~t 
 4 
 - 
 
 Spiritual Letters of 
 Father Benson 
 
 (Founder and First Superior S.S.J.E., Cowley). 
 
 Kee + 
 
 
 
 
 
 “a 
 
 Mowbray & Co. Ltd., London and Oxford 
 
 vod Goce: 
 
 Spe; 
 

 
 t 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Beaks ie 
 
 Mo 
 as 
 ade , 
 
 Lar a ze 
 
 
 

 
SPIRITUAL LETTERS OF 
 RICHARD MEUX BENSON 
 
Se Oe ee 
 
 } | 
 h yo 
 em | nf 
 
 16 tai y. i, : 
 
 Ty ta: 
 
 the le 
 
 
 

 
 , 
 { = 
 Pir ® ~ 38a : ’ 
 Ai)? ae 4 ae Wik 3 fy! 
 .4 Pea hs py , » = 9 
 a, RIL Pa 4 a 
 
 aa es ae, 
 
 > 
 5 
 
RicHarp Mervux Benson, art. 79. 
 
 (From a photograph by Villters & Quick.) 
 
 
 
SPIRITUAL LETTERS OF 
 RICHARD MEUX BENSON 
 
 FounDER AND First Superiork OF THE SOCIETY OF 
 
 S. Joun THE Evanceiisr, Cow Ley 
 
 SELECTED FROM HIS ‘* LETTERS’’ AND ‘‘ FURTHER LETTERS,” 
 AND EDITED 
 BY 
 
 W. H. ‘LONGRIDGE 
 
 OF THE SAME SOCIETY 
 
 WITH A MEMORIAL SERMON BY THE 
 
 Ricut Reverenp CHARLES GORE, D.D., D.C.L. 
 
 SOMETIME BISHOP OF OXFORD 
 
 A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. Lip. 
 Lonpon : 28 Margaret Street, Oxford Circus, W.1 
 Oxrorp: g High Street 
 Minwauxeg, U.S.A. : The Morehouse Publishing Co. 
 
 Printed in Great Britain 
 
First impression, 1924. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 [Pa little volume containing a selection from 
 Father Benson’s letters is published as a 
 memorial of the centenary of Father Benson’s birth, 
 July 6, 1824. It is thought that many who do 
 not possess the two volumes published in 1916 and 
 1920, may be glad to have in a cheaper form such 
 portions of the letters as are more especially suitable 
 for spiritual reading, and it is with this purpose that 
 the selection has been made. 
 
 Most of the letters were written to members of 
 the Society of S. John the Evangelist engaged in 
 missionary work, especially in India, and therefore 
 not under Father Benson’s immediate spiritual 
 direction. ‘This explains in part why they contain 
 so little of detailed advice or directly practical 
 instruction. They are, for the most part, of a 
 general character expressing thoughts on the great 
 mysteries of the Faith and the foundation principles 
 of the spiritual life, which were constantly in Father 
 Benson’s mind and came forth spontaneously 
 whenever he wrote a letter. This, however, gives 
 them a special suitability for devotional reading, 
 since the subjects of which they treat are of 
 universal validity and do not apply only to indi- 
 vidual cases. 
 
Vi PREFACE 
 
 
 
 In arranging the letters to members of the Society 
 we have not followed the chronological order, but 
 have grouped together those written to the several 
 Fathers and Brothers, the groups being arranged 
 in the order of the dates on which each Father 
 or Brother entered the Society. The remaining 
 letters, written to persons outside the Society, 
 follow strictly the order of their dates. 
 
 By the kindness of Bishop Gore and of the 
 Editor of the Church Times we are allowed to print, 
 as an introduction to the letters, a sermon ! preached 
 by the Bishop at a memorial service on Sunday, 
 August 3 of this year, at S. George’s, Bloomsbury, 
 the church in which Father Benson was baptized 
 one hundred years ago. 
 
 Wiha 
 
 Misston Houss, 
 Cowxry S. Joun, 
 
 September, 1924. 
 
 * Reported in the Church Times of August 8, 1924. 
 
RICHARD MEUX BENSON 
 
 A SERMON 
 BY THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 CHARLES! GORH. Dips D.G.E: 
 
 SOMETIME BISHOP OF OXFORD 
 
 “ Remember them which had the rule over you’ (or, as we may 
 translate it, who were your leaders), “ who have spoken unto you 
 the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their 
 
 conversation.’ ——HEp. Xiii. 7. 
 
 I 
 
 I was asked to come here this morning especially 
 to assist you in commemorating a very great man 
 who was born just a hundred years ago in this 
 parish—Richard Meux Benson. He was not a 
 man widely known, even in his own country, for 
 he made no figure in the newspapers ; but in the 
 circle of the Church, and particularly in that part 
 of it which adhered to the Tractarian Movement, 
 he exercised a profound influence, I believe without 
 parallel in that generation which has not yet wholly 
 passed away. We desire to commemorate him 
 here because it was just a hundred years ago that 
 he was born in this parish in Russell Square, his 
 father being connected with Meux’s Brewery, which, 
 until quite recently, was at the corner of Tottenham 
 Court Road, and he was baptized in this church 
 on the Feast of the Transfiguration. Undoubtedly 
 
 Vil 
 
a 
 
 he was one of those leaders who have spoken to 
 us the Word of God, whom we have great need to 
 remember. 
 
 What you would chiefly associate with his name 
 is the constant proclamation of the life of renun- 
 ciation—living through dying. That you must die 
 to much that the world values in order to live a good 
 and worthy life has been perceived by a great body 
 of thinkers, artists, and moralists of almost all ages, 
 for we are born into a world of experience in which 
 we find within us appetites and desires vigorously 
 soliciting us, and outward allurements of the world 
 of sense constantly attracting ; and if we live the 
 life which seems natural, if we yield ourselves to 
 these inward impulses and passions and follow the 
 solicitations of the world of sense, we become in- 
 evitably enslaved to this lower world. We lose our 
 true selves, we lose our souls, with the result that 
 we plunge ourselves in misery and restlessness, for 
 “the wages of sin is death.’”’ But we can assert 
 ourselves—that is what we have to do. We have 
 to detach ourselves from the world of sense ; we 
 have to vindicate the sovereignty of the spirit over 
 the flesh ; we have to exercise discrimination ; we 
 must die to live. Whatever be the comment of his 
 life upon his principle, the great Goethe gave noble 
 expression to this principle : 
 
 Stirb und werde: 
 Denn so lang du das nicht hast, 
 Bist du nur ein triibe Gast 
 Auf der dunkeln Erde— 
 
 which I may crudely translate—‘‘ Die to live : for 
 so long as that is not in thee, thou art but a sad 
 
Ricuarp Mevux BEnson 1x 
 stranger upon the gloomy earth.” That sort of 
 principle has, as I said, received wide witness among 
 thinkers, artists, and moralists, but the supreme 
 example of this principle is our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Doubtless He was the Son of Man; doubtless in 
 Him we see the glory of our manhood ; but that 
 glory was purchased by renunciation. At Huis 
 temptation, and all through His life, he showed 
 Himself dead to the worldly world, to its lusts, to 
 its ambitions, to its selfishness, to its vanity, to its 
 display ; and when the world rose against Him as 
 an intolerable thing, and determined to silence that 
 troubling voice, and actually crucified Him as a 
 malefactor on Calvary, that outward crucifixion was 
 but the expression of an essential and everlasting 
 antagonism between the worldly world and the true 
 sovereignty of the spirit ; between the worldly 
 world and the true humanity. 
 
 And this principle our Lord Himself asserted with 
 a strange and even paradoxical vehemence to the 
 crowds which seemed disposed to follow Him. 
 “There went great multitudes with Him, and He 
 turned to them and said unto them, If any man 
 come unto Me and hate not his father, and mother, 
 and: wife, and children, and brothers and sisters, yea, 
 and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” ; 
 and again, ““ Whosoever he be that forsaketh not all 
 that he hath he cannot be My disciple” ; and again 
 to the rich young man, “ If thou wouldst be per- 
 fect, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor and 
 come, follow Me.” 
 
 It was these words, heard by accident in the Gospel 
 read in church, that determined the vocation of the 
 great S. Anthony, the leader of the ancient hermits. 
 
x Ricuarp Mevux Benson 
 
 
 
 
 
 He was one of the first of that extraordinary crowd 
 of people who, in the fourth century, showed their 
 scorn of the decadent Greek world by renouncing 
 it. They stripped themselves bare of everything 
 that the world was accustomed to think made life 
 worth living, and went out naked into the Egyptian 
 wildernesses. ‘They were a vast crowd. I do not 
 know anything in religious history which remains 
 throughout the centuries more moving than the 
 witness of these old monks. ‘Their lives are written 
 for us in vivid colour. We have the record of their 
 great discourses. At first they went as solitary indi- 
 viduals into the wilderness to practise the life of pure 
 contemplation ; purely the life of union with God 
 without any consideration of human fellowship. 
 Then it was found that men—most men—even of 
 those who made this great renunciation, had need 
 of fellowship, the discipline of eccentricity, and active 
 service. And so, very quickly, the great religious 
 communities of Egypt were founded, consisting of 
 great multitudes of men ;. founded for a combina- 
 tion of worship and work ; and the history of the 
 religious life, the religious orders of Christendom, 
 
 begins. 
 II 
 
 Father Benson never yielded to the attraction of 
 the life of pure contemplation, though he had mar- 
 vellous powers of contemplation. He _ strongly 
 dissuaded people from the attempt to revive the 
 religious life of pure enclosure.! But he became 
 
 * See p. 153, Letter on the Contemplative Life. [It was pro- 
 
 bably mainly in view of the contrast between the conditions of 
 modern life and former ages, such as is pointed out in the letter 
 
Ricuarp Mevx Benson X1 
 
 
 
 
 
 among us Anglicans the great re-founder of the 
 mixed religious life for men, the life of combined 
 worship and service under the threefold vows of 
 poverty, chastity, and obedience. That life had 
 already been in part restored among women, and. 
 for the women’s communities he became a great 
 spiritual guide. But it did not exist in any form 
 likely to commend it among men, and he re- 
 established it. Not that he was prepared to say, 
 as the old monks were prepared to say, that this was 
 the only true type of Christian life. I remember 
 very vividly a scene forty-eight years ago in an 
 Oxford Common Room, where there was a gathering 
 of Oxford tutors and lecturers who desired to live 
 the Christian life, and Father Benson had made a 
 memorable speech, making, in a way which stimu- 
 lated and thrilled, what seemed to be an assertion 
 
 referred to, that the Father held this strong opinion. In the book 
 The Followers of the Lamb, pp. 4, 5, he discusses the subject further, 
 speaking of the possibility of such Societies, however rare such a 
 vocation. His teaching on silence and the fellowship it may 
 develop, on the completeness of burial with Christ symbolized by 
 the cell and secured by fidelity to its spirit, on deadness to the 
 world, and fellowship with the Sacred Passion in inward as well 
 as outward experiences, on prayer as the true purpose of the Reli- 
 gious Vocation, and the power of intercession, prayer being learnt 
 as we see Jesus pray—these and other like lessons enforced in 
 Retreat after Retreat, have led souls forward to seek the life, whose 
 difficulties. and dangers he described so clearly, and the more 
 emphatically perhaps as he felt its intense reality. He feared a 
 counterfeit and self-willed seclusion, that was no real fellowship 
 with Jesus Christ in His work and sufferings in His Church and in 
 the world. Considerations such as these may give reason for think- 
 ing that now that the Religious Life has so widely increased amongst 
 us, he would be able to give thanks for the development of its 
 stricter forms, if carefully guarded and watchfully maintained.— 
 
 H.P.B.]. 
 
Xil RicuHarp Mevx Benson 
 
 
 
 that there was no other way of following Christ 
 except by this outward and visible renunciation. 
 And an old-fashioned and much-respected tutor, 
 Mr. Woollcombe, rose and, in words which I very 
 well remember, uttered a protest in favour of the 
 life of the good man living in the world, and the 
 life of marriage and the Christian family, as being 
 a true following of Christ. Father Benson did not 
 explain himself ; he simply rose at the end of the 
 protest and said : “ I hope I hardly need to say that 
 I cordially agree with everything that Mr. Wooll- 
 combe has said.”’ Nevertheless the world needs 
 the witness of renunciation, not only made in the 
 heart, but carried out visibly in the outward life ; 
 it needs the spectacle of groups of men and women 
 who have outwardly separated themselves from 
 private property and money, from all lusts and 
 self-will, and on this basis devote themselves to the 
 religious service of mankind ; and such was the 
 origin of the Society of S. John the Evangelist ; 
 and of its principles of renunciation, both inward 
 and outward, Father Benson himself was a con- 
 spicuous and glorious example. 
 
 He was born, I believe, into considerable wealth, 
 but not S. Francis of Assisi himself ever exhibited 
 a more passionate love for poverty, a more profound 
 contempt for wealth, and what wealth can purchase. 
 No one ever showed more complete mastery over 
 all carnal passions and appetite. No one was ever 
 freer from the love of personal display or of any 
 kind of personal ambition ; and yet in him the life 
 of renunciation was the exact opposite of a life bare 
 or dull or ignoble. If any one thinks that such 
 would be the consequence of such a life of renun- 
 
RicHAarD Mevux BENnson X1il 
 
 
 
 ciation, he should read Father Benson’s great 
 Commentary on the Psalms, the War Songs, as 
 he called them, of the Prince of Peace. You may 
 not perhaps approve of the critical principles on 
 which the book is based in the interpretation of the 
 Psalms, but the spirit of the book must thrill you. 
 It is the utterance of the glory of the life of the true 
 Man who has trodden upon all the powers of the 
 world, and lives thereby the life for which man was 
 truly made, the glorious life of fellowship with God. 
 
 He had an extraordinary power of fasting ; he 
 was merciless to himself. People said, perhaps 
 with a touch of desire that it might prove to be 
 true, “‘ He must kill himself.’’ But he lived in 
 wonderful health and vigour until ninety-one, and 
 though he was merciless to himself, as the spiritual 
 guide of others he showed himself extraordinarily 
 moderate, considerate, and merciful. ‘Truly he was 
 a magnificent example, and we need it. We need 
 it pre-eminently in this generation. I ask you to 
 read the literature, much of the poetry, most of the 
 novel-writing of to-day. Its maxim seems to be 
 that you cannot but follow your own strongest 
 impulses and passions ; that inhibition is the great 
 mistake ; that without plenty of money you are 
 likely to be miserable ; that you find in the surging 
 self within you what is your true self, and you must 
 give yourself full self-expression. The result is 
 that most men seem to live as the slaves of their 
 passions and impulses, and of their outward circum- 
 stances, and as an inevitable result pass into a cynical 
 view of life, full of restlessness and discontent. 
 Truly no age, not even the age of the first hermits, 
 ever more profoundly needed than does ours the 
 
XIV RicuHarp Mevux Benson 
 
 principle of renunciation as the basis of every good 
 life, and in particular the witness of the life of 
 religious communities. In our generation we have 
 entered into the labours of other men, and we need 
 to take good heed that what we have inherited 1s 
 not lost or impaired. May God of His mercy 
 grant us abundance of religious vocations, and, 
 what lies more closely with us, may He grant to all 
 men and women who are allowed to be conscious 
 of their vocation the courage to resist the manifold 
 allurements which distract them, and to realize their 
 vocation. 
 
 In our day the most prominent preachers of 
 renunciation and hostility to the world are, I suppose, 
 the Socialists of various kinds. ‘They, as forcibly 
 as the old hermits, condemn and denounce the 
 world as it is—industrialized modern society—and 
 they bid us renounce it and make war upon it, and 
 reassert the Divine principle of equality, and the 
 iniquity of the love of wealth and of selfish property. 
 Father Benson would have had very little sympathy 
 with the Socialists. He was, in fact, a sound 
 old Tory. You;may not agree with him in this. 
 I cannot myself resist the conviction that our world 
 is a world dominated by Mammon, and that it is the 
 duty of the Church to denounce it and struggle to 
 replace it with something like a Christian civiliza- 
 tion: that is, a civilization based upon principles 
 which are the opposite of those which at present 
 dominate the world. Nevertheless, Father Benson 
 was a strenuous upholder of a principle which the 
 Socialists are constantly in danger of forgetting, 
 namely, that no economic change in the structure 
 of society, no economic or political change whatever, 
 
RicHARD Mevux Benson XV 
 
 
 
 would redeem human life ; that can only be redeemed 
 from within. There must be in the soul of man a 
 radical uprooting of the lust of the flesh and the lust 
 of the eye and the pride of life. The secret of 
 redemption is within. Without that you might 
 indeed destroy the order of society which exists, 
 but you would either re-found no order or an order 
 which would prove itself no better. 
 
 II] 
 
 There is one other thing I want to say about the 
 witness of Father Benson. He was very orthodox, 
 and a great theologian, but he had a dread of 
 abstract or intellectualized, or what one might call 
 scholastic, theology. He felt profoundly that Chris- 
 tianity is a life, a life which embodies a doctrine, 
 and that true theology is expressed in life, and he 
 found this kind of spirit most conspicuously ex- 
 pressed, expressed in its most classical form, in the 
 great Fathers of the Church. So he was a very 
 thorough and convinced Anglican ; that is to say, 
 he quite deliberately and vehemently looked beyond 
 the scholastic and later Roman developments to 
 the primitive standard of faith as the pattern of 
 right-thinking. I must not be misunderstood in 
 saying that he was a very ardent and passionate 
 Anglican, because that did not mean that he felt 
 any obligation of loyalty to the particular arrange- 
 ment, or settlement as it is called, which was made 
 in the sixteenth century of England. He wrote : 
 “There is no reason why we should be loyal to any 
 particular age. Our loyalty is due to truth and to 
 the great principle of truth which the Church of 
 
XVI Ricuarp Mevux Benson 
 
 
 
 Se NS 
 
 England enunciated, the tradition of the undivided 
 Church.” ! That expressed himself. But he very 
 seriously preferred the primitive standards of faith 
 and worship, and he believed that the modern 
 Roman standards, such as have prevailed especially 
 since the Reformation, represent deterioration and 
 corruption ; and it must be acknowledged and 
 recognized that he bore a strong witness against 
 some recent developments of the Anglo-Catholic 
 Movement. 
 
 I return to what was the chief element and charac- 
 teristic of his witness ; his witness to the life of 
 renunciation, to living by dying. Three times I 
 happened to hear men use about him almost an 
 identical expression. Once it was a vigorous 
 business man, twice it was young priests, all of 
 them having been in retreats conducted by Father 
 Benson, and having been overwhelmed by the im- 
 pressiveness of his message. They all said at 
 different times: ‘‘ Well, after all, that is the real 
 thing.” That is what you felt in his presence. 
 “That is the real thing”; and I believe if you 
 look at the review of Father Benson’s published 
 letters which appeared in The Times Literary Supple- 
 ment,? you will find something like this: ‘ Well, 
 you may take it or not take it, but that is the real 
 thing.”’ | 
 
 We are called to commemorate our Lord’s 
 Transfiguration next Wednesday, and, as I told you, 
 Father Benson was baptized in this church on that 
 day a hundred years ago. ‘The Festival of the 
 
 t See Letters, Vol. I, iii, pp. 27-8. 
 2 March 23, 1916, “It may be right or wrong, but it is the 
 real thing.” 2 
 
RicHarp Mevx BENnson XV1i 
 
 
 
 Transfiguration is the commemoration of the way 
 in which God sought to reassure the fainting souls 
 of the disciples of Jesus by revealing to them in 
 that great vision the glory of Jesus in His outward 
 form and garments ; but that vision of outward 
 glory was but the irradiation of a hidden glory 
 which at all times possessed His soul, and not only 
 possessed His soul but through the veil of the flesh 
 made itself manifest to all persons of any kind of 
 discernment. ‘They might hate Him ; they might 
 turn their backs on Him ; but despise Him they 
 could not. This was the Son of Man—this the 
 glory of true manhood. And the occasion for this 
 great vision of the Transfiguration was as the 
 disciples were just embarking on the way of the 
 Cross. They could not bear the thought of failure 
 and pain and death, and the vision was given to 
 reassure them, and in its ultimate issue, after their 
 first failure, it did reassure them. This is the 
 message of the whole apostolic record, that the true 
 life, the life to which Jesus calls us, is the life which 
 is not otherwise to be won but by renunciation. 
 It is the royal way of the Holy Cross. 
 
tan 
 NP Eee 
 
 oy 
 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 To Members of the Society of 8. Fohn the Evangelist 
 
 PAGE 
 To Farner O’Netti.—Sickness—English Work—Spiritual 
 Life — Special Providences — ‘The Kingdom of 
 
 Christ = - - 3 
 
 Reading of Holy Serptare - - - - 6 
 
 The Struggle of Missionary Life - - - 6 
 Loneliness—The or re of Jesus—Benefits of 
 
 Solitude - - - - 8 
 The Unseen Order of God - - - - 9 
 The Power of the Cross - - =n BVO 
 Modern Christianity a Macken ealinnds - = ik hd 
 Trouble belongs to Earth; Rest to Heaven - SP ET 
 Trust in God - - - - aa 
 Pentecostal Hopes—Death—Joy - - ees: 
 Desertions—Results — - - - ett 
 Divine Assistance ° : - - - 16 
 Detachment—Prayer—Spiritual Power—Mortification 
 
 —Our nothingness - - “im De 
 Training by Sickness—The Apostolic Spirit - TES 
 Effect of Christianity upon Nations - - - 20 
 Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard - <WnIG2 
 Low standard of Christendom —Value of Martyrs - 22 
 Our Lives the Evidence of Christianity—Personal Ex- 
 
 perience - - - - tele 4: 
 Conviction of God’s Power precedes acceptance of His 
 
 Love—Supernatural Conviction of ‘Truth =a 25 
 Conversions the Gift of God to His Son—The neces- 
 
 sity of Intercession - - 26 
 The Word of God in nee Rternale Panihmentae 
 
 Purgatory—Redemption of the Body —- - 28 
 
 xix 
 
XX 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 To Fatuer O’Neiw (continued) 
 
 Eternal Punishment—Knowledge, Love, and Faith  - 
 The Coming of our Lord - - - - 
 Results of Mg Labour - - - - 
 Prayer * - . 2 
 God’s Warder Works - - - - 
 Little Things - : . - - 
 Xapiopara - - 
 The Call of Chena tha Upward - - 
 Patience—Intercession—The Lord’s Prayer— Waiting 
 Conversion the Work of the Holy Ghost - - 
 Christ our Life—Predestinating Love - - - 
 Our Union in Dispersion - - : - 
 The Joy of Christ in Heaven - - - - 
 Power of the Ascension - : - - 
 The Unity of the Spirit - - - - 
 The Presentation of Christin the Temple — - : 
 Intercession , - - - - ~ 
 God uses our Weakness not our Strength - 
 Divine Truth not demonstrated by Reason—Need e: 
 Love in order to Believe - - - - 
 
 _ Life through Death’ - - dl 
 
 Peace and Strength after Trial—Intellectual Tempte 
 
 tions - 
 The Passion in Relauan to the (Biss) a Chase ecaed 
 Friday - - - - . - 
 Fundamental aay of the Doctrine of the Blessed 
 Trinity” - 
 
 Life hidden in Gedeerhe Right Method of (Miseee 
 Work — The historic Christ and the mystical 
 Christ = - : : - - - 
 
 Hiddenness of Life - - - - 
 
 The Accuracy and Fulness of the Tddgemneds - 
 
 Knowledge of the Truth by Communion with God_ - 
 
 The Ascension - - 
 
 The Power of the Mystical ne - - - 
 
 Our Union in Christ realized in Common Devotions 
 —The Summa of S. Thomas etait he 
 True Agnosticism - - - 
 
 Passiontide - - - 
 
 Power of a Hidden life in fies Missions - - 
 
CoNnTENTS XX1 
 
 
 
 
 
 To Fatuer O’NEww (continued) aye 
 Wakeful nights—Mortification—What a Xavier is— 
 Misapprehension of Others—How Souls are Won 
 
 —Printed Instructions - - - - 66 
 
 To Fatuer Pace.—Work and its Connection with Spiritual 
 Life - - - - - - 68 
 Joy in the Lord - - - pit 70 
 On Patient Waiting for Christ in the midst of Onna 
 Evils and Inward Temptations—The Temptations 
 
 of Christ—Organization and Life - HA N72 
 Good Friday and Easter Day - - “75 
 On the Death of Father O’Neill, and on some a a 
 able fruits of his life - - - eer ds: 
 Chaotic State of Christendom - - - Mn, 7 
 A Whitsuntide Letter - - cS dle fe: 
 The Personal Presence of the Holy Ghost—Superficial 
 Faith—The Vital Power of Christian Truth ae FQ) 
 An Ascensiontide Letter - - - - 80 
 An Easter Letter - - - - oe OT 
 Retreats - - - - - a ee 
 Counsels on Community Development - se 3 
 To Faruer GrREaTHEED.—On Preaching Christ in India - 84 
 Relation of the Holy Ghost to the Father and the Son— ~ 
 Western Teaching on the Holy Ghost - - 89 
 Power of the Communion of Saints—Acting not for 
 Christ, but in Christ—The Communion of Saints 
 in Solitude - - font 
 Knowledge of the Resurrection—Dying to the World “FQ 3 
 Expectation of Growth in Holiness _ - ah om 
 To Broruer Garpner (afterwards Father Gardner).— The 
 Value of Sickness - - - =j.1 94. 
 Preparation for Death—Weakness—Meditation hinags 
 A Christmas Letter—Joy out of Suffering = - - 97 
 The Teachings of Sickness —- - - “ht 197 
 The Ascension and the Fire of Pentecost—The Passion 
 and the Glory of Christ - - - - 98 
 Old Age and Death - - - - 100 
 
 Strength out of Weakness—The Book BF Job - yRULOT 
 
XXIi CoNTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 To BrotTHER GARDNER (continued) 
 Whitsuntide—Christianity Miraculous - - 
 On Bodily Suffering - - - - ni 
 
 ‘To Faruer Rivincron.—Retreat at Ditchingham - - 
 The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity = - - - 
 Care of Health—The Epistle to the Hebrews - - 
 Conversation with Inguirers_ - - ~ - 
 
 Whitsuntide - : A ae , : 
 
 To Fatuer Concreve.—Spiritual Progress - : = 
 The Psalter on a Voyage 3 r ‘ h 
 On Giving Ourselves to God - - : A 
 
 To Broruer Beare.—The Joy of the Ascended Lord, and 
 our Joy in the Growth of His Kingdom - 
 
 Christ’s Joy in His Resurrection - - : 
 
 An Easter Letter—The Power of Christ’s Resurrection 
 
 To Broruer Joun.—The New Year - - - 
 To BrorHer HeRBERT.—On his Profession “ - 
 To Fatuer Traitt.—On the Devotional Use of the Bible 
 
 Toa FaTHer oF THE SocieTy.—On Temptation during Lent 
 
 PART II 
 Miscellaneous Letters 
 
 A Letter to his Parishioners at Cowley - - - 
 To a Priest—Hindrances to a Religious Vocation - - 
 To the same.—The Sacrifice of our own Will - - 
 To a Boy.—On his Confirmation - - - 
 To a Lady.—In Doubt as to her Vocation - - - 
 To a Friend.—Spiritual Growth takes time - : 
 To a Friend.—On Spiritual Inertness - 
 Toa Lady.—The Work of the Ho Ghost in Ataoleion bh 
 in Prayer . - - 
 
 To a Friend.—‘‘ Not Many Wise are Called eg - - 
 
 123 
 124 
 126 
 127 
 128 
 129 
 129 
 
 130 
 131 
 
CoNTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 To a Lady.—On Reparation for Sins - - - 
 To a Lady.—The Athanasian Creed - - - 
 To a Lady.—Friendship on Earth and in Heaven - - 
 To a Lady.—On the Absence of Sensible Devotion 
 To a Lady.—On Going into Retreat - - - 
 To the same.—On Ritual - - - - - 
 To a Priest.—Victory in Continuing Temptation - - 
 To a Lady.—On Patience in Waiting upon God_ - - 
 To the Rev. G. S. Hollings (afterwards Father Hollings).— 
 Our Unworthiness not to Hinder our Work - 
 To the same.—On Religious Pictures - - - 
 To a Lady.—T he Sacrament of Penance - 
 To a Lady.—Dying to Self—The Spirit of life in n Christ 
 Jesus—External Mortifications 
 To the Rev. G. S. Hollings (afterwards F ther Hollings). --- 
 On Humility and Chastity —- - 
 To a Lady.—Christ’s Presence in the Holy E Wehaciet - 
 Toa Mission Priest newly Ordained.—The Priestly Life - 
 To a Lady.—Spiritualism and the Communion of Saints - 
 Toa Friend.—Changes_— - . 
 Toa Friend.—On the Relation of a Chena to the World - 
 To a Religious—On the Contemplative Life - - 
 Toa Penitent—True Penitence_ - - - : 
 To a Lady.—On Christian Science - - - u 
 To a Friend.—On Reading Holy aay - - 
 To a Lady.—On Contemplation - - = 
 To a Lady.—On resting in God_ - - - - 
 To a Lady.—Christianity not a Philosophy - - : 
 To a Lady.—On Spiritual Communion~— - - - 
 To a Penitent ~ - - - - - 
 To a Friend.—Our Prayer, and the Intercession of Christ - 
 To a Lady.—On the Death of an Unbaptized Child - 
 To a Priest.—On the Death of his Father - - . 
 To Miss Ellen Crawley.—The Close of the Year - - 
 
 XXUll 
 132 
 133 
 134 
 136 
 137 
 137 
 139 
 139 
 
 140 
 140 
 I4I 
 
 142 
 
 146 
 148 
 148 
 149 
 ISI 
 152 
 154 
 156 
 157 
 158 
 159 
 160 
 161 
 163 
 164 
 164. 
 167 
 168 
 169 
 
| 
 
 Reese grees ” 
 
 sll 
 = 
 
 4 
 
 _ 
 
 ‘ ’ b 
 7h ay 
 ‘ “ 
 
 z4 : OY ira th, 
 “ " : ieee 5, v4 
 ie Rat ihe ey a * sae! hey 
 
 “4 
 Ra 
 
 os 
 
 bas 
 ots 4¥ 
 ae ty 
 
 
 
evaded th 
 
 To MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY OF 
 S. JOHN THE EVANGELIST 
 

 
Spiritual Letters of Father Benson 
 
 ee lent 
 
 To Members of the Society of 
 SF John the Evangelist 
 
 TO FATHER O'NEILL. 
 
 Fripay AFTER AscENSION Day, 1874. Sitckness— 
 English W ork—Spiritual Life—Spectal Providences 
 —The Kingdom of Christ. 
 
 I do not feel any doubt that your sickness is 
 a token of God’s love sanctifying and accepting 
 your work by teaching you your weakness. Hind- 
 rances of this kind are great tokens that God has 
 some special work to be done, but He wants to 
 bring us to more prayer, deeper humility, patience 
 more perfect. He often calls us to wait, just be- 
 cause He wants to discipline our own souls for the 
 attainment of greater gifts which He has in store. 
 We must recognize His hand in all these matters 
 with thankfulness, knowing that He loveth us. 
 I suppose your health decides the question of the 
 chaplaincy. It will be a long time before you are 
 strong enough. I must say | have a strong feeling 
 against the mere English work. It will be a great 
 
 3 
 
4 To Fatruer O'NEILL 
 
 detriment to the heathen mission. I incline to keep- 
 ing pretty nearly for them alone. Otherwise you 
 will get involved in English distractions. . . . But 
 the great matter is to get the match well alight 
 before you try to kindle the fire, and so the spiritual 
 life of the house is the primary necessity. At this 
 time we must specially entreat our ascended Lord 
 to make manifest within us all—England, India, 
 America, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Turkey, all 
 our colonies—the power of the Holy Ghost, quick- 
 ening us for that work for the accomplishment of 
 which He sent that Blessed Spirit down at the frst. 
 As we have received the Spirit, “let us also walk in 
 the Spirit,” ! and then we need fear no dangers from 
 without, nor doubt of any work that may be before 
 us. Whenever any matters make us feel apprehen- 
 sive as to the future they should stir up our faith to 
 act in the fulness of the Holy Spirit within. I hope 
 our house at Patna? will be greatly blessed in the 
 manifestation of this Holy Spirit. . . . I look upon 
 the doctor’s presence with us as a special provision 
 of God’s love for this emergency. We must gain 
 a great habit of faith by taking notice of all the 
 tokens of God’s watchful care. We must remem- 
 ber He does not say, These signs shall follow 
 them that have Me with them, but those who not 
 only have Me, but deieve that they have Me.3 
 How little do we really lay hold upon the inner 
 life which Christ’s presence in the fulness of His 
 Holy Spirit would perfect within us. He does 
 
 Pecsal vere s, 
 
 2 The house was actually at Bankipur, near Patna. Bishop 
 Milman of Calcutta placed Father O’Neill there in a house once 
 occupied by the S.P.G. Mission. 3 See §. Mark xvi. 17. 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 not come to us with the gift of the divine life 
 merely in order to keep us going in the way of 
 the world, but in order to manifest in us that 
 divine power which by His Ascension He has 
 assumed. May He grant us to realize that the 
 Church collectively and our bodies individually 
 are indeed a temple, having a Shechinah which 
 does not merely fill the house wherein it is, but 
 quickens the house so that each stone is a living 
 stone, living with the very life of the undivided 
 God. 
 
 Events round about us look critical at home. 
 I cannot help a conviction that something serious 
 will happen soon. ‘‘ When these things begin to 
 come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads.””! 
 We may shrink from great catastrophes in the 
 world, but when they happen we shall only learn 
 to appreciate the more fully what it is to have 
 received a kingdom which cannot be shaken. It 
 seems as if our forefathers had held to the fact of 
 baptismal regeneration, and the later movement 
 had dwelt upon the fact of the real presence ; and 
 it seems as if it were for this age to rejoice in the 
 power of the inner life of the Saviour wherein we 
 are new-born, without which the external fact of 
 Christ’s presence in the Holy Eucharist and the 
 dogmatic truth of our regeneration would be 
 valueless. There is somewhat akin to this in the 
 transition of the Apostles [from companionship] 
 with the risen Saviour to the living union with 
 Him which His Ascension effected. He is not 
 ascended from us but in us, lifting up His head 
 to breathe, as it were, the pure air of the height 
 
 t S. Luke xxi. 28. 
 
6 To FarHer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 of the mountain of God, while His blood circulates 
 in us His members here below. Surely it is ex- 
 pedient for us that He is gone up on high. If 
 He were to come down our life would stagnate. 
 
 May 22,1874. Reading of Holy Scripture. 
 
 I am very glad that you have adopted the prac- 
 tice of an hour’s daily reading of Holy Scripture 
 all together. It is most desirable. May God, 
 indeed, bring His word home with power to all 
 of your hearts as you carry on the study! If 
 we want strength for any work of God, we do 
 well to seek it in Holy Scripture. Those minds 
 have been the greatest which have been most 
 filled with it. The misery of our day is that we 
 have so many books that we have scarcely any 
 time for reading the one which is all-important. 
 The writings of men belong to one nation or 
 another, but the word of God speaks to the mind 
 of all nations, the universal human mind formed 
 after the image of God. If we would speak home 
 to the mind of the heathen, savage or refined, we 
 may be sure that the divine word will come home 
 to them with a power far beyond any utterances of 
 uninspired origin. ‘The universal power of the 
 Holy Scripture is indeed one great testimony to 
 its divine origin. 
 
 Avucust 27,1874. The Struggle of Missionary Life. 
 
 One does feel ashamed of oneself to be writing, 
 from all the comforts of home, words of encour- 
 agement to you in the struggles of your distant 
 
To Fatuer O'NEILL 7 
 
 
 
 campaign. Yet do not think that because I have 
 not experienced I do not estimate the difficulties 
 ef your position. I quite feel that very likely I 
 may have been kept at home because God saw that, 
 whatever might be the impulses of my heart, I 
 should not have been able to bear the hardships of 
 a real missionary life. These hardships, I know, 
 are not those which the world counts. Not poverty, 
 nor climate, nor sickness, nor outward difficulty, 
 but loneliness in spiritual struggle. The silent 
 watching through hours which seem wasted for a 
 victory which seems hopeless, the oft-weary prayers 
 for the heathen around while the heart feels the 
 terribleness of inward struggles, greater than ever 
 known before, which seem to make the conflict 
 impossible. Yes, the missionary has to bear the 
 struggles of the hermit saints and the warrior all 
 in one—the hermit struggling with Satan and the 
 warrior in the worst of all conflicts in the trenches. 
 Do not think I should ever grudge of my best for 
 the work, but “I have no man.”” Well, our Lord 
 Jesus will be the Man to stand by you as He did 
 by S. Paul, as He did by the palsied man, both 
 to help and to heal. Others can take part with 
 us in the outward struggle. Jesus takes part with 
 us in both struggles. Jonathan had his armour- 
 bearer. We in our loneliness have Jesus for our 
 armour-bearer. We could not bear the armour 
 of the heavenly warfare ourselves. If He bears 
 it for us, and gives us arrow after arrow to shoot, 
 not one will fly in vain. 
 
8 To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 
 DecEeMBER 10, 1874. Loneliness—The Companion- 
 ship of Fesus—Benefits of Solitude. 
 
 You will have found this in one sense a very 
 lonely Christmas. May you experience the joy 
 of the holy fellowship of all the company of heaven 
 keeping festival with you! The throng of men is 
 very apt to hinder our seeing that which is so near 
 us. The lonely soul has many joys of divine 
 révelation, and can exult as none other can in the 
 vision of the glory of Jesus. He ever delights 
 to show Himself to us. He ever delights to abide 
 with us. He is with us who remain at home and 
 with you who are gone. . . . You must not think 
 that your time is wasted because you may seem to 
 have but few inquirers. Your life is a life of wit- 
 ness to His truth, even to those who do not hear the 
 sound of your voice. We shall pray that God may 
 give you grace to bear, this life of lonely witness 
 worthily. His eye is ever resting upon you, and 
 His hand sustaining you. In loneliness with God 
 we attain to experience the powers of God. In 
 our more active work amongst men we are very 
 apt to lose sight of God’s power in the very results 
 which it effects. Loneliness brings the soul to a 
 real habit of worship, so that we find God as being, 
 in Himself, our sufficiency, our reward, our refuge, 
 and our strength. When He strengthens us to 
 live, in humble devotion before Himself, He is 
 doing much more for us than by any strength 
 whereby we may be enabled merely to speak with 
 men. The strength which we receive in such seasons 
 of privacy is an accumulating strength which makes 
 itself felt as the emergency arises. God does not 
 
To FatuEer O’NEILL 9 
 
 
 
 give us His strength for nought. Strength, as it 
 is treasured up in any one of the members of Christ, 
 makes itself felt throughout the body of Christ. 
 
 FEBRUARY 12, 1875. The Unseen Order of God. 
 
 Your accounts of the various missionaries and 
 their ways are very interesting. We must look 
 for God to bring the new heavens and the new 
 earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, out of the 
 chaos of the earthly Church, as the present earth 
 came out of the chaos of former worlds. We 
 know that the various manifestations of God’s 
 Holy Spirit in His Church are not to die away under 
 the power of Satan. However much ill-regulated 
 zeal there may be, yet as it comes from the Spirit 
 of God it shall effect God’s purpose in spite of all 
 that Satan may do to mar its working. As we now 
 see the power, we shall hereafter see the order and 
 beauty of the work of God.’ When that day of the 
 revelation of Christ comes, how shall we see our 
 own highest ideas of order transcended by the result 
 which God will then bring to light! He knows 
 how to establish His own in their true places, 
 while all around seems to be unsettlement and con- 
 fusion. One is like a ball rolling without any 
 certainty over the board until at last it drops into 
 a hole, but He knows exactly what the destination 
 is to which our rolling about is to bring us. One 
 dare not wish to be at rest, for He knows where we 
 are to settle, and in His wisdom we are each of us 
 safe. 
 
10 To Faruer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 Maunpy Tuurspay, 1875. The Power of the Cross. 
 
 To-night we seem to be watching on each side 
 of Gethsemane ; you from the East, and we from 
 the West. May we so watch around the Cross 
 that we may come to sit down with those who are 
 partakers of His promise in His heavenly kingdom. 
 
 . I look forward to some postulants after 
 Easter. We may be sure God will give us increase - 
 according to our real needs. Probably we need 
 to be kept down for a while, in order that we may 
 rely upon God. ‘The victory is not to numbers ; 
 one Jonah converted Nineveh. The power of the 
 Holy Spirit bowed down men’s consciences before 
 him. No man can come to us except it be given 
 him of our Father. It is just in proportion as we 
 are living in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost that 
 we shall find the power of the Holy Ghost. We 
 must be living true to the Crucified. We cannot 
 overleap that step in evangelical life. It is not 
 enough for us to point to Him; He must be 
 manifest in us, still crucified in the world, though 
 glorified in the world beyond. Such a number 
 are carried away with the dream that, as Christ has 
 died, we may live in this world in the results of His 
 triumph. It is like claiming to take possession 
 of an enemy’s capital by lodging in a hovel on 
 some battlefield of victory. This world can never 
 be to us anything but a hovel and a battlefield. 
 The country we claim is on the other side of the 
 dark river. The less we have to make ourselves 
 feel at home here the better. The most dangerous 
 times are when all things are smooth. 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL II 
 
 
 
 
 
 ApRIL 22,1875. Modern Christianity a Mockery— 
 Solitude. 
 
 More and more I feel what a miserable mockery 
 of Christianity Christendom is. The utter repu- 
 diation of the supernatural life as a real divine 
 transformation of the soul is so sad. One hopes 
 that believers gathered in from among the heathen 
 will believe that they are drawn into the life of God. 
 In Western Christendom the Holy Eucharist has so 
 entirely overshadowed Holy Baptism, that the food 
 of our life is made to be a gift greater than the life 
 which it sustains. Without a full acknowledge- 
 ment of the supernatural change wrought at our 
 baptism, our spiritual life becomes a metaphor. 
 
 In all seasons of loneliness remember the Lord 
 will stand by you and help you. Loneliness has 
 its trials, but it has great blessings belonging to it. 
 We need loneliness for the purpose of training. 
 How God trained in loneliness the great men of 
 old, down to him that is the greatest of all that have 
 been born of women ! How many Christian saints 
 have been trained in intense loneliness, voluntary 
 or involuntary, as the case might be ! The Lord 
 “took him aside from the multitude’ ! to give him 
 the natural gifts of hearing and speech; so He 
 takes us apart if He wishes us to learn His will. 
 
 FEast oF THE Ascension (May 6), 1875. Trouble 
 belongs to Earth ; Rest to Heaven. 
 
 May our Society find the glow of the Ascension 
 resting upon us during the coming year. Out- 
 tS. Mark vii. 33. 
 
12 To Fatuer O'NEILL 
 
 ward difficulties must not drag us down, but rather 
 force us to ascend. If they do so, how indeed 
 shall we welcome them! ‘They are indeed the 
 loving discipline by which we are fitted to follow 
 our dear Lord in the heavenly life. It requires 
 much detachment to bear them joyfully, but these 
 troubles do help to detach us, not in the way of 
 making us discontented, for that is only a strong 
 sense of attachment to earth after all, but in the 
 sense of helping us to realize the power of spiritual 
 joy to outshine all. We learn the calmness of the 
 heavenly glory into which Jesus is ascended by the 
 very interest of the earthly life from which He was 
 delivered, and in which we awhile remain ; but 
 there remaineth a rest for us. ‘This rest remains. 
 It is not merely future. We are to experience it 
 now. We must act in its strength, the peace of 
 God which passeth all understanding. It is the 
 possession of this sure abiding place which gives 
 us stability amidst a changing world; and this 
 home with Jesus is a place of repose for us, so that 
 we can be detached from place and associations 
 of every earthly home. Jesus, enthroned above the 
 angels, carries us to rejoice with Himself in the 
 presence of the heavenly citizens. Our home is 
 in heaven, not merely by expectation, as the fathers 
 of old sought a better country, but by grace ; for 
 we are made partakers of its joys by supernatural 
 communication, and every rent of the earthly en- 
 velope of life only serves to disclose to us the glorious 
 substance of the heavenly reality which shines out 
 within. Ifa child is eager to see something which 
 has been given it, how it tears off bit by bit the 
 paper in which it is wrapped ! and so should we 
 
To Farner O’NEILL par 
 
 
 
 rejoice to have heavenly life revealed to us by the 
 perishing of all outer things. We must have our 
 eyes open to see that which is within. 
 
 May 13, 1875. Trust in God. 
 
 We only want a place where we can kneel down 
 and pray, and then the gospel message is sure 
 to go forward. We may not see its progress, but 
 it will work, as a voice on the mountain-top detaches 
 the avalanches from summits and precipices beyond. 
 It is a good thing for us not to have our own liking 
 in the place of settlement. God puts us just where 
 it is best for us to be by taking us out of our own 
 will and judgement. It is for us to exult as we 
 feel ourselves to be swimming in the wide ocean 
 of His love. 
 
 WHITSUNTIDE, 1875. Pentecostal Hopes — Death 
 mee 
 
 This festival calls to mind the little cloud 
 arising out of the western sea which the prophet’s 
 servant saw,! and encourages us to anticipate the 
 mighty shower of grace which shall yet be vouch- 
 safed to India; or again, as the holy waters of 
 Ezekiel’s vision? flowed eastward from the house 
 of the Lord, at first only up to the ankles, but after- 
 wards so deep that one must swim therein, and 
 the waters of the sea were healed thereby and be- 
 came full of fish ; so may Pentecostal waters indeed 
 bring forth abundantly round about you, that the 
 net may be filled and we may come to dine with 
 Jesus on the shore of the eternal joy. 
 
 * 1 Kings xvill. 44. 2 Ezek. xlvii. 
 
14 To FatHer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 I am writing this at All Saints’ Home, and 
 have just been interrupted to go and see an old 
 patient, who has been nursed here for fourteen 
 years, and a penitent, who is speechless, at S. Agnes’ 
 Home. They are both just near to die to-night. 
 How death equalizes all things and makes us in- 
 different to accidents of earth! How utterly all 
 the differentiating features of life pass out of sight, 
 as souls are set free from this earthly prison house 
 and enter into the glorious presence of Jesus ! 
 Do not the things of this world seem just like a 
 counterpane thrown over one’s bed?’ If one is 
 to wake refreshed in the morning, one must sleep 
 through the night without any thought of what 
 its material may be. If one does think about it, 
 whether its beauty or its ugliness, one cannot sleep, 
 and then one cannot wake refreshed. There is 
 indeed a difference. We may not be able to sum- 
 mon sleep for the body at command, but in the 
 soul’s sleep our will must go to sleep, as well as 
 other features of earthly sensibility. O what a 
 delightful thing to be like a child that a mother 
 takes, perhaps, and lays down again, and if it wakes 
 again it is only to have a mother’s kiss and feel the 
 sweetness of her loving care! So must it be with 
 us and our heavenly Father. Amidst all the changes 
 of life, we must just open our eyes to His loving 
 providence, so full of grace and of the power of the 
 Holy Ghost, and sleep the better, not disturbed 
 but soothed by the sweet embrace of His love. 
 You will find this, I am sure, both in your sick- 
 ness and in your moves. God has been wonder- 
 fully good to us, and He is leading us in various 
 ways more and more to trust simply in Him, just 
 
To Fatruer O’NEILL 15 
 
 
 
 like a child who is awake enough, not to care, but 
 to know in the fulness of love that it need not 
 care. May God grant you indeed to have a right 
 judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice 
 in His holy comfort. How that word “ rejoice ”’ 
 anticipates the cry of the present day that religious 
 truth is nothing else but religious joy, only con- 
 verting the proposition, for religious joy is nothing 
 but religious truth, and religious truth always is 
 joy although it is not always manifest as joy. You 
 will, I am sure, learn by God’s gracious discipline 
 to rejoice in infirmities. They are the foundation 
 of apostolic life, and joy is the life of that life ; for 
 joy is in the Beatific Vision, and that we have if 
 we are working for God in constant mindfulness of 
 His presence. 
 
 Feast oF S. Barnasas, 1875. Desertions—Results. 
 
 In fact it is very useful for us that some do drop 
 away. It just tests who have a vocation to any 
 particular work. The defalcations in India are 
 not so sad as those were which we ourselves ex- 
 perienced in the first days of our Brotherhood at 
 home, when those whom we expected to join us 
 fell away. God has greatly prospered us beyond 
 our deserts, and He will carry us onward according 
 to His good purpose. Trust yourself entirely to 
 Him. He will provide you with fellow workers, 
 and He will appoint your habitation. He has 
 chosen you that you may bring forth fruit, and 
 that your fruit may remain. ‘The fruit of our 
 labours which we see in this world is very perish- 
 ing and very deceitful. ‘The true fruit is that which 
 
16 To Fatruer O'NEILL 
 we shall not see until the day when Christ Himself 
 shall come to acknowledge His work in us. The 
 less we think about success and disappointment 
 meanwhile the better. Our true life and its true 
 fruit are hid with Him in God, and the knowledge 
 of this should set us free from all care and make 
 us rest in the fulness of His peace. 
 
 Jury 22, 1875. Divine Assistance. 
 
 You speak of prudence as involving the calcula- 
 tion of divine assistance. It does not seem that we 
 can calculate on supernatural assistance in any plan 
 that we devise. It is. not promised to us. We 
 may rely upon it in the fulfilment of any plain duty. 
 But if we thought any plan of our own sufficiently 
 important to warrant our looking for supernatural 
 assistance, it would be like throwing ourselves 
 down from the temple and trusting to the promise 
 of angels. We must not take divine promises as 
 going beyond the conditions which God assigned. 
 If we do not calculate upon God’s help to supply 
 our defects, we may always calculate upon it to 
 multiply our results. But, to take a common case, 
 I cannot think it justifiable to run into debt in church 
 building and say we are building upon faith, when 
 after all we are only building upon credit. We 
 have no right to look to God to make up the deficit. 
 It is not faith but dishonesty. When anything 
 comes to us in the way of obedience, then indeed 
 it were imprudent to refuse to obey God because 
 we did not see how He could help us. 
 
To FatHer O’NEILL 17 
 
 Avucust 25,1875. Detachment—Prayer—Spiritual 
 Power—Mortification—Our nothingness. 
 
 God does in His great goodness lead us to see 
 more and more of our own sin. ‘There is a great 
 danger in having any one object of religious work 
 before us in such a way as to draw us from the 
 simple desire of doing God’s will. It does not 
 matter what we do, or where. Nothing avails with- 
 out detachment, and with detachment anything is 
 good, for there can be no true detachment without 
 love. To convert India is a great work, but to 
 give my heart to God is a greater. Buddha did 
 the first, and failed of the second, for he knew not 
 God. To give our heart to God implies the know- 
 ledge of God, Who created the heart for Himself 
 that He might both possess it and fill it. To give 
 the heart to God is to have the heart filled with 
 God, for He cannot appropriate to Himself the 
 heart in any other way than by filling it. But then 
 it must be wholly emptied of all other things ere 
 He can occupy it. He carries us through various 
 modes of discipline that He may thus empty the 
 heart for Himself. We often begin by desiring 
 to do great things for God, but there is one only 
 end, and it is the desire to be nothing. ‘The more 
 truly we are given to God, the more possible it is 
 for us to be His instruments in bringing others 
 to Him. We cannot bring any to Him, but His 
 peace shining through us can draw others to Him- 
 self, if there is nothing in ourselves to hinder it. 
 One must learn one’s own nothingness in a heathen 
 city, as the first power through which that city is 
 to be converted. We must lie hid for a long time 
 
 C 
 
18 To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 resultless, if our work is to grow in the end. It is 
 the long-sustained prayer, the ceaseless communion 
 with God, which must make itself felt in due time. 
 If you have any others at any place along with 
 you, you must try and organize the house for con- 
 stant intercession as much as circumstances will 
 allow. If our house is a house of prayer, living 
 in the power of God, the heathen will come round 
 it as moths round a light, and then will die a most 
 blessed death unto the world as the fire of God 
 touches them. It is impossible to convince them 
 by arguments. We may silence them. But we 
 want to have them so convinced that they may not 
 be silenced, but rather that they may learn to speak 
 with the word of God. It is only the word of God 
 coming to their heart which can make them thus 
 show forth His praise. We have not to win them 
 to Christianity as to a set of opinions, but to breathe 
 upon them Christian life as a power, “‘that ye .. . 
 may have fellowship with us : and truly our fellow- 
 ship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus 
 Christ.” 1 So shall our gospel be not in word only, 
 but in power. We cannot give forth life save by 
 dying. Many a mortification of the outer nature is 
 needed, not mere austerity, for that does not always 
 mortify, but a real dying to ourselves. “I die 
 daily ’”’ 2 is the law of apostolic life... Any dis- 
 appointments we have had are often much more 
 resultful in blessings for the future than success 
 would have been. 
 
 We must thus learn our nothingness before God. 
 At the same time we must be careful to avoid self- 
 disparagement before men. ‘The less we speak of 
 
 Tow ON Hist 2 ity Cor, xvegie 
 
To FatHer O'NEILL 19 
 
 
 
 
 
 ourselves either for praise or blame the better, 
 except, of course, to those to whom we look for 
 spiritual counsel and correction. We should just 
 come into any position, however great or however 
 small, as naturally, as noiselessly, as the air. Our 
 very unworthiness to do the work of God disappears 
 in our nothingness. 
 
 Feast oF S. SIMON AND S. JupDE, 1875. Training 
 by Sickness—The Apostolic Spirit. 
 
 God is no doubt fitting you by the discipline 
 of sickness for your work. Man trains man by 
 developing the powers of man’s nature. God 
 trains man by making us learn the nothingness of 
 all that is in man, that we may live in the power of 
 the divine nature. So He trained Jonah for the 
 conversion of Nineveh by his burial in the sea and 
 in the whale’s belly. Sickness and difficulties are 
 necessary to effect the same purpose for us. The 
 degree of result will be proportionate to the degree 
 of discipline. We are not to think that we can, 
 as it were, profit by other people’s experience so 
 as not to need this personal discipline. However 
 much we know the power of God intellectually, 
 we need to learn it experimentally by having the 
 outer self utterly humbled, prostrated, crushed. 
 Sickness and difficulty do this work for us. ‘They 
 make a real break between us and the world, such 
 as no effort of our own can do. After his years 
 of madness Nebuchadnezzar praised the God of 
 heaven.! You should accept all dislocation, weak- 
 ness, etc., just as the means by which God would 
 
 Peoee Dam..1¥.9 30,44 4s 
 
20 To Fatuer O'NEILL 
 
 
 
 bring you to some greater work that He means to 
 effect. All work that is done in any human strength 
 perishes. Therefore we see of necessity how the 
 great bulk of work undertaken in the Christian 
 Church must collapse. We must learn the secret 
 of our own nothingness if we would gain the 
 fulness of apostolic power. 3 
 
 We need not say much about our nothingness. 
 _ Rather we must look away from ourselves—look 
 to God, be absorbed in the thought of God, so as 
 not to think or speak of ourselves, live in God 
 and for God. I have just been giving the lay- 
 brothers an instruction upon the apostolic spirit 
 of Religious. The Apostles were not different 
 from other men by their zeal, their boldness, 
 their learning, their capacity, but because they 
 were ever living ix God from Whom they came. 
 They were not separated from God by being sent 
 from Him. The Son is begotten of the Father, 
 but ever remains in the very substance and glory 
 of the Father. So the Apostle goes forth from 
 God, having mission, but abides in God, having 
 life. And so the Lord works with him, confirming 
 the word with signs following. 
 
 DECEMBER 2, 1875. Effect of Christianity upon 
 Nations. 
 
 If you spend Christmas at Indore, how it will 
 bring home to you the wondrous power of the 
 Incarnation |! As now the whole population around 
 you are living in utter ignorance of the Son of 
 God, so was all the world ; but the truth has made 
 its power to be known in city after city, and country 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL 21 
 
 after country. It has brought joy and honour to 
 those who have received it, and those who have 
 rejected it have sunk in darkness and misery. ‘The 
 Church’s condition upon the earth has ever been 
 that of a pilgrim, seeking here no abiding city. 
 Asia and Africa have witnessed vast tracts covered 
 with multitudes of episcopal thrones which have 
 been swept away. ‘The culture which Christianity 
 developed forsook these peoples as they fell away 
 from the faith. Europe has received the heritage 
 of the incarnate God, but with no more pledge of 
 stability than the nations before it. 
 
 Curistmas Eve, 1875. Parable of the Labourers 
 in the Vineyard. 
 
 I seem to hear Lauds going on at Indore and 
 Bombay : ‘‘ To-morrow shall the wickedness of 
 the earth be done away.” ! It is a joyous versicle 
 anywhere. O how full of joy it must be to you ! 
 ‘Tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” 2 
 In drawing up some meditations it has occurred to 
 me that the call of the labourers before sunrise 
 means the Jews. At the third hour the others 
 called are the Gentiles at Pentecost. At the sixth 
 and ninth hours, two seasons of great religious 
 awakening and ingathering, possibly the conversion 
 of the barbarians and the Reformation period. 
 The eleventh hour, just before the close of the 
 world’s day, the missionary movement which shall 
 be just before Christ’s second advent. How that 
 parable identifies missions with a special going 
 
 * Opening versicle of Lauds, Christmas Eve. 
 2 S. Luke ii, 10, 
 
22 To Fatruer O’NEILL 
 
 forth of Christ Himself! The steward pays, 1.e. 
 administers the grace of sacraments, the daily pay. 
 It is the Householder in person Who calls. May 
 He indeed go out into the market-place of India 
 along with you, and call manyin. ‘They “ preached 
 everywhere, the Lord working with them.” ! 
 
 DecemBer 30, 1875. Low standard of Christendom 
 —Value of Martyrs. 
 
 We are born to die, and we are converted to die 
 well, and if we cannot die well we certainly should 
 not live well. God will give grace to die, if there 
 is need to die. I fear that God does not generally 
 call us to die because He knows we cannot use the 
 grace to die. But then what is the use of living 
 -all square with the world? I often feel about 
 young men in draper’s shops and elsewhere, what 
 would be the effect if they were to make a thorough 
 stand for truth? But the miserable convention- 
 alities of Christendom seem to make one speechless. 
 It is hard to call some few to act upon a different 
 standard from the rest of Christians. One feels 
 that true Christianity would be altogether a new 
 religion to Europe, and yet one cannot look for 
 spring blossoms upon stems that know no bright- 
 ness except the red leaves of autumn. Ina heathen 
 country, on the contrary, one must look for a real 
 upgrowth of true Christian life. Those who have 
 grace to come to Christ shall come to Him truly, 
 and find His power as they do His work. As 
 many as receive Him, to them gives He power to 
 become the sons of God,? and to act as the super- 
 
 t S$. Mark xvi. 20. 2 cf, S¥ Jolms1. p02; 
 
To FatHer O’NEILL 2A 
 
 
 
 
 
 natural life requires. We may trust, therefore, 
 that in special difficulties God has some whom He 
 has called to true conversion, and He will cause 
 some external deliverance to appear if it be neces- 
 sary and good. ‘The land may be sanctified either 
 by their death or by their life, as He sees good. 
 The life of the Church on earth glows with the 
 life of Paradise. Martyrs are not of value because 
 they die under circumstances of great human pro- 
 minence, as human witnesses to their own strong 
 convictions, but because in the energy of death the 
 grace of Christ is developed in His body the Church, 
 and the Church on earth grows with the vigour 
 of those who have passed on into Paradise. We 
 are all one body in Christ. It is not so much the 
 intercession of the saints as their actual existence 
 which is of value to us. Every one who has been 
 faithful unto death becomes an organic channel of 
 life from Christ, in Whom he lives, to the body 
 of Christ remaining upon the earth. I think 
 modern hagiology has tended sadly to obscure this 
 truth. People look upon saints in heaven as separ- 
 ate individuals like Homeric gods, whereas really 
 their life is in us, for it is Christ’s life in both. We 
 grow: out of the body which is in Paradise. So 
 the firstfruits of a country are really the germ of 
 the future Church of that country ; not merely the 
 first drops of a shower, but the bud that has to be 
 developed. One must, therefore, look for it to 
 be developed in the fulness of its supernatural 
 energy, and look for those energies to last on in 
 the sacramental life of a future generation. It 
 would seem to be almost a natural necessity that 
 the first Christians of any nations should have to 
 
24 To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 
 endure very supernaturally in order to develop the 
 spiritual life of the people in ages to come. 
 
 Feast oF S. Benepict (Marcu 21, 1876). Our 
 Lives the Evidence of Christianity—Personal Ex- 
 perience. 
 
 When we think of our lives being required 
 as evidence to others, it makes us dwell upon the 
 greatness of the experience of divine love vouch- 
 safed to ourselves. How all external evidences 
 pass away as little worth compared with the great 
 evidence of the voice speaking in our own hearts ! 
 Flow in the strength of this voice one feels, in spite 
 of weakness, that one ought to be able to stand up 
 against the world, even though it were all alone ! 
 How one feels the reality of this voice by the nothing- 
 ness of the world, when one thinks of what the 
 world would be without it! I suppose the Hindu 
 devotees, however much determination and pride 
 they may have, must be quite without anything 
 analogous to the joy of Christian life. Thou 
 art anointed with the oil of gladness above thy 
 brethren.! Even in modern Christianity how little 
 of that ecstatic joy there is which filled S. Paul’s 
 heart and inspired his writings. Ever since the 
 vision of a temporal Christendom came over the 
 pure revelation of the kingdom of God, there has 
 been too much seeking of a home on earth to allow 
 of any real ecstasy. Our joys cannot be of a higher 
 order than our hopes. May God indeed enable 
 us so to see His glory that we may rejoice therein, 
 and in outward weakness experience its power. 
 
 ta Meer Er SUaLVidh 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL 25 
 
 
 
 Marcu 31, 1876. Conviction of God's Power pre- 
 cedes acceptance of His Love—Supernatural Con- 
 viction of Truth. 
 
 What is the great difficulty in the way of con- 
 versions at home? Is it not the weak sense which 
 people have of God’s power, of the power of truth ? 
 Satan’s masterpiece for the last age of the world is 
 to persuade men that God is too good to be feared, 
 too sluggish in His leniency to be capable of exert- 
 ing His omnipotence. If people did believe in God 
 the Father Almighty, they would soon accept the 
 rest of the Creed. To regard Christ as a conqueror 
 is the first step towards recognizing His victory 
 upon the Cross. Until people realize the antagon- 
 ism between Christ and the world they cannot come 
 to Him to be saved out of the world. The mere 
 logical process of the faith, or the mere appeals of 
 the gospel narrative to our tenderness and sympathy, 
 do not avail unless the powerful antagonism of 
 Christ to the worldly heart is felt. Not till then 
 can we know His redeeming love or yield Him 
 any true gratitude for our own deliverance. But 
 this cannot be unless we have a clear sense of His 
 approaching victory over the world. 
 
 I cannot help feeling that we need to seek very 
 earnestly for ourselves, who do believe, that we may 
 have a more supernatural conviction of the truth of 
 Christ. It is one thing to be convinced of super- 
 natural truth, it is another thing to be supernatur- 
 ally convinced. It seems as if there ought to be 
 soon an overpowering outburst of supernatural life 
 among Christians, which will be like the change 
 of the colourless twilight to the clear perspective 
 
26 To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 
 of the active day. It 1s what we cannot anticipate. 
 It is that certitude which men’s minds are now 
 very much craving after, and which various phases 
 of religionism among Christians seek to attain by 
 a jumble of intellect and faith, logic and tradition, 
 assumption and authority. The supernatural of 
 Christian history stands to such a bright super- 
 natural vision much in the relation that squibs and 
 crackers do to an electric light. We want the 
 supernatural no longer as a mere accidental, but as 
 the abiding, and so 1n some sense a natural principle 
 ——really natural, and more intensely natural than 
 anything belonging to the lower nature can be. 
 The unction of the Holy Ghost would then be 
 indeed as a stream of burning oil lighting up the 
 earth with the vision of heaven. We cannot effect 
 this for ourselves. It is not for us to know the day 
 nor the hour, but we can wait and pray, and when 
 the time is come God can give. ‘The supernatural 
 unction will surely be our guide amidst the dark- 
 ness of the last days, when the moon is turned into 
 darkness and the stars are fallen from the spiritual 
 heavens. 
 
 Goop Fripay, 1876. Conversions the Gift of God 
 to His Son—The necessity of Intercession. 
 
 With what holy joy we ought to keep this day, 
 if we are really penitent. We follow Jesus, and 
 He went forth to Calvary, knowing that all things 
 were given to Him by the Father, and that He 
 was come from God and went to God.!. The people 
 of India were included in that gift. He riseth 
 
 <iSU Johnyxitis aa. 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL 7 
 
 
 
 from supper in the power of this knowledge, that 
 He may cleanse the sons of Levi that they offer 
 unto the Lord a sacrifice in righteousness, and it 
 is in the power of cleansing that we must seek to 
 assert the claim of Jesus. “‘ Ask of Me, and I 
 shall give thee.””! Jesus asks by us, and we must 
 be careful to remember that we cannot receive any 
 souls for Him, whether in England or in India, 
 except by asking. Jesus has not made it easy for 
 us to convert any, but He has given us a claim upon 
 the Father, and as we ask so shall they be given. 
 The preventing grace of the Holy Ghost brings 
 men over to the acknowledgement of Jesus as 
 Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 
 
 One may fear that our mission work is too apt 
 to fail because we make it our own work, instead 
 of simply regarding the conversion of a nation 
 as the gift which the Father gives to the Son. In- 
 exhaustible and irresistible is the love and the truth 
 wherewith the Father gives all to the Son. We 
 have to receive in the Son’s Name. We must be 
 faithful to Him Whose Name we bear, and we 
 must be conformed to the suffering life wherewith 
 He obtained the gift. We must know at one and 
 the same time the joy of the Father’s love, to which 
 He is welcomed and we are welcomed in Him, 
 and we must know the sorrow of sin with all the 
 intensity of a Redeemer’s anguish in proportion 
 as we would share a Redeemer’s joy. There is 
 anguish enough in Christendom to make the heart 
 ache, when one thinks how few of all those multi- 
 tudes are willing to be His. Yet you must know 
 more of the anguish of contemplating souls under 
 
 DEE Sealand tye 
 
28 To FatHer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 Satan’s power than we can possibly do. Do not 
 doubt that they are given to Christ. They are 
 waiting for us to claim them as we ought. Indeed, 
 however hard may be the bondage of Satan under 
 which they groan, there is more hope of claiming 
 them than of helping those who have been already 
 given over to Christ, and yet will not give themselves. 
 We are given to Christ for His glory and our own 
 benefit. If, therefore, we do not rejoice to have 
 been given to Christ, He is glorified but we are 
 not benefited. Oh, let us hope that India will 
 welcome her transfer into His hands in a very 
 different way from what Europe has done ! 
 
 Aucust 4, 1876. The Word of God in us—Eternal 
 Punishment—Purgatory—Redemption of the Body. 
 
 I am very glad that the installation of the bishop 
 was so happy. ‘That the newspapers should vilify 
 him is no hurt. I hope he will indeed be found 
 to be what they sneeringly call him, “the man 
 speaking with the voice of God.” I more and 
 more feel how much we need this. We need to be 
 the supernatural mouthpieces of the Holy Ghost. 
 It is not the written word, nor even the Word 
 hidden in Sacraments, but the Word manifest in 
 our persons which must convert the world. “Their 
 sound is gone out into all lands. In them hath 
 He set a tabernacle for the sun.’”! ‘The shining 
 forth of the divine Shechinah is a voice. The 
 Word is the light. We have not to speak about 
 Him merely. He must be speaking in us, and 
 then, whithersoever the word goeth, it will accom- 
 
 gM af tells dle wae ih foe 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL 29 
 
 plish the will of the Father in the power of the 
 Holy Ghost. Our outer nature and its gifts do 
 really only serve to deaden this voice. It is so 
 difficult not to substitute what is earthly for what 
 is heavenly. But if a glass be covered with gold 
 it shines with the reflection of exterior life ; it is 
 incapable of transmitting the light from within. 
 So any natural talents shine with the light of the 
 world, but rather refuse to become the light of 
 the world. Human reason and learning, though 
 necessary to us in our fallen estate, are such a hin- 
 drance to our higher life. And so with institutions, 
 ritual, and everything else. One longs to be free 
 of the scaffolding, and see the building. 
 
 I have not spoken about eternal punishment, 
 which I meant to do. It would be quite a good 
 thing to write for some Reviews, even external 
 to the Church, if they let one. We cannot ask 
 help from without. We may give help to those 
 who are without, in so far as their work is not 
 antagonistic. Oxenham has written some able 
 papers in the Contemporary Review.! Only I think 
 he minimizes the thought of suffering more 
 than we have a right to do. No doubt intelligent 
 nature must wake up in another world to its own 
 misery because it has not God. ‘The idea of mere 
 torture inflicted by God as exhibited in pictures of 
 hell is a monstrosity. But the soul formed in God’s 
 image needs no torture. It must agonize in its 
 own craving. I think the delineation of external 
 
 * Four papers in the January and three following numbers, 
 1876, by the Rev. H. N. Oxenham ; reprinted under the title 
 Catholic Eschatology and Universalism (London : W. H. Allen & Co., 
 1878). 
 
30 To Fatruer O'NEILL 
 
 torment has degraded the idea of hell, and made 
 man feel a sort of brutality in God in inflicting it. 
 If people felt that the torment of hell was: their own 
 doing, that it was just as much a law of nature as 
 a famine, or a plague engendered by human idle- 
 ness and filth, they would have retained the acknow- 
 ledgement that God is not bound to interfere in the 
 one case more than in the other. He does reward 
 all human acts of virtue in their own order of merit, 
 but this no more tends to mitigate the craving of 
 the soul for God than a bank of violets tends to. 
 mitigate the hunger of those who have not tilled 
 their corn field. What people need to feel is that 
 existence in another world is the continuation of 
 our existence in this, and that eternal life is a free 
 gift to fallen men which, having been forfeited by the 
 fall, never can be claimed as a right by any, and that 
 without it human nature suffers in eternal starvation. 
 
 We shall see by and by that the human race is 
 a vast unit, and that Adam’s sin is no mere imputa- 
 tion. We sinned in Adam, and in Adam we fall. 
 Nature sees the consequence of the fall. Faith 
 teaches us whence those consequences began. We 
 are not by nature in a state of probation in this 
 world. We are in a state of condemnation until 
 we have come to believe in the only-begotten Son 
 and to be made His living members. Then our 
 probation begins. The idea of hell as a place 
 where fresh tortures are inflicted, instead of being 
 the state in which we come to know our own misery 
 has done much evil, and the Roman doctrine of 
 purgatory has aggravated it by making people think 
 that God accepts a certain amount of artificial pain 
 as a compensation for guilt. 
 
To FatrHer O’NEILL 31 
 
 
 
 The substitution of purgatory for the Day of 
 Judgement, i.e. the substitution of the cleansing of 
 the soul in the intermediate state, as if the body 
 could then be taken up as a merely neutral appen- 
 dage, for what the Athanasian Creed teaches, viz. 
 that we must give account and receive reward in 
 the Jody at the last great day for all the deeds done 
 in the body, whether good or bad (because the body 
 is as much oneself as the soul, and needs God as 
 much as the soul does, being formed for God as 
 much as the soul was)—this Manicheism, which 
 really underlies the Roman doctrine, has added to 
 the difficulty of making people feel that hell is not 
 to satisfy God’s anger, but God’s unchangeable law. 
 It sets aside the material part of our nature as if 
 it were incapable of moral character, and elevates 
 the spiritual as if it were capable of rising to the 
 requirements of God’s life ; whereas both body and 
 soul can live, and can only live, by the perfecting 
 power of the new birth, giving them a life entirely 
 different from that which they can have by nature, 
 although their nature was formed to live by it and 
 therefore craves it. 
 
 But both body and soul have sinned ; one can- 
 not be cleansed without the other, and neither can 
 be cleansed for God, but only by the indwelling of 
 God. So the odAdkAnpoy! shall be preserved to be 
 without blame in the appearing of Jesus Christ. 
 Christ does not only appear to us as our Judge, 
 but in us as our Righteousness ; and those who 
 love Him not have not life, and cannot get life 
 elsewhere. ‘The elect are not chosen because God 
 wished to save a certain number of men,',but, be- 
 
 * cf. 1 Thess, v. 23, ‘‘ Your w4o/e spirit and soul and body.”’ 
 
32 To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 
 cause the body of Christ demands a certain number 
 for its manifestation. We must be careful to think 
 of man’s salvation as being not an act of mere pity 
 on God’s part, but as being for the manifestation of 
 
 God’s glory. 
 
 MicuareLtmas Eve, 1876. Eternal Punishment— 
 Knowledge, Love, and Faith. 
 
 I think I meant to express very much what 
 you mean about eternal punishment. By “law” I 
 did not mean an abstract law superior to God, but 
 the unuttered Word, the very consciousness of 
 God. Also I did not mean to deny His wrath, 
 but to raise it into the calm region of eternal justice, 
 and remove it from the region of vindictive passion 
 requiring to be sated by a certain amount of pain. 
 The debt of our sin can only be made good to God 
 by love. 
 
 The first payment of love would be equivalent to 
 paying the last farthing, and would set the soul 
 free from torment. But, alas ! in the condition of 
 the lost that payment never comes. No demonstra- 
 tion of God’s power and goodness can really waken 
 the lost soul to love. The intellectual conscious- 
 ness and the heart do not go together in that world, 
 if they have not been brought together in this. In 
 this world God moves the heart by the gift of His 
 Holy Spirit, and the intellect is shaken thereby. 
 In the next world God will operate immediately 
 upon the intellect, and this will harden the heart 
 instead of subduing it. A revelation thoroughly 
 demonstrated would probably have the same effect 
 upon us now, viz. of hardening us. The moral of 
 
To Fatruer O’NEILL 33 
 
 probability [?]! and the discipline of faith enable 
 God to let Himself be chosen by the heart in a spirit 
 of love, the understanding assisting, but not com- 
 pelling, assent. If we did yield to the necessities 
 of logic, we might admire God but we could not 
 love Him. As it is we learn to love Him first, 
 although having very imperfect knowledge, and this 
 love following develops the intellectual powers, so 
 we know Him also better. But the eternity of hell 
 really seems to arise from the incapacity of the soul 
 to be moved to love. It is no want of love on God’s 
 part which makes hell eternal. It is the transcend- 
 ent character of love to which the fallen soul cannot 
 rise. 
 
 Ocroper 19, 1876. The Coming of our Lord. 
 
 In your letter you spoke of the second coming of 
 Christ. It is very sad that Christians in the present 
 day think so little about it. We are absorbed 
 in thinking what we can do, how long. we shall 
 have to get our work finished. But the one great 
 thought of the Apostles was to love His appearing. 
 If we love Him we must long for His appearing. 
 Lord Jesus, come quickly! How should our 
 hearts be filled with the thought of His glory, 
 and the glory of His elect along with Him, and of 
 our own glory not added to His but derived from 
 His ! The glory which shall be our joy there is 
 
 * The note of interrogation is Father O’Neill’s. Possibly some 
 words have been omitted ; Father Benson seems to have meant, 
 the moral education of having to act upon probability rather 
 than upon demonstrative proof. cf. Bishop Butler, Anahgy, etc., 
 Introduction, § 4. 
 
 D 
 
34. To FatHer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 the very same which has been our strength here. 
 It is not an earning of a future reward, but a reveal- 
 ing of a present strength. The appearing is not a 
 coming to us, so much as a coming forth from 
 within us, showing Himself truly within us, per- 
 fecting our faculties that we may apprehend 
 that which is beyond our thought while we are 
 here. The appearing is a revelation, so that when 
 He shall be revealed, we also shall be revealed 
 with Him in His glory, and He at His coming 
 will be glorified in His saints and we in Him.! 
 He will be glorified by the very fact of develop- 
 ing within us the power of beholding His glory. 
 We shall be glorified in Him by the very fact, 
 the very power, of seeing it. “* We shall be like 
 ‘Him ; for we shall see Him as He is.’”’2. And all 
 earthly life is only the training of the outer nature 
 that we may become partakers of this heavenly 
 vision, the bringing of our outer nature into sub- 
 jection to Him, that there may be nothing in us of 
 ourselves, but we may be the simple instruments 
 of His manifestation of Himself, the elect mirrors 
 of His glorious energy, the righteousness of God 
 in union with Him. 
 
 Frast oF THE Hoty Innocents, 1876. Results of 
 Missionary Labour. 
 
 How Epiphany assumes that God will bring 
 the tidings home to the most distant ! None who 
 are really seeking Him shall fail. We speak to 
 many who heed not, but the word of God travels 
 on, in ways unknown to us, to those who are known 
 
 * See Col. iii. 4, and 2 Thess. i. 10. 2) 1S. John iit 2: 
 
To Fatuer O'NEILL sus 
 
 SS ee 
 
 
 
 to Him. All we can do is to trim the lamps and 
 watch, as it were, for the flash of the Pentecostal 
 fire to kindle them. Yet we know that we have 
 that fire within ourselves, and that constant effort 
 on our part is essential to the bursting forth of the 
 flame at the appointed occasions of divine provi- 
 dence. It is in some degree like the rubbing of an 
 electrical machine in order to get it charged. There 
 must be many turns before a spark is seen. In 
 the fruitless effort of preparatory years of toil the 
 operative power of the Holy Ghost is, as it were, 
 generated within ourselves, so that we may become 
 instruments of His converting grace. Our labour 
 is not in vain in the Lord. If it produce no result 
 externally, it effects its result within ourselves, fit- 
 ting us for future and greater works. If God were 
 to give us success very quickly our work would 
 end in nothing but dwarf results. 
 
 ere veme mato] 7.) Layer, 
 
 I wish I could run over for a week. India is 
 a long way off. Heaven is much nearer. There 
 we can meet—and do meet constantly. Nor do 
 we ever meet there in vain. ‘The more one thinks 
 of the power of prayer, the more strange it is how 
 little one does pray, how little one desires to pray, 
 how little one can pray! Yet the Holy Spirit will 
 help our infirmities. Year after year one feels that 
 one ought in every way to have made much more 
 progress since one came into Religion. One does 
 wonder to see what God has done around, and how 
 little one has permitted Him to do within, 
 
36 To Fatuer O'NEILL 
 
 
 
 Jury 27, 1877. God’s Wonderful Works. 
 
 God works in ways that we can little expect. 
 If we live true to Him, He will bring people to 
 Himself through us. It is not our work which 
 brings them. It is His. And so He often brings 
 the most unlikely. 
 
 Aucust 2, 1877. Little Things. 
 After all, life is made up of little things. We 
 
 cannot be always doing what we think to be great 
 ones. It is not doing great things, but living a 
 great life, that is required of us, and that great life 
 is the life of Christ. That great life consists much 
 more in doing little things than great ones. What 
 seems great before the world often shrivels up the 
 real energies of life. The calmness of the Holy 
 Ghost is not noticeable to the world, nor even to 
 ourselves ; but we shall find its greatness in the 
 
 joy of God. 
 
 AvuGUST 15, 1877. Xapicuara. 
 
 We certainly ought to distinguish between 
 the gifts of the Spirit. Some are personal, and 
 some are ministerial. However, the exercise of the 
 xapicuata, of whatever kind, ought to be subject 
 to Church authority. ‘‘ The spirits of the prophets 
 are subject to the prophets.” ! That must mean, 
 in modern times, some sort of episcopal license. 
 The unwieldliness of dioceses does not set individ- 
 uals free to act simply for themselves. What is 
 
 LiW@orixivona 2: 
 
To Faruer O’NEILL a7 
 
 
 
 
 
 truly supernatural and from God may seem to tran- 
 scend formal licenses, but if it is really from God 
 it will show its supernatural character so unmis- 
 takably as to obtain some legal mode of expression. 
 Patience under repression may be the very power 
 by which such gifts need to be matured. Im- 
 patience and haste would certainly destroy their 
 divine efficacy. 
 
 Feast oF S. ANDREW, 1877. The Call of Christ— 
 Onward and Upward. 
 
 May our good Lord call many to follow Him, 
 and give grace to us all that we may persevere and 
 follow Him, as He ever calls us onward. Although 
 our state be fixed, yet the call of Christ is ever 
 onward and upward ; to live more fully in union 
 of heart and mind, of will, of word, of deed along 
 with Himself. The very solitude of our lives is 
 one of the forms in which He calls us to follow 
 Him, and He is with us, working with us most 
 powerfully in proportion as He puts all else away 
 from us. He is our companion and guide in soli- 
 tude, binding us to Himself by His Holy Spirit, 
 and He by the power of the same Spirit binds us 
 together in every bond of holy association and 
 
 brotherhood. 
 
 Feast oF S. Joun, 1877. Patience—lIntercession— 
 The Lord’s Prayer—V aiting. 
 
 I can well understand how grievous the press- 
 ure of long continued waiting must be, when you 
 do not seem to be making any way among the 
 heathen. But then one of the great signs of an 
 
38 To FatHer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 
 
 apostle is patience. ‘There are two kinds of martyr- 
 dom—blood and patience. It is specially to this 
 latter that we are called in the Society of S. John, 
 who styles himself companion of the faithful “in 
 the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.””! Do 
 not think that your work is failing because your 
 patience is sorely tried. Rather take this as a 
 token that you are accepted. 
 
 This long waiting time shall lead to much fruit 
 by and by. Only give yourself to very constant 
 prayer. Individualize objects of intercession. Strive 
 to realize the wants of the place, and say the Lord’s 
 Prayer very often for each separate person and 
 thing. Remember that the first step towards ob- 
 taining what you ask is that the Lord’s Name 
 may be hallowed in you. People do so often make 
 that the last petition instead of the first. But the 
 order of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer is as 
 important as the subjects of the petitions. Before 
 God can grant us any petition, even the conver- 
 sion of a heathen country, He must have His Name 
 hallowed in us by our prayer. We must have our 
 hearts identified with His will, and that chiefly 
 by learning to wait. ‘Those must wait the longest 
 to whom God means to give the most. But it 1s 
 by such long strivings of prayer that God would 
 train us to get great answers. When we are content 
 to pray for praying’s sake and gain nothing, then 
 God will be able to work miracles in answer to our 
 prayer. 
 
 Of course it is very wearisome to the natural 
 flesh to have the days go by apparently for little 
 more than waste. But it is not waste. God is 
 
 +e Revs eo? 
 
To FatuEer O’NEILL 39 
 
 
 
 carrying out His purposes which are much better 
 than ours. The more you can restrain yourself 
 the better. Do not think the time required for 
 waiting can be utilized for some other purpose. 
 No. If some other interest fills it up, then it is no 
 longer waiting time. God does not put us off for 
 the sake of delay, but just in order that we may 
 learn to wait. Watch and pray must be the constant 
 motto. We may expect that the very sight of one 
 given up to God, waiting thus in the midst of them, 
 would be much more influential with them in the 
 end than any declamation or authority. By and 
 by you will be inclined to say, ‘ Who hath begotten 
 me these ?’”! 
 
 I do not know, after all, that there is much more 
 weary waiting in a heathen mission than there is 
 in ordinary parochial work at home. The great 
 difference is that the missionary expects results and 
 is a long, long time before he gets them, whereas 
 the priest of a parish in a Christian country 1s con- 
 tent with the nominal Christianity which he finds 
 all round about him, and his happiness is an illus- 
 tration of the proverb, “Blessed are they that 
 expect nothing.” God bless you, and grant that 
 as the beloved disciple had the grace to wait through 
 his long life amidst hopes that seemed only born 
 to perish, so we may have the grace of patience and 
 the full apostolic reward. 
 
 Marcu 21, 1878. Conversion the Work of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 We must always remember that it is only God 
 Who can touch men’s hearts. We are too apt 
 
 t Isa. xlix. 21, 
 
40 To FaTHer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 to think that men must be swayed by certain gifts 
 of our own, but the work is really wholly and 
 entirely His. One does feel tempted to rely upon 
 other gifts. Surely we may look for a great mani- 
 festation of the Holy Ghost in these days. Whether 
 it be the end of all things or no, there can be no 
 doubt that this 1s a great crisis in the world’s history ; 
 and the Holy Ghost cannot let mankind pass through 
 such a crisis without coming to fit them for it, 
 whether they be ready to correspond with the 
 guidance of the Holy Ghost or no. It is so difficult 
 to realize that He, unseen, dwelling with all the 
 multitude of the Christian Church, is yet no mere 
 abstraction, but a power ruling personally, influenc- 
 ing men’s wills, judgements, actions. We so much 
 more naturally think of the personal man whom we 
 know as taking the lead and then of the Holy 
 Ghost as following that lead, than we do of the 
 Holy Ghost as taking the lead and causing man by 
 various suggestions which the Holy Ghost makes 
 within the soul to follow that lead. He speaks 
 through the willing instrument. 
 
 Maunpy TuHurspay (Apri. 18), 1878. Christ our 
 Life—Predestinating Love. 
 
 I hope that your Easter will be with much 
 blessing to the people with whom you are, and to 
 yourself above all. As we minister the gifts of 
 Christ, we know that He always calls us to share 
 what He gives by us to others. We give forth 
 the gifts of the Spirit most truly in proportion as 
 we retain them most perfectly for ourselves. Christ 
 gives Himself to be our food, and we live because 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL 41 
 
 
 
 
 
 He lives. The more truly His life is ours, so much 
 the more does it give itself forth from us. And 
 as we give it forth it comes back to us, a principle 
 of life ever circulating in the body of Christ, quick- 
 ening, unifying, sanctifying, glorifying. I do not 
 know how many communicants you are likely to 
 have. I suppose very few. The few may be all 
 the more precious. God does not value congrega- 
 tions by numbers. Nor even by what we are 
 able to see at present of their spiritual progress. 
 He knows what He 1s calling each one to be. The 
 elory of His predestination baffles the conjectures of 
 our sight. Our comfort in ministering is to know 
 that each one of these has had a share in the redeem- 
 ing love of Calvary, a personal deliverance from 
 Satan’s power by that individualizing love, which 
 created, each and redeemed each and seeks’ to 
 sanctify each. 
 
 May 17, 1878. Our Union in Dispersion. 
 
 Thanks for your letter of Good Friday. How 
 that day does draw us together! All one in a 
 Redeemer’s heart—and now, in our dispersion 
 amongst His redeemed, we have to carry out the 
 message of that energizing love which makes us 
 one with all mankind. We are as His rays, and 
 a ray cannot be taken away from the sun. It lives 
 by a perpetual energy of that light which is the 
 source of all other rays ; and all are one in their 
 source, their life, their spreading power. Only 
 their direction varies. So we, as individuals, vary 
 only in the direction of Christ’s aim which He 
 takes through us. Our source, our life, our sub- 
 
42 To Faruer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 stance, our power are one. Amidst our dispersion 
 it is full of joy to know that we are one. The 
 children of men were dispersed from Babel ; but 
 the children of God, though dispersed, are not 
 separated in going forth from Jerusalem upon the 
 steps of that Babel-multitude to teach all nations. 
 As He came down from heaven, Who is in heaven, 
 so we go forth and yet remain ever at home. Our 
 citizenship in the heavenly city is never interrupted. 
 In truth it is only while we abide that we can go 
 forth. Not to abide were to be like him who 
 fell from heaven. Going forth is of unity and 
 life. Falling is of death. 
 
 Ascension Day (May 30), 1878. The Foy of 
 
 Christ in Heaven. 
 
 How little do people think of the actual present 
 joy of Christ as Man, the Head of the body, in 
 giving forth His grace from the throne of His 
 power to every individual member of His body ! 
 The joy of returning consciousness to a numbed 
 limb seems in some feeble manner to express the 
 joy of Christ in raising His body from the slug- 
 gishness of earthly life to the energy of His own 
 life in the glory of God. ‘That awakening life has 
 too often somewhat of pain. So the resuscitation 
 may be with pain in the soul. Then too we should 
 remember how He gives His grace, not by a mere 
 physical necessity, as is the case in the action of the 
 head upon the material body, but with a free and 
 living power of individual will to each. Every 
 gift of grace to any one in any sacramental act of 
 the Church, and in the gratuitous distribution of 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL 43 
 
 His abounding benefits, must be a real act of joy 
 to Christ as the Head of the body. ‘The fixed law 
 of sacramental action—His legislative love—does 
 not interfere with the spontaneous delight which 
 He finds in giving grace to each soul according to 
 that law, His executive, distributive love. How 
 we ought to dwell upon the joy of Christ as our 
 ascended Head in the ministrations of grace accord- 
 ing to our need! Yet I fear that commonly people 
 think of grace as a sort of spiritual power in the 
 heavenly body, like electricity in the inanimate, 
 existing with results for us, but without any real 
 joy for Him. 
 
 OcTavE OF THE ASCENSION (JUNE 6), 1878. Power 
 of the Ascension. 
 
 Would that we could but be worthy of this 
 great mystery ! How strange it is that we can 
 know the reality of it, and be so little moved by it! 
 The Crucifixion and the Resurrection are mysteries 
 of the past, however abiding in their consequences, 
 but we are always living in sight of the throne 
 where He, ascended, sits, and yet we seldom think 
 about it. It was by the prophecy of the Ascension 
 that our Lord confounded the Jews, ‘ The Lord 
 said unto my Lord.” ! Surely if we kept the thought 
 of that all-watching sovereignty of the ascended 
 Saviour more constantly in mind, we should find 
 ourselves brought to participate in its power. It 
 was this sight which strengthened Stephen with so 
 much wisdom in his address to the Jews. If we 
 lived more in the light of this glorious sovereignty, 
 
 Pat cx ts 
 
44. To FatHer O’NEILL 
 
 we should experience the power which glorifies it. 
 I will make thy foes thy footstool.! We cannot 
 have the co-operation of the Lord and Spirit, Who 
 proceedeth from the Father, to confirm the word 
 with signs following, unless we are living within 
 the radiance of the throne of the Lamb from Whom 
 He proceeds. Unless we see the lines of Church 
 life converging towards that one Head from Whom 
 they all proceed, we cannot have any real conscious- 
 ness or appreciation of the unity of the Church ; 
 and so, through losing practical sight of this doc- 
 trine, people lost the thought of, or tried to provide 
 a miserable earthly substitute for, the unity of the 
 
 living body of Christ. 
 
 JuNE 13, 1878. Wuuitsun Wee. The Unity of 
 the Spirit. 
 
 May the Blessed Spirit make His glorious 
 presence more and more manifest throughout the 
 Church, enabling us increasingly to realize that 
 unity wherein He makes us all one wherever we may 
 be, in spite of those manifold divisions which seem 
 to break up the body of Christ into so many parts. 
 It is a joy to feel His presence binding us even with 
 many that persist, as far as human antagonism can 
 go, in holding aloof from us. Oh how great is 
 the joy to feel that His presence makes us one 
 so sympathizingly, so perfectly, with those who, 
 though separated from us by outward circumstance, 
 are really looking to His guidance, hearing His 
 voice, rejoicing in His love, acting in His power, 
 according to the same blessed intuitions as are our 
 
 2 See Ps. cx. I. 
 
To Fatuer O'NEILL 45 
 
 portion at home. The presence of the Society 
 lights up the world wherever any of our brethren 
 may be. Oh, let us seek to be cheered increasingly 
 by this holy light of brotherhood in Christ, a unity 
 in the Holy Ghost, which, as it makes the whole 
 Church one, should shine with such special lustre 
 of divine and human love throughout our Society. 
 
 Jury 12, 1878. The Presentation of Christ in the 
 Temple. 
 
 In our retreat we have just reached the mystery 
 of the Presentation. May we indeed be pre- 
 sented by Him in His glory! How distinct was 
 the glory of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, and 
 Anna, and the faithful expectant few, from the 
 glory of the Temple surroundings in which the 
 great bulk even of the devoutest worshippers 
 prided themselves. So must the glory of our life 
 in the Church be a glory which the world cannot 
 understand. The world is occupied by that which 
 is to pass away, whereas our glory cannot be revealed 
 until the things which can be shaken have been 
 removed for ever. We are apt to have hopes for 
 Christ, whereas our true hope is zz Christ. “* Lord 
 now lettest Thou,” etc. Oh to depart and to be 
 with Christ! But then we must carry about with 
 us the Christ despised and unknown. The birds 
 which symbolized the Holy Ghost were the offering 
 of the poor, and we must praise Him for that 
 spiritual glory of the Holy Ghost which we can 
 only know in the poverty of earth. 
 
46 To FatuEer O'NEILL 
 
 
 
 NoveMBER 28, 1878. Intercession. 
 
 To-morrow is the day of intercession with us, 
 S. Andrew’s Eve. May God draw His people 
 to great earnestness in prayer at this time! As 
 we pray, so He will answer. It is only in a spirit 
 of prayer that we can undertake any work however 
 largely supported, and in the strength of prayer 
 we may look for the smallest works to grow. God 
 tries our faith, develops our work, and carries it 
 onward to the full purpose of His predestination 
 by manifold delays. If there were no delays, diffi- 
 culties, hindrances to try our faith, He could not 
 make our work grow according to His will. 
 
 Feast oF S. JoHN THE EVANGELIST, 1878. God 
 uses our Weakness not our Strength. 
 
 God uses our weakness to make manifest His 
 strength. How one finds this exemplified time 
 after time ; and again how difficult it is for us to 
 accept in all its fulness that other truth, that He 
 Who uses our weakness sets aside our strength. 
 It is so difficult for us to believe that our strength 
 must be set aside—so difficult for us to set it aside 
 in order that we may be available for His purposes. 
 Yet we find as time goes on that so it is. What- 
 ever it is on which we may have relied God is sure 
 to set it aside, and if we can join with Him, or fore- 
 stall Him in so doing, then indeed we shall find the 
 blessing. 
 
To FatHer O’NEILL 47 
 
 
 
 Frepruary 6, 1879. Divine Truth not demonstrated 
 by Reason—WNeed of Love in order to Believe. 
 
 Truth has a self-demonstrative power flashing 
 out to the overthrow of men’s hearts and the awak- 
 ening of their consciences, as when our Lord 
 appeared to Saul ; but the self-demonstrative power 
 of truth is very different from the demonstrableness 
 of truth by human reason. Human reason will 
 be more able to vindicate all round something which 
 man has invented. A human system suits human 
 logic better than a divine system. Divine truth is 
 always bursting the limits of human logic ; and 
 just as people think they have got a clear view of 
 it, they find something which upsets all their 
 reasoning. They cannot eliminate the infinity 
 from the equation, and all their arrangement of 
 factors is mere child’s-play until they do. With 
 systems of falsehood, whether human or diabolical, 
 the infinite has no real existence. It decorates for 
 a while, but it is easily got rid of when need be. 
 In order to grasp the infinite, man must seek to lay 
 hold upon it with his affections as well as with his 
 reason. The affections without the reason lead to 
 an earthly fanaticism dazzled by meteoric light. 
 The reason without the affections is never satisfied 
 until it has killed by analysis the mysterious thing 
 whose vital action it desires to understand. ‘‘ The 
 fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”! It 
 is by the love of the truth that we must attain to 
 salvation. However, the two together cannot lay 
 hold upon God unless God reveal Himself. “‘ It 
 pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me,”’? says 
 
 Pay X1V, 1, ai ral eis LO 
 
48 To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 
 the Apostle, who previous to that revelation had 
 had much love of the truth and much learning in 
 the lore he loved. God must show Himself to 
 the affections, and then the reason will follow with 
 the blessed utterance, “‘I know Whom I have 
 believed.”’ ! 
 
 So the arguments from prophecy are con- 
 clusive when the soul has caught a loving glimpse 
 of Jesus Christ ; but we cannot love Christ merely 
 because we have an intellectual conviction of His 
 supernatural character. The supernatural element 
 necessitates apparent contradictions. ‘That which 
 suits one of the natures does not suit the other. 
 With a religion that is only a pantheistic or atheistic 
 philosophy, there is no active inconsistency upon 
 the surface. The inconsistency is driven down 
 into the depths of mystery, where the human mind 
 can contentedly leave it. A person, embodying 
 the finite and the infinite, disturbs the natural sense 
 with claims that are inconsistent with the finite, 
 and humiliations that are inconsistent with the in- 
 finite. Reason can sweep the stage of philosophy, 
 so as to make it clear of inconsistences for all the 
 actors that are to tread it, and the sweepings behind 
 the scenes do not trouble the mind’s eye. I do 
 not think that any one was ever argued into truth. 
 Faith which worketh by love must be primarily 
 kindled by love. This is true of persons who have 
 to be rescued from false forms of Christian life, 
 as well as of heathen. Controversy always em- 
 bitters. This is the victory that overcometh the 
 world, faith which worketh and conquereth by 
 love. 
 
 40> “Jie te. hae 
 
To FatHer O'NEILL 49 
 
 DecEMBER 10, 1879. Life through Death. 
 
 We must see things born in weakness, and 
 perish in death, ere they can live to eternity. We 
 are slow of heart to rise from the Judaic length 
 of days, to the eternity of the Day of Christ ; and 
 so we look for a manifestation of God’s omnipo- 
 tence in outward circumstances, rather than of His 
 divine, eternal, personal glory in the inner life of 
 our fleshly weakness. We want the divine charac- 
 ter of our life in Christ to be self-evident in this 
 world of sin and shame, instead of being hidden 
 from man, seen of angels and received up into 
 glory, to be manifested to all mankind hereafter. 
 
 January 27, 1880. Peace and Strength after Trial 
 —TLntellectual Temptations. 
 
 I had a very pleasant voyage as far as the serenity 
 of seasons could constitute pleasure, and a higher 
 pleasure in studying the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 getting a good part written of what I have long pur- 
 posed to be the second volume of bible Teachings. 
 I think what surprises me most, as one studies it 
 time after time, is the utter failure of any expositors 
 that I have ever seen to follow the Apostle’s argu- 
 ment from section to section. Oh, if we did but 
 realize the Church of God as the heavenly temple 
 wherein Jesus is ministering at the right hand of 
 God! Then one might indeed feel oneself with 
 the Lord—whether in the body or out of the body 
 { cannot tell, but in the communion of saints, in the 
 unity [of the indissoluble Body of Christ, in the 
 truth of His Humanity, in the spiritual glory of 
 
 E 
 
50 To FatHer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 His Godhead, in the security of His promises, and 
 in the fellowship of His Sonship. ‘The miserable 
 controversies of Christendom die upon the ear, if 
 we have an ear not to listen to what man says, but 
 to that which the Spirit thus saith to the Churches. 
 Controversies, corruptions, schisms, violence, fraud, 
 all these are for a time : happy they who are deaf 
 to them, and abide devoutly in the Light of the 
 Lord. 
 
 Our experiences must lead us to realize His 
 fellowship more and more. He is the Lord Who 
 will ‘‘ direct our hearts into the love of God, and 
 into the patient waiting for Christ,’’! whereas human 
 reasonings drive us into rebellion against God’s 
 providential ‘discipline, and impatience because 
 Christ is not as apparent to our sight as seems to 
 us to be necessary. 
 
 Reason demands much certainty, as if we must 
 know the Lord by some external authority, so as 
 to base our religion upon natural certitude. Faith 
 rejoices in the Love of God so much vaster than our 
 knowledge of Him ; and the covenant of the Lord 
 hath “ this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are 
 His.’’2 Oh, yes ! as the Apostle says, “‘ to know 
 Him, or rather to be known of Him !”’3 We know 
 Him not until we know our own knowledge of Him 
 to be simply the loving reflection of that loving 
 knowledge whereby He knows us. People argue 
 about minute points of proof and get utterly be- 
 wildered, because they think that love will spring 
 out of knowledge, instead of perceiving that know- 
 ledge can only spring up with love. 
 
 In the Eternal Trinity the Son, the Wisdom, is 
 
 bz Sel Wess (tfc ao2 Limit ia G, 3 See Gal. iv. 9. 
 
To Fatuer O’NEILL SI 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 begotten in the unity of the Holy Ghost, the Love 
 of the Father ; and the Holy Ghost, the Love, 
 proceeds from the Son, the Wisdom, but is not 
 begotten of the Son. So is it with our spiritual 
 life. Controversy kills divine truth, extinguishes 
 the light wherewith it shines, in order to be able to 
 subject the dead material to the processes of its own 
 logic. Blessed is that logic which by the illumina- 
 tion of the Spirit sees divine realities in earthly 
 forms, but cursed is that logic which seeks to bring 
 Christ down again from above, and subject the 
 covenant of the Eternal with the Church as the 
 glorified Body of His Son, to the necessary measure- 
 ments of human reason, forgetting that, even in its 
 earthly processes, it has to recognize the asymptotes 
 and impossible quantities ; whereas if it stopped 
 until it had made asymptotes meet, and had ex- 
 plained the impossible quantities which it has to 
 handle, it would have to hold aloof from all higher 
 knowledge. 
 
 Oh! we have much to disappoint us in the 
 Church of God. Its history is sweet to the mouth 
 of expectation, but bitter to the belly of experience. 
 So it always was. The prophets of the olden time 
 prophesied of defeat for God’s people. It was the 
 false prophets who told of glory being imminent. 
 Until we have learnt to accept the outward over- 
 throw of expectation with joyful serenity of patient 
 faith, we cannot be worthy of our portion with the 
 Saints. 
 
 Weakness and defeat are not certain evidences of 
 truth ; but strength and triumph, if continually 
 developing for a long period of time, are almost of 
 themselves a certain evidence of falsehood. Espe- 
 
ice To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 
 cially when we find that those who are thus pros- 
 pering in the world make their worldly success the 
 great aim, the proud argument, the necessary 
 standpoint of their being. 
 
 We must get rid of the idea of a great ecclesi- 
 astical worldly empire if we are to live through the 
 troubles of the last days. We must be content to 
 see the Church perish upon the earth, before we 
 have any right to say that we are sure that the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail against her. If we 
 are to welcome her coming down from heaven, we 
 must not expect that all the earth will be called by 
 her name. We must be hated, not because our 
 religion identifies us with a strong historical tem- 
 poral power that has often been noted for violence, 
 but hated and despised as witnesses to Christ 
 Whom the world understandeth not, “ while they 
 daily say unto us ”’ with taunting reproach, “‘ Where 
 is now thy God?”’! He is in my heart, and I am 
 in Him. Earth may pass away, but His love will 
 never fail. As faith decays around, and the oppres- 
 sion of the world is strong, we may be scattered, 
 without cohesion, without organization ; but, if so, 
 it is because God will give us quickly in Himself 
 the manifestation of unity, of life, and of glory. 
 This is what must be before the end, or rather at 
 the end ; and in the discipline of years we have 
 to experience in various minor ways the growing 
 features of the struggle with darkness. But just in 
 proportion as we are called to this experience, so 
 will be our illumination by grace. God never gives 
 us any trial merely to trouble us, but for the sake 
 of the grace which He therein would give. 
 
 nel you dibs he Oh A BNE 
 
To Faruer O’NEILL {she 
 
 We must fecl just the same about intellectual 
 temptations as about sensual temptations. We 
 must not admit the delectation of trifling with 
 worldly hopes and carnal reasonings. We must 
 cut off the very beginnings, live in God’s love, and 
 God will teach. To doubt the reality of our past 
 experiences of His love is itself a sin. We cannot 
 develop them ; God can. Their development must 
 not be towards earth, but towards heaven. We 
 must shrink from any development which does 
 not bring along with it an increasing consciousness 
 of personal, organic, vital, active union with Jesus 
 at the right hand of God. Our own individual life 
 must be developed by the Church’s development, 
 not crushed by it. This is the great difference 
 between Catholic development round the throne 
 of Jesus by the power of the Holy Ghost, and 
 development round an earthly centre of unity. 
 
 Marcu §, 1880. The Passion in Relation to the 
 Glory of Christ—Good Friday. 
 
 S. Paul’s mission preaching evidently had much 
 more to do with what came after the Cross than 
 with what led up to it—Christ in glory, and our- 
 selves bearing the Cross that we may rise to the 
 glory. I think one sees that the early Church 
 felt the power of Christ’s triumphal mediation 
 transforming themselves, and that the later Church 
 increasingly, until S. Anselm formulated the teach- 
 ing, strove to use the Passion as a means of self- 
 stimulation, instead of yielding themselves up to 
 the power of the Spirit communicated from His 
 heavenly throne. How entirely the Passion is 
 
54 To Fatruer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 seen simply through the lustrous halo of the Ascen- 
 sion in S. Paul! We were escaping from the 
 Evangelical teaching some thirty years ago, but | 
 think we have very much fallen away from the 
 sense of the resurrection power, chiefly, I think, 
 through Roman books of meditation, and prob- 
 ably in part from a desire to show other Church 
 people that we did look to the Cross as the foun- 
 dation of all our hopes. But we want the building, 
 otherwise the foundation will be of no use. And 
 the building is in heaven, where He is placed as 
 the corner-stone, Whom the builders of the earthly 
 fabric rejected whilst He was below. We can 
 never rise to the patience, boldness, perseverance 
 of Christ, unless we are living in, and calling others 
 to share, the glory of the life wherewith He abides 
 as our High Priest at the right hand of God. 
 During Passiontide we have great need to take 
 care that our mourning is not for Him but for 
 ourselves. I fear there is a temptation to make 
 our Good Friday too much like weeping for Tam- 
 muz,! or the Mohammedan wailings that you are 
 familiar with at Indore. I always regret that we 
 have lost the old Sarum use of red for Good Friday 
 and have got the Roman black, which certainly 
 symbolizes a faulty idea that requires keeping in 
 check in one’s teachings of the season. We need 
 to dwell upon the glory of His sufferings in 
 order that we may glory in suffering with Him. 
 May we have grace to enter into all the sorrow of 
 that Heart wherein He felt the burden of our 
 sins. It is only as we know the personal love of 
 God towards ourselves that the Son of God can be 
 
 * Ezek, vill. 14. 
 
To Faruer O’NEILL 55 
 
 thus revealed within us, truly shown to our inmost 
 consciousness as the living principle from whence 
 our spiritual nature is derived, and to which we 
 must ourselves be conformed. 
 
 And we need so much to learn the continual 
 pressure of sin upon His human consciousness 
 during the whole of His life on earth, of which the 
 great struggle on Calvary with the powers of dark- 
 ness was the outcome. We are so apt to regard 
 the Passion as a sort of accident that might have 
 been avoided, instead of its being a law of continu- 
 ous life while He, the Son of God, was under the 
 conditions of our fallen state. But we can only 
 know this pressure of the sinful state in proportion 
 as we live with Him in the glory where He has 
 made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places.! 
 
 June 18, 1880. Fundamental importance of the 
 Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. 
 
 J am very glad of what you say about the 
 doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. It does seem 
 to me to be the root evil of the present day, the 
 want of pure theology. People are full of disputes 
 about.sacraments, eternal punishment, inspiration, 
 and the like ; and yet the people who know a great 
 deal about these controversies know next to nothing 
 about the Holy Trinity. But this is the Creed. 
 The others are only corollaries of the Creed, and 
 are helpful or hurtful just in proportion as they 
 are made subservient to this fundamental doctrine 
 —valueless, even when rightly held, if their con- 
 nexion with the eternal relationships of the Blessed 
 
 ™ See Eph. ii. 6. 
 
56 To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 
 Trinity is not recognized. Our doctrine, teaching, 
 experience of the Church, must be, so to speak, in 
 a comatose state, unless there be an active, experi- 
 mental, loving knowledge of the Name of the 
 Holy Trinity, which is the living power wherewith 
 the Church is bound together by the Holy Ghost 
 sanctifying all the elect people of God. It is the 
 want of this knowledge which is the strength of 
 unbelief, heresy, and prayerlessness at home ; and 
 it can only be by living in the experimental power 
 of this holy Name that any mission work can be 
 effectively done abroad. 
 
 Jury 30, 1880. Life hidden in God—The Right 
 Method of Mission Work—The historic Christ and 
 the mystical Christ. 
 
 I do indeed trust that God is leading us onward 
 in a growing appreciation of His power and grace. 
 The times get more and more evil, so that we as 
 Religious ought to be getting more and more 
 absorbed into the divine life, that we may be able 
 to bear witness to God in the midst of the evil. We 
 cannot bear witness to Him save by living in Him. 
 The more we are hidden from the world in Him, 
 the more will He use us as His instruments for 
 making Himself known to the world. We are so 
 slow to grasp the real power of hiddenness in God ; 
 and yet our own efforts, although we fancy they 
 are on behalf of God, are so much more apt to 
 obscure the divine self-manifestation than to bring 
 people to acknowledge the truth. The struggle 
 of reason with reason is but the clash of arms, 
 often bringing death, but not life ; but the conver- 
 
To Faturer O'NEILL $7 
 sion of souls is by the breath of the living God, 
 touching upon the hearts that are dead that they 
 may live, and if we are to breathe forth this life 
 we must be breathing it ourselves by constant 
 prayer. I have no doubt that this is what we 
 chiefly want in our mission work amongst the 
 heathen. If we could have two or three priests 
 or laymen living in the various cities of India, just 
 in poverty and prayer, the result would be found 
 in ten or twenty years’ time. 
 
 You speak of progress being slow ; I did not 
 know that in one sense of the word you had made 
 any progress. I did not expect that you could have 
 any converts at present. What I think is impor- 
 tant is just to live a life of Christian witness and 
 devotion in the midst of the people, very much as 
 one of their own people would live, avoiding the 
 eccentricities occasioned by the errors of heathen- 
 ism, but retaining the continuous prayer and elevat- 
 ing it into the glow of Christian faith. I think 
 they would get their curiosity excited, and would 
 come one by one, as time went on, to inquire about 
 us, as they would go to one of their own gurus.! 
 I have no belief that public preachings, or contro- 
 versies, or books, are likely to convert people gener- 
 ally. Of course they have their position and are 
 necessary in various ways and places, but I cannot 
 think that a Hindu would be satisfactorily converted 
 by aggressive disputations or proclamations. ‘ He 
 shall not strive, nor cry.”’2 The chief reason which 
 must win a Hindu to Christ must be the contem- 
 plation of a man living for many years amongst 
 them the life of Christ. The historic Christ of the 
 
 i.e. religious teachers. aS) Matt. x11//19, 
 
58 To FatruEer O'NEILL 
 
 Gospels can scarcely be brought home to their con- 
 sciousness save through the mystical Christ of their 
 experience. Many years are needed for this, but 
 the life of Christian witness shall not fail in the end. 
 Our Lord’s preaching in Judea was prepared for 
 by thirty years of hiddenness, both of the Baptist’s 
 life and of His own. Yet at last He came as the 
 fulfilment of the prophecies. How much more is 
 such a preparation needed for His being made 
 known to a strange people that have no knowledge 
 of the prophecies, and very little power of appre- 
 ciating their value even if informed about them. 
 
 What is needed is a life simply devoted to God 
 which they can see and value, and which God also 
 sees and values, and which has therefore both the 
 divine and the human assurance of ultimate tri- 
 umph. ‘The probability is that, if we are content 
 thus prayerfully to live on with God, we shall find 
 at last that a nation is born in a day. Individual 
 inquirers for a few years may result in a Pentecostal 
 three thousand sooner than we anticipate. But we 
 must be very careful not to be expecting it within 
 any given time, only to feel quite certain of the 
 ultimate victory. 
 
 Avcust 6, 1880. Hiddenness of Life. 
 
 As years go by one is thankful to feel the re- 
 mainder diminishing ; but one hopes that those 
 which remain, even though they be few, may be 
 more to God’s glory. How much of self has 
 mingled even with the attempts for God’s glory 
 in time past. To outlive this intermixture, and 
 find the stream of life flowing more transparently, 
 
To FatruHer O’NEILL 59 
 
 
 
 is the only purpose that can make life worth the 
 living. It is a terrible evil in the present day that 
 one has to live so much before the world, and 
 therefore so little before God. What we want 
 is hiddenness of life. Even in nature the highest 
 and most delicate functions of physical life are 
 carried on quite hiddenly. One cannot be the 
 heart of the body of Christ, and live at the tips of 
 the fingers. Yet the fingers have their life, if one 
 can only be a part of the fingers and not a ring |! 
 
 Avucust 27, 1880. The Accuracy and Fulness of 
 the Judgement. 
 
 The law of the conservation of forces, on which 
 modern scientific thought dwells so much as if it 
 were the destruction of Christianity, is the very 
 basis of the final judgement ; for that will be the 
 manifestation of all the forces that have ever operated 
 within us during life, which go to make up our 
 individual character, and many of which have be- 
 come quite hidden during earthly life, by change 
 of circumstances accumulating around us. ‘There 
 will be the manifestation of all the pride, covetous- 
 ness, sloth, self-will, impurity, envy, etc., as well 
 as of all the efforts of devotion, however secret, 
 whereby they have been resisted. And then, as 
 our individual life is a life in community in 
 combination with all the forces of society, so the 
 manifestation of the individual in the general 
 judgement will be a manifestation of all the acts 
 affecting others—prayers, fasts, warnings, teachings, 
 forbearance, meekness, example, encouragement, as 
 well as also of all the acts which have affected others 
 
60 To FatHEeR O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 for evil. There will be no chance reward, no un- 
 requited worth, no divine partiality. Here it seems 
 to be a chance whether we have to labour in a 
 January or an April. There we shall find that the 
 January labourer is just as much rewarded as if 
 it had been for him to bring home the fruits in the 
 full baskets of autumn. Yes, he will be as truly 
 remembered, and, if I may say so, the pay of a 
 January day is higher than that of a June day. 
 But we shall all find that every stroke of our work 
 has told in our Master’s gratitude, if not in our 
 contemporaries’ good will. And so it tells upon the 
 general perfection of the body of Christ, whether 
 it tell upon any special locality or no ;_ perhaps all 
 the more largely upon the one when it is least per- 
 ceptible in the other. But it is very encouraging 
 to feel that your presence at Indore is so much 
 recognized as it seems to be. You must be quite 
 content with that, without looking for anything 
 more particular for a long time. 
 
 Aut Saints’ Day, 1880. Knowledge of the Truth 
 by Communion with God. 
 
 As missionaries we have just to carry the burn- 
 ing torch and kindle hearts with the fire of the 
 Holy Ghost. The simpler the way of doing this 
 the better. But the primary need is to have our 
 own hearts burning brightly. The less we think 
 about ow we live the better. The great matter 
 is to see that we do live, by constant prayerful com- 
 munion with Christ. I often wish that every book 
 could be burnt except the Bible and Prayer Book ! 
 We must be seeking communion with God by 
 
To FatHer O’NEILL 61 
 
 listening to His voice and asking for fuller gifts of 
 His Spirit. How appalled an Apostle would be 
 to think of having to get Christian truth out of a 
 modern library ! 
 
 Well, I am afraid I am offending somewhat 
 against my own teaching in sending you such a 
 voluminous letter ! May God bless us all and guide 
 us into all truth ! Only let us always remember 
 the promise is that He will guide, going before ; 
 not that He will correct, going behind. This is 
 the meaning which is too often put upon the words. 
 There is no promise that He will teach us what we 
 want to know, or that He will keep us right in our 
 investigations, but that He will teach us what He 
 wants us to know and show us all truth by His 
 inspirations, while we look not for truth as an 
 object of curiosity, but to Him as the Truth and 
 the sole object of love and desire. 
 
 Ascension Day, 1881. The Ascension. 
 
 We are too apt to think of Christ’s power 
 and kingdom as if it were absolutely won, instead 
 of remembering that it requires the continuous 
 intercession of our great Head to sustain it, and 
 continuous intercession on our part in order that 
 we may individually appropriate the powers which 
 belong to it. In proportion as our life of prayer 
 rises to the demands of our great High Priest, 
 so does our life of sovereignty rise to the imperial 
 authority of the world-wide King, Whom we claim 
 as our everlasting Father. As the generation of the 
 Son is an eternal generation, not a past fact, so the 
 power and kingdom of our ascended Mediator are 
 
62 To Fatuer O’NEILL 
 
 a continuous living gift from the eternal Father, 
 not a mere surrender of creation to the Son as the 
 delegated agent of a remote authority. So must we 
 cherish the divine life of the kingdom of Christ that 
 we may be filled with its glory. 
 
 June 16, 1881. The Power of the Mystical Life. 
 
 We are so apt to treat earnestness of purpose 
 and orthodoxy of conception as if they constituted 
 the two essentials of the Christian character. But 
 really neither of them is of any good unless these 
 two become one, i.e. unless the dogmatic state- 
 ments germinate as the very seeds of the mystical 
 life, so that all earnestness of purpose comes from 
 the supernatural powers in which we believe. Dis- 
 cussions and lectures are very good in their way, 
 but we as a religious community must be seeking 
 the more excellent way, the mystical rapprochement 
 towards those who are humbly and unobstrusively 
 
 seeking God. 
 
 Juty 22, 1881. Our Union in Christ realized in 
 Common Devotions—The “* Summa”? of 8. Thomas 
 Aquinas—The True Agnosticism. 
 
 The sense of communion is not merely that of 
 human sympathy wakened into momentary action, 
 but it is the stronger, nobler principle of the living 
 bond of grace. Where two or three of you shall 
 agree in any matter there am I in the midst of you. 
 It 1s our Lord’s presence as the personal Head, 
 manifesting Himself by the personal agency, of the 
 Holy Ghost, which is so full of power of every kind. 
 
To Fatuer O'NEILL 63 
 
 One feels that presence all the more when the 
 agreement is carried out in various places. He 
 is with us when we are all together in one chapel ; 
 but when we are scattered throughout the world 
 and meet by agreement in offices of devotion, 
 then we feel the nothingness of earth and experi- 
 ence our true home in God. One of the Jewish 
 names for God was Makin.! We live in Him. 
 His loving Spirit is an abiding home of eternal 
 life, wherein all the children are for ever one ; 
 and that unity is developed around us in a firmer, 
 sweeter grasp by the unity of the body of Christ, 
 whose members we are. 
 
 I am very glad that you are studying S. Thomas’ 
 De Deo. I am sure the great fault of later ages 
 has been controverting about corollaries, instead 
 of meditating upon fundamental truths. It has 
 made religion very selfish, and theology very dark. 
 I think you will find that many of those explana- 
 tions which he gives have a very real value, although, 
 of course, no human reason can comprehend what 
 is divine. We must meet the agnosticism of the 
 present day, which rejoices in putting God aside, 
 with that true agnosticism which rejoices in simple 
 absorbing love. But although love confesses its 
 ignorance, it delights to approach towards that 
 which it shall know hereafter. And our reason- 
 ings are not to satisfy the insults of unbelief, but 
 the cravings of sweet desire. The dazzling glow of 
 the divine life prevents our seeing things in God— 
 seeing God as He is ; but we can see forms in our 
 own nature, mind, and heart, created as we are in 
 His image, which serve to lead us onward to worship 
 
 t This word means ‘‘ place.” 
 
64 To Fatruer O’NEILL 
 
 
 
 Him in truth and praise Him with a humble pros- 
 tration of the intelligence. Our very efforts to 
 explain are helpful to us if they are subordinated 
 to the plain principles of faith ; for, in helping us 
 to see what we do see, they help us also to see how 
 much more there is which we do not see in every 
 thought which we can have respecting Him. 
 
 Maunpy Tuurspay, 1882.  Passiontide. 
 
 We are just preparing for our watch-night. 
 When this letter reaches you Easter will be far 
 advanced. Our life on earth should be indeed one 
 long-continued watch-night of the Passion. If we 
 knew our exile in its reality, it could be nothing 
 else. But how soon it will be past! Yes, the 
 Psalmist himself says, “‘ As a watch in the night.” ! 
 How strange it will be to look back upon it when 
 the full day of the eternal Love is shining in its 
 bright manifestation all around. How contemp- 
 tuously shall we look back on many things which, 
 as time went on, we fancied to be important for 
 God’s glory, and we shall see how we measured 
 things by our own self-love, rather than by devotion 
 to Him. If we had been more dead to this world 
 while living in it, we should not have set so much 
 store by them ; we should have seen how every- 
 thing was nothing, except what came from Him, 
 that wherein He Himself came. 
 
 Oh, that we could know our only purpose in life 
 to be the identification of ourselves with His Pas- 
 sion, while the world takes a religious form in 
 honour of Him. To rise out of His Passion, by 
 
 Bed Est Con Pw 
 
To Faruer O’NEILL 65 
 
 passing through it, is the stern reality of loving 
 fellowship wherein He calls us to be associated with 
 Himself—a real passing through it, and so away 
 from the present world, and right onward into the 
 glory of His throne at God’s right hand. 
 
 When one considers the variety of circumstances 
 under which God is worshipped upon earth, how 
 strange it is to think of all these varieties of the 
 human race coalescing in the glory of the great 
 Easter, all visibly living with one life, and ruled 
 
 by one Head and Heart. 
 
 Jury 14, 1882. Power of a Hidden Life in the 
 Misstonary. 
 
 I cannot help feeling that a retired life, such as 
 that of a Sannyasi, is the way to draw all men after 
 us—at least, to draw those that shall be saved. 
 In public preaching we are apt to meet those who 
 are inclined to scoff. The devout stand aloof. 
 Our hearers are men who need to be “ converted ”’ 
 every way. The devout will be led to inquire into 
 the aims and teachings of a devotee. But, above 
 all, a life retired from men, and devoted to prayer, 
 brings round about us the power of God. ‘The 
 law of the Church’s growth is, ““ No man can come 
 to Me except the Father draw him.”! A hidden 
 life of prayer to God will, I am sure, attract more 
 souls capable of salvation, than a public life of lec- 
 turing on behalf of God. I think there is very 
 little use in getting hold of a number of men who 
 are not good Hindus, under the hope that they will 
 be good Christians. I do not know how such a 
 
 1 S. John vi. 44. 
 F 
 
66 To Fatruer O’NEILL 
 
 life can be adopted, but Christianity will not make 
 much way without it. ‘‘ Not by power ”’ of intel- 
 
 lect, “‘ but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.” ! 
 
 UNDATED. 
 
 _ Weakeful nights. As for the mode of spending 
 wakeful nights, it is difficult to advise. Sometimes 
 the bodily state is so restless during a wakeful night 
 that it is impossible to give the mind to continued 
 devotion. Sometimes a little quiet reading may 
 be the means of tranquillizing oneself for sleep. 
 Of course you ought generally on such occasions 
 to try and get to sleep. It would not do to 
 turn those times of nervousness into vigils for 
 spiritual purposes. The frame wants sleep all the 
 more because it rejects it. If you are able to 
 turn such waking times to account, whether for 
 linguistic or spiritual purposes, well and good. 
 The simple reading of the Scripture, not for study, 
 but as having a sacramental power to soothe the 
 soul, may bring much comfort, and it tends imper- 
 ceptibly to form the thinking habits according to 
 the mind of God, so that it is very profitable. 
 
 Mortification. As for “doing much for”’ the 
 heathen, it is God Who must do all for them ; but 
 we must wait upon God and grow in grace, so that 
 in due time our Society may be fruitful for the heal- 
 ing of the Indian nation. We cannot look for a 
 crop of oranges on the tree when it is only just 
 sown. The first thing necessary is for the seed 
 to die, as S. Paul phrases it. We must be content 
 to have the first results in our own mortification. 
 
 t Zech. iv. 6. 
 
To Faruer O'NEILL 67 
 
 
 
 What a Xavier is. Your Irish friend said that 
 Xaviers were wanted. They ought not to be diff- 
 cult to procure. For what was Xavier but a man 
 working with God? And we know that God is 
 willing and ready to work with all who seek Him 
 truly. And if God be the same to all, it can matter 
 little what the man is who is joined with Him. God 
 and any man will make a Xavier. What an entire 
 taking of us out of ourselves is involved in the 
 thought of being fellow-workers with God. It 
 develops both the responsibility and the nothing- 
 ness of our human position. 
 
 Misapprehension of Others. Wow people of 
 opposite schools among ourselves regard writers 
 as shallow, or cold, or unreal ! whereas the appear- 
 ance of shallowness, coldness, unreality is because 
 they do not read and regard those opposite writers 
 or preachers from their own standpoints. The 
 human mind is like the bed of a river, having its 
 shallows and depths, its banks and its holes. It is 
 not like a canal. ‘The divine character of Chris- 
 tianity is manifest in this more than in anything— 
 that it is Catholic not by uniformity, but by univer- 
 sal adaptability. It lives in, and gives life to, all 
 kinds of minds and hearts. All sects which would 
 humanize Christianity, beginning with the great 
 Western Church, and going on to every little 
 Puritan fanatic however insignificant, just agree in 
 this, “ I am Catholicity, and all must be measured 
 
 by me.” 
 
 How Souls are Won. You will need constantly 
 to have at heart that text, “‘ No man can come unto 
 
68 To Fatuer Pace 
 Me except the Father which hath sent Me draw 
 him.” ! It is not men drawn by eloquence or learn- 
 ing or music or ritual or influence, who make solid 
 Christians—‘ Not by might, nor by power, but by 
 My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts ’’ 7~—1it is souls 
 really won out of the grasp of Satan by prayer. 
 These must be our crown of rejoicing. All else 
 are flowers that fade. 
 
 Printed Instructions. 1 would not have you in 
 any hurry about the Catechism. Talk is far better 
 than print. A religion on paper is but a painted 
 fire. We do not need so much to make them 
 understand that zhis is true, but rather to feel in 
 their hearts “‘ God is true, and J must be true.” 
 This love of the Truth must be developed in them 
 before it is any use for them to know the formularies 
 of the Truth. The Truth of the New Testament 
 is a very different thing from the Truth as con- 
 ceived by modern divines. The one is but the 
 law ; the other is the very King. 
 
 WORE DIE RAGE, 
 
 Marcu 7, 1871. Work and its Connection with 
 Spiritual Life. 
 
 I have just been writing a longish letter to 
 Father Grafton, of which I dare say he will read 
 you some. Certainly it is a great drain upon the 
 Religious Life, our having so much work to do. 
 But we must learn the more fully to rest in God. 
 
 * S. John vi. 44. a) Zech iv 
 
To Fatuer Pace 69 
 
 He will give us tranquillity, strength, light, and 
 perfection. While we do what He gives us, we 
 may be sure He will not suffer us to need anything 
 that is good. He seems to show us the whole 
 world for which the Blood of Jesus was shed, in 
 order that we may realize the all-embracing power 
 of that Bloodshedding, and may grow to our vocation 
 by the inspiration of its triumphant Life. When 
 so much comes before us, we must not hesitate 
 because we have attained the measure of our own 
 strength, but ask and ask, and He Who gives us 
 the nations for our possession will give us His own 
 strength to take the land into occupation. 
 
 Only we must lose ourselves in Him, and find 
 our cloister in His love. Doing all things in His 
 holy Name we must realize that Name as quicken- 
 ing us with inward life, exhaustless, almighty, 
 sheltering us from outward disturbance, and im- 
 penetrable to all the anxieties of earthly worry. If 
 we begin our work in Him, we can end it in Him 
 too, and be satisfied even when we see no end of it, 
 if we know that it ends not in earthly consequence, 
 but in His accepting love. If He gave us no 
 more to do than we felt we could do, we should be 
 lifted up. But He shows us a vocation infinitely 
 beyond our power, that we may say to Him with 
 earnest hearts, “‘ Lord, I can do nothing ;_ but 
 Thou canst do all things. Do with me, do by me, 
 what Thou wilt.” 
 
 I must try and send you some meditations, or 
 at least “‘ heads.’’ Always be careful to secure your 
 time for meditation. It will help you in your 
 work, and more will be done in the day in proportion 
 to the energy with which you are able to give your- 
 
40 
 
 self to God at these times. Try, too, unceasingly 
 to realize the tranquillizing and sustaining power 
 of the various daily offices, and how God abund- 
 antly gives us grace in proportion to the demands 
 which He knows will be made upon us. We must 
 endeavour to feel that the work to which He calls 
 us is a token of grace which He will not only give, 
 but has given, that so we may the better use that 
 grace for the accomplishment of His work. 
 
 To Fatruer Pace 
 
 
 
 
 
 OcToBER 20, 1876 ? “Foy in the Lord. 
 
 I do indeed hope that God will strengthen you 
 for your difficulty. We will make it a matter of 
 special prayer during Advent, in what form I have 
 not yet determined. Do not let yourself regard this 
 trouble as invincible. Rise up in the fulness of 
 divine confidence to meet it with joy. We must 
 try and live in the continual consciousness of 
 heavenly joy. We have not got to triumph for 
 Christ, but He triumphs in us. We find the 
 power of His triumph just in proportion as we live 
 in the joy of it. We must think of ourselves as 
 being already in heaven. It seems to me that the 
 power of our Lord’s glorified Body may be some- 
 what illustrated by the power of animal magnetism, 
 whereby one body exercises such an influence over 
 another that the other body no longer lives by its 
 own sensations, but is simply subject to the sen- 
 sations of the controlling will. What a person 
 tastes when in this state of thraldom is supposed 
 to be bitter or sweet, just as the will of the agent 
 dictates. The person goes in any direction, does 
 any act, no longer as being himself, but in simple 
 
To Fatuer Pace 71 
 
 subservience to the irresistible will which rules him. 
 Is it not just thus that we ought to judge of every- 
 thing, feel everything, accept everything, long for 
 everything, simply in subjection to the will, the 
 mind, of Christ? ‘Then we should feel His joy 
 in His glory raising us out of the misery of this 
 present life and its temptations. We should think 
 and speak and act as His members. In fact, 1s 
 not that mesmeric law the natural counterpart of 
 that through which grace operates? Our bodies 
 are formed to live thus under the influence of other 
 bodies. Is not this in order that we may be under 
 the influence of the Body of Christ? We might 
 thus truly taste the powers of the world to come, 
 even while living in the flesh, and find the power of 
 Christ’s glorified Life in our humanity, holding 
 down the impulses of our own flesh in subjection 
 to Himself. This is that death unto sin and new 
 birth unto righteousness which is our baptismal 
 gift. We have not got to conquer an enemy in 
 our own strength, but to die to our own will, our 
 own thoughts, our own impulses, by losing our- 
 selves in Christ glorified. The life which we live 
 in the flesh should thus be by the faith of the Son 
 of God. 
 
 But our death unto self must not be a mere 
 negation. We must rise to experience the joy 
 wherewith He is glorified, and He will teach us 
 increasingly of this joy. The unction which 
 teacheth us is the oil of gladness wherewith He 
 is anointed, and we cannot have the teaching 
 without the rejoicing. “‘ Rejoice in the Lord 
 always.” By a real living sympathy with Him 
 in the joy of His Holy Kingdom we acquire the 
 
fie To Fatuer Pace 
 
 
 
 
 
 holiness which belongs to His people. We must 
 not merely hope for it. ‘That is only a kind of 
 enlightened Judaism. We must /ve in it. We do 
 not believe in the Church which is to be holy, but 
 as being holy now. And yet there are great sins 
 hiding the holiness of the Church. So we are to 
 realize the present sanctity of our own life in Christ, 
 and not merely hope to be holy when our natural 
 sinfulness has passed away. 
 
 How wonderfully should we be changed by 
 divine grace if we did thus exercise the power of 
 faith ! May God enable us all to show forth His 
 
 transforming power increasingly. 
 
 Nov—eMBER 11, 1876. On Patient Waiting for 
 Christ in the midst of Outward Evils and Inward» 
 Temptations—The Temptations of Christ—Organt- 
 zation and Life. 
 
 How few there are who have any desire for the 
 life of Christ! How many would gladly see a 
 Millenium with Christ reigning over the world: 
 how few there are who are anxious to have Christ 
 reigning in their own hearts as a sovereign power, 
 setting them free from the world! We should 
 like the world to live with Christ’s life, for that 
 would be all gain ; but who are there who really 
 wish to die to the world with Christ’s life, and yet 
 without this death the great gain cannot be had. 
 Persons who have lived outside Christ’s Church 
 naturally fancy that the Church tolerates the evil 
 which encrusts her, and so they are apt to fall into 
 the snare of worldliness another way ; for their 
 own wisdom and their own religion take the place 
 
To Fatruer Pace FR 
 
 of the patient waiting upon Christ until the tyranny 
 be overpast, which ought to be the attitude of our 
 souls in the midst of outward evils. We need to 
 have a special intuitive power of faith to see the 
 presence of God in these dark days. Nevertheless 
 we must not doubt it, the shout of the great King ! 
 —the power of the Holy Ghost—is in the midst 
 of us, and the Lord will arise from the midst of 
 our armies to triumph over every evil. 
 
 And so with reference to our own selves. It is 
 difficult to realize the vital power of the Holy Ghost 
 in ourselves, when we feel ourselves to be so prone 
 to evil. But we must learn by our very sins— 
 if they are sins of infirmity—to become all the more 
 dead to ourselves. They prevent us taking any 
 satisfaction in our own spiritual state. ‘That is one 
 great blessing. This will not make us the less 
 vigilant in struggling against them, but rather the 
 more earnest in doing all we can to get rid of them. 
 They are permitted to remain within us as the old 
 inhabitants of Canaan were left among the Israel- 
 ites, lest the beasts of the land should multiply 
 upon them. They make us feel our weakness, and 
 they serve to develop our strength, and they force 
 us to place our whole reliance on Christ, and they 
 prevent us imagining that this holy land of grace 
 is the final rest to which we are called. 
 
 If God uses us for any external works He is 
 very apt to teach us our unworthiness by bitter 
 experiences. We must not think that because 
 these experiences are bitter therefore we dare 
 not look for His love. If we really feel their 
 bitterness, we attain His love all the more. We 
 
 t See Num. xxill. 21. 
 

 
 74. To Faruer Pace 
 
 must come to Him Who was Himself tempted, 
 but in His temptation remained ever free from 
 sin. His temptations show the reality of the one- 
 ness of creation in which we and He are one. 
 His purity in the midst of all shows how able He 
 is to help us, and make us triumph along with 
 Himself. People are very apt to interpret S. Paul’s 
 words! as if he meant that Christ learnt to sym- 
 pathize by bearing our weakness, but really it 1s 
 just the other way. Human high priests need to 
 learn sympathy ; and here again is one reason why 
 we, the ministers of Christ, are exposed to very | 
 special assaults of Satan. He Who came in the 
 fulness of divine love needed not to learn to sym- 
 pathize. He took upon Himself our nature of 
 weakness, but He took it upon Himself into the 
 power of God; and every temptation which He 
 endured only served to call forth a fresh stream 
 of power from the divine life wherein He endured, 
 so that He triumphed in Himself, and is able to 
 make us to triumph in every element of nature 
 which makes us akin to Him in His temptations. 
 Whenever we feel our feebleness, we may call forth 
 His strength for our own deliverance, if we are 
 abiding in Him. 
 
 We must strive to have matters outwardly as 
 perfect as we can, but I rather think that excessive 
 natural love of outward perfection is one of the 
 things which is very apt to keep us back from the 
 interior spiritual perfection for which we long. It 
 is dificult not to fancy that as organizations develop 
 
 * See Heb. iv. 15, “For we have not an high priest which 
 
 cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in 
 all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” 
 
To Fatruer Pace yk 
 
 
 
 
 
 themselves around us, they must also in some 
 way help to intensify, develop, and shelter the life 
 of Christ within ; whereas it is just the reverse. 
 The more we have depending upon us, the more 
 enemies shall we have assailing us. Every organi- 
 zation that clusters round about us is, so to speak, 
 a fresh drain upon the spiritual life within, so that 
 we need all the more constantly to be drawing 
 “water out of the wells of salvation’! in order to 
 meet the demand that is on every side. The more 
 we grow in the world the more the world becomes 
 our weakness, except in so far as it drives us to 
 seek the life that is within. 
 
 And so our disappointments and embarrassments 
 in the outer work of life are not real hindrances. 
 They wake us up, as our sins of infirmity should 
 wake us up, to seek the strength which alone 
 suffices. When people to whom we looked with 
 hope for carrying on any work turn out other than 
 we had wished, then we learn the blessedness of 
 simple reliance upon Him Who never fails. 
 
 Goop Fripay, 1878. Good Friday and Easter Day. 
 
 ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the 
 Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the 
 world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.’ 2 
 May we learn increasingly the glory of this holy 
 day. . We are apt to think more of the sadness of 
 it, and of the glory of Easter ; but in truth our 
 Easter consciousness of glory is very apt to be a 
 changeling. We are very apt to call an earthly 
 carnal delight by the name of heavenly glory, and 
 
 MEEVEE CTE 2 Gal. vi. 14. 
 
76 To Fatruer Pace 
 
 
 
 not know how we are deceiving ourselves. Per- 
 haps we are less liable to be deceived by the outward 
 call to sorrow which Good Friday gives. We 
 cannot but know how little we are crucified unto 
 the world, and so we are less deceived. But our 
 Good Friday is indeed the measure of our Easter. 
 Our share of the joy is just in proportion as we 
 have plunged into the darkness, not merely as a 
 momentary sensation, but as an abiding law of life. 
 
 Feast oF S. Micwaet, 1882. On the Death of 
 Father O'Neill, and on some remarkable fruits of 
 his life. 
 
 Thank you for your most interesting letter. 
 It was a great mercy that you could be with him 
 at the last. One longs to be with him for ever in 
 that blessed presence of Him, Whose love is ever- 
 lasting life. 
 
 I do not see any possibility for us to keep the 
 Indore Mission afloat. I hope that the grave at 
 Indore will put forth living branches, but there 
 may be a time of stillness first. If others carry 
 on the work which we cannot, we must be thank- 
 ful that God permitted one of us to start it. | 
 am sure that Father O’Neill’s death will not be 
 fruitless, whether its results be found immediately 
 on the spot or elsewhere. It is very delightful to 
 hear how fully he was appreciated by such various 
 classes of persons. A holy death does more to 
 establish the unity ot the body of Christ than many 
 courses of lectures. These, alas! are too apt to 
 operate in quite a different way. We must draw 
 people into unity by living true to Christ and dying 
 
To Fatuer Pace 77 
 
 in the impulse of His love which bears us to the 
 throne of God. I do not think people are ever 
 talked into unity. Moses did not find it a very 
 acceptable office when he said, “Sirs, ye are breth- 
 ren,’ ! and the Israel of God is as unwilling to be 
 corrected in its quarrelling now as it was in those 
 old days of the early Egypt. But “right dear in 
 the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” 2 
 There is a voice of triumph in the grave, though we 
 can scarcely hear the endless alleluia with which it 
 drives away the powers of darkness. 
 
 A life is not fruitless because there may be no 
 converts to count. A heathen district must be 
 saturated with Christian influence before we can 
 look for individuals to come forward. In fact 
 it would be impossible for such natives to accept 
 Christ upon sufficient grounds. They have not 
 the moral or the historical training, but they can 
 learn something of Christ from the moral spectacle 
 of Christian self-sacrificing love. | 
 
 JANUARY 30, 1885. Chaotic State of Christendom. 
 
 Certainly Christendom is very disappointing 
 as the representative of the gospel, but we must 
 remember that the gospel would not be true if it 
 were otherwise. The whole series of predictions 
 points to a state of division, false doctrine, anarchy, 
 and strife. Our Lord’s prayer for unity in S. John 
 xvil shows what a state of chaos there was to be, 
 out of which the unity and glory of the heavenly 
 Jerusalem will come forth at last, as the kosmos of 
 Genesis 1 came forth out of the state of things 
 
 t Acts vil. 26, #2 Petcxvist 13. 
 
78 To FatTHer Pace 
 
 
 
 without form and void, on which the light of the 
 first day was made to shine. 
 
 May 22,1885. 4 Whitsuntide Letter. 
 
 May the fulness of Pentecostal blessing rest 
 upon the Society throughout the world. However 
 scattered, we are all one in the power of the Holy 
 Ghost. That which is given to any one of us is 
 given to all, shared by all, that so God may be glori- 
 fied in all. What a joy there is in this unity of 
 the Society, the Communion of Saints, whereby we 
 are able to claim for ourselves all that God has done 
 in and for any others—the saints of all past ages, 
 our brethren now in the flesh, the members of our 
 own Community wherever they may be. The Life 
 of Christ as manifested in each and all is a com- 
 mon possession, which we are not only to regard as 
 an encouragement that we may do what others have 
 done, but rather we must claim it as being actually 
 our own. All that is Christ’s is ours. As He, 
 the Head, rejoices in that which He works by His 
 Spirit in any of His members, so we must rejoice in 
 it all just as much as if it be in ourselves. The 
 Headship from which the Life comes, the Life which 
 binds us to that Headship, is an indissoluble con- 
 sciousness of mutual joy. We can have nothing if 
 we would individualize it. We have all things if 
 we lose ourselves in Him. And then if it seems 
 impossible for us to grasp the greatness of the 
 heavenly gift vouchsafed in the Body of Christ, we 
 yet rejoice the more. It is not for us to grasp it, 
 but for us to know that it grasps us. We cannot 
 
 hold on to God save by being held up by God. The 
 
To FatTHer Pace 79 
 
 
 
 Spirit which is given to us is not the power of the 
 Spirit, but the Spirit of power. God does not give 
 any abstract quality of His Being, so that we may 
 use it to the best of our ability, but He gives us the 
 personal Presence of the Holy Ghost, that He may 
 use us in our weakness for the accomplishment of all 
 His glorious purposes. ‘This simple repose of the 
 soul in God is the truest activity. “‘Stablish me 
 with Thy free Spirit. Lead me in the way ever- 
 lasting. Guide me into Truth.” Not into any 
 fresh truth, but into the inmost power of that truth 
 which | have known all along ; that so the know- 
 ledge of the intellect may be transformed into the 
 experimental knowledge which makes truth to be 
 really saving truth, sanctifying truth, deifying truth. 
 God must teach us by His Holy Spirit, and, as 
 He makes Himself manifest within us, we know 
 Him truly by knowing ourselves to be in Him ; 
 knowing our own nothingness save by that substan- 
 tial reality of existence which belongs to us as par- 
 taking of His Son ; loving Him because loved by 
 Him in the unity of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 May 13, 1887. The Personal Presence of the 
 Holy Ghost—Superficial Fatth—The Vital Power 
 of Christian Truth. 
 
 How little do we really take into account the 
 personal active presence [of the Holy Spirit] ruling 
 throughout the Church, and making all events 
 subserve the glorious purposes of God’s provi- 
 dence, while He also opens the eyes of the faithful 
 to contemplate divine mysteries which the natural 
 understanding cannot scrutinize. If only we would 
 
80 To FatTHEerR Pace 
 
 
 
 open our eyes to see the spiritual realities which 
 God sets before our faith, how different would 
 our estimate of life be ! One does not wonder at 
 the wickedness of the world round about us, but 
 one does wonder that persons are content with the 
 husks of religion, and are so incapable of really 
 apprehending the truths which alone constitute its 
 substance. It is not strange that many fall away 
 from a truth so superficial. It is more strange that 
 so many hang on to it, and indeed that they have 
 been hanging on so many hundreds of years. It 
 shows the vital power of Christian truth that even 
 its outer form has such a tough enduring life. I 
 suppose the great bulk of professing Christians 
 have had very little conception of its inward reality 
 since the days of Constantine, and the shaking of 
 hands with the world. 
 
 Ascension Day, 1887. Anu Ascensiontide Letter. 
 
 This bright Festival brings the whole globe 
 before our minds as a mere point of space, lit by an 
 undivided ray of light from the countenance of 
 Him Who sits enthroned upon the infinite glory of 
 creative power. ‘The globe thus dwarfed makes us 
 feel how near we are to one another, although separ- 
 ated by a large part of its diameter ; and the ray of 
 light thus undivided as it strikes upon the globe 
 makes us learn how truly we are united in the life- 
 giving power of divine grace. 
 
 It is strange how a system of Christianity could 
 ever grow up which should take so little account of 
 our Lord’s Ascension as the Christianity ever since 
 Constantine has done. It is not wonderful that a 
 
To FatHEer Pacer Sr 
 
 Christianity having so little grasp of our relation to 
 the throne of Jesus should be a feeble one, and should 
 be driven to the many makeshifts by which, accord- 
 ing to their tone of mind, Roman or Protestant, the 
 great bulk of modern Christians have sought to find 
 some substitute near at hand for the sovereign and 
 life-giving glory of Jesus at the right hand of God. 
 Christian missions must fail, or if they seem to 
 succeed only turn out the greater failures, unless we 
 do indeed recognize the power of this great kingdom 
 founded upon the throne of God, not in any sense 
 temporal or earthly, but gathered out of earth as the 
 kingdom of eternal life. This Festival ought to 
 make us pray more earnestly, “* Thy kingdom come.” 
 
 Apri, 6, 1888. An Easter Letter. 
 
 Easter is shining upon us with all its glorious 
 power. May we all of us have grace to realize its 
 brightness. That brightness no earthly sorrows can 
 cloud, and, what is more, earthly sorrows are the 
 very conditions of life by which alone that bright- 
 ness can shine out. I am afraid we are too apt 
 to long for death as an escape from earthly sorrows, 
 instead of realizing how valuable life is just for the 
 very purpose of suffering, because every sorrow of 
 this present life is a fresh means of working out that 
 glory which will be revealed hereafter. We should 
 desire to depart and to be with Christ, but not to 
 depart so as to /ose the Cross. I feel myself very 
 much to blame in this respect. It is difficult to 
 value life, not for its successes, but for its failures ; 
 and yet God is glorified not by what He gives us 
 here to enjoy, but by the glory in which He will 
 
 a 
 
82 To Fatruer Pace 
 gather us unto Himself when we have suffered. 
 We must not be in a hurry. Wait the full time. 
 Not until we can say, “It is finished, there is 
 nothing more to suffer’’—not until then can we 
 commend our spirits into the hands of the Eternal 
 Father as the members of the Crucified. We must 
 learn to welcome every sorrow with the Lord’s 
 words: ‘‘ Now is the Son of Man glorified, and 
 God 1s glorified in Him.” ! 
 
 Feast oF S. THomas, 1893. Retreats. 
 
 One learns increasingly to find how important 
 every individual unit is in the work of Christ. 
 How much He makes to depend upon each one, as 
 each individual maintains the integrity of the whole 
 work, and how much He can do by each one, if 
 true to Him in his own position. So the Church 
 grows, not only by individual energy, but by collec- 
 tive effort, the work of love enabling each to take 
 the divinely-appointed part in the Communion of 
 Saints. ‘The annual Retreats ought to send us forth 
 with a deepening sense of unity as well as of inten- 
 sity, and the power of the Holy Ghost effects both 
 of these. ‘The years, as they go by, make the heart 
 long for the great consummation, the acceptable 
 year of the Lord, and trust in its brightness, that 
 we may all come to the unity of glory which faith 
 at present so feebly apprehends ; but in that day 
 we shall find how wonderfully the unseen Hand has 
 apprehended us, and held us up when we were ready 
 to fall. Then in the great day of the Lord we shall 
 see in perfection what as yet we so imperfectly 
 realize. 
 
 ™ §. John xiii, 31. 
 
To FatHEer Pace 8 3 
 
 
 
 AvucusT 21, 1896. Counsels on Community De- 
 velopment. 
 
 Do not be anxious about numbers. We must 
 take care not to incorporate men who have not a 
 real vocation to the Religious Life as one of dead- 
 ness to the world. A real love to Christ at the right 
 hand of God is what we want. It is just in propor- 
 tion as we live in the victory that has been won, that 
 we shall be able to conquer in the skirmishes which 
 yet remain for us to carry on until the Conqueror 
 returns. We must not have any idea of presenting 
 to Him a province on earth, pacified and reduced to 
 submission under our control. If He finds us fight- 
 ing when He comes back, that is all... . Some 
 one spoke of preaching as a dying sinner unto 
 dying men. It is better for us to preach as from 
 a living Saviour to men whom He calls to live 
 in His love. But we must be absorbed in that 
 love as our own life. All the gifts of eloquence, 
 philosophy, refinement, and art are much more apt 
 to blur the message of Divine Life than to give it 
 articulation and emphasis. We must all of us 
 realize, both priests and lay brothers, that we have 
 to die to the world, and rise to the life of God’s 
 love in the personal experience of fellowship with 
 Christ ; and we must take care that our intercourse 
 one with another, whether personally or by letter, 
 does not degenerate into mere earthly interests and 
 gossip. We must see that we love one another in 
 Christ, and for Christ, not as fellow travellers in 
 a railway train, but as children counting the days 
 as they go by until we reach our Father’s welcome 
 to the common Home. 
 
84 To FatHer GREATHEED 
 
 
 
 
 
 TO FATHER GREATHEED 
 
 Feast oF Hoty Namg, 1876. On Preaching Christ 
 in India. 
 
 With reference to the preaching of Christ, I 
 think there must always be some John Baptist 
 preaching of repentance to prepare the way. Paul 
 spake of righteousness, temperance, and judge- 
 ment to come. ‘There must be an arousing of the 
 natural conscience before there can be any implant- 
 ing of the idea of revelation. The ground must 
 be thawed before you can put in the seed. I do 
 not suppose one would go through much Old Tes- 
 tament teaching of facts preparatory to Christ ; 
 but one must, I think, take the Old Testament as 
 supplying a law of procedure, indicating that we 
 should begin with morals. So S. Paul begins his 
 Epistle to the Romans. It is important to get points 
 of agreement from which to start, and, however 
 depraved the moral atmosphere of a nation may be, 
 yet the works of the law are written on the heart ; 
 and if they are capable of loving God they must 
 begin to love Him by desiring Him as the only 
 satisfaction of their nature. He “‘filleth the Aungry 
 soul with goodness.” ! There must be a hunger 
 before we can receive the truth, a hunger after 
 righteousness, moral truth, preparing the way for the 
 acceptance of dogmatic truth. ‘There is, alas ! too 
 often a hunger for dogmatic truth, and this is only 
 a form of curiosity. I have unintentionally used 
 the very word of the old saying, Sunt gui scire volunt 
 ut sctant, et curiositas est. If there be not the moral 
 
 SPER SCV 
 
To Faruer GREATHEED 85 
 
 
 
 hunger for a righteousness above nature, bringing 
 with it a sense of the incapacity of Brahminism 
 or Mohammedanism, etc., to satisfy that hunger, 
 there never will be a true perception of the purpose 
 of the Christian revelation. How few Christians 
 have it! They imagine thay could be very suffici- 
 ently good men without the Christian Faith, and 
 so they accept Christian truth as an extra gift, like 
 a true system of chemistry or astronomy, but not 
 as being essential to their own transformation. So 
 I fear missionaries very generally dwell upon the 
 evil of false religions as representing God unwor- 
 thily, rather than upon their evil as leaving man’s 
 misery unhealed—as if the knowledge of God were 
 vouchsafed because He did not like our thinking 
 wrongly about Him, whereas it really is given to 
 us, not as a mere rule of speculative thought, but 
 in order that we may become like Him. Let the 
 Hindu see that his incarnations are no help to his 
 nature, and he will desire something better. The 
 foundation of religious teaching is in Genesis i. God 
 made man in His own image. Man must realize 
 the degradation of his own nature as compared with 
 what he feels within himself he ought to be. Then 
 he can look outside of himself for the ideal of him- 
 self, and appreciate the eternal sanctity, the eternal 
 Personality, the eternal love of God; and, flowing 
 from that, the mystery of the Incarnation by which 
 man’s own nature is elevated into that sphere of 
 divine energy which alone can satisfy his natural 
 cravings. ‘The perfection of the Mosaic Law mani- 
 fested its deadness, and the deadness consequently 
 of the highest of natural strivings. If there had 
 been a law which could have given life, righteous- 
 
86 To FaTHER GREATHEED 
 ness should have come by such a law as that of 
 Moses. It is of no use teaching the people the 
 facts of the Old Testament merely as a preparatory 
 system of facts, but I quite think that we need to 
 act upon the disciplinary system indicated there. 
 One must act proportionately—not forgetting Hin- 
 duism any more than S. Paul in his preaching forgot 
 Judaism—not seeking to show how far it is from 
 truth, but rather to show how much truth it con- 
 tains, mixed up with all its grotesqueness ; yet 
 showing at the same time very plainly that, true or 
 false, it cannot make the worshipper perfect—that 
 it is dead—that its grotesqueness is just a result 
 of its deadness—like the rotting of a corpse which 
 breeds worms because it once had life. I do not 
 mean that we ought to catch at every similarity 
 between Hinduism and Christianity as important 
 in itself ; for I suppose there are many such, very 
 striking but purely accidental. Many similarities, 
 and much more the primeval traditions of Hindu 
 mythology, have, I doubt not, a real resemblance 
 to Christian Truth—not, however, because they had 
 clearer traditions than were given to the Jews (as 
 some eager divines who have written upon the sub- 
 ject would have us believe) ; but because the human 
 mind is so based upon the eternal framework of 
 divine truth, that even its accidental results serve 
 to develop the law of Divine Life. For instance, 
 in the most elementary framework of our thinking 
 —1in such ideas as the beginning, middle, and end 
 of anything, we have a necessary trinity underlying 
 all our thoughts. But the Christian doctrine of the 
 Trinity is not the mere personification of this idea, 
 rather this idea is the natural outcome of the Divine 
 
To FatrHer GREATHEED 87 
 
 
 
 Original Power by which all things are created and 
 sustained, and in Whose image man’s mind is made. 
 The Hindu philosopher may thus well arrive by 
 idealizing at results very like to the truths which 
 God has revealed to us about Himself. The eternal 
 and the accidental are not without a certain sort of 
 affinity. But the same truth when approached by 
 mere philosophy, is like a figure seen distorted 
 through a crooked glass ; whereas the truth as 
 revealed by God to the soul which He has purified 
 for its reception, is seen in its living loveliness, and 
 gives life to us while we contemplate it. We see 
 God as the living, life-giving ideal of what we want 
 to be. We cannot be satisfied unless we become 
 like Him. The abstract Brahma is really degraded 
 as he passes into the limits of consciousness by the 
 impersonation of the Hindu trinity and its incar- 
 nations. God is zot degraded, but man is elevated 
 by the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is 
 not the bringing of the Godhead down to flesh, 
 but the taking of the manhood up into God. A 
 God who would take bad men to heaven—which 
 is, | fear, the popular idea of God among western 
 Christians—is just as much a monster as a god who 
 comes down to earth to do bad things like an eastern 
 incarnation. ‘‘ Without holiness no man shall see 
 the Lord.” ! “ Be ye holy, for [am holy.”2 “‘ Woe 
 is me, for I have seen the Lord of Hosts, and I 
 belong to a people of unclean lips.” 3 A sense of 
 the need of holiness in man must prepare the way 
 for an appreciation of the holiness of God. ‘The 
 Incarnation and the Atonement, as manifested in 
 the personal dealing of Jesus Christ in the character 
 Pi ikebre xine 14: many A Ret tay 0: 3 See Isa. vi. 5. 
 
88 To FatHer GREATHEED 
 
 
 
 of Mediator between God and man, develop this 
 holy relationship out of the region of human desire 
 into that of divine reality. The holiness which we 
 could not have by nature, God really gives us by a 
 new creation in Christ. God declares to us hereby 
 His righteousness—righteous in Himself, and the 
 Giver of righteousness (not of an unrighteous 
 justification) to those who come to live in the 
 covenant of faith which is established in the Body 
 of Christ. 
 
 While the moral system needs to be thus devel- 
 oped, I expect that one would also find that the 
 simple facts of the Old Testament had great power 
 to win the attention of the heathen. One must 
 be careful not to put them forward, as if they were 
 what we wanted to teach. We must merely teach 
 them as in various ways preparing for Christ : but 
 there is in them a simplicity which must have great 
 power for a Hindu mind, frittered away as it is 
 by caricatures and legends with scarcely any mean- 
 ing, midway between the natural and the super- 
 natural, but not true to either. Simple truth has 
 great moral power. Hence the great power of the 
 Gospel narrative, even as a mere narrative. It fasci- 
 nates even those who do not look into its deeper 
 meanings and bearings. 
 
 Nothing is more calculated to awaken a sense 
 of sin than the exhibition of the character of Jesus. 
 His moral portraiture must awaken the desire to 
 be like Him. ‘There is a missionary lesson in the 
 fact that He lived so many years amongst men, 
 and showed Himself to them in His spotless per- 
 fection, before He died for them. He would have 
 them appreciate and desire His Life, before they 
 
To FatrHer GREATHEED 89 
 
 
 
 could rejoice in His Death. Alas! too many do 
 rejoice in His Death without rejoicing in the truth 
 of that Life which comes out of His grave, because 
 it could not die. 
 
 I quite think that one ought to take advantage 
 of any passing events as a text for preaching. The 
 tower of Siloam, the lilies of the field, the altar at 
 Athens, the games of Corinth, are illustrations of 
 this. 
 
 NovEMBER II, 1876. Relation of the Holy Ghost to 
 the Father and the Son—Western Teaching on the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 You ask about the Holy Ghost as the blessing 
 which the Father gives to the Son. I suppose 
 there is a truth implied in that statement, but I 
 should think it was not quite truly put. The 
 Holy Ghost is the bond of love, binding together 
 the Father and the Son by the fact of the double 
 procession. Hence the modern Greek Church 
 seems to have suffered a serious injury by losing 
 sight of that great truth, although I suppose Western 
 theology has suffered almost as much from the 
 Western way of putting it. The act of divine life 
 seems to be, as it were, a circulating act, which as 
 originative is called the Father, as derivative is 
 called the Son, and as in continuous procession 
 is called the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The procession is not merely an action of God 
 ad extra, but it is the activity of God within Him- 
 self, circulating but indivisible, complete in its 
 origin, losing nothing in its derived condition, con- 
 tinuing on as a self-sustaining power as it proceeds 
 
90 To FatHer GREATHEED 
 
 from the perfect consciousness of the Father and 
 the Son. The Holy Ghost is therefore the act of 
 life wherein the Son is generated eternally, and 
 whereby the Son lives, giving back the fulness of 
 divine love to the Father. It would not be right 
 to conceive of the Holy Ghost as an act of blessing 
 supervening upon the generated Son, for that would 
 be separating them, whereas they are consubstantial. 
 The act of divine life in its purest, essential contem- 
 plation is love, and the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of 
 love. God generates His Wisdom by the very act 
 of love whereby He is the fount of love, and the 
 object of love eternally to Himself. The Son 
 loves the Father because He abides in this act of 
 love whereby He is Himself eternally generated. 
 He loves the Father with the very same love whereby 
 He is generated. The Spirit of love does not super- 
 vene upon His action whereby He gazes upon the 
 Father, so as to give power to His gaze; but the 
 Holy Ghost proceeding from Him is the only act 
 whereby He beholds the Father. 
 
 In the mysteries of the Incarnation these tran- 
 scendent relationships of the undivided Godhead 
 begin, as it were, to divide themselves. The 
 Spirit of God rests upon the humanity of the Son, 
 and it is by the power of the anointing Spirit that 
 He offers His humanity with all its actions to God. 
 Thus from the humanity of Christ, as the Head 
 of the new creation, the eternal law of the divine 
 activity spreads itself to the newly constituted uni- 
 verse, His body, His fulness, the habitation of the 
 Godhead. 
 
To FarHerR GREATHEED gI 
 
 Marcu 16, 1877. Power of the Communion of 
 Saints—Acting not for Christ, but tn Chrisi—Dhe 
 Communion of Saints in Solitude. 
 
 In your loneliness among the heathen you must 
 try and realize the glory of the communion of 
 saints in the body of Christ—the whole body of 
 Christ operating through yourself in your lone- 
 liness upon the heathen round about. Amidst 
 the manifold associations of Christendom we seem 
 to feel ourselves rather as individuals in Christ 
 acting towards one another ; but in outposts, such 
 as you are occupying, one must feel the whole 
 thrust and energy of the body of Christ summing 
 itself up, as it were, in our own persons to make 
 itself felt upon the particular locality. The finest 
 point of a spike strikes with the full force of the 
 huge machine from which it derives its impulse, 
 and so our own littleness must strike upon the 
 crumbling earth of man’s nature with all the momen- 
 tum acquired through the weight and impulse of 
 the body of Christ. We are not acting for Him, 
 but in Him. ‘That seems to be the great differ- 
 ence of thought between ancient and modern 
 Christianity. One for Christ, the other iz Him ; 
 one looking to Him, the other living with His life. 
 One having Him, the other not having Him. Alas, 
 how much external profession of faith there is, 
 how little internal exercise of faith ! How anxious 
 we are about what we can do ; how little careful we 
 are about what we are! How we want to be some- 
 thing different! How little we recognize the 
 necessity of being true to our own higher selves 
 as representations of Christ in the world! How 
 
92 To FatTHer GREATHEED 
 
 
 
 we expect the energy of the world to count up 
 for our greatness in heaven! How little we value 
 that death unto the world by which the greatness 
 of our heavenly life may be brought into con- 
 sciousness | How easy it is to talk of these things ! 
 How the world chokes up the heart, so that even 
 when we want to breathe the life of heaven we find 
 ourselves unable ! 
 
 May God enable you in the isolation of your life 
 to grow to the increasing experience of that heavenly 
 citizenship from which no distance of space can 
 separate us. We are very apt in our mutual inter- 
 course one with another, even in the most devout 
 forms, to let the earthly aspect hide the heavenly 
 reality. Christian friends are too often merely 
 friends. When alone, we must realize the divine 
 aspect of Christian love wherewith we all live in 
 the contemplation of God. How prone people are 
 to degrade even saints in paradise to a sort of earthly 
 friendship, and to look forward to heaven hereafter 
 as a sort of revival of earthly interests with all their 
 personal littleness ! In solitude we must try and 
 realize how it is heaven to speak to God in Christ, 
 and how the voice, the love, the desire, the worship, 
 the consciousness, the divine contemplation of all 
 the heavenly host fills our hearts with one mind 
 and one voice. We must try and learn this un- 
 ceasingly, and probably nowhere so well as when 
 we are alone. Therefore indeed was the old saying 
 so true, “ Love thy cell, for it is heaven. Be con- 
 stant to it and thou shalt find the delight thereof. 
 Neglect it and thou wilt be unable to enter into 
 its joy.” 
 
To FatTHEeR GREATHEED 93 
 
 Easter, 1877. Knowledge of the Resurrection— 
 Dying to the World. 
 
 Here we are in this high festival! Would 
 that our hearts could rise up to it! Year after 
 year, instead of getting nearer to its appreciation, 
 I think its glory only seems to outstrip us all the 
 more. One seems to hope to appreciate it by 
 pressing onward. One longs simply to lie down 
 and die, that thus one may know what can only 
 be known by dying. Meanwhile, it is one’s joy to 
 know that everything whereby we can die to earth 
 is a means of attaining to this glorious knowledge, 
 and that is the only thing worth our living for. 
 We are apt to strive after this knowledge by reason- 
 ings, imaginations, and pictures. Yet we are not 
 worthy to touch the risen form. It is the Holy 
 Ghost Who must teach the inmost heart by His 
 own most sweet inspirations. Otherwise we cannot 
 know ; and this is the science of the Holy Ghost, 
 the teaching which none can receive but those who 
 are crucified with Christ and dying to the world. 
 As we die to the world we become filled with the 
 
 knowledge of God, and strengthened for the work 
 of God. 
 
 Jury 27, 1877. Expectation of Growth in Holiness. 
 
 One does not feel it so strange that modern 
 Christianity does not spread. The strangeness 
 rather seems to be that it lives. When one con- 
 templates what the ideal—God’s purpose—of Chris- 
 tian life is, one feels it strange that we can use the 
 phraseology of the faith as we do, and leave the 
 
94 To BrotHEer GARDNER 
 
 
 
 reality unregarded. Yet how little is August 
 likely to differ from June, in spite of all our medi- 
 tations. I fear we do not sufficiently anticipate 
 changes in ourselves. We ought to look to be 
 changed from glory to glory. We are apt to fear 
 lest there be pride, ambition, self-righteousness, 
 and so we are afraid to think of our having attained 
 to any glory at all. But, in fact, we cannot rise 
 out of ourselves unless we do dwell upon the thought 
 of the divine glory which we have received. We 
 disparage our Christian faculties under the idea of 
 humility ; but unless we value these primary gifts 
 of God’s grace we cannot use them aright, nor 
 advance to anything further. We ought to be 
 expecting great things at the hands of God. 
 ‘Open thy mouth wide, and I shall fill it.’ ! We 
 are too content to think that God will deal with 
 us merely after the measure of human capacity and 
 possibility. 
 
 TO BROTHER GARDNER. 
 
 Faster Tusspay, 1871. The Value of Sickness. 
 I hope your bodily health is keeping up. Re- 
 
 member, we must take care of it; but sickness 
 too is just as needful, just as helpful. Do not 
 fret about uselessness. We often do not know 
 when we are doing the most good. One thing 
 is certain. Any good result with which we might 
 be satisfied is so much taken away from our final 
 good. We must therefore just work, and leave 
 results to God. A telegraphic wire need not com- 
 
 2 Ps- 1 xexi. io, 
 
To BroTHER GARDNER 95 
 
 plain of being thin. It is just as useful. So realize 
 how truly God is working with you, and you will 
 find His Message has gone forth by you when you 
 did not think it possible. We must each one of 
 us seek those heavenly gifts of holiness by which, 
 indeed, we may benefit the Society by being bene- 
 fited ourselves. We none of us can bring anything 
 that is of value. All gifts, eloquence, learning, 
 health, etc., become useful only when they are burnt 
 up by the fire of the Holy Ghost. Pinewood is as 
 good as mahogany to burn. In the great day of 
 the resurrection may God grant our Society to 
 be known by its never-dying flame, whatever the 
 varieties of its graining and colour may have been 
 while here. 
 
 Avucust 16, 1873. Preparation for Death—Weak- 
 
 ness—Meditation. 
 
 You ask me how to prepare for death. Live 
 constantly in the love of God, watching for the 
 appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 Our hearts should be constantly rising up with the 
 welcome—‘“‘ Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”” We can 
 attain to the fitness for heaven only by the power 
 of divine love, and that love is shed abroad in our 
 hearts by the Holy Ghost. Outward rules may 
 break us away from the world, but it is only love 
 which perfects us in God. We must ask Him to 
 teach us more and more to love Himself. What 
 are we waiting for in the world? We are only 
 waiting until we have attained more love. We 
 must know this as all-sufficient. ‘‘ Whom have I 
 in heaven but Thee ?”’ etc.! 
 
 a ALE e Che ety 
 
96 To BroTHEeR GARDNER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Do not be distressed because of your great sense 
 of bodily languor. This physical weariness does 
 not hinder the repose of the soul in God, although 
 it hinders our consciousness of that repose. We 
 are not less pleasing to God because our bodies 
 are irksome to ourselves. On the contrary, this 
 very irksomeness is the form of sacrifice which we 
 are called to offer. The saints of old endured much 
 weariness. Spiritual energies enable us to perse- 
 vere, but they do not make us insensible to outward 
 pain. I should advise you to get some real rest in 
 the afternoons, and that regularly, not merely when 
 you feel very tired. You will probably find that 
 the time thus apparently lost, is far more than made 
 up for by the power of using the remainder of the 
 day effectively. 
 
 As for meditation, probably you will do well 
 rather to meditate for yourself than to use any book. 
 You can use books at times, and at times there will 
 be meditations of my own coming over—and there 
 are those you have had in former time ; but I would 
 have you seek to enlarge your spirit in spontaneous 
 meditations as the Holy Spirit may guide you. 
 The writings of others are helpful to us at times. 
 But the Voice of the Spirit in our own hearts is far 
 better. Meditate much upon heaven and its joy— 
 the sight of God and of the Lamb. Probably it is 
 well to meditate most upon the Passion when we are 
 strong, and upon Jesus in glory when we are weak 
 and suffering. We need the contemplation of the 
 glory into which He is entered to enable us to follow 
 on bearing our cross after Him. 
 
To BroTHER GARDNER 97 
 
 
 
 DECEMBER 15, 1873. <A Christmas Letter—‘oy out 
 of Suffering. 
 
 This festival is indeed a light to them that sit 
 in darkness. How little do people realize that 
 darkness. All the subsequent mysteries of that 
 life of sorrows are but the natural carrying on of 
 that great mystery by which the Son of God took 
 upon Himself our life of sorrows. It is difficult for 
 us not to fancy that, after all, He might, if He 
 pleased, have found life upon earth something else 
 than sorrow. So little do we realize the darkness 
 of this valley of the shadow of death into which He 
 came. And so we are apt to think that we too 
 may find our joy upon the earth. But no; we 
 cannot enter into the joy of our Lord until we 
 are set free from this lower state. He was born in 
 order to suffer, and we must die in order to rejoice ; 
 and so we must find our Christmas joy in dying 
 daily along with Him Who came now to be born. 
 It is the thought of dying with Him which really 
 enables us to praise Him as He comes to be born 
 amongst us. May God grant us with every Christ- 
 mas to become more truly dead to all else, that He 
 may be born within us in all the purity of His un- 
 
 sullied life of Godhead. 
 
 January 9, 1874. The Teachings of Sickness. 
 
 I am sorry to hear from Father Grafton that 
 you were so poorly when he wrote last. Neverthe- 
 less, is not sickness a great Epiphany ? How many 
 things God manifests to us in sickness which 
 otherwise we could not learn! As we have to 
 
 H 
 
98 To BrotHEer GARDNER 
 
 
 
 go into the dark to see some bright object, so it is 
 in the darkness of outward suffering that we first 
 catch the real glimpses of the Light that is better 
 than that of earth. Yet we are not unlike children 
 who are afraid when the room is darkened, although 
 eager to see what shall be shown them. So weare 
 often fearful and cast down as we enter into the 
 darkness—the cloud preparing for a transfiguration 
 glory. 
 
 We must not be worried if we find it is so, fon in 
 fact, this is the very necessity of the darkness A 
 dhcknese which was not felt would be no real dark- 
 ness. . The soul must pass through its own dark- 
 ness—not merely help the body through the bodily 
 darkness—and this is the victory by which we pass 
 securely through the darkness, even our faith. 
 
 The darkness, whether it overflow the body or 
 the mind, is no darkness with Thee. It is a great 
 blessing when God leads us on the way of faith to 
 experience His sustaining power. Gleams of joy 
 shine out brighter and brighter. ‘‘ When they saw 
 the Star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.” 
 May this joy be yours increasingly ! 
 
 WHITSUNTIDE, 1875. The Ascension and the Fire 
 of Pentecost—The Passion and the Glory of Christ. 
 
 I have been thinking a good deal this year how 
 this feast helps us to realize the unity of glorious 
 life which thrills through the whole body of Christ, 
 the Head and the members. It would seem as if 
 Christ, passing during the nine days through the 
 orders of the heavenly hierarchy, passing on from 
 one to another, were glorified in His humanity 
 
To BroTHER GARDNER 99 
 
 
 
 with the glory proper to each of those orders. Each 
 order had a crown, as it were, prepared in their 
 midst for the Son of Man, and yet not one, not all 
 of them, could satisfy His requirements of glory. 
 So He passes on beyond them to take the glory of 
 God at the right hand of God. But there He is 
 not glorified in His own Person only. His Apostles 
 had fed upon Him, had His body within them, by 
 virtue of the Holy Eucharist, although they had not 
 yet come to live thereby. He was in them, but 
 they were not yet in Him. Now, upon His Ascen- 
 sion, His body in them 1s glorified instantaneously 
 with the glorifying of His body at the right hand 
 of God. Like an electric flash the glory of the 
 Spirit shines out in the fires of Pentecost. The 
 body of Christ, however veiled in our flesh, in our 
 sinful persons, nevertheless cannot but have the 
 glory of the Spirit of holy fire burning and resting 
 upon it. We do not, I think, dwell as we ought 
 to dwell upon the present glorification of our nature 
 in our own persons, as the members of the glorified 
 body of Christ. It is this which the Apostle presses 
 as the argument against sin, “He .. . that des- 
 - piseth, despiseth not man, but God ”’ !—God present 
 within himself ; and it was this cherished remem- 
 brance which enabled the early Christians to triumph 
 over the world. 
 
 I always feel that the triumphing Church used 
 to live in the contemplation of Jesus at the right 
 hand of God. Then, when the brightness of worldly 
 position obscured that vision, the Church sank back 
 of necessity into the historical consideration of the 
 Passion, and fell from its mysterious glory to its 
 Aue hessnves. 
 
100 To BroTHER GARDNER 
 
 
 
 sorrowful exterior ; but if we are to win the victory 
 of the last days, we must rise up to that fellowship 
 with Jesus sitting at the right hand of power. We 
 need to feel that glory round about ourselves. 
 Reading, teaching, praying, suffering, rejoicing, 
 praising, we must feel ourselves to be seated in that 
 car of triumph where the Priest after the order of 
 Melchizedek is seated in the triumphal march, as 
 the predestination of the Father and the power of 
 the Holy Ghost bear Him on to victory over all 
 His enemies. 
 
 It is while we live in this glory that we find 
 the living power of the Passion, which otherwise 
 is so apt to crumble away into empty phraseology 
 or petty and puerile devotions, so unworthy of 
 itself and of Him Who suffered. The Holy 
 Sacrifice would help us in the constant contem- 
 plation of the glorified Lamb bearing the marks 
 of His Passion—each puncture living on, not as 
 an earthly woe, but as a heavenly mystery. We 
 should be circled with this halo of the divine sub- 
 stance, aS in pictures one sees representations of 
 risen saints treading upon earthly things, and yet 
 not touching them. So we touch with the outer, 
 but not with the inner sense, when the divine glory 
 wraps us round, 
 
 Avucust 10, 1894. Old Age and Death. 
 
 I never expected to reach the seventieth mile- 
 stone ! One must not repine at the length of the 
 way, but be humbled at thinking how much of so 
 many years has been wasted. ‘The desire to depart 
 is modified by the consciousness that one has not 
 
To BrotHer GARDNER IOI 
 
 
 
 yet any right to claim admission to the Presence 
 Chamber. One must learn something more of that 
 Presence upon earth before one can complain of 
 being held back from it. Indeed if we felt Christ’s 
 presence here as we ought to feel it, we should 
 scarcely need the removal. Anyhow, we must be 
 thankful to be kept here so long as there is any 
 power of growing in the apprehension of faith, that 
 SO we may rise up to the blessedness of the Vision 
 when we are called within the veil. 
 
 DECEMBER §, 1902. Strength out of Weakness— 
 The Book of Fob. 
 
 Satan seeks to destroy us by weakness, but every 
 blow that he inflicts recoils upon himself, and makes 
 the divine strength of those whom he assails shine 
 out with power. We feel the wounds. ‘The sons 
 of God who are watching us shout for joy as they 
 witness the power which those wounds develop. 
 
 This will reach you just at Christmas time. Jesus 
 took upon Himself our weakness, that He might 
 _ lead us, as partners in His Passion, to gain the vic- 
 tory and tread Satan under foot. May the light of 
 His countenance cheer your heart with the fulness 
 of Christmas joy. How sadly apt we are to obscure 
 that joy by the outward festivities by which we pre- 
 tend to honour it. There is no Christmas so happy 
 as the Christmas of a sick room ! 
 
 I am delivering a course of lectures on Job, and 
 endeavouring to bring out Job as the “ hated one,”’ 
 the object of the “ hatred’’ between the serpent and 
 the woman, and so the type of our Lord’s Human- 
 ity. Elihu, on the other hand, stands out as the 
 
102 To BrorHER GARDNER 
 
 
 
 
 
 “ young Man,” the Second Adam, the Divine Cham- 
 pion coming in the personal Godhead to rebuke the 
 profanity of worldly wisdom, and his utterance is 
 merged in the utterance of God speaking from the 
 cloud of the Divine Omnipotence. How wonder- 
 fully it explains and carries on the story of Genesis 1, 
 
 Gospels, and the triumph of the Apocalypse. I can- 
 not conceive people treating it merely as a magnifi- 
 cent poem, which is the fashion of the present day, 
 and not seeing that it is the counterpart of the 
 Gospel, the spiritual demoniacal side of the suffering 
 Redeemer’s life. How much of the mysterious 
 power of the Old Testament is lost if we will not 
 use the Book of Job as giving the key to the develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Chapter 1 of Genesis shows us how God was 
 during those six days preparing within the Satanic 
 world of darkness a home for man as His favoured 
 offspring. From the first outshining of light to 
 the planting of Eden, God was fencing His favourite 
 creature round with all that he needed, as Satan com- 
 plained. And now how blessed it is to feel that 
 every suffering comes to us, not from God’s anger, 
 but from God’s love ; that every pain is inflicted by 
 Satan under God’s permission, not for our punish- 
 ment, but that we may glorify Him by triumphing 
 in the endurance of it. 
 
 If we realize life as a warfare upon earth with 
 Satan, the prince of this world, how different it 1s 
 from a mere dull period of probation, ever ending 
 in failure, because we do not satisfy God. Yet we 
 ought never to come to the Holy Eucharist without 
 
To BrorHer GARDNER 103 
 
 
 
 remembering that our object is not to find a home 
 in a Christianized world, but to bear ourselves as 
 members of the Church, the kingdom of light, 
 militant here upon earth against the darkness of 
 Satan, until he, and those who have yielded to him 
 in earthliness, shall be cast out into the abyss, and 
 the kingdom of the faithful redeemed shall shine 
 out in glory. 
 
 S. Puitrp anp S. James, 1907. Whitsuntide— 
 Christianity Miraculous. ag 
 
 The Whitsun Festival will have past before this 
 reaches you, but I hope the blessed gifts which 
 belong to it will be remaining in their full joyousness 
 of divine love, which we ought to experience more 
 and more with each successive year, Each Whit- 
 suntide should find us advanced since the preceding 
 year in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, and in that experimental knowledge 
 we must gain increasing presentiments of the final 
 joy wherein we are to know the blessedness of the 
 Eternal Trinity. People often feel that the Trinity 
 . season lacks the joy of varied festivals such as 
 cheered us before, but we ought rather to feel our- 
 selves lifted up above the changeful experience of 
 time, to rest in the all-surpassing glory of the Triune 
 Vision. 
 
 I am glad to hear that you get about cheerily and 
 actively upon your crutches. Crutches symbolize 
 earthly life. They are the inheritance of the Cross. 
 As we see them we must feel ourselves identified 
 with the Crucified. He is the Way, and He does 
 
 not lift us up in a moment to know Himself as the 
 
104 To BrotHer GARDNER 
 
 Life. This is a gradual revelation. We must 
 know the thirst of the Cross before we can say “ It 
 is finished.” 
 
 People have no idea of the miraculous character 
 of Christianity, but we shall never convert India 
 unless we let it be known that Christianity 1s one 
 great miracle, from Christ the Head to us His feet 
 in whom He walks upon the earth. There can be 
 no ceremony proper to Christianity which is not a 
 miracle. Prophets could not see what we have to 
 proclaim in our preaching. David could not pray 
 as we are called to pray when we say Our Father. 
 Nothing is truly Christian unless it incorporates the 
 mystery of the Incarnation, God and man, Christ 
 the Way, the Truth, and the Life. People talk of 
 the time when miracles ceased ; but, alas ! Chris- 
 tianity ceased at the same time. 
 
 Easter WeeEK, 1908. Ox Bodily Suffering. 
 
 According to the reports conveyed to us in 
 successive letters for some time past, you have 
 had much to bear in the way of physical suffering, 
 but I do not doubt that God not only gives you 
 grace to bear all with thankfulness, but that He 
 has also given you much grace as the issue of each 
 successive trial. 
 
 The pains of a long-continued bodily infirmity 
 pass away, but the spiritual gifts which have been 
 thus acquired linger on in capacities of resurrection 
 life, which are given to us in Him Whose cup we 
 are permitted to share. Human nature is apt to 
 formulate various expressions of regret for human 
 suffering which we and those we love may have to 
 
To FatHer Rivincron 105 
 
 
 
 bear ; but Divine Sonship speaks in our hearts 
 with an increasing response to the Fatherly love, 
 which permits us by any suffering to gain an in- 
 creasing anticipation of the glory which awaits us 
 as members of the Crucified. We may well be 
 content to live on in this sinful and suffering world, 
 if, while we live on, we know we are being purified 
 by a Father’s love for the glory which shall not fail 
 us in the end. God’s gifts do not lose by delay, 
 but our capacities increase by the growing expecta- 
 tion of faith. | 
 
 TO FATHER RIVINGTON. 
 Avucust 25,1875. Retreat at Ditchingham. 
 
 I am taking our Retreat from Nathanael, upon 
 purity of heart and the sight of God. 
 
 What a law of missionary life there is in the 
 angels first going up to gaze upon God through 
 the heavens which the Lamb has opened, and then 
 coming down from God to do His work upon 
 earth !| So must all Apostolical ministries be quick- 
 ened by the continually renewed exercises of divine 
 contemplation. 
 
 Then too our Lord’s finding Philip implies some 
 moral difficulty in Philip’s character, as do the 
 further notices of Philip—apparently an intellec- 
 tual character. It could not have been mere natural 
 circumstances which made it necessary for our Lord 
 to look for him. The searching is for a lost sheep 
 —lost in some maze of carnal-mindedness. Yet 
 Philip brings the guileless Nathanael, who in Jesus 
 recognizes instantly the Son of God. And so it 
 
106 To FatruHer RIVINGTON 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 is that God uses us whom He has found with great 
 difficulty, to bring to Him those that we might have 
 expected to have received the call before ourselves. 
 Then again, how the promise to Nathanael con- 
 summates the teaching of the whole chapter as to 
 the tabernacling of the Son of God in the nature 
 of man! The two disciples asked, “‘ Master, 
 where dwellest Thou?” ‘‘ Come and see.” ! We 
 are not told where, for what dwelling-place could 
 He have here below? But now we are told to 
 come and see His true dwelling-place, for the pure 
 in heart shall see heaven opened and the Son of 
 Man at the right hand of God ; and His exaltation 
 there is not only a matter of interest to us upon 
 the earth, but it is the final purpose of all creation. 
 Angels desired to look into the divine mystery, but 
 in time past they could not. Now the mediation 
 of Christ is, as it were, the highway of the universe. 
 The hosts of heaven gather round it as their resting- 
 place. Upon it they carry on all their movements. 
 
 NoveMBER 10, 1875. The Doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity. 
 
 I quite feel that the practical neglect of the 
 doctrine of the Trinity has been the great cause 
 of the decay of Christendom. The Church—the 
 Sacraments—Hagiology, I had almost said Mytho- 
 logy—have filled the minds of devout people, partly 
 for good partly for evil. 
 
 Thyself unmoved, all motion’s Source— ? 
 
 this mystery of the circulating life of the eternal 
 FO Onn heet 7 bat 2 Hymn at None. 
 
To Fatuer RIivincron 107 
 
 Godhead, has been almost lost to sight, spoken of 
 as a mystery, and not felt as a power or loved as 
 a reality. Western Christendom shut up the teach- 
 ing of the Trinity in Latin treatises for the clergy. 
 The people could not love God when they only 
 knew Him in phrases which were to them an un- 
 meaning jargon. The Passion and the Saints were 
 wrought up in a strange mixture of truth and false- 
 hood. Out of this lower stage of religionism 
 sprang considerations of the Atonement, Justi- 
 fication, and various matters of abstract controversy 
 as to the relation between man and the unknown 
 God, and so men got far away from that which was 
 primarily essential. ‘“* This is life eternal, to know 
 Tuee,’’' and speculations of mere human reason 
 began to rise up within hearts which ought to have 
 been full of experience of personal love to their 
 Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. 
 
 I have lately been much struck with the beauty 
 of the Church Catechism as contrasted with the 
 Tridentine Catechism, in that it begins so simply 
 with the personal relation between the child and 
 God in Whom it has to believe. What a beautiful 
 prayer that is in our Epistle? this week, that they 
 may be filled with the kvxow/ledge (apprehension) 
 of God’s will, even of the sanctifying Spirit ; in all 
 wisdom, having been taken up into the Wisdom of 
 God ; and spiritual uxderstanding (civeois), having 
 the human faculties identified with the divine con- 
 sciousness, so that knowing the sanctifying presence 
 of God’s will they may wa/k worthy of the God- 
 Man, the Lord Whose members they are, and with 
 Whose life they live ; uxto all well pleasing, so that 
 
 * S. John xvi. 3. 2 Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
108 To FatHer RIvincTon 
 
 
 
 
 
 the Eternal may be well pleased in the members 
 as in the Head—in the active life, being fruitful in 
 every good work by reason of the seed, the word of 
 truth of the Gospel, which quickens them ; and 
 in the contemplative life, increasing in the knowledge 
 or apprehension of God, i.e. of the glorifying 
 majesty of the Father in the truth of the Beatific 
 Vision. 
 
 NoveMBER 18, 1875. Care of Health—The Epistle 
 to the Hebrews. 
 
 It is a bounden duty to work according to God’s 
 will, and if we defy natural laws of climate we set 
 ourselves in opposition to that will. It is, in fact, 
 breaking the Tenth Commandment to do more 
 than our circumstances allow, whether in expen- 
 diture of health or of other things ; and to desire 
 more than God gives is really to fail in the simple 
 desire for Himself, and so to lose what He would 
 otherwise profitably give. The world has children 
 at its desire, and calls the lands after its own name. 
 But death comes upon all. We must be satisfied 
 with God. He is better to us than many children. 
 We are not to be anxious about the success of our 
 ministry. We shall find after many days what has 
 come of it, and shall not be ashamed when we speak 
 with our enemies in the gate of the Resurrection. 
 
 [ finish my twenty-sixth parochial sermon on the 
 Hebrews next Sunday, and wind up with the thir- 
 teenth chapter. I am not aware of having seen it 
 noticed that the cloud of witnesses are not examples 
 of faith such as we ought to have, but rather the 
 other way. Their faith, great as it was, was only 
 
To Fatuer RivincTon 109 
 
 
 
 natural, for they without us could not be made 
 perfect. But our faith must be supernatural, for 
 Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of our faith, per- 
 fecting it at the very outset of our Christian life with 
 supernatural energy of grace. 
 
 Then too what a striking passage that is: “ They 
 begged off that the word should not be spoken to 
 them any more.’”’! God had come near to them— 
 was ready to come nearer—but they would not let 
 Him. They shrank from the presence of the Word. 
 And now that we have come to Jesus and the Blood 
 of sprinkling in the Christian Church [distinguished 
 from the Blood shed upon Calvary—not the shed- 
 ding, but the sprinkling of the Blood regenerates], 
 we must take heed not to deg off from the Presence 
 that speaketh [not for death as Abel’s did from 
 earth, but for life from heaven]. For if they es- 
 caped not who Jegged off from the manifestation of 
 Him that spoke on earth, much less can we escape 
 if we turn aside from Him that speaketh from 
 heaven, in this heavenly covenant of divine life of 
 the Word. We are taken up into God’s life and 
 glory. We cannot now beg Him to hold back. 
 If we reject Him we turn aside from Him. 
 
 How also this Epistle hinges, not upon the 
 worthlessness of the old sacrifices in general, but 
 upon the worthlessness of the aznzua/ sacrifice burnt 
 outside the camp, the atonement on which the 
 Temple sacrifices rested. So the Christian system 
 rests upon the Sacrifice of Calvary, and the virtue 
 of that sacrifice flows on into the Blood of sprink- 
 ling, and the better sacrifices of the Christian Church 
 which correspond to those in the Temple. The 
 
 t See Heb. xii. 19 (Gk.). 
 
IIO To Fatuer RIVINGTON 
 
 
 
 work of the priests 1s in both cases proportionate to 
 the foundation sacrifice of the respective high priests. 
 
 Feast oF S. Matruew, 1876. Conversation with 
 Lnquirers. 
 
 Thanks for your interesting account of conver- 
 sations with inquirers. One must be content to let 
 a good deal of time go in what seems to be waste. 
 It is so in parochial work. You will often find 
 that a second or third-hand hearer becomes a convert. 
 God will not suffer His Word to fall to the ground, 
 if we are true to Him. What we speak in our own 
 strength dies. in the air. What we speak in the 
 power of the Spirit is sure to travel on until it reach 
 the heart which God has prepared for it. The 
 words we speak really in His Name are put into a 
 safe post-box, and are sure to be delivered to the 
 proper person. I fear it makes one feel how often 
 one has spoken mere human words, when one 
 reflects how much of one’s preaching has come to 
 nought. So often our words are very true, but are 
 not the living Truth. We should try and always 
 thus speak as the oracles of God. The winds scat- 
 tered the oracles of the heathen shrine so that they 
 could not be put together again. But He maketh 
 His angels as the breath of heaven to carry home 
 His message which His servants have spoken in the 
 fellowship of His oracular power. It is of no use 
 our speaking for God, unless God be speaking in 
 us. May He of His great goodness so speak by 
 you that many who know Him not may come to 
 His truth. What a mysterious trust the stewardship 
 of the Divine Word is, the Word of His grace. 
 
To FatHER CONGREVE ‘ya 
 
 
 
 May 25,1877. Whitsuntide. 
 
 This great Whitsuntide Festival must be the 
 special joy of a Missionary Community like ours. 
 And how one rejoices amidst the discrepancies of 
 human utterance to feel that the One great Voice 
 is speaking until He has so breathed Himself forth 
 into our imperfections that we may attain to the true 
 measure of His harmony, and His Voice be heard 
 lingering on when our imperfections have passed 
 away. So the voices of a congregation, out of tune 
 perhaps when heard close at hand, travel on into 
 the distance and become purified from the discord, 
 and only what is true survives. It is only that 
 which the Holy Spirit of God speaks which can 
 
 last. 
 
 MOOKATHER: CONGREVE. 
 NovEMBER 1§, 1879. Spiritual Progress. 
 
 Do not let yourself be discouraged because 
 progress is not made faster, either in yourself or in 
 others. Forget progress, and look to the very end 
 of all, to Jesus at the right hand of God. With 
 eyes firmly fixed on Him, we shall not know much 
 of progress until we find ourselves absorbed in 
 Him to Whom we look. 
 
 NovEeMBER 4, 1880. The Psalter on a Voyage. 
 
 I have been keeping the voyage in active com- 
 pany with king David, and learning some little 
 more of the delight of that inexhaustible treasury. 
 It is enough to make a saloon or any other place 
 happy. Only one does wish that one could make 
 
112 To BrotHer BEALE 
 
 
 
 people round about know something of the happi- 
 ness that they might have in the Psalter if they 
 would. How strange it is to think that one can 
 have such an intense secret of happiness, and that 
 the people round about should be so utterly ignor- 
 ant of the pleasure within their reach. It makes 
 one wonder why God should have been pleased to 
 reveal such a delight to oneself. One ought to 
 be very thankful. I think the joy of Holy Scrip- 
 ture is very much hidden by the joylessness of com- 
 mentators who write about it with no sense of the 
 supernatural delight, and, as our Lord says, enter 
 not in themselves, and those that are entering they 
 hinder.! 
 
 _ Easter Day, 1881. Ox Giving Ourselves to God. 
 
 We must not look to be taken out of man’s 
 power because we have made some effort to give 
 ourselves to God. ‘The true token of our effort 
 being accepted is, indeed, that we are taken out of 
 our own power. It matters not who has power over 
 us, if only we have no freedom of our own. How 
 we should triumph over the world if we could only 
 realize this law of divine acceptance in all the fulness 
 of its truth ! 
 
 TO BROTHER BEALE. 
 
 Ascension Day, 1879. The Foy of the Ascended 
 
 Lord, and our Foy in the Growth of His Kingdom. 
 
 To-day one seems to survey the kingdoms of 
 
 the world and all the glory of them, not from any 
 * See S. Luke xi. 52. 
 
To BrotHER BEALE 113 
 
 
 
 
 
 earthly mountain, but from the Hill of Zion, where 
 God has exalted His Son that He may reign 
 over all. We are made indeed to sit along with 
 Him in the heavenly places, and we ought to feel 
 in this both joy and strength. What a joy it is 
 amidst all efforts for the extension of Christ’s King- 
 dom to feel the joy which He takes in the growth 
 of His Body. He would not leave the labour to 
 us while Himself appropriating the joy, nor would 
 He have us toil merely in the hope of a joyous re- 
 ward hereafter. He wishes us to feel the joy along 
 with Himself in the very act of struggle with evil 
 which develops the good. We must remember that 
 the Kingdom of Christ grows not by what it incor- 
 porates, but by what it communicates. It is the 
 putting forth of the energies of the Body of Christ 
 which constitutes the growth of that Body. It is 
 not the mere annexation of territory for purposes 
 of selfish aggrandizement or even of philanthropic 
 enthusiasm, which constitutes the growth of Christ’s 
 Kingdom. It is the development of the resources 
 hidden, treasured up, waiting to be developed, in 
 the Body of Christ Himself. The nations of the 
 world only afford the material on which the Body 
 of Christ is to feed ; and as there is a natural glow 
 of joyous health in the natural body in the time of 
 youth, so there ought to be a supernatural glow of 
 divine joy in the members of Christ while His Body 
 is growing to its perfection. 
 
 We are too apt to treat the disciplinary con- 
 dition of our present life as if it were a tread-mill 
 rather than a gymnasium, and we forget that next 
 to love comes joy as one of the fruits of the Spirit. 
 The fruits that follow it require joy, the divine joy 
 
 I 
 

 
 II4 To BrotTHEerR BEALE 
 
 
 
 of the Ascended Life, to precede them. The joy 
 which comes after peace is a spurious joy, an earthly 
 one, if it is a joy because there is peace in our days. 
 The true joy is because of His peace there is no end, 
 and so the joy fructifies in peace as a blessed con- 
 sequence of its own vitality. 
 
 Jury 30,1879. Christ’s ‘oy in His Resurrection. 
 
 Our meditations to-day have been upon the joy 
 of our Lord’s Resurrection, and how we ought to 
 share it—the joy of His human nature rising by 
 the power of the Holy Ghost to be the adequate 
 instrument of His Divine Person, no longer im- 
 peded by the conditions of the Fall which shrouded 
 His earlier life, though He was unfallen, but operat- 
 ing in Him for the glorification of all those energies 
 and faculties which belong truly to humanity. I 
 think we do not dwell at all sufficiently upon the 
 real human joy of our Lord’s nature, Body and 
 Soul, since His Resurrection. People often treat 
 our Lord’s Body as if it availed for suffering, but 
 was now useless to Him in heaven, so as in reality 
 to set aside the Resurrection of His Flesh ; whereas 
 it is really the joyous power that glorifies His 
 Body with all the senses and faculties proper to 
 bodily life in His glorified estate, which constitutes 
 the basis of our sanctification. It is not a formless 
 body which sanctifies us, like a chemical agent, but 
 an organized human Body which enshrines God, 
 and communicates itself as a transforming principle 
 to our bodily nature, bringing into us along with 
 itself all the joy of the eternal life of God. 
 
To BrotHer BEALE Tees 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Marcu 12,1880. du Easter Letter—The Power 
 of Christ's Resurrection. 
 
 I cannot let Easter Week shine upon you with- 
 out sending a little letter to catch some of its bright- 
 ness. How all the acts of this our miserable world 
 do shine with the glory of that Resurrection! We 
 need to learn the power of Christ’s Resurrection, 
 that so we may welcome the fellowship of His 
 sufferings. Then, indeed, we should be able to 
 triumph in every place and under all circumstances. 
 It is dificult for us even after following Christ to 
 Calvary to follow Him on. We are too much like 
 those who smote their breasts and returned. We 
 return to the world as if the triumph of the Cross 
 were to be found in the world, whereas, indeed, it 
 can only be found by pressing onward to death. 
 Christ triumphed upon the Cross that we might go 
 through death to victory, not that we might pass 
 to victory without enduring death. Our victory 
 can only be the victory of the dead. Only in pro- 
 portion as we are dead with Christ can we share His 
 victory. We little know how our eagerness for 
 success thwarts the manifestation of the Resurrec- 
 tion power, by which alone the truly mortified life 
 is to be perfected. The Resurrection Life is hidden 
 from the world, but we long for that which the 
 world can and will appreciate. The Risen Saviour 
 showed Himself to His disciples, but only to them. 
 His Resurrection power is known by His disciples, 
 but only by them. May we have grace to know 
 more and more of it, to live with the doors shut, 
 with hearts truly enclosed, to meet Him on the 
 Galilean mountain far away, to go with Him to 
 
116 To Brotuer JoHNn 
 
 
 
 
 
 Olivet and watch Him as He passes into the cloud, 
 that faith may rest with Him in His secrecy. We 
 need to follow Him in the mystery of the Resurrec- 
 tion ere we rise to the knowledge of the Ascension, 
 just as we need the discipline of the Passion to train 
 us for the hidden life of the Resurrection. 
 
 TO BROTHER JOHN 
 
 _ DecemBer 12, 1890. The New Year. 
 
 We cannot look forward with confidence to 
 the next year, or even to the next week, but we can 
 look forward’ with confidence to Eternity. What 
 a blessed confidence that is! All the trials of life 
 vanish before the simple contemplation of the glory 
 of God. One feels that even more out here, than 
 at home, where there are such vast multitudes 
 round about us who have scarcely any idea of an 
 eternal consciousness of joy shining out before them 
 in the future, because they have no real personal 
 fellowship with God now. One feels the dreari- 
 ness of being, as S. Paul says of the heathen Greeks, 
 “without God in the world.” ! Yet how few pro- 
 fessing Christians are really seeking their joy in 
 living with God in the world. How great the 
 triumphs of Christianity would be if Christian 
 people, instead of merely acknowledging Christ 
 as God, would give themselves up to experience 
 the life of God in themselves as His members. It 
 shows how wonderful the power and truth of Chris- 
 tianity must be that, even in such a diluted form 
 as this nineteenth century tolerates, it is able to 
 
 Eph ie re, 
 
To Brotruer HERBERT DET 
 
 
 
 win its way, more in spite of ourselves than by any 
 missionary effort which we make. 
 
 TO BROTHER HERBERT. 
 
 Avucust, 1898. On his Profession. 
 I am so glad to think of your approaching Pro- 
 
 fession. Certain circumstances make the Feast of 
 the Transfiguration specially dear to me.! May 
 you indeed find cause to say, “ It is good for us to 
 be here.”2 The day of Profession is indeed a 
 manifestation of the divine light shining round 
 about us during the dark night of earthly exist- 
 ence. We feel ourselves taken up into the com- 
 pany of all the saints along with Jesus ; and thus, 
 I suppose, when the routine of life begins again 
 after the Retreat, we seem to lose sight of all that 
 are around but “ Jesus only.” 3 
 All consolations, and the joys of heavenly 
 fellowship, must strengthen us to behold Him. 
 He will return with us to our work in the world, 
 whatever He may have for us to do. And as the 
 vision of the mountain-top was to strengthen the 
 Apostles to learn more of His Passion, so all spiritual 
 joy that He gives us 1s to strengthen us to share in 
 that Passion, to take up our Cross and follow Him. 
 Visions, experiences, aspirations, pass away from 
 the outward consciousness, but “ Jesus only ’’4 re- 
 mains in the heart, and where He is, there we have 
 all. Nothing we can hope for has any value except 
 t Fr. Benson was baptised on the Feast of the Transfiguration, 
 August 6, 1824. 
 2 S. Matt. xvii. 4. 3 ibid., ver. 8. 4 ibid. 
 
igh hee: To FatrHer TRAILL 
 
 
 
 it be found in Him, and the smallest acts of loving 
 homage are full of heavenly power, the moments 
 of earthly discipline shine with an eternity of joy, 
 if they are quickened by His sanctifying fellowship. 
 It is little that we should have given ourselves to 
 Him—the marvel is that our gift of ourselves is 
 but an echo of His loving call ; and while we give 
 ourselves to Him with hearts so dull and eyes so 
 blind, He gives Himself to us that He may quicken 
 our hearts, until our eyes are opened to behold what 
 at present we can only know by faith. 
 
 TOPFATHER TRAILE. 
 
 Jury 18, 1907. On the Devotional Use of the 
 Bible. 
 
 People must live in their Bibles, and they 
 will find the nourishing power which is therein. 
 It is of no use to believe the Bible at second hand. 
 We must use it devotionally, so as to learn its truth 
 by experience and constant colloquy with God. 
 We should be much better without a great multi- 
 tude of devotional books, which people use and do 
 not perceive the errors which are mixed up with 
 them. 
 
 Modern ages have lost much by neglecting to 
 recognize the divine spiritual sense of Holy Scrip- 
 ture ; but the whole of the Old Testament is really 
 prophetic, and many things which puzzle us as 
 mere history rise to their divine value by their 
 prophetical interpretation. Deny the supernatural, 
 and the Bible remains the most wonderful of all 
 books—even of novels and love-songs |—so won- 
 
To a FaTHER OF THE SOCIETY 119 
 
 
 
 derful, so unique as to warrant its claim to a divine 
 origin. But without a divine author, a divine truth, 
 a divine purpose, a divine prophecy operating 
 throughout, the whole becomes worthless to an 
 immortal soul, not living for the world, betrothed 
 to Christ, looking forward in the new Adam to a 
 new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness. 
 
 event aA LHR OK THE SOCIETY. 
 
 Marcu 4, 1880. Ox Temptation during Lent. 
 
 It is not wonderful that Satan should specially 
 assail you during Lent. His troublous presence 1s 
 one of the features that should assimilate our Lent 
 to our Lord’s Lent. How apt we are to think that 
 we shall be safe and free in seasons of retirement. 
 In truth we are likely to be more assailed then than 
 at any other time. The world has its distracting 
 temptations, but it blunts the edge of many of 
 Satan’s instruments. His sharpest weapons are 
 used for those who are escaped or escaping. God 
 gives us grace according to our need ; we must 
 not be cast down, nor perplexed, nor distrust- 
 ful. Temptation shows us our sinfulness and our 
 weakness. ‘They are not sins, but rather discipline 
 whereby we are to be sanctified and set free from 
 sin. 
 

 
 } We 4, oy 
 (fas i “uy lat : 
 a? | 
 
PART II 
 
 MIscELLANEOUS LETTERS 
 
 121 
 

 
Spiritual Letters of Father Benson 
 
 PART II 
 Miscellaneous Letters 
 
 January, 1867. Letter to his Parishioners at 
 Cowley. 
 
 I am thankful that our parish church is now 
 in a state more decent for divine service, and more 
 capable of accommodating such as can attend. Let 
 me urge you to bear in mind the lesson which a 
 church restoration should always teach us. It is 
 in vain for the church to be enlarged, strengthened, 
 and beautified, unless our hearts in like manner are 
 enlarged with the knowledge of God, strengthened 
 by the gifts of His Spirit, and beautified with evi- 
 dences of His transforming grace. Strive to set 
 a greater value upon that ministration of righteous- 
 ness which it is the purpose of God’s House to 
 enshrine. I grieve to think of the small number of 
 communicants in the village. Grief does but feebly 
 express my feelings. I tremble to think of it when 
 I know the strong words with which our Lord and 
 Saviour teaches us the necessity of that blessed 
 Sacrament. If men are content to live without 
 that strictness which a continued sacramental union 
 
 123 
 
124 MiuscELLangeous LETTERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 with Christ demands, they will soon fall into that 
 open scandalousness of life which in the present 
 day we have so generally to deplore. Come to 
 Jesus, for He is the only source of spiritual strength. 
 Many are the ways in which we may come, but the 
 way which He has Himself appointed, whereby He 
 becomes our spiritual food and sustenance, is the 
 way necessary above all others, the way from which 
 all other means of approaching Him should derive 
 their efficiency. Let me urge you, then, to be 
 diligent in approaching the Lord’s Table, careful 
 in preparing for it, watchful in cherishing and using 
 the grace received. 
 
 Avucust 19, 1867. To a Priest—Hindrances to 
 a Religious Vocation. 
 
 May God bless your offer of yourself to Him- 
 self. Do not doubt that He will. Do not be dis- 
 couraged by many difficulties. In making the 
 proposal to your father, you were really making 
 it to Him, and He often grants us our request 
 under the appearance of denial. He withholds 
 for a time in order to give the more fully by and by. 
 He has to train us to receive, and when we are 
 made capable of the fulness of blessing, then He 
 pours forth upon us the unspeakable bounty of 
 His love. We may indeed habitually say in our 
 prayers, Grant this, O Lord, but not yet. It isa 
 great token of God’s love when He seems to make 
 our desire impossible, for thus He teaches us to 
 look to His almighty power for its accomplishment. 
 
 I know well what it must have cost you to speak 
 and write as you did to your father. What would 
 
MisceLtangous LEtTrTeErs 125 
 
 
 
 our life ' be worth if the world could at once under- 
 stand that it was worth anything? ‘The very 
 essence of our life is the casting away of that which 
 the world values. The truth of our vocation is 
 very much tested by our having grace to hold fast 
 to it in spite of the world’s scorn. Those who love 
 us cannot but judge as the world judgeth. Christ 
 must put His fingers in their ears as in ours before 
 they can recognize the vocation, or hear the voice 
 of the Spirit. Only let us give ourselves up to 
 Him. He takes [us] away from the multitude, 
 but it is not that withdrawal which opens our own 
 ears. In due time we shall hear perfectly, hear 
 His own most precious voice. Yes, and we must 
 bring the others one by one to Him, and He will 
 make them hear His voice too; so shall it be 
 known that He has spoken to us, and that we are 
 not deceived. 
 
 That blessed voice breaks all earthly bonds, 
 opens all earthly hearts ; for it is the voice of the 
 Creator. And its triumph at the beginning is 
 the pledge of its perpetuity to the end. Having 
 loved His own while they were in the world, He 
 will love them unto the very end of their spiritual 
 consummation in Himself. He gives us a feeble 
 Society, and says, Trust in My eternal love, for 
 that cannot fail thee ; I have chosen feeble things. 
 In feebleness see security. Thy vows are to 
 Myself. What if the Society were to crumble 
 away? Need you doubt His love? You would 
 still have the assured blessing of poverty. The 
 earth would be your inheritance, and the king- 
 dom of heaven your possession. You should not 
 
 * i.e. the Religious Life. 
 
126 MiusceLLANEOUS LETTERS 
 
 
 
 want, any more than Elias in the famine. You 
 would have your Rule so as to go on in obedience 
 to Christ, even though there were no earthly 
 Superior to represent Him near you, and watch 
 over the integrity of your vows. ‘There is no 
 instability about a Society which is separate from 
 this changeable world. ‘The world may be shaken, 
 the Establishment may be shaken, but the heart 
 of the Religious is in a realm which cannot be 
 shaken ; and a Society of Religious is formed of 
 hearts that seek that which cannot be shaken, 
 and are bound together by that which cannot 
 be broken. The world which doubts about our 
 security will, perhaps, soon be surprised to find 
 that we are the only people who are unmoved 
 amidst its dangers. 
 
 APRIL 29, 1868. To the same.—The Sacrifice of 
 our own Will, 
 
 I do not doubt that God is guiding you in 
 the best of ways by this constraint of filial duty, 
 and that He will in the end bring you not only 
 to that haven where you would be for ever, but 
 also to that little harbour of refuge, where He has 
 called us to wait until the storms be past, and to 
 realize in some degree the peacefulness of that 
 other haven, into which may He grant us to float 
 with rigging all unhurt. What is the joy of heaven ? 
 What is the peace of the Religious? It is not in 
 having our own will, nor is it the mere absence of 
 temptation. No, it is the knowledge of God in 
 all His abundant goodness, all-suffcient whether 
 we have our own will accomplished in outer ways 
 
MiuscELLaNngous LETTERS 124 
 
 
 
 or no. Himself the one true object of our desires, 
 and known and appropriated just in proportion to 
 the price we pay. ‘The gift is a free gift, but the 
 knowledge of the gift is only to be acquired by a 
 long and costly experience, the sacrifice habitually 
 of ourselves in all that earth suggests. So then you 
 will learn this by obedience, and will be thus pre- 
 pared for the difficulties in the endurance of which 
 the gift shall hereafter be appreciated and appre- 
 hended. 
 
 May 23,1871. Toa Boy.—On his Confirmation. 
 
 I am very glad to hear of your being confirmed. 
 What a joyous day it must have been to you. I 
 should like to have been present at the service in 
 the Iron Church. May God of His great mercy 
 perfect in you the grace you then received, and, 
 whatever may be your future calling, lead you on- 
 ward in the way everlasting. Cling to our dear 
 Lord Jesus now in your boyhood, and you will 
 find His love the joy of your whole life. When 
 the world calls us away from Him, then it is that 
 we are especially proved whether we are willing to 
 cling to Him or no. We are often apt to think 
 that no harm will come of our giving up our hold 
 upon Jesus on some special occasion, but we find 
 that our power of holding to Him, our joy in holding 
 fast by Him, is destroyed by such temporary un- 
 faithfulness ; whereas we might at that time have 
 got some special gift of grace and love. Let your 
 hold upon the Cross of Jesus be the one reality in 
 your life, and it will give reality to other things. 
 
128 Miusce_LaNgeous LETTERS 
 
 That Blessed Spirit Who came to you at your Con- 
 firmation will be ready to guide and assist you. 
 
 VicIL oF THE ANNuUNCIATION, 1874. Toa Lady.— 
 In Doubt as to her Vocation. 
 
 I have little doubt that your duty is to remain 
 at home. While remaining at home you can prob- 
 ably follow out the principles of Poverty, Chastity, 
 and Obedience as truly as if you were in a convent. 
 In obedience to your mother you will especially 
 realize the mystery of that life of thirty years’ 
 obedience, upon which the Son of God entered at 
 His Incarnation this very day. 
 
 A director’s counsel plainly is only counse/. You 
 must make up your own mind in such a matter, 
 and act according to the interior leadings of God’s 
 Holy Spirit. You need not therefore feel in any 
 way hampered because your judgement is not the 
 same as his. It is no disrespect to him, nor any 
 violation of the relationship in which you stand to 
 him. Direction does not involve monastic obedi- 
 ence. 
 
 We may be sure that God will always make the 
 duties which belong to our natural position, as 
 fixed by His providence, capable of being harmon- 
 ized with the calls of His grace ; and it is our duty 
 to wait until He makes His will plain. The fault 
 of Saul was that he did not wait—but ‘‘ They that 
 wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” ! ; 
 and it matters not whether we have to wait for a 
 longer or a shorter time, nor whether our cloister 
 at last be on earth or in Paradise. 
 
 Me sTearexls'3 Vi 
 
MisceLttangous LETTERS 129 
 
 January 3, 1876. To a Friend.—Spiritual Growth 
 takes time. 
 
 I am glad to hear that you are enabled to act 
 more constantly with the love of God as your 
 motive. If we do so, other matters will be sub- 
 dued. The wanderings of thought, the want of 
 habitual recollection, the habit of unkind, censori- 
 ous words—all must give way to the love of God. 
 It is a principle which strengthens the whole moral 
 nature with supernatural grace. We are not able 
 to fix our thoughts because the world has satur- 
 ated them with its weakening moisture—but the 
 heavenly unction fills all the energies with an 
 abiding power that becomes constantly stronger 
 and stronger, and gradually leads us onward to 
 greater and greater devotion. Our spiritual nature 
 takes time to grow, and grows in spite of continual 
 symptoms of weakness, as our physical and our 
 moral nature also do. 
 
 May 16, 1876. To a Friend—On Spiritual 
 
 Inertness. 
 
 . . We must not be disheartened if we do 
 at fae ifcel the state of spiritual inertness which 
 you describe. We must try and resist it. It may 
 be the very means of stirring us up to greater watch- 
 fulness. Seasons of spiritual joy and unnatural 
 excitement are more apt to deceive us. When we 
 feel our nothingness, we have at any rate got one 
 important truth. And in this nothingness the very 
 desire to be something different is the echo of God’s 
 voice. He calls us out of our nothingness, and He 
 
 K 
 
130 MisceLtLangous LErtTTERS 
 
 is able to do with us what He wills. That sense 
 of listlessness is no doubt in part a result of physical 
 weakness ; but then our spiritual progress is a 
 mixed battle. It is a battle with our outward nature 
 in various ways. In all these we shall be “ more 
 than conquerors through Him that loved us.”"!_ His 
 love is our strength for victory. In action and in 
 suffering, in weariness and in energy, in depres- 
 sion and in joy, His unchanging love must be our 
 continual stay, and He will overrule all for our 
 sanctification. 
 
 May, 1877. To a Lady.—The Work of the Holy 
 Ghost in Absolution and in Prayer. 
 
 The gift of Absolution is the loosing of the 
 power of the Holy Ghost within the soul, which 
 by sin we suffer to be bound. By His power we 
 are loosed, and He is loosed within us. Otherwise 
 our loosing would be nothing worth. He is our 
 Life, and we must lose all other sense of life save 
 that which He is, Himself the Lord and Life- 
 giver. 
 
 It is the Holy Ghost Who must also help us 
 in our prayers—or, more truly, He must pray in 
 us with groanings that our nature cannot utter. 
 The voice of the Spirit rises to the ear of the Father. 
 Too often we choke that utterance by our own 
 earthliness, wanting to take some part in the work 
 to ourselves. We do most when we leave Him 
 to do all. Our words simply supply the form 
 of His utterance. The power is ever His. We 
 should endeavour to realize how lovingly and 
 
 t Rom. villi. 37. 
 
MiuscettAngeous LErTTERS 15g 
 
 personally He pleads within us. Whatever be 
 the object of our prayer, He desires that object 
 more than we can. What we love, we love only 
 because He, dwelling within us, makes us to love 
 it. It were no true love, true care, true prayer, 
 unless He did inspire it. ‘The sense of repose 
 in making our own worship subsidiary in all respects 
 to His inspirations will save us from much exhaus- 
 tion, disquiet, distraction, despondency. ‘‘ Where 
 the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” ! 
 
 NovEMBER 5, 1877. To a Friend.—* Not Many 
 Wise are Called.” 
 
 Really God does not want such clever men to 
 do His work. Alas! that they do not want Him 
 to do theirs. God will sooner work by a simple 
 peasant who gives all the glory to Him, for he 
 knows that it is His, than by one of these very 
 clever men who think they are such, and a gain 
 to any cause that they join. We must belong to 
 the little despised company—the three hundred that 
 lapped like a dog 2——if we would share in the victory 
 _ of the Lord, as in the day of Midian. Our faith 
 must not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the 
 wisdom of God. English society is getting to be 
 very much like what Corinthian society was when 
 S. Paul wrote of it, and not many wise men after 
 the flesh, not many mighty, are called. Distinc- 
 tions such as these matter very little after death. 
 A corpse, after all, is but a corpse, and we cannot 
 be living to God unless we be as corpses in the 
 world, dead to our old selves. The more of self 
 
 SrA OFT.) 177 2 See Judges vil. 7. 
 
nig te Miscettangous Letrers 
 
 we have to die to, the harder it is to live that 
 true life. If any one says, ““ Why do not you, or 
 rather, Why does not God, convert some clever 
 man ?”’ the answer must be, ‘‘ God can do without 
 cleverness. He loves souls because of their needs, 
 not because of their powers.’ There is more 
 talent after all on the side of God than there is on 
 the other side, only it does not count. God does 
 not count it, for His grace supersedes it. The 
 world does not count it, because it witnesses against 
 the world. Yet where did the world learn what it 
 knows? Modern civilization is but a caricature 
 of the teaching of the Church, with the best parts 
 left out. 
 
 FEepruary 21, 1878. Toa Lady.—On Reparation 
 for Sins. 
 
 We cannot present any acts of our own as 
 reparation for the sins of others iz addition to the 
 atoning Sacrifice of Christ, but we may do so in 
 union with that Sacrifice, so as to bring out the 
 power of that Sacrifice in our own lives. Our 
 prayers are but the individualizing of the prayer 
 of Christ, Who is the Head of the whole body ; 
 and our acts of penitence are merely forms of 
 prayer, through which He still pleads with the 
 Father by the power of the Holy Ghost. If our 
 acts are to avail for others, they must also avail 
 to make us more closely united to Christ. If 
 they do the one they do the other. 
 
MisceLttangous Letrers 133 
 
 June 4,1878. Toa Lady.—The Athanasian Creed. 
 
 It is a funny way of being Catholic, which I 
 believe you profess to be, to choose which articles 
 of the Faith shall be necessary. 
 
 Possibly you may misunderstand the words of 
 the Athanasian Creed. You are not bound to 
 take them according to any private interpretation 
 of what everlasting perdition may mean — but 
 certainly you are bound to take them as true. 
 The Creed has not to do with persons who have 
 not had an opportunity of knowing the Faith. 
 It is an instruction given to a person who wishes 
 to be saved. If he does not hold firmly and faith- 
 fully that truth respecting the nature of God and 
 the Incarnation of Christ which the Church puts 
 into his hand, he cannot be saved. The mere 
 conceit of a thinker who rejects the Catholic Faith 
 respecting such mysteries, in favour of some theory 
 of his own about God’s unity, or moral character, 
 or anything else, is surely as great a sin as any 
 that a man can commit against his neighbour. 
 - Persons are not the less criminal because their 
 crimes are spiritual, or their hearts kindly. At 
 the same time you are only required to enunciate 
 the law, not to apply it. It is not for us to deter- 
 mine who come within the scope of the law, only 
 we must not think that the law of God allows of 
 any amiability or refinement as excuse for dis- 
 obedience. We cannot distinguish between many 
 who could not know, and many who would not. 
 If people in their pride hug to themselves an 
 affected ignorance of God, and reject the Faith, 
 
134 MisceLtangous LETTERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 they must take the consequences. God knows 
 how far any may be to blame ; we do not. 
 
 Jury 30, 1878. To a Lady.—kFriendship on 
 Earth and in Heaven. 
 
 J presume that you do not mean your note 
 to be taken literally. It were a sad idolatry to 
 think that any earthly friendship would be neces- 
 ‘sary to our happiness in heaven: “ Whom have 
 I in heaven but Thee?’’! What excellence can 
 any earthly friend possess that is not derived from 
 Christ ? Nothing good that we have ever known 
 will be wanting when He is manifest from Whom 
 it came. His perfections are imperfectly per- 
 ceived shining through the graces, both natural 
 and spiritual, with which He endows His creatures, 
 and which their sinfulness mars. When the sin- 
 stained veil of manifold individuality is done away, 
 we shall see Him from Whom all beauty came in 
 His own perfect archetypal loveliness. We shall 
 need nothing else to satisfy the soul. Thou art 
 ‘““my portion for ever.” 2 We must recognize God 
 as the alone good, seen through the earthly. ‘True, 
 we are called by revelation to rejoice in the com- 
 munion of saints in a future life, but that would 
 be no joy to us if it testified to the insufficiency 
 of God. ‘“ When I wake up after Thy likeness, I 
 shall be satisfied with it.’”’3 Now we must love one 
 another, not merely by reason of certain idiosyn- 
 crasies which we may share in common, and which 
 naturally rather separate cliques from the rest of 
 
 aid eat be geht asc 2. Ps. /ixxiite 2603 
 3 Ps. xvii. 16 (P.B.v.). 
 
MisceLtangous LETrTers 136 
 
 
 
 mankind, than unite the cliques in anything worthy 
 of the name of love. ‘ Love is of God,” ! and we 
 can only love one another truly by recognizing in 
 each other the communications and calls of divine 
 erace. We must love all men, for however little 
 man may exercise the grace communicated, there 
 is no man who is not called to all the loveliness of 
 the divine ideal. We must love God in those whom 
 God makes or calls to be the impersonations of 
 His own loveliness, and all men are formed in the 
 image of God. However brightly the truth shines 
 in the image, we must have no love for the image 
 save as shining through the truth. We shall re- 
 joice together in heaven ; but we shall rejoice in 
 others as we shall rejoice in ourselves, because we 
 receive the glory of the divine love, not because 
 we have any separate or substantive worthiness of 
 that love. Our substantive worthiness will be our 
 union with Christ. We shall care truly for one 
 another, for we shall love others as ourselves, our- 
 selves and them, all in Christ. There will be no 
 separate existence to care for. Individuality will 
 remain, separatedness will be gone. God will be 
 all in all ; and that must be, as far as God enables 
 us, the law of our friendship now. Anything else 
 is merely of the nature of earthly clique, and dero- 
 gatory to the glory of Christ, and unworthy of the 
 communion of saints. You must put away such 
 unworthy attachments. Love is heightened, not 
 destroyed, by losing itself in Jesus. 
 SRS John hig sae 
 
136 MiIscELLANEOuS LETTERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 January 12,1879. To a Lady.—On the Absence 
 of Sensible Devotion. 
 
 You must not be distressed at the absence of 
 those devotional feelings which you would like to 
 experience. God may grant them or withhold 
 them. Whether present or wanting, they do not 
 add to or diminish from the spiritual virtue and 
 efhcacy of our acts. Oftentimes our prayers are 
 best without such warm feelings. Our prayers 
 certainly are less good when we are in such a state 
 of feeling as to seem to ourselves more worthy 
 of God. It is well for us to feel our own un- 
 worthiness. This is always rather chilling and 
 wearisome. But never mind: goon. At length, 
 when it is good, the joyous glow of devotion will 
 be granted to you. When God grants it, it in 
 its turn will be of service, and help your spiritual 
 growth. Do not think the Bible is less profitable 
 when it is less pleasurable. Read and listen for 
 the voice of God. God comforts us by manifold 
 discipline. We must learn to leave ourselves in 
 His hands. Do you remember what Thomas a 
 Kempis says —‘‘ Who is there in the world that 
 would not wish to be a spiritual and religious per- 
 son if he could always ensure high and rapturous 
 devotion ?”’ 
 
 No; we must be equally steadfast under all 
 variations of feeling, and God is unchangeable in 
 the welcome of His love for all who come to Him 
 
 through Jesus Christ. 
 
MisceLLtangeous LEetTTers 187 
 
 Avucust 13, 1879. To a Lady.—On Going into 
 Retreat. 
 
 I should think it was rather soon to be enter- 
 ing into a Retreat again; but I know no harm 
 likely to arise from it. Of course one needs to be 
 on the watch against the over-use of spiritual stim- 
 ulants, but this one coming so soon after the other 
 would be rather like a prolongation of it than a 
 fresh excitement. One ought not to go into a 
 Retreat merely for the purpose of hearing 
 conduct one. One ought not to go unless one 
 feels one would have wished to go with any con- 
 ductor. One ought to seek God simply in going 
 into Retreat. Otherwise the habit will become 
 like the hearing of a sermon ; we shall think more 
 of what is said than of what we ourselves are to do. 
 Our own part must be so prominent in the thought 
 of a Retreat, that any special gifts of the preacher 
 will be to us little more than the binding of a book 
 is when we are interested with its contents. 
 
 
 
 SEPTEMBER 16, 1879. To the same.—On Ritual. 
 
 We must be careful not to let ourselves be 
 carried away by the desire of ritual. 
 
 I think one feels that the highest type of worship 
 for us on earth is that plainness which S. Bernard 
 would have inculcated. But even he allows that 
 ritual beauty may be necessary—a necessary evil— 
 for secular-minded people. The Religious ought 
 to rise above it. So of course ought the religious- 
 minded. 
 
 We should always remember that ritual is not 
 
138 MiscEL.tangeous Letters 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 for the purpose of pleasing ourselves. It is the 
 offering of wealth, in form, art, and substance to 
 God for His glory, since all creation belongs to 
 Him. If it is our fault that God is not glorified 
 manifestly, we cannot look for the blessing of the 
 worship. But if it is not our fault, the absence 
 of outward beauty can make no sacramental differ- 
 ence in our service ; and we ought not, therefore, 
 to repine, if we are called to worship where things 
 are distasteful. Outward beauty should not be 
 despised, but our Lord’s words call us to regard 
 it as of very little practical concern. ‘“* Master, 
 see what manner of stones and what buildings are 
 here! And Jesus answered and said unto him, 
 The time cometh when not one stone shall be 
 left upon another.’’! So must we remember that, 
 although it is a duty to make God’s temporal 
 house glorious for His honour, yet our hearts must 
 be elsewhere, even with Himself in heaven. We 
 must feel the nothingness of that which is so soon 
 to pass away. Outward beauty may symbolize the 
 beauty of Jesus as seen by His Church, but in no 
 way does it bring that beauty nearer to our view. 
 As soon as we get to depend upon it for our con- 
 solation in prayer, we begin to experience our loss. 
 While earthly beauty speaks to the eye of the beauty 
 of heaven, its shortcoming may speak to us of the 
 same beauty by its unlikeness. 
 
 In both ways we must learn to accept the fact 
 that earth cannot rise to the true level of beauty. 
 We must not find ourselves lifted up by it, but 
 beyond it. 
 
 * See S. Mark xiii. 1, and S. Luke xxi. 6. 
 
Misce.trangous LEetTrTers 139 
 
 
 
 1879. To a Priest.—Victory in Continuing Temptation. 
 
 It is a very blessed thing when we feel that 
 God has been pleased for some time to give us 
 victory over any special temptation. Any such 
 work of the Holy Ghost is sure to make us more 
 humble, which involves the two ideas, more and 
 more distrustful of self, more and more trustful in 
 Him. 
 
 Freedom from temptation is often a snare of 
 Satan, who leaves us for a season that he may 
 return to assail us more terribly by and by; but 
 temptation continuing while victory is vouchsafed, 
 is a special evidence of God’s grace, for thereby 
 grace is ever increased within us. “ Blessed,’’ 
 therefore, “‘is the man that endureth temptation.” ! 
 Indeed, God frequently seems to leave our prayers 
 for a long time unanswered in order that we may 
 thus grow in grace, resisting Satan. Satan is like 
 the Parthian nation that retreated shooting arrows 
 backward in their flight. So Satan shoots at us, 
 but he is retreating all the while, if we are true to 
 God : “ Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” ? 
 The promise is quite sure. 
 
 May 3, 1881. To a Lady.—On Patience in 
 Waiting upon God. 
 
 What God desires for us is to keep us waiting 
 upon Himself. There will be no waiting in the 
 next world. Here waiting is the best mode of 
 spending our time. ‘‘ They that wait upon the Lord 
 shall renew their strength.” 3 We are often weary 
 
 eet Paes: }. 1 2 au Diya 1Vi it?s EP Ee de Ge 
 
140 MuisceLLtangeous Lerrers 
 
 
 
 
 
 of waiting times, and pleased when our desires are 
 fulfilled ; but blessed are they that hunger and 
 thirst. It is seldom that we can have our satis- 
 faction here without loss. No; we must be desir- 
 ing God, and He will give Himself to us in various 
 hidden ways, oftentimes the very reverse of our 
 expectations. But He is ever leading us onward 
 to a fruition of His own eternal goodness far beyond 
 what we can ourselves conceive. 
 
 May 21, 1881. To the Rev. G. S. Hollings (after- 
 wards Tr. Hollings)—Our Unworthiness Not to 
 Hinder our Work. 
 
 We must not let any sense of our own un- 
 worthiness hold us back from doing God’s work, 
 for if we once allow this thought surely we should 
 remain in idleness all our lives. We have to work, 
 but God will work beyond us. ‘The lamp-glass is 
 not the measure of the light which streams through 
 it. When so much is needed we must do what we 
 can, and God will make the oil suffice, whether the 
 cruse be large or small. 
 
 New Year’s Day, 1882. To the same.—On 
 Religious Pictures. 
 
 I think you may very well limit yourself to one 
 picture or Cross in your room. You open up a 
 large question by the way in which you ask my 
 advice respecting this. I think in my inmost heart 
 I only tolerate Christian pictures, even for Catholics 
 generally, as a necessary evil. I am a shocking 
 Puritan | 
 
MisceLttaNngous LETTERS I41 
 
 However, one must leave people to the flood 
 of delusive notions which religious art suggests, 
 and one’s only endeavour can be to keep them 
 within bounds. Granted that they are tolerated 
 or approved for Catholics generally, I still should 
 think upon quite other grounds that a Religious 
 is better without them. They are no doubt use- 
 ful in many ways to uneducated seculars, but we 
 ought to be dead ; and although we may have to 
 see to external matters, such as images and flowers, 
 for others, we ought to be as the dead. There 
 ought to be a felt difference between a room 
 arranged for us, and one arranged for a secular 
 priest. 
 
 NovEMBER 3, 1885. To a Lady.—The Sacrament 
 of Penance. 
 
 It is not for us to determine what sins may find 
 pardon with God without absolution. The ordin- 
 ary shortcomings of faithful people do not theoret- 
 ically require such absolution— only mortal sins 
 do that—but we come to seek not pardon only, or 
 counsel, but renewing grace. An inferior! priest 
 ' may give absolution to a saint, although quite in- 
 competent to direct such an one. A layman may 
 give direction, although incompetent to pronounce 
 absolution. It is well for us sometimes to have 
 the one without the other, that we may learn to 
 value each separately. If we use Sacramental Con- 
 fession aright we ought to feel that the absolution 
 has a real sanctifying efficacy for our present daily 
 life, quite independent of any advice given to us 
 by the confessor. 
 
 * i.e. less advanced in holiness. 
 
142 MisceLtLaNngous LE&TTERS 
 
 May 24, 1886. Toa Lady.—Dying to Self—The 
 Spirit of Life in Christ Fesus--External Mortifications. 
 
 If we would die to self, we must be careful not 
 to pretend to die, while really acting all the while 
 in the consciousness of self-interest. 
 
 The great difficulty of natural morality is to 
 save goodness from being a mere form of selfish- 
 ness. The religion of (I fear) most people is selfish, 
 especially in the present day. ‘There must be some 
 Being to whom we sacrifice self. The primary 
 object of our religion must be not, as people say, to 
 save our own soul, but to glorify God. Whatever 
 we might do with the former end in view would 
 fail of that end, unless it were subordinated to the 
 latter end, the true end of man, the glory of God. 
 We must not think of God and heaven as if they 
 existed for our happiness, but we must recognize 
 ourselves as existing for God’s glory. Our quiet, 
 unimpassioned forefathers lived upon this great 
 moral principle of Christian life much more than 
 we do, at least I think they did. People con- 
 stantly ask, Cannot I be saved unless I do this or 
 that? ‘That is not the question to ask. We have 
 a higher purpose which must regulate every action : 
 Will God be glorified by my doing this or that? 
 So the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer is “‘ Hal- 
 lowed be Thy Name.’ There is a petition with 
 reference to the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity 
 before there is any petition relating to ourselves. 
 
 It is in the body of Christ that God is glorified, 
 and we must lose the thought of our individual 
 selves in the thought of the body of Christ to 
 which we belong. We die to ourselves by living 
 
MisceLtangous LErtTTeErRs 143 
 
 for an end, and in a sphere, greater than ourselves. 
 We have to think of God’s covenant with His 
 Church as the mode of His glorification. 
 
 And then again Christ is Head over all things 
 to the Church, which is His body. We must not 
 think of the Church as if it existed for our salva- 
 tion. It would equally have existed had we never 
 needed to be saved. It is the predestined mode 
 whereby the Father would glorify the Son. We 
 must give ourselves up to Him as our Head, not 
 merely with gratitude, but with an absorbing self- 
 surrender. What begins in fear and gratitude 
 ends in pure love, and perfect self-forgetful praise. 
 Beyond the gratitude which we owe for what He 
 has done for us, there is a gratitude that He now 
 permits us to do something for Him. And if we 
 begin to serve Him with this grateful homage, we 
 shall forget even the idea of gratitude in the true 
 absorption of self. Living for Him becomes a 
 simple necessary instinct of the sanctified soul. 
 “The love of Christ constraineth us.’?! We must 
 learn to live for Him, as the hand or the tongue 
 or the feet live for and minister to our personal 
 . selves. Our own personal self is lost in the per- 
 sonal headship of Jesus Christ. He is not a distinct 
 Person from us as members of His body.2 We 
 
 ee Cory. 143 
 
 2 cf. 1 Cor. xii. 12: “As the body is one, and hath many 
 members, and all the members of that one body, being many, 
 are one body: so also is Christ,’ and Dr. Goudge’s comment, 
 “In this passage, Christ is not regarded as the Head of His 
 Body the Church, . . . rather, Christ is the single personality, 
 animating the whole, and the many members are all members 
 of Him.” See also S. Augustine in Ps, cxliii. 1: ‘‘ He saith 
 not, so also is Christ and His body, but so also is Christ,” and 
 his oft-repeated phrase, ‘“‘ Whole Christ is Head and body.” 
 
144 MiscELLangous LETTERS 
 
 
 
 live in Him, and He in us. And we recognize 
 any thought of being by any possibility distinct in 
 any way from Him, as being a touch of spiritual 
 death. There is therefore in Christian morals a 
 personal interest beyond ourselves. 
 
 And then, thirdly, there is a power which takes 
 us out of ourselves, the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 Our union with Christ is not merely a union such 
 as can be upon earth. Even the union of husband 
 and wife does not make the two to be one spirit. 
 That union is a oneness of flesh, a oneness of earthly 
 life, but death breaks the bond. The unity of the 
 Church with Christ is a unity of living power, 
 eternal, having no other unity to equal it, save the 
 unity of the Father and the Son in the eternal 
 Spirit. The bond of the eternal Trinity is the 
 bond of union between Christ and His members, 
 and also between those members one with another: 
 so our Lord prayed. We cannot know what salva- 
 tion means except in so far as we know what it is 
 to be thus one with Christ, by the power of the 
 Holy Ghost. We must die to ourselves by living 
 true to this end, this sphere, this mediatorial head- 
 ship, this sanctifying power. Self is of necessity 
 lost in such a life. To think of self—even to think 
 of our own unworthiness save as a stimulus to further 
 exertion—is to draw back from this life. SoS. Paul 
 says, “‘ Henceforth I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth 
 in me.” ! So it is that “the just live by faith,” 2 
 as by faith they also die to themselves. We die 
 to ourselves, not merely by the negative efforts 
 of natural morality, but by the positive energies of 
 faith working by love. So the grace of regenera- 
 
 A Cyalitit.4eg, SyRom~ ick ga 
 
MisceLtangous LEtrers 14.5 
 
 tion is, as our Church Catechism teaches, “A 
 death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteous- 
 ness.”’ We die to the life of nature, the natural 
 sinful self, as we are taken into the life of grace. 
 We do not die to self with the intention of exer- 
 cising the powers of the world to come because 
 our better judgement approves those powers, but 
 we come to Christ that we may have life ; and by 
 accepting the powers of the world to come we are 
 absolutely translated out of the sphere of the mere 
 natural self. The Sun of Righteousness fills the 
 sky of the soul, and the stars of the night season 
 are lost to sight. If they from time to time shine 
 out, it is because the Sun is suffering eclipse. The 
 only way for us to get rid of those stars is by hast- 
 ing to walk in the light of the Lord. The Sun of 
 Righteousness suffers eclipse in our souls, not by 
 reason of external obstacles, but by the failure of 
 faith, hope, and charity, whereby we ought to 
 abide in His light. External mortifications are 
 valuable, not so much because they punish or 
 purify the material nature by any inherent power, 
 although this is one of their subordinate uses, but 
 -chiefly because in practising them we are calling 
 into energy the mind of Christ, and are identify- 
 ing ourselves with His Passion as an active law of 
 sympathy. As He by the Holy Spirit offered Him- 
 self to suffer and die, so if through the Spirit we 
 mortify the deeds of the body we shall live.t The 
 Hindu Fakir torments himself far beyond what any 
 Christian ascetic attempts, and yet he gets no good 
 by it. He does but intensify the spirit of pride 
 within himself. We in doing the very smallest 
 S*Bee Ronis vill-1 3. 
 L 
 
146 Miusce_taAngous LETTERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 acts of self-denial gain continual increase of grace, 
 and die to ourselves, if we are doing them because 
 the Spirit of Christ ‘which is in us leads us to be- 
 come conformable to His death—His thirty-three 
 years of deadness. ‘‘ The law of the Spirit of life 
 in Christ Jesus’’ ! becomes strengthened within us. 
 Externally our life may be called an imitation, but 
 internally and essentially it is no imitation at all, it 
 is a development and perpetuation of the life of 
 Christ, as the orchard produce of one year is a 
 development of the fruitful power continued from 
 previous autumns. The power of the Spirit of 
 Christ within us as a moral habit grows by exercise, 
 and the contrary powers of the natural fallen sinful 
 self die as the others grow. 
 
 Asu Wepnesnay, 1887. To the Rev. G. S. Hollings 
 (afterwards Fr. Hollings)—On Humility and Chastity. 
 
 We do specially need in the present day the 
 gift of a true humility. The spirit of pride must 
 doubtless be the ruling power of the last age. The 
 self-satisfaction which veils itself under certain 
 religious disguises is perhaps the greatest snare to 
 which the heart of man can be exposed. The open- 
 ing of the thirty-sixth Psalm seems to speak of 
 antichrist 1n contrast with the description of our 
 Lord in Psalm cx. ‘*‘ Wickedness saith to the un- 
 godly, My heart within me is supreme ’’—literally, 
 “within my heart,” an ejaculation of self-confidence 
 =muthi plaudo. ‘‘ Vhere is no fear of God before 
 his eyes.”” Whereas the Christian attitude is ever 
 to look upward, and away from self.2 ‘“‘ The Lord 
 
 t Rom. vill. 2. 2 Ps, Gx. 1, 
 
Miscettartous LETTERS 147 
 said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand.” 
 So it is that present success is substituted for the 
 endeavour of faith, and personal self-satisfaction for 
 the penitential hunger which can find no satisfac- 
 tion save in God. And this destroys chastity. 
 The pleasure of Church services done in our own 
 way takes place of the simple desire to glorify God 
 by serving Him not in our own way. The age 
 of Laodicea with a religion refined but feeble, 
 flattering in our own sight but valueless before 
 God, is that which we have to do with. We must 
 take care that we are really cherishing the contrary 
 spirit, losing ourselves in the headship of Jesus 
 Christ, and the immediate thoughts of earth in the 
 consciousness of a life hidden with Him in God. 
 There we must dwell, and dwelling there we shall 
 find the purity of soul which nothing but the sight 
 of God can give, the purification not only from 
 earthly sensuality but from earthly anger. God 
 is strong and patient, and if we dwell with Him 
 we learn to be like Him. It is only the fellowship 
 of His Spirit which can raise us out of ourselves. 
 As soon as we fall back to our individual efforts we 
 ‘find the divine likeness dying away. We cannot 
 retain it save by abiding in the divine life. May 
 we indeed have grace thus to press onward to 
 the glorious Easter when the divine life shall be 
 our portion in all its inalienable fulness. We 
 must seek by every Lent to die to the world more 
 and more. It is difficult to put away all the thoughts 
 of earthly life and wish simply to suffer here and 
 pass away, and to realize in its fulness the law of 
 poverty—the less of earth, the more of heaven. 
 
148 Misce_LtANgeous LETTERS 
 
 Marcu 3, 1888. To a Lady.—Christ’s Presence 
 in the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 We must not think of our Lord as descending 
 to the conditions of earthly locality and contact 
 by His presence in the Holy Eucharist. His 
 presence is after a heavenly and spiritual manner— 
 a real presence—whereas what is local and earthly 
 is transitory and unreal. His Body is now passed 
 into the heavens, to the reality of eternal glorifica- 
 tion. He comes to us in the Holy Eucharist to 
 be our spiritual food, raising us who feed upon 
 Him out ofthe conditions of merely earthly life, 
 to share His glory. So we are bidden, “ Lift up 
 your hearts.”” A presence by which He should 
 descend to earth would be a second humiliation. 
 His presence in the Holy Eucharist, so far from 
 being a humiliation, is only possible by reason of 
 His being glorified. He ascended up that He 
 might fill all things. Being glorified, He can mani- 
 fest Himself wheresoever He will, without motion 
 or change. He loses none of His glory by taking 
 the consecrated elements into union with Himself 
 
 by the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Feast oF S. THomas, 1888. To a Mission Priest 
 newly Ordained.—The Priestly Life. 
 
 How full of marvel and power the life of a 
 priest ought to be. Would that we could realize 
 it more truly. What entire loss of self there should 
 be if we recognize the presence of the Holy Ghost, 
 Whom we receive, as accomplishing in us the work 
 of the priesthood, so entirely beyond all human 
 
MisceLtLtangous LEeEtrers 149 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 power—at once miraculous in its extent, and mys- 
 terious in its character—the spreading of the life 
 of another world throughout the organism of 
 the material creation. May we have grace to 
 carry on this work faithfully. We of many years 
 standing in the priesthood feel the need of much 
 reparation for wasted powers. You who are just 
 beginning must look to Him to uphold you, and 
 assuredly He will. He never calls us to do any- 
 thing for which He does not give the power. We 
 accept His charge, and say with humble confidence 
 in His help, “ We are able.” ! May this blessed 
 sufficiency of His grace be continually experienced 
 
 by you. 
 
 NoveMBER 24, 1893. To a Lady.—Spiritualism 
 and the Communion of Saints. 
 
 As to spiritualism, there can be no doubt that 
 all such communication with spirits departed is sin. 
 It is prying into the hidden things of God. It is 
 probably what S. Paul denounces as ‘‘ Witchcraft,” 
 according to our Authorized Version (“ Sorcery,” 
 Revised Version). It is spoken of as one of the 
 ““ works of the flesh,” just because it is the exer- 
 cise of a power inherent in our nature, a power 
 intended to be the basis of a holy communion of 
 spirits, but no longer capable of such legitimate 
 exercise, because the spirit of man is now dead by 
 reason of the Fall. Its exercise must be regulated 
 by divine discipline, and renewed by sacramental 
 grace ; otherwise it is an abomination. It may be 
 said to be parallel to the bodily communion which 
 is sinful unless hallowed by the grace of matrimony. 
 
 ro lviatts 3X2 2 
 
ico MisceLttangeous Letrers 
 
 
 
 The Communion of Saints in the Body of Christ 
 is an exercise of this deep, sympathetic principle 
 of humanity in the power of regenerating grace. 
 We hold communion one with another, not as spirit 
 with separate spirits, but as being One Body, One 
 Spirit, in Christ. Our nature retains the basis of 
 that fellowship which energizes throughout the 
 Body of Christ. But this we must not exercise 
 in a self-willed, self-seeking, carnal way. We are 
 restored to the Communion of Saints not merely 
 for our own consolation, but for the glory of Christ ; 
 not for present purposes of supernatural exaltation, 
 but for the eternal glory which shall be when the 
 heavenly Jerusalem is revealed. We have fellow- 
 ship one with another, not for one another’s sake, 
 but as a result of our being taken up into the life 
 of Christ the Head. We do not desire “to get 
 something ’’ by asking the intercession of a saint— 
 as I fear people very often do desire, and seek that 
 intercession accordingly. Our communion with 
 departed Saints in the Body of Christ is of a much 
 higher character. It is the expression of our united 
 delight in giving glory to Jesus. 
 
 One may well fear that the Church has lost much 
 by the development of our intercourse with the 
 faithful departed, dropping down from the general 
 consciousness expressed at Holy Communion in 
 the Tersanctus, to a dependence which separates 
 them from us, as if we might rely upon them in 
 their present state to obtain for us gifts which our 
 fleshly nature desires, but which God in His in- 
 finite wisdom sees to be unsuitable for us. Prayer 
 is not so much a means of getting something as 
 of becoming fit to receive it. And the idea of 
 
MisceLtangous LetTrers ISI 
 
 
 
 prayer which subordinates God’s will to the inter- 
 vention of higher spirits, elevates them out of their 
 proper position as sharing in all the energy of the 
 Body of Christ ; and, while seeming to make them 
 nearer God, really degrades them by ignoring 
 their proper subordination to Christ by a vital 
 union, which we, the unworthiest of us, possess 
 on earth as truly as the greatest Saints in heaven, 
 because it is a matter of divine life, not of individual 
 prerogative, 
 
 I thought your friend would very likely appeal 
 to the practice of so large a portion of Christen- 
 dom, as if at any rate we might thus hold spiritual 
 intercourse with baptized persons departed. 
 
 However, there can be no doubt that the general 
 intention of modern spiritualism is to proclaim a 
 natural communion of spirit with spirit, not a 
 development of communion one with another in 
 Christ. That is one of the forms of antichrist, 
 which will doubtless seek to parody the Christian 
 Creed by natural spirituality, piety, sublimity— 
 to find outside the organization of the New Man 
 such a sufficiency in human nature, in the old 
 dead Adam, as makes sacramental regeneration 
 unnecessary. 
 
 
 
 June 19, 1894. To a briend.—Changes. 
 
 As we move from one place to another, it is 
 no disloyalty to the past to feel that God’s unchange- 
 able love is meeting us with fresh tokens of His 
 Fatherly care amid new surroundings. ‘The happi- 
 ness of the past must grow into the happiness 
 of the future, and in all, both past and future, we 
 
152 Miscettangous Letrers 
 
 
 
 find the joyous fellowship of the Holy Ghost, the 
 presence of Christ in all the sympathy of His 
 Humanity, and the power of the Eternal Father. 
 
 Changes come, and they come just when they 
 are most helpful to us. We might arrange for 
 ourselves changes which would still leave us on 
 the same level. God arranges our changes so that 
 we may step upward and come nearer to Himself. 
 And when there is any steep step to take, He will 
 reach His arms down and lift us up, and set our 
 feet upon the Rock. 
 
 January 11, 1895. To a Friend.—On the Relation 
 of a Christian to the World. 
 
 You speak of the world, and how we are to fly 
 from it. S. Paul tells us that we must keep up 
 many associations in the world, otherwise we must 
 needs go out of it. We have to accept our position. 
 God’s call to successive ages is not the same. ‘The 
 principle remains unchanged, but the mode of exer- 
 cising it varies indefinitely. 
 
 We have to consider well what are the duties 
 which God has given to us. They are the signal- 
 posts by which we must be guided. If we put 
 away one cross, as 4 Kempis says,! we shall find 
 another, and perhaps a heavier. Indeed people 
 often think that they can get out of the world, but, 
 in fact, they cannot. The world is not dangerous 
 to us in itself, for it is God’s creation. It is danger- 
 ous to us because it is under the control of the 
 prince of this world, and he uses it for our over- 
 throw. But we cannot escape from the world as 
 
 * De Imit. Christi, Book II, Chap. xii. 5. 
 
MiscELtangeous LETTERS 153 
 
 an enemy, unless we can escape from him as the 
 rebel commander ; and they who leave the visible 
 world probably find that they are just as much 
 under the pressure of his antagonism in the solitude, 
 where they hope to serve God uninterruptedly, as 
 they were amidst the distractions of social life, and 
 that, in fact, they have only put themselves in a posi- 
 tion of much greater danger and embarrassment. 
 We have to see what is God’s will for us, and we 
 may be sure that His grace is sufficient for us in 
 the world which He assigns to us as our place of 
 struggle, but we cannot tell that He will give us 
 grace equally anywhere else. ‘The world is God’s 
 creation, and therefore if we use it in a manner 
 true to Him we shall be carrying out the purposes 
 of His love. The distinctions of society are of 
 His appointment. 
 
 The Church of God must be our home, recti- 
 fying the evils of our outward position by the 
 Holy Ghost. We cannot minimize them for our 
 own security by any outward arrangement. It is 
 by acting individually, true to God in our own 
 - sphere, that we shall best succeed in minimizing 
 them for the benefit of others, which is what we 
 are bound to do. I am afraid the tendency just 
 now is to try and make the world true to Christian 
 purposes by worldly arrangement, instead of ameli- 
 orating worldly arrangements by the vital inspira- 
 tion of Christian sanctity. “If any man love the 
 world, the love of the Father is not in him.”! And 
 philanthropy, as an element of mere worldly love, 
 will always prove ineffectual ; but if any man love 
 
 t 1S, John ii. 15. 
 
1 $4 Misce_LaNngous LeEtrers 
 
 
 
 
 
 the Father he will be sure to love the brethren, and 
 the love will be a renovating power in everything 
 with which we have to do. So it was that the 
 Church gradually triumphed over the evils of 
 heathenism, not by seeking legislation against 
 heathen evils, but by winning people to acknow- 
 ledgement of individual responsibility to Christ. 
 That is what we have still to act upon. We cannot 
 Christianize the social system save by raising it 
 up to the life of the One Body, the power of the 
 One Spirit. Christ did not pray that His people 
 should be taken out of the world, but that they 
 should be kept from the evil. He prayed for us. 
 He prayed not for the world. We must see, then, 
 that we do not forget that we are His children, 
 so as to act in everything by His grace, and that 
 the world is His creation, the sphere of our duty, 
 however fallen it may be, however largely it may 
 be dead. We cannot alter its deadness by any 
 moral mechanism, such as is now in vogue under 
 the name of social science ; but each individual 
 has power beyond telling, who will act in the world, 
 and against the controlling power of the world, 
 with individual faithfulness to Christ. Every one 
 has to be in some sort an Antipas.! 
 
 UNDpDaTED, PROBABLY 1896. To a Religious.— 
 
 On the Contemplative Life. 
 
 You ask me about the contemplative life. [ 
 would have the contemplative side of the mixed 
 life developed as strongly as possible. I am 
 afraid that in what is called the contemplative life 
 
 <.- See /Revsjii..1 3. 
 
MisceLLangeous LETTERS 155 
 
 contemplation is very apt to be minimized instead 
 of being promoted. In the old Orders, like the 
 Carthusian, there are few who really rise up to 
 its demands. I fear it rather tends to intellectual 
 stagnation than to the spiritualizing of intellect. 
 This was also Bishop Forbes’ feeling. Things 
 are very different with us now from what they 
 were some few hundred years back. Then the 
 intellect was calm, inactive, residing in muscular 
 bodies which needed restraint and attenuation in 
 order to refinement. Now the nervous system 
 is so much fretted by the excitement of life, our 
 own and our parents’ lives. We have neither the 
 same logical subtlety, nor the same simple child- 
 like gaze, in which former generations might live. 
 Our bodies will not bear the same external dis- 
 cipline which they could. Then too we have a 
 duty towards the world around us. In former 
 times people could do nothing in the world : they 
 had to retire into the seclusion of the cloister to 
 escape the world’s wickedness. Now we have 
 a vocation to bear witness to Christ in the world 
 by active service. I should always fear that one 
 who imagined she had a purely contemplative 
 vocation was indulging a misshapen and self- 
 pleasing idea. To the imagination it appears so 
 much easier than a life of work in the world. If 
 people had to earn their livelihood scantily, like 
 the original hermits, it would be different ; but 
 a contemplative Sister in an English Community 
 could not be allowed to feel the real pinch of poverty 
 or the risk of starvation. We must take a thing as 
 a whole, and not imagine that we can reproduce a 
 part of it. 
 
156 MiscreLLangous Letters 
 
 We have to consider well the fitness of things, 
 and to remember that the mixed life is the higher 
 of the two. The contemplative life should not be 
 paralleled against the active. The active ought 
 to have quite as much contemplation as the con- 
 templative. We are none of us yet fit for the 
 Beatific Vision, but by God’s grace we must advance 
 towards that fitness with humility and penitence. 
 Also people who desire what they call the contem- 
 plative life have no idea of the temptations of the 
 wilderness. ‘‘ He was led up of the Spirit to be 
 tempted of the devil.”* The devil will be very 
 close to such ;. nursing the sick is much safer work 
 than fighting the devil as a solitary. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 13, 1897. T'o a_ Penitent. — True 
 Penitence. 
 
 You ask me “ What can I expect of God’s justice 
 and mercy?’’ You may confidently rely upon 
 His grace, mercy, and truth just in proportion to 
 the faith, the penitence, and the submission with 
 which you act towards Him. 
 
 Have your past sin ever before you, and you 
 will see the glory of God’s love shining out from 
 behind your sin, and inviting you to full renewal 
 of His predestinating grace. Give yourself up to 
 Him, and He “will not say thee nay.” ‘There 
 may be much fainting and struggling, but He is 
 sure to bless. Only persevere to the end, and 
 He will yet enable you to live to His glory, and 
 to find Him as your eternal portion. He can use 
 
 LaSr WViattoits 1. 
 
MisceLtLtaAngous Letters 157 
 
 even our sins to rouse us to a whole-heartedness 
 of loving service, which we did not know in the 
 earlier days when we sought ourselves first, and 
 Him second. 
 
 S. Anprew’s Day, 1900. To a Lady.— On 
 Christian Sctence. 
 
 Christian Science is a strange delusion. The 
 devil used to want to persuade people that God 
 was an image of himself, sending all manner 
 of trouble and pain to punish people: but he 
 laughed in his sleeve (he has a very large one), 
 and said, ‘“‘I know it all comes from me, but if 
 they think God sends it, I shall have them safe.” 
 
 Now his plan is to say, ‘‘ God is simple goodness, 
 and would not tolerate evil for a moment. ‘There 
 is no evil. All is delusion.”” So he would have 
 people worship comfort and ease. “* Holiness 1s 
 only infinite enjoyment. This is what God wants 
 you to have. Happiness is the best holiness. Hur- 
 rah !_ ‘There is no devil ! no pain ! no trouble !” 
 
 pabutwmuse | not ‘serve (God? # * Ohy nos! 
 don’t trouble! Serve yourself! God does not 
 want you !” 
 
 But I want Him! Better to serve Him amidst 
 every pain than to live without pain in friendship 
 with a happy devil, and not know God! ‘Take 
 away pain, and this world becomes a blank, for 
 it is the devil’s world. Live for joy here, and 
 heaven will be a blank ; for there will be nothing 
 to enjoy with God in heaven, unless along with 
 God we have trodden down the devil upon earth. 
 
 “He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 
 
158 MiscELttangeous LeETTERS 
 
 
 
 bruise his heel,’’! is the law of Christ, and of all 
 who would live with Him. 
 
 Marcu 28, 1901. To a lriend.—On Reading 
 FHHoly Scripture. 
 
 I think the best way for people to read their 
 Bibles is by following the daily Lessons appointed 
 by the Church. This seems to be a primary duty, 
 and it becomes a nucleus of more extended devo- 
 tional reading. 
 
 Of course some particular event may lead to a 
 special study of some particular passage, or some 
 series of passages giving a historic view of a practice 
 or the development of a doctrine ; but it is a great 
 matter to seek for the elucidation of Bible diff- 
 culties rather from the Bible itself, than from the 
 cleverness of critics, who are very apt to introduce 
 thoughts by way of explanation which have no 
 authority either from the Bible or the Creeds. 
 The Creeds must mark out for us the lines of truth 
 which the Bible illustrates. And the arrangement 
 of the Bible is almost as marvellous a work of in- 
 spiration as the actual phraseology of individual 
 sentences. 
 
 We should always read the Bible as God’s own 
 Word, speaking to ourselves. We must consider 
 the circumstances under which the Word of God 
 came to men of old, and we must take care that 
 we read it with a watchful observance of what 
 distinguished those ancient characters one from 
 another. We must see in what way we ourselves 
 differ from them. Many things said of old, before 
 
 ! Gen. iii. 15. 
 
MiscELtrangous LETTERS 159 
 the Holy Ghost was given, are not applicable to 
 ourselves in the fulness of Christian grace ; but 
 the teaching is just as valuable for us, because it 
 brings out the human imperfection which still 
 remains in us by nature, and we have to see how 
 this is modified or transformed by the fresh elements 
 of the life of grace. 
 
 We must seek to see Christ in every word, for 
 Moses and the Psalms and the Prophets all spake 
 of Him. 
 
 ApriL 30, 1903. Toa Lady.—On Contemplation. 
 
 I am afraid you think contemplation means 
 doing nothing ; indeed, it is very much the reverse. 
 Contemplation is the highest and the hardest work. 
 You must be content to lie still in God’s hands, 
 and leave Him to do everything. A short passage 
 of Scripture, just read over, will speak to you. Do 
 not be over eager to think about it, and see what 
 it can mean ; but let God, Who inspired the writer, 
 speak as He wills in your heart. It is well for us 
 to bring empty baskets. If we try to fill them we 
 . often fill them with what is worthless ; but if we 
 simply bring them to Him, He will fill them with 
 blessed fragments of heavenly food. We must 
 not be in a hurry for God to give us what we think 
 we want. ‘“‘ My soul, wait thou still upon God.” ! 
 That tranquil dependence brings strength. 
 
 MPS MXUALRO BBV) 
 
160 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 
 
 Feast oF S. Epwarp, 1903. To a Lady.—On 
 resting in God. 
 
 J hope you are getting on, and that you 
 are learning to do nothing. It is, alas! easy 
 enough to do nothing if it comes in the way of 
 nature, but it is a lesson of much difficulty if it 
 comes in the way of grace. It is hard to learn 
 the nothingness of all we can do in our most active 
 times. And this is the lesson that is practically 
 brought home to us when we have to give up all 
 our efforts, and rest in God. We must be content 
 simply to live in the hands of God, without dictation, 
 and without desire. ‘The soul must wait in still- 
 ness upon God, with the simple infantine gaze of 
 loving confidence. ‘‘ Of Him cometh my salva- 
 tion.’ *“ He that shall come will come, 7 *aayve 
 must not think to hasten His coming, except by 
 the stillness of our expectant homage. He cannot 
 come to us unless we are simply satisfied to let Him 
 do all He wills, and when He wills, Do not try 
 to utilize your time of doing nothing by trying 
 to do this or that. Do not try to get into any 
 great depths of theological inquiry or devotional 
 sentiment. In all your spiritual exercises be as 
 simple as possible. Whatever starts a puzzle in 
 your mind, put it aside. ‘‘In everything give 
 thanks.” 3 
 
 We must be following His wisdom whether 
 it move according to our own fancy or no. We 
 cannot tell what may be happening throughout 
 the world within the next ten years. Only let us 
 see that we are quietly, in hidden devotion and 
 
 Webs. Axi. ©) (Pi R.y,). a eb. xa. 3 1 Thess. v. 18. 
 
MiusceLLANEOuUS LETTERS 161 
 
 childlike confidence, waiting “for redemption in 
 Israel.’ * 
 
 We may hear a little voice in bed calling for 
 its mother in the next room. Heaven must hear 
 our voice calling just in the same way, ‘‘ Come, 
 
 Lord Jesus.”’ 2 
 
 NovEMBER 25, 1903. To a Lady.—Christianity Not 
 a Philosophy. 
 
 Christianity is not a passing thought. It takes 
 its rise in the third chapter of Genesis. The Old 
 Testament is the history of the struggle of Satan 
 against the people of God, seeking to draw them 
 away from the promise of the coming Redeemer. 
 The Gospels show us the accomplishment of that 
 promise, when the fulness of time was come accord- 
 ing to the details of prophecy which God had 
 meanwhile vouchsafed, so as to accredit the Re- 
 deemer when He should come. You would find 
 Pusey on Daniel a very interesting book, also Pusey 
 on the Minor Prophets. 
 
 Christianity is sketched out in the Old Testa- 
 ment, accomplished in the Gospels, spiritually 
 - developed in the Epistles, prophetically delineated 
 in the Apocalypse, miraculously certified in the 
 triumph of the first three centuries, and exhibited 
 in divine power amidst the varying assaults of 
 the world, the flesh, and the devil during the long 
 period of Church history. Thus successive genera- 
 tions were carried forward by saintly protests of 
 innumerable martyrs and confessors, both within 
 the area of Christendom, and in the evangelization 
 of the heathen. 
 
 #49. Luke 11.38, a> Reyaexxi.20: 
 
162 MIscELLANEOUS LETTERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 The very decay of Christian Faith now going 
 on in Christian countries is itself one of the proofs 
 of the divine character of the Church as a living 
 body ; for this decay was foretold, and Christ 
 cannot come again until antichrist has gained 
 possession (for a brief time) of the old nations of 
 the Christian Faith. Him Christ will destroy 
 when He shall come again to judgement, and 
 then the kingdom of Christ will appear in the 
 glory of the Resurrection. 
 
 Christianity is not a passing phase of thought 
 or of philosophy. The Church is a militant power, 
 a spiritual Body, always reasserting itself in spite 
 of temporary defeats. Other religions are forms 
 of human thought, which may have more or less 
 of truth within them. The Church is the Body 
 of Christ, the Incarnate Word, the everlasting 
 God. We must derive our spiritual life from 
 Christ the Head of the Church. Weare the 
 members of His Body. The Sacraments unite 
 us to Him. We in all our divisions must cherish 
 personal fellowship with Him at the right hand of 
 God. The gates of hell cannot prevail against 
 the Church except for a brief period. We amidst 
 all sufferings and difficulties must abide in Christ, 
 otherwise we must perish everlastingly. 
 
 Westcott on S. John’s Gospel would probably 
 be an interesting book for you to read, treating 
 of the philosophical basis of Christianity. We 
 must, however, remember that Christianity is not 
 a philosophy ; it is an historical fact, quite indepen- 
 dent of man’s acceptance or rejection. 
 
MiscettANgous LETTERS 163 
 
 
 
 January 22, 1904. To a Lady—On Spiritual 
 Communion. 
 
 If you cannot communicate, you can at least 
 make spiritual communion, and as you are not 
 neglecting Christ’s command by your own will, 
 you may be sure that He will vouchsafe His 
 Presence to you. He Who opened the eyes of 
 Stephen amidst the unbelieving Jews will certainly 
 make Himself present to the eyes of your soul, 
 and bind you to Himself in the power of the Eternal 
 Spirit. Realize, therefore, that God calls you to a 
 special effort of heavenly worship along with angels 
 and archangels and all the company of heaven. He 
 can—He will—feed you. He will not allow you 
 to suffer loss by what you cannot help. 
 
 Alas | it is too true that the multitude of nominal 
 Christians do not come forward as they ought, to 
 feed sacramentally on all the Holy Days of the 
 Church. You cannot feed sacramentally, as you 
 desire, but you can feed spiritually; yes, even 
 though you may be unable even to go to church. 
 What multitudes of saints have had to do as God 
 - enabled them, feeding in spiritual power at the 
 hands of Jesus our great High Priest upon the altar 
 throne ! 
 
 The priest in the outer sanctuary does not 
 minister as His substitute or representative, but 
 as the instrument of divine ministration. Look 
 up to Him, and He will not suffer you to have 
 any lack of grace by reason of the arrangements 
 of the outer sanctuary in which you draw nigh to 
 Him. Lift up your heart unto the Lord. He 
 will lift you up into the fulness of sustaining power 
 
164 MisceLttaANgeous LE&TTERS 
 
 by which He claims you as one of His members, 
 and presents you in Himself unto the Father by 
 the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Feast oF S. Joun Baptist, 1904. To a Penitent. 
 
 Do not think your life is to be thrown away 
 because of any past sins. I believe in the remis- 
 sion of sins. This is an important article of faith. 
 _ But of course our past sins do leave certain awk- 
 wardnesses which we must accept patiently with 
 thankfulness. Oh, yes! Be thankful that you have 
 some difficulty to bear, some disappointment, 
 some cloud. Accept it as the mode in which you 
 are to give God thanks. Do not accept it in 
 any spirit of sullenness, as if God had only half- 
 forgiven you. He loves you as much as ever. 
 See that you love Him more than ever. Grow 
 in His love, and earth’s sorrows will lead you 
 onward in heavenly love. 
 
 June 15,1905. To a Friend.—Our Prayer, and 
 the Intercession of Christ. 
 
 Our Lord intercedes for us, but He does not 
 pray for us. He says expressly, “I say not that 
 I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Him- 
 self loveth you.” * 
 
 We can say our Father, praying in the Name 
 of Christ. God is our Father because He is 
 Christ’s Father, and we are Christ’s members ; 
 but we have to speak to God with all the confidence 
 of God’s children. Intercession does not neces- 
 
 t S. John xvii. 26, 27. 
 
Miscettangous LETTERS 165 
 
 sarily assume the form of prayer. We present 
 Christ before God, especially in Holy Eucharist, 
 although truly and equally in all our devotions. 
 But Christ does not present us before God as the 
 objects of His prayers. 
 
 God has given us to Christ as the reward of 
 His life of self-oblation upon the earth. During 
 that life He was praying for us, for you and me, 
 with divine foreknowledge of our needs; and 
 in His suffering He was accumulating, moment 
 after moment, those merits which after His glori- 
 fication would be an abiding treasury of grace for 
 His Church. 
 
 But when He commended His Spirit into the 
 hands of the Father, all was “ finished.’’ In the 
 power and virtue of those merits He descended 
 into hell. The prince of this world had nothing 
 in Him when He was hanging upon the Cross. 
 Christ descended, and had power by the Eternal 
 Spirit to crush the serpent’s head. 
 
 When He ascended up to heaven there was 
 nothing for Him to ask for. His Ascension was 
 a manifestation of the great truth, “* All things that 
 the Father hath are Mine.’”’* By the Ascension 
 His Humanity received all that belonged to Him 
 eternally as God. “All power is given unto Me 
 both in heaven and on earth.”’2 In the strength 
 of this power He bids His Apostles go forth and 
 evangelize all nations. They in the power of the 
 Holy Ghost are to extend His Body, the Church, 
 by gathering individuals into it, until the number 
 of His elect is complete ; so that all the treasure 
 of His accumulated merits may be distributed to 
 
 * S. John xvi. 15. 2 S. Matt. xxvii. 18. 
 
166 MIUscELLANEOUS LETTERS 
 
 
 
 the multitude of the elect, and His Church have 
 a life coextensive with the glory of His own Body. 
 By the Holy Ghost He wrought those merits in 
 His own Person, and by the Holy Ghost dwelling 
 in His Body He appropriates those merits to His 
 individual members, according to His divine pre- 
 destination, so that none of His merits goes un- 
 rewarded. ‘The Church in its multitude, and He 
 at the Head of the Body, are coextensive. All 
 that is His is ours. He does not obtain anything 
 for us by prayer to the Father, but He sends to us 
 the Holy Ghost, that we, as His members, may 
 ask the Father in His Name, and whatsoever we 
 ask in His Name, as His members, living by His 
 Spirit, the Father will give to us. 
 
 We often use the phrase that He pleads for 
 us, but pleading is not the same as praying. While 
 we pray, He pleads for us as claiming for us what 
 we require. he Father gives to us as His mem- 
 bers, while He the Head gives efficacy to our 
 prayers. When the Father answers our prayers, — 
 He is rewarded, for His glorious Headship is 
 recognized, while by the Holy Ghost He distri- 
 butes to us what He has already received per- 
 sonally. 
 
 He is a Priest upon His Throne—not a Priest 
 before the throne. His life on earth while He 
 approached the Father was a life of prayer. Now 
 He has entered with His own never-dying Blood 
 within the veil to sit upon the mercy-seat. The 
 sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist is not a repetition 
 of the oblation on Calvary, so that He as a Priest 
 obtains something. In Holy Eucharist we go within 
 the veil, and receive from Him that which is His. 
 
 
 
 
 
MiusceLtLtangous LEtTrers 167 
 
 
 
 He communicates to us that which we need. Huis 
 Body is the Ark of the Covenant, and while we 
 feed thereon we receive from Him the treasure 
 of grace which He has in Himself, and which He 
 distributes to us in proportion as we ask for it. 
 We pray to the Father in the power of the Holy 
 Ghost. We receive in the Incarnate Son, and the 
 Son is glorified by distributing to us, what He by 
 His earthly self-oblation has obtained. 
 
 It is a sad thing if any depreciate the necessity 
 of personal holiness. ‘The corporate holiness of 
 the Church is the sanctifying principle—the Holy 
 Ghost dwelling indissolubly in the Church, the life 
 of all the baptized. But we cannot share this 
 life except in proportion as we call it into individual 
 exercise personally for ourselves. The principle of 
 holiness is the same in us as in the Apostles ; thus 
 we must use that gift so as to be individually sanc- 
 tified as they were. Otherwise we shall be cut off 
 from the Body. 
 
 NoveMBER 22, 1905. Toa Lady.—On the Death 
 of an Unbaptized Child. 
 
 It is a sad thing when a child dies unbaptized. 
 It is, upon each occasion, a fresh proof how little 
 Christian people of the present day understand or 
 appreciate the value of their own regeneration. 
 
 It is not that we ought to be disquieted because 
 of the child. We may leave the child in God’s 
 hands. He loves the child much more than the 
 parents can; and they may trust God to do for 
 the child whatever is best, according to the capacity 
 of human nature redeemed by Christ and not tar- 
 
168 MiuscELLANEouS LETTERS 
 
 
 
 nished by any actual sin. Of this we may be quite 
 sure But the parents have to humble themselves 
 in penitence before God, for they have dishonoured 
 Him in neglecting the Sacrament which He has 
 ordained for the communication of His regenerat- 
 ing grace, so that He might be glorified by the 
 sanctification of that child as one of His own eternal 
 children. God gave them an opportunity of ad- 
 vancing His glory by giving their natural offspring 
 _to be made a member of Christ and a temple of the 
 Holy Ghost. They ought to mourn for the child, 
 not as if God were likely to look upon it in wrath, 
 but because it cannot now rise up to that divine 
 predestination of glory to which God in His love 
 was calling it, and they ought to feel penitence 
 for having allowed the accidents of nature to arrest 
 the progress of grace. They must seek to live in 
 the full consciousness of their own baptismal grace, 
 which, alas ! so few people do realize. The child’s 
 death should arouse them to live more earnestly 
 in thankfulness to God, as His children, for the 
 divine call of love which they have slighted, and 
 which now they must seek to realize more perfectly 
 as the spiritual foundation of their divine life, both 
 now in time, and hereafter in eternity. 
 
 Aprit 6, 1909. To a Priest.—On the Death of 
 his Father, 
 
 Earth passes away and all that we have loved, 
 but love remains in the eternity of God. The 
 vision of Easter becomes brighter and brighter as 
 the number of God’s elect becomes complete. We 
 have loved upon the earth, but dimness shrouds 
 
MisceLttanrous LETTERS 169 
 
 
 
 all the past. How intense will be the joys of know- 
 ing as we are known! When the dim veil of 
 flesh yields to the brightness of the indwelling 
 Presence of Jesus all that is of earth will have 
 passed away, and God shall be all in all. Oh, to 
 be buried with Christ! .The season of Holy 
 Week lifts up our hearts to realize death as being 
 only the door of a better life. 
 
 DECEMBER 31, 1912. Jo Miss Ellen Crawley, 
 Littlemore.—The Close of the Year. 
 
 [Written in weakness and blindness, and with difficulty. ] 
 
 Thank you for your greeting. The year closes, 
 but the forthshining of Divine Love is ever new, 
 and His blessing everlasting. 
 
’ > ae 
 
 sme 2) eo Pe 
 Nei : 
 
 La 
 
 ‘4 
 
 am CSerAt OG , pita! tas L, 
 
 F ’ > he P i peudr ret 
 ny hit que Php, "ys ; aA if Whe ie 
 ae a An eolatage 
 
 Sp 
 a aT) 
 mK Sh fe of 
 
 vu bed ' y 4 4) ¢ 
 
 Eaton 
 eV Cui. 
 
 ia \4 rae 
 
 4) 
 
 
 
INDEX 
 
 Age, old, 100. 
 Agnosticism, the true, 63. 
 Anselm, S., and the Passion, 53. 
 Apostolic spirit, 20. 
 Aquinas, Summa of, 63. 
 Ascension, the power of the, 4, 
 43, 70. 
 ‘3 Feast of the, 11, 61, 
 80. 
 “fs the joy of Christ in 
 heaven, 42, I13. 
 a the, and our inter- 
 cession, 61, 165. 
 ES the, and the Fire of 
 Pentecost, 99. 
 Asceticism, Christian, 145. 
 Assistance, Divine, reliance on, 
 16. 
 Athanasian Creed, the, 133. 
 
 Benson, Rev. R. M., his birth, v. 
 
 » his influence, v. 
 
 », his distrust of the pure- 
 ly contemplative life, 
 xX. 
 
 »  re-founder of the reli- 
 gious life for men, xi. 
 
 » his love of poverty, xii. 
 
 » his power of fasting, 
 Xill. 
 
 » his tenderness to others, 
 Xiil. 
 
 » a great theologian, xv. 
 
 »» a convinced Anglican, 
 Xv. 
 
 Bible, devotional use of, 6, 118, 
 159. 
 
 Catechism, the Church, 107. 
 Changes, 151. 
 Chastity, 147. 
 Christ, second coming of, 33. 
 pre theccalliOl,.477. 
 ys, our life, 40, 144, 147. 
 Sass jOy. On heavenu42.. 
 », presentation of in the 
 . Temple, 45. 
 » the historic and 
 mystical, 57, 58. 
 », the Head of His body, 
 78, 143. 
 SEV ICLOLY 100,00 3950 15 - 
 » acting not for Him, but 
 in Him, 91. 
 »» present glorification of 
 our nature in, 99. 
 55 joy of in His resurrec- 
 
 the 
 
 tion, II4. 
 »» power of His resurrec- 
 tion, IIS. 
 23)) 92088!) Olve Selfguin ant 43, 
 147- 
 
 »5 not personally distinct 
 from His members, 
 143, and note 2. 
 
 »» union with, 144. 
 
 », imitation of, 146. 
 
 », aPriestupon His throne, 
 166. 
 
 », patient waiting for, 73. 
 
 171 
 
172 
 Christendom, low standard of, 
 of. 
 ie disappointing 
 
 state of, 77. 
 Christianity, a life, xv. 
 
 os modern, a mock- 
 ery, II. 
 
 3 effect of upon na- 
 tions, 20. 
 
 evidences of, 24. 
 
 3) catholic, 67. 
 
 i miraculous char- 
 
 acter of, 104. 
 A not a philosophy, 
 161. 
 Christians, relation of to the 
 world, 152. 
 Christian Science, 157. 
 Christmas, 20, 97, IOT. 
 mh Eve, 21. 
 Church, disappointing state of, 
 
 51, 77- 
 » false idea of, (52% 
 »» in the last days, 52. 
 »» holiness of, 72. 
 » the, exists for Christ, 
 
 143. 
 the, and the world,153. 
 Close of the year, 169. 
 Communion of Saints, 78, 150. 
 power of, 
 gi. 
 in solitude, 
 92. 
 Communion, spiritual, 163. 
 Community development, coun- 
 sels on, 83. 
 Confirmation, letter to a boy on, 
 127. 
 Contemplation, 159. 
 Contemplative life, the, 154. 
 
 9? 32> 
 
 99 37 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Controversy, 48, 51. 
 Conversion, difficulty of, 25, 27. 
 7 the work of the 
 Holy Ghost, 39. 
 Conversions, the gift of God to 
 His Son, 26. 
 Cross, power of the, ro. 
 
 Death, 14, 100, 168. 
 », to the world, viii, 83, 93, 
 147. 
 3? to ‘self 72, Viens 
 145¢ 
 »» preparation for, 95. 
 », of an unbaptized child, 
 167. 
 Desertions, 15. 
 Detachment, vili, 12, 17. 
 Direction, spiritual, 128. 
 Direction does not involve mon- 
 astic obedience, 128. 
 Ditchingham, retreat at, 105. 
 Divine assistance, 16. 
 »» promises, 16. 
 
 Easter, 75, 81, 93, II5. 
 English work in India, 3. 
 Eternal punishment, 29, 32. 
 Eucharist and the Ascension, 
 
 fk 
 i Christ’s presence in, 
 148. 
 Expectation of growth in holi. 
 ness, 94. 
 
 Faith, superficial, 80. 
 Friendship, on earth and in 
 heaven, 134. 
 
 God, order and beauty of His 
 work, 9. 
 
INDEX 
 
 God, trust in, 13, 15. 
 
 gift of ourselves to, 112. 
 
 patient waiting upon,139. 
 » rest in, 160. 
 
 Good Friday, Sarum use of red 
 on, 54. 
 
 and Easter Day,75. 
 
 2? 
 
 > 
 
 9 99 
 
 Health, care of, 108. 
 Hebrews, Epistle tothe, 49, 108. 
 Hell,/30, 31. 
 Hidden life, power of in a mis- 
 sionary, 65. 
 Hiddenness, 56, 58. 
 Hinduism and Christianity, 86. 
 Holiness, growth in, 94. 
 sya | personaly 167: 
 
 Holy Ghost, dwelling in the 
 Church, 40. 
 personal presence 
 
 of, 73, 79: 
 the Spirit of pow- 
 er70: 
 our Guide 
 Truth, 79. 
 relation of to the 
 Father and the 
 Son, 89. 
 modern Greekand 
 Western teach- 
 
 9 
 
 into 
 
 99 
 
 ing on, 89. 
 4 » work of in Abso- 
 lution and in 
 
 prayer, 130. 
 
 the bond of union 
 between Christ 
 and His mem- 
 bers, 144. 
 
 Humility and chastity, 146. 
 
 39 
 
 Inertness, spiritual, 129. 
 
 
 
 173 
 
 Inquirers, conversation with, 
 TIO. 
 Intellectual temptations, 53. 
 Intercession, 18, 27, 38, 46. 
 RA of saints, 150. 
 
 Job, book of, ror. 
 
 Joy, 15, 24, 114. 
 
 in the Lord, 70, 71. 
 
 out of suffering, 97. 
 
 of our ascended Lord, 112. 
 
 in the growth of Christ’s 
 kingdom, 113. 
 
 of Christ in His resurrec- 
 tion, IT4. 
 
 Judgement and purgatory, 31. 
 
 accuracy and fulness 
 
 of, 59. 
 
 >> 
 
 9? 
 
 Kingdom of Christ, 5, 61, 112. 
 
 Labourers, parable of the, 21. 
 Last days, troubles of the, 52. 
 Life through death, viii, xvi, 
 49, 144. 
 », hidden in God, 56. 
 Little things, 36. 
 Loneliness, 8, II. 
 Love, need of in order to be- 
 lieve, 47. 
 
 Martyrs, value of, 23. 
 
 Meditation, 96. 
 
 Mesmerism, 71. 
 
 Misapprehension, 67. 
 
 Missionary life, struggle of, 6. 
 
 labour, results of, 34. 
 
 work, right method 
 of, 56. 
 
 Morality, natural, 142. 
 
 Mortification, 66. 
 
 3? 
 
 a” 
 
174 
 
 | 
 Mortification, external, 18, 145. 
 Mystical life, the power of, 62. 
 
 New Year, the, 116. 
 Nothingness, our, 17, I9, 20, 
 129. 
 
 Old age and death, roo. 
 
 O’Neill, Father, on the death of, 
 76. 
 
 some fruits of 
 his life, 76. 
 
 Organizations and life, 74. 
 
 Oxenham, H. N., Articles on 
 Catholic Eschatology and Uni- 
 versalism, 29. ° 
 
 39 9 
 
 Parishioners, letter to, 123. 
 Passion, the, and the glory of 
 Christ, 53, 99, 
 Passiontide, 64. 
 Patience, 37. 
 »» In waiting upon God, 
 72si130; 
 Peace, of the religious, 126. 
 Penance, sacrament of, 141. 
 Penitence, true, 156, 164. 
 Pentecostal hopes, 13. 
 Pictures, religious, 140. 
 Prayerjerg, i 7313'5- 
 ete Lords, 3c. 
 » and Christ’s interces- 
 sion, 164. 
 Preaching Christ in India, 84. 
 Predestinating love, 41. 
 Priestly life and work, 148. 
 Printed instructions, 68. 
 Profession, of Brother Herbert, 
 Tay. 
 Progress, spiritual, 111. 
 Providences, 4. 
 
 
 
 INDEX 
 
 
 
 Psalter, the, rrr. 
 Punishment, eternal, 29, 32. 
 Purgatory, 30, 31. 
 
 Reason and faith, 50. 
 
 Religion, true end of, 142. 
 
 Religious vocation, 125. | 
 
 hindrances to, 
 124,526; 
 128. 
 
 Renunciation, viii, x, Xll, Xiv. 
 
 Reparation for sins, 132. 
 
 99 bP] 
 
 | Resting in God, 160. 
 
 Resurrection, knowledge of, 93. 
 4 Christ’s joy in His, 
 
 II4. 
 power of Christ’s, 
 Tx | 
 99 hidden from the 
 
 world, 115. 
 Retreats, 82, 117, 137. 
 Ritual, 137, 147. 
 
 Sacrifice of our own will, 126. 
 Saints, intercession of, 23. 
 »» communion of, 78, gt. 
 Scripture, reading of, 6, 118, 
 158. 
 Sensible devotion, absence of, 
 136. 
 Sickness, discipline of, 3, 19. 
 » value of, 94. 
 » agreat Epiphany, 97. 
 Society of S. John the Evan- 
 gelist, unity of, 78. 
 Souls, how won, 67. 
 Spirit, gifts of the, 36. 
 Spiritual power, 17. 
 » life and work; 69. 
 » counsel, 128. 
 » growth, takes time,129. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Spiritual inertness, 129. 
 
 » communion, 163. 
 Spiritualism, 149, I51. 
 Suffering, joy out of, 97. 
 
 y bodily, 104. 
 Superficial faith, 80. 
 
 Temptation, 73. 
 } Christ’s, 74. 
 
 . during Lent, rrqQ. 
 a victory in continu- 
 ing, 139. 
 
 ‘Temptations, intellectual, 53. 
 Transfiguration, the, xvi, 117. 
 Trinity, the Eternal, so. 
 » fundamental impor- 
 tance of the doctrine 
 
 of, 55, 106. 
 » Western teaching on, 
 107. 
 Truth, supernatural conviction 
 aE Pine 
 
 » Divine, not demonstra- 
 ted by reason, 47. 
 
 », knowledge of by commu- 
 nion with God, 60. 
 
 », vital power of, 80. 
 
 Unbaptized child, death ot, 
 167. 
 Union in dispersion, 41. 
 Union with Christ, our, 144. 
 
 175 
 
 Union with Christ realized in 
 
 common devotions, 62. 
 Unity of the Spirit, 44. 
 
 - ssnmociety, (77.5. 
 Unworthiness, our, 144. 
 Unworthiness, our, not to hin- 
 
 der our work, 140. 
 
 Vocation, hindrances to, 124, 
 128. 
 ae religious, 125. 
 Voice of God, the, speaking 
 through us, 28. 
 
 Wakeful nights, 66. 
 Wandering thoughts, 129. 
 Weakness, God uses our, 46. 
 a does not hinder the 
 tepose of the soul 
 in God, 96. 
 io strength out of, ror. 
 Whitsuntide, 13, 78, 98, 103, 
 Lire 
 Will, sacrifice of, 126. 
 Wise, not many called, 131. 
 Work and spiritual life, 68. 
 Work, God’s, 36. 
 World, relation of a Christian 
 tO, 41.52: 
 », the, and the Church,153. 
 Worship, 137. 
 
 Xavier, S. Francis, 67. 
 
PRINTED BY A. R. MOWBRAY AND CO. LTD 
 LONDON AND OXFORD 
 
a 
 18 ar 
 a Thee 
 
 tm Si 
 
 
 
@ > poy 
 
 Ce aaa 4 : 
 
 eam |: 4 
 
 e~h iim 
 
 - | 
 =| Ver A) 
 cj ie ’ pond 45 
 f = 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A. 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
ae, 
 
 —_——= 
 
 ——eee 
 
 ————_ 5 
 ] 
 
 Tay