the Holy Spirit is speaking to us in many ways. He is offering us His heavenly counsel, enlightening our minds to an ever more complete understanding of the deep truths of faith, and generally imparting to us that deep knowledge without which we cannot make advance.

Reason and common sense have their own contribution to make in opening our minds and hearts to a proper interpretation of all that is about us and within us; but reason and common sense have themselves also to be supernaturalized, to be illumined by the light of a far higher plane of truth. Hence the need of this divine instinct is patent to anyone who considers the purpose and destiny of the soul. But it is difficult at times to understand and to grasp surely the words of divine wisdom, since by sin's coa.r.s.eness the refinement of the soul is dulled and rendered but little responsive; or, rather, it is not so much a matter of being responsive to a message as primarily of hearing and understanding it. It seems to be very obvious that G.o.d must be speaking to me almost without ceasing; it is equally obvious that very little of this is noticed.

2. Here, then, am I in the world and needing the governance of G.o.d's instinct. Here, too, is this whispered counsel and enlightenment of G.o.d, perpetually being made to me. Yet, though made by G.o.d, and needed by me, this counsel and enlightenment, I can be certain, must frequently be entirely lost to me. It is as though I lived in a perfectly beautiful country, with stretching landscape about, and beautiful glimpses of hills and woodland, and yet never saw or appreciated the view; as though heavenly music were about me, to which I never paid the slightest attention; as though my best loved friend stood by me and I never lifted my eyes, and so did not know of his presence. Of course it is really a great deal worse than that, for I do not need with an absolute necessity the view, or the music, or the friend; whereas I do most certainly need this divinely offered help, guidance, enlightenment. Hence it is clear that neither my need nor G.o.d's instinct suffice. Something else is required by means of which I am able to make use of that instinct, to hear its message, to discover its meaning, to apply its advice to myself; else am I no better than a general who possesses the full plan of his allies, in all its details, but written in a cypher that he cannot read.

3. To produce this reaction or perception is the work of the sevenfold gifts. They are habits infused into the soul, which strengthen its natural powers, and make them responsive to every breath of G.o.d and capable of heroic acts of virtue. By the gifts my eyes are made able to see what had else been hidden, my ears quick to catch what had else not been heard; the gifts do not, so to say, supply eye or ear, but make more delicate, refined, sensitive, the eye and ear already there. Their business is to intensify rather than to create powers established in me by grace.

Less excellent necessarily than the theological virtues which unite me to G.o.d, they are yet more excellent than the other virtues, though, being rooted in charity and thereby linked up among themselves, they are also part of the dowry that charity brings in her train. On this account it is clear that from the moment of Baptism the sevenfold gifts are the possession of the soul, and whosoever holds one holds all; yet by the sacrament of Confirmation it would appear certain that something further is added, some more delicate perception, some livelier sensitiveness; or it may be, as other theologians point out, that by Confirmation they are more steadily fixed in the soul, more fully established, more firmly held. But in any case it is clear what they are to me, habits whereby I am perfected to obey the Holy Spirit of G.o.d.

BEAt.i.tUDES

1. The possession of the sevenfold gifts results in the performance of certain virtuous acts, for it is perfectly obvious that if I am so blest by the gifts that I find my reason, will, emotions, made increasedly perceptive of divine currents previously lost to me, I can hardly help acting in a new way. I now discover the view about me, and the music, and, consequently, my manner of life must in some ways be different from before. The Vision has come; it cannot simply open my eyes to new things in life without thereby altering that very life itself. Not only shall I find that what seemed to me before to be evil now appears to me to be a blessing; but on that very account what before I tried to avoid, or, having got, tried to be rid of, I shall now accept, perhaps even seek. Similarly, whereas then I was weak, now I am strong; and increase of strength means new activities, new energy put into the old work and finding its way out into works altogether new. My emotions, finally, which perilled and dominated my life, slip now into a subordinate position, and while thereby as actively employed as before, are held under discipline. It is clear, therefore, that the gifts will not leave me where I was before, but will influence my actions as well as alter my vision.

2. I find, then, that these new habits will develop into new activities. But this means also that I have a new idea as to the means of achieving the full happiness of life. Once upon a time I thought happiness meant comfort, now I see that it means something quite different. My view of happiness has changed. I am therefore obliged to change also my idea as to the means and conditions whereby, and in which, happiness can be found. I had attempted to climb out of my valley over the hills in the west; I now attempt to climb out over the hills to the east. The steps by which once I clambered are useless to me. I must try new ones in the opposite hills. Just that is what Our Lord meant by promulgating His eight Beat.i.tudes. These are just the new blessedness, so to say, which results from finding that happiness now means the knowledge and love of G.o.d. Things that previously I fled from, I now seek; things once my bugbear, are now the objects of my delight.

Poverty, meekness, mourning, the hunger and thirst after justice, cleanness of heart, the making of peace, mercy, the suffering of persecution for justice's sake, are now found to be the steps to be pa.s.sed over, the conditions to be secured before happiness can be finally secured.

3. These things, then, are beat.i.tudes to me. They are acts which I finally achieve by means of the new enlightenment gained through the gifts of G.o.d. Actively I am merciful and meek and clean of heart. I perform these actions, and they are the result of visions seen, and counsels heard, through the new sensitiveness to the divine instinctive guidance that of old pa.s.sed me by without finding in my heart any response. To be forever pursuing now peace and sorrow, and, at whatever cost, justice, is an energizing state of life which is due entirely to the new perception of the value of these things, so that we are right in a.s.serting that the beat.i.tudes are nothing else than certain actions, praised by Our Lord and practiced by us as a result of the establishment in our souls of seven definite habits. But not only are they actions, they produce as an effect joy in the heart; for which reason it is that we call them beat.i.tudes. They show me what is truly blessed and thereby give me, even here on earth, a foretaste of the bliss of final happiness.

THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT

1. Besides the beat.i.tudes there are other acts that follow from the gifts when properly used by the soul. The beat.i.tudes are means which, under the light infused by G.o.d, are valued at their true worth as leading finally to happiness in its more complete sense.

But when these are thus put into practice, for the soul understands the new meaning life gathers, they do not end the wonders of the action of grace. As a boy I met life and found it full of interest and dawning with the glories of success. The world in its aspect of nature had such manifest beauties that these quickly entranced and thrilled the soul. The sun and gra.s.s and flowers and woods and waters, make no secret of their kins.h.i.+p with their creator; Francis Thompson found them "garrulous of G.o.d," so garrulous in our youth that we see that life is full of very good things. Then comes the reaction (to many even before full manhood), when life is found to be full of illusion. Life is now judged a melancholy business, apt to fail you just when the need of it is most discovered, hard to be certain of; it is the age of romantic melancholy when most people put into verse their sorrow at the disappointment to be found in all things of beauty.

Every tree and flower and "dear gazelle" is no sooner loved than it is lost through death or misunderstanding.

2. Then, finally, the balance is set right. The two phases pa.s.s.

They are both true only as half truths. There is no denying that life is good and beautiful and thrilling. The boy's vision is correct. Yet it is equally true to say that there is sorrow and suffering and death and disappointment in all human things. But a new phase, blessedly a last phase, dawns upon the soul. Sorrow and pain are real, but the old happiness of boyhood is made to fit in and triumph over them by the sudden realization that strength is the lesson to be learned. Sorrow comes that discipline may be born in the soul, self-restraint, humility. Life is hard, but its very hardness is no evil, but our means of achieving good. That is the very atmosphere of the beat.i.tudes, the message they bring, the teaching they imparted from the Sermon on the Mount. Poverty, cleanness of heart, mercy, meekness, are all things difficult to acquire; but they give a real, true blessedness to the soul that will see their value. Life is no longer a disappointment, but the training ground of all good.

3. Finally, there follow other acts, too many to number, though there are twelve usually given, which result from gifts and beat.i.tudes. These are called the fruits of the Holy Ghost, for they represent in that metaphorical sense the ultimate result of the gifts. They are the last and sweetest consequences of the sevenfold habits infused by the Spirit. Indeed, just as trees are grown in an orchard because of their fruits, and, therefore, just as it can be said that the fruit is, from the gardener's point of view, the purpose for which the tree is cultivated (for of the fruitless fig Our Lord asked why it c.u.mbered the ground), so these fruits of the Holy Ghost (charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chast.i.ty--Gal. 5.22) can be looked upon as the very purpose for which the gifts were given, that I might, by seeing a new blessedness in life's very troubles, begin to find joy and peace and patience and faith, where else I had found only sorrow.

Endlessly could the list of these be extended, for St. Paul has chosen only a very few; but these that he names are what a man delights in when he has received the gifts, and has understood and valued the beat.i.tudes. Sweetness is what they add to virtue, ease, comfort. I not only hunger and thirst after justice, but enjoy the very pain of the pursuit.

KNOWLEDGE

1. This gift of G.o.d illumines and perfects the intelligence. The purpose of the gifts, it has been already explained, is to make the soul more alive to, and more appreciative of, the whispered instinct of G.o.d; not to create new faculties, but to increase the power of those already existing. My mind, then, has to be supernaturalized and refined to that pitch of perception which will enable it to grasp and to understand G.o.d's message. Now the mind itself works upon a great variety of subjects. It has whole worlds to conquer, planes of thought which are very clearly distinguishable; yet in its every activity it needs this divine refinement, so that in all four gifts are allotted to perform this complete enlightenment of the mind. Knowledge overcomes ignorance and is concerned with the facts, visible and sense-perceived, in creation; for by the council of the Vatican it is laid down as part of the deposit of faith that human reason can prove the existence of G.o.d altogether apart from the supernatural motives which grace supplies. The visible world is held to contain ample proofs which in themselves are adequate logically to convince human understanding of the existence of G.o.d. Individual reason may fail to satisfy itself. People may declare truthfully that they are not convinced; the Church insists only that it can be done.

2. Knowledge, however, in this sense is a gift of G.o.d whereby we discover Him in His own creation and in the works of man. It is here no mere task set to reason for detecting the Creator in His handiwork, but an actual vision by which the soul is supernaturalized and sees Him patently everywhere. The beauteous face of nature is merely seen as a veil, hiding a beauty more sublime. Things of dread as well as things of loveliness come into the scheme, things trivial and things tremendous, things majestic and things homely, all that G.o.d has made. Even man's work, who is himself only one of the greater masterpieces of the Great Artificer, is affected by this new light with which the world is flooded. The delicate pieces of machinery constructed by human ingenuity, that gain in wonder and in power, are themselves still G.o.d's work at one remove; they are the fruits of a mind that He has constructed, and they do not exhaust the capacity of that mind. They reveal hidden potentialities as well as express actual achievements. Weapons of destruction, with all the horror they rightly inspire, are yet witnesses again to that parent-intelligence whence was begotten man himself. All this, of course, as soon as considered, is admitted by every believer in G.o.d, but the gift of knowledge makes it realized and seen steadfastly.

3. Life, then, of itself is full of illusion. That is the cry, desolating and pitiful, which arises from the higher followers of every religious faith. Man is bound to the wheel, his mind is compa.s.sed with infirmity, he is born into ignorance. Desire tumultuously hustles all his days. He needs, therefore, some light whereby he may find the true inner meaning of all with which he comes in contact. Here, then, in the gift of Knowledge is such a true vision, understanding, vouchsafed him of the visible things of creation. He will realize as much, perhaps, even more than before the attraction of beauty, only it will be no snare, but a beckoning light. He will find in it now no illusion, but the perfect image of a greater beauty. The charm of the world about him will become greater, the wonders of nature, the intricate pattern of mechanical appliances, the fury of storms, the tumult of the wind, the terrific force of pestilence, the psychological facts of man's mind, the construction of his frame, the grouping of his social instincts, all now will be alive with G.o.d, shot through with the divine splendor, elevated to His order of life, eloquent of His name--a deepening knowledge of G.o.d achieved through a knowledge of His creatures.

UNDERSTANDING

1. There is another gift required to perfect the intelligence when it is engaged upon the principles of truth. The mind was created by G.o.d to exercise itself upon truth, primarily, the Supreme Truth; secondarily, all truths which by their essence must themselves be radiations from the Supreme Truth. These truths are of endless variety, both in their relations.h.i.+p to each other and in the particular line in which they operate. They are the truths of arts and science, the intricate yet unchanging laws that govern the growth and development of matter, the complicated processes whereby organic beings build up their tissues and multiply themselves by means of the cell principle. There are again the curious laws, as they are called, that effect gravitation, that have to be counted upon in the science of architecture, and in all the various kindred crafts of man. There are principles, too, that underlie the whole series of the arts, principles of truth and life and beauty. Upon these the mind must feed, and in them all the mind must be able to trace the character and being of G.o.d. But there are also far higher truths which are taught only by revelation, safeguarded by authority, grouped under the t.i.tle of faith. These truths are higher than the others, since they directly concern a higher being, i. e., G.o.d. All truths are truths about G.o.d, but the truths of faith concern themselves immediately with the being, life, and actions of G.o.d. Understanding, therefore, is the gift perfecting the mind for these.

2. It might seem, perhaps, that the light of faith is itself sufficient, and that no further gift were needed, since it is the very purpose of faith to make us accept this revelation of G.o.d, enlightening and strengthening the intelligence till under the dominion of the will it says: I believe. It is true that faith suffices for this, but we require something more than faith, or at least if we do not absolutely require more, we shall progress more rapidly and further when we are not only able to believe but to understand. In every article of faith there is always something which is mysterious or hidden, some obscurity due not to the entanglement of facts, but to the weakness of the human mind. Of course this must to some extent always exist, for man can never hope to comprehend G.o.d till by the beatific vision he sees Him face to face; but a good deal of the obscurity can be lifted by the mere operation of the mind under the light of G.o.d, not arising purely from study, but from the depth of love enkindled by G.o.d. It is a commonplace in the lives of the saints that without instruction they do yet manage to learn the deep mysteries of G.o.d; the same is true of many simple souls whom we meet from time to time in the world. They not only believe, but penetrate the truths of faith.

3. Here, then, I have ready to hand a most useful gift of G.o.d. I desire not only to believe, but to absorb and to penetrate the mysteries of G.o.d. I want to taste to the full the meaning of life as a whole, to develop every power that lies in me, to make the truths of revelation blossom out ever more fully, till their hidden and mystical significance becomes gradually more clear. The pages of Holy Scripture are full of instruction, but they will not yield up their secrets save to a soul attuned by G.o.d. That can be effected by the gift of understanding. I shall find by its means that these treasures are inexhaustible, that from mere abstract teaching the sayings of the Master and His Apostles become full of practical meaning, that all life about me takes on a new and richer significance. History and social life open their doors to whoever has this blessed gift, and it becomes clearly seen that their maker and builder is G.o.d. The dullness of souls who will not believe, or only believe and then stop short, becomes painful to note and bothersome to put up with, but this is the price one has to pay for so fine a vision. By this, then, we peer into the depths of faith, and find them gradually and steadily growing more and more clear and penetrable.

WISDOM

1. All writers on the gifts of the Holy Ghost place wisdom as the highest gift of all. It takes this high position partly because its work is done in the intelligence, which is man's highest power, and partly because it is that highest power occupied to its highest capacity. Like knowledge and understanding, its business is to make us see G.o.d everywhere, in the material and spiritual creation of G.o.d, in the concrete facts of existence, and in the revealed truths of faith. It produces in a soul a sense of complete certainty and hope. Hence it is sometimes described as neighbor to hope; indeed, its finest side is often just that determined and resolute conviction with which the soul rises superior to every possible disaster, and is prepared to brave every contingency in its sureness of G.o.d's final power and the efficacy of His will. It comes closer, therefore, to G.o.d Himself than do either understanding or knowledge. These do, indeed, enable the soul to be continuously conscious of the divine presence, of G.o.d immanent as well as transcendent, G.o.d in the heart of the world as well as wholly above the world, and they affect this consciousness by enabling the soul to see Him everywhere. They lift the veil. They show His footprints. They trace everywhere the marks of His power, wisdom, love. But it is noticeable that they lead to G.o.d from the world. I see a flower, and by the gift of knowledge I am immediately aware of the author of its loveliness; by understanding I perceive with clearness the wonder of G.o.d's working in the world. By them I lift my eyes from earth to Heaven, by wisdom I look from Heaven to see the earth.

2. Wisdom, therefore, implies an understanding of the world through G.o.d, whereas knowledge and understanding suppose a perception of G.o.d through the world. Wisdom takes its stand upon causes, the other two on effects. They work from creatures to Creator; wisdom looks upon all the world through the eyes of G.o.d.

Consequently the effect of wisdom is that the soul sees life as a whole. Matter and truth are to it no longer separate planes of thought, but one. There is at once no distinction between them in the eyes of G.o.d, for both are manifestations of Himself and creatures of His making. Hence the soul that is dowered with wisdom climbs up to G.o.d's own height, and looking down upon the world sees it "very good," noticing how part fits in with part, and how truths of faith, and truths of science and sunset, and flower and h.e.l.l, are linked one with another to form the pattern of G.o.d's design. Each has its place in the divine economy of G.o.d's plan, each is equally of G.o.d, equally sharing in His purposes, though some more than others able to express G.o.d better. The effect, then, is largely that the whole of life is co-ordinated, and equality, fraternity, liberty, become not the motto of a revolution, but of the ordered government of G.o.d.

3. The opposite to this gift is folly, for a man who fails in wisdom loses all true judgment of the values of human life. He is perpetually exchanging the more for the less valuable, bestowing huge gifts in just barter, as he imagines, for what is merely showy and trivial. Not by causes, but by effect does he consider life and its activities. The wise man, then, estimates everything by its highest cause. He compares and discovers, gleans the reason of G.o.d's providence, its purpose, its fitness. First principles are his guide, not the ready and practical proverbs that display the wit and worldly wisdom of the lesser man. Eternity becomes of larger moment than time, since time is merely for eternity. G.o.d's law is more convincing than man's, for man's enactments are not laws at all when they come in conflict with divine commands. Faith is so deeply in him that he judges between propositions, and discovers truth against heresy. He has climbed to the heights of G.o.d and sees all the world at his feet, and knows it as G.o.d knows it, the world and its Lord and the glory of it.

COUNSEL

1. The fourth gift that perfects the intelligence acts rather as a moderating than as a stimulating influence. The soul is often impetuous in its decisions, moved by human feelings and pa.s.sions, urged by desire, love, hatred, prejudice. Quickly stirred to action, it dashes into its course without any real attention to, or understanding of, its better wisdom. Frequently in life my lament has to be that I acted on the impulse of the moment. There is so much that I am sorry for, not merely because now I see what has actually resulted, but because even then I had quite sufficient reason to let me be certain what would result. I was blind, not because my eyes could not have seen, but because I gave them no leave to see. I would not carefully gaze at the difficulties, not puzzle out in patience what would most likely be the result. Even my highest powers are often my most perilous guides, since, moved by generosity, I engaged myself to do what I have no right to perform, and find that I have in the end been generous not only of what is my own, but sometimes of what belongs to another, not as though I deliberately gave away what belonged to another, but just because I had no deliberation at all. I need, then, the Holy Spirit of G.o.d to endow me with the gift of counsel which corresponds to prudence.

2. Now prudence, which counsel helps and protects, is eminently a practical gift of G.o.d, not so high as wisdom, not so wonderful in the beauty of its vision as knowledge or understanding, yet for all a most important and homely need. The other intellectual gifts of the Spirit are more abstract. They give us just the whisper of G.o.d that enables us to see the large ways of G.o.d in the world.

They give, in consequence, the great principles that are to govern us in life. Hence their importance is very great. We do so seriously need to know by what principles we are to measure life's activities, on what basis to build up the fabric of our souls, to be sure that G.o.d's laws are very clearly and definitely made manifest to us. But, after all, that is only one-half of the difficulty, for even after I know the principles of action, I have still the trouble, in some ways more full of possibilities of mistake, of applying them to concrete experience. I know that sacrifice is the law of life, I know that meekness overindulged may be cowardice, I know that I may sin by not having anger; that is all evident, a series of plat.i.tudes. But here, and now, have I come to the limit of meekness? Must I manifest my angry protests?

Am I obliged to attend to my own needs and renounce the idea of sacrifice? There daily are questions that puzzle, torture, bruise me with scruples.

3. Just here, then, I have intense need for this practical gift of G.o.d in order with nicety and precision to apply principles to concrete cases; often I am precipitate or perhaps dilatory. I am in a hurry or cannot make up my mind--shall I answer those who attack me, or shall I be silent? Our Lord was silent and made answer by turns. Counsel, then, is my need from G.o.d, the instinct whereby a practical judgment is quickly and safely made. All the more have I a tremendous need for this if my life is full of activity, if pressure of work, or social life, or the demands of good and useful projects, or the general tendency of my family surroundings, make my day crowded and absorbed, for the very combined and concentrated essence of life will need some exceedingly moderate influence to produce any sense of balance or proportion in my judgment. The people about me I notice to become more and more irritable, mere creatures of impulse. I feel some such malign influence invading the peaceful sanctuary of my soul, disturbing its even outlook on things, driving out my serene calm.

I must anchor on to this gift of G.o.d, become prudent, detached, filling the mind with the counsel of the Holy Spirit.

FORt.i.tUDE

1. After the intelligence comes the will which also, because of the very large part it plays in all human action, needs to be perfected by a gift of the Spirit. It is necessary to repeat that the Holy Spirit does not by His gifts bestow on the soul new powers and new faculties, but develops, refines, perfects faculties already there. It is not the creation of new eyes to see new visions, but the strengthening of the eyes of the soul so as to see more clearly and with a longer sight. The will, then, has also to be strengthened, for it is the will that lies at the very heart of all heroism. Merely to have a glimpse of greatness is but part of a hero's need. No doubt it is a larger part, for very many of us never by instinct at all touch on the borders of greatness, we do not see or understand how in our little lives we can be great, we have not the imagination lit up by G.o.d, no vision; yet "when the vision fails, the people shall perish." But even when that sudden showing does by G.o.d's mercy come to us, we still fall far short of it. It is too high, too ideal, too far removed from weak human nature to seem possible to us. That is to say, our will has failed us. We are faced by some huge obstacle, or even by a persistent refusal to budge on behalf of some one (ourselves or another) to go forward and to do; we struggle, fail, lose heart, surrender, cease our efforts. What do we want? Fort.i.tude, that "persistive constancy" that to Shakespeare was the greatest quality of human wills.

2. How is this achieved? By appreciating the nearness of G.o.d to us. The gifts make us responsive to G.o.d with an ease and instantaneousness that operates smoothly and without friction.

That is G.o.d's doing, not ours. He gives us this wonderful power of being able to register at once every pa.s.sing inspiration. The gifts that refine the intelligence allow it to perceive sights which else were hidden. The gift that refines the will must do this by some kindred action. Now the difficulties that beset the will must necessarily be difficulties for whose overcoming strength is needed. Therefore the will must be refined by being made strong. How can it be made strong by the Holy Spirit? What exactly happens to its mechanism to secure for it the power of endurance? The easiest way of understanding how this effect is brought about is to suppose that the soul by its refinement, by that delicacy whereby it responds instantly to a divine impression, is quickly aware of G.o.d's nearness to it. It perceives how close it is to the Spirit of G.o.d, and the sense of this nearness makes it better able to hold on to its duty. In the old style of warfare we often read of wives and mothers coming to the field of battle that their presence might awake their men to the topmost pitch of courage. Even in the modern methods of fighting, the moral effect of the presence of the emperor or king is considered to have an effect upon the troops. Of course here it is more homely, since the familiar presence of the Holy Spirit strengthens and inspires by love, trust, sympathy.

3. For this reason the name Comforter was given to the Holy Spirit, in its original sense of strengthening, becoming the fort of the soul; and the result is that the recipient is able to hold on or, in our modern slang, to "carry on." By nature so many of us are p.r.o.ne to seek our own comforts at the expense of what we know to be the higher side of us. Human respect makes us again cowardly, or the sheer monotony of perseverance dulls and wearies the soul. We get so depressed with the strain of making efforts that we are very much inclined to let the spiritual side of life go under, or at least be rendered as little heroic as possible, for it is real heroism even just to "go on." The "silent pressure"

of temptations, when their pa.s.sion and fury have died down, is a constant worry, an unconscious weight on the mind, like the thought of war that lies heavily at the back of the consciousness of those whose external lives seem empty of war-reminders. We want to be courageous and fearless, to _undergo_. Then we must hold fast to G.o.d's nearness to us, and feel the virtue going out from Him to us, though He does but touch the hem of our garments by His indwelling.

PIETY

1. Besides our intelligence and will we have other faculties that go by a diversity of names; sometimes they are called the emotions, sometimes the pa.s.sions, sometimes they are alluded to as the sentimental side of our nature; but by whatever name we may happen to call them, it is clear that they represent just those movements of our being which are not really rational in themselves, though they can be controlled by the reason. It is simplest to divide them into two cla.s.ses and to realize that they lie just on the borderline between spirit and matter, partly of soul, partly of body. These two cla.s.ses are arranged according as the emotion attracts or repels man. The repelled emotions are fear, anger, hatred, etc.; the attracted are love, desire, joy, etc. This gift of piety enables even the emotions to be made responsive to G.o.d. It is always the notion of some perfect instrument to be made harmonious that perhaps most clearly shows us the work of the Holy Spirit in the gifts of G.o.d, some perfect instrument, which needs to be so nicely at tuned that its every string shall give out a distinct note, and shall require the least movement from the fingers of G.o.d's right hand to make its immediate response. Here, then, we have first to record the fact that the purpose of this gift is to make the emotions or pa.s.sions so refined, so perfectly strung, that at once the slightest pressure of the Divine instinct moves them to turn their love, desire, joy, towards G.o.d, finding in Him the satisfaction of their inmost heart.