No-great men and little, we are all of us formed out of the same
clay and the same spirit is breathed into each one of us. We stand,
as it were, on different steps of the same ladder, which springs
from one and the same nature and reaches up to one and the same
God.-We may aggravate the original weakness of our nature by
yielding to it, or we may use the help offered to us and so develop
all the potential strength and beauty it possesses, but whichever
course we take, we can never completely destroy a single one of the
features of our complex humanity. No matter how degenerate on the
one hand, or perfect on the other, they may become, our fellow-men
never fail to be objects of warning or encouragement to us. The
resemblance we bear to one another affords us the means, while it
teaches us the necessity, of applying the lesson to ourselves. It
is under the influence of this conviction that the following essay
has been written. One by one the strange facts recorded in saints'
lives which were scouted by the hot-headed scepticism of a century
ago and considered to discredit all hagiography, are now recognised
as instances of well-known psychological manifestations. It is
little to the purpose that they are explained as due to hypnosis,
thought-transference, expectant attention, or other" word-causes";
the point is that, the philosophy which once denied these things as
superstitions, is now convicted of superstition in that very
denial. The tendency of this reaction to explain all the phenomena
in question by purely physiological or psychological laws needs to
be counteracted by a sounder criticism which shall fix the limits
of what may be so explained, and shall assign to Nature the things
that are Nature's and to God the things that are God's; and this is
the task to which M. Joly addresses himself in the little volume
which is here presented to the public in English dress. It will,
however, serve a no less important end if it enables educated
Catholics to approach the lives of the saints with a more
intelligent sympathy. The spiritual benefit derived from that study
depends obviously on the applicabiHty of their example to our own
case; and this again, on the resemblance we see between their
nature and circumstances and our own. It is this that spurs men to
emulate their betters in the various walks of life, -a desire to
equal or approach them, as well as a belief in the possibility of
the enterprise. When the saints are set before us rather as
wonderful than lovable; when we have no conception of the process
of their spiritual evolution, how from rudiments of sanctity which
are in us all, and by the aid of resources and faculties which we
all possess, they obtained a result so different; until we have
learnt to set aside all that is merely the clothing and expression
of sanctity, and to find that the underlying substance is simply
the love of God and of things Divine carried to an heroic degree;
we cannot expect to gain much definite profit from the study of
saints' lives. Nothing comes out more clearly in these pages than
that the saints themselves have been careful to separate from the
essence of sanctity those extraordinary gifts and" charismata" in
which it is vulgarly supposed to consist; and to place its whole
inner substance in an eminent or heroic degree of that charity
which is possessed by every soul in grace, and which St Paul sets
above tongues, above prophetic insight or foresight, above
miracles, even above martyrdom and self-sacrifice when they are
notthe fruits of charity.
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