men, like the Prophet, are placed upon their watch tower and light their beacons on the heights. Each receives and transmits the sacred flame, trimming it in rivalry of his predecessor and fully purposed to send it on as bright as it has reached him, and thus the selfsame fire once kindled on Moriah, though seeming at intervals to fail, has at length reached us in safety and will in like manner, as we trust, be carried forward even to the end.1 'In like manner.' What manner? The question lies there. How is the world to be made Christian-in due measure? How is the sum of evil to be lessened? How is Christ preached, or, ought He to be preached, in fact? The short and definite answer, including and overshadowing all others, is, of course, The secret power of Divine Grace,' 'The will and blessing of Him who revealed it, and who distinctly promised that He would be present with it and with its preachers even to the end." 66 This, of course, is the great high reason, this our glory, this our boast, this the guarantee of success, this the justification, the supreme raison d'être of the Carmelite, the Colletine, and the Carthusian; this, too, the stern 'wherefore' of the need in us all of some participation in their 'better part.' 'But it is useful to inquire into the human means by which His Providence acts in the world, in order to take a practical view of events as they successively come before us in the course of human affairs, and to understand our duty in particulars.'s (in 'Our duty in particulars '-there is the beauty of it, ' in particulars.' Not in phrases, not in thinking imperially a spiritual sense), not in the general blessed words wake up!' addressed to all and sundry, but in particulars.' To me here and now, in my little village lodging, or my city square, or in my school-so far so ever I be and how much removed from the madding crowd, or so immersed in the maelstrom of its hurry. 'What am I to do?' tremblingly asks the soul awakened. What can I do here in such a place as this?' asks some worn-out worker, cynicized and embittered and sinking, like Peter, in a wave of unfaith. 'Do!' thunders out Carlyle and all his kidney. 'Do!' and then he proffers his bucket of bran when we cry for bread. Do? 'Do what lieth to your hand to do.' 'Do?' gravely echoes the Archbishop of Canterbury, Do? Why! wake up and convert 1 Newman, University Sermons, 'Personal Influence,' sec. 35. 2 Ibid. sec. 3. • Ibid. VOL. X-14 England. Dieu le veult.' 'Do? says the Bishop of London; 'why, do as I do.' 'Do?' say the writer and the preacher. Why! come back to Christ!' Carlyle, in Meredith's phrase, gives us of his 'branfulness'; Canterbury, a rich sonorousness and a French tag; London, a relinquishment of Fulham Palace and the magnificent Pharisaism of his own public sack-cloth, always with an ermine lining; and writers of essays and preachers, a truism. And so we stand all the day idle, and so we are the dispirited soldiers of a lost cause, mourning shattered hopes with a desponding whisper.' And yet there was One who said, 'Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves-BE YE therefore It is not, and never was, a question of doing-so few of us can do much. It is a question of being something which we can all be, whether we be great or little, rich or poor, clever or the reverse. It is in an inherent moral power, in virtue in some shape or other that the secret lies,' not in great place or power or vast influence or oratory-for no flesh shall glory in His sight-not by books or argument, but by the personal influence of such as are the patterns of it, and because they are the patterns of it, and only because so, are its teachers.. 'It is the very scheme of the Gospel,' says Butler,' 'that each Christian should in his degree contribute towards continuing and carrying it out.' And how so? By being himself in his life an exponent and pattern of it. And, indeed, is not all propaganda based on that very scheme. Man is ever emulative and imitative. Consider any of the thousand petty interests of life, how furthered, how percolated, how spread and made the norm of society. Consider any of them, from the Oxford manner down to that more mechanical form of human activity, proficiency in billiards, and how are they spread but by some one who is the very pattern of them-not by books or platitudes or sonorous periods, but by the living power of a personal influence, a kind of individual, concrete and again personal tradition. Accent, dress, principles, prejudices, maxims, aphorisms, our very sins, we catch them all, red-hot and vibrant, from the living models, from the breathing patterns of them. One, Arnold of Rugby, gives a distinct cachet to a 1 Analogy, Part 2, cap. 1. whole section of English public life; one Curwen interjects himself into the educational curriculum of an empire; one, O'Growney, changes the aspect and moulds anew the aspirations of an Ireland; one broken-down Spanish soldier -Ignatius was his name-revivified anew the Church of God, and, as principles are impartial, one, Diderot, all but engulfed France in his own slime. One enthusiast anywhere throws a halo of glory about his subject, which slowly but inevitably permeates 'till the whole mass is leavened.' It is ever the same, always the same, individual, personal, and concrete. And if it be so in secular matters, what shall we say of the awful power and influence exerted by unconscious holiness. It is urgent and irresistible; it persuades the weak and timid, the wavering and the inquiring; it draws forth the affection and loyalty of all who are in a measure like-minded, and over the thoughtless or perverse multitude it exercises a sovereign and compulsory sway, bidding them fear and keep silence on the ground of its own divine right to rule them, its hereditary claim upon their obedience though they understand not the principles or counsels of that spirit, which is born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.1 Is it not so, in fact? Proud as the world is, heedless as it may be or rather that agglomeration of individuals which is called the world-still it remains but individuals, each with a heart of his own, alone, distinct, independent, and, in the long run, assuredly naturaliter Christianus. And when to such is presented the living pattern of holiness, and they gaze on the beauty of it, scent its majesty, realize its rarity, consistency, its height and might, its depth and its breadth, its unshakable strength, its selfsacrifice, and the great heart of its pity, they pause and are checked and abashed and won. And then, as they gaze further, they catch half-hints, or guess at the glory of the vision that he must see; they grope after a dynamic that makes him so strong, so quietly confident, so unafraid; they wonder at the indomitable fortitude, gasp at the obsessing splendour of that which his eyes see and his hands handle, and thus are led ultimately to long for, to struggle for what they thought so far and so unsubstantial, and which they now see almost within their grasp. Thus would they glorify God in His servant, and all this, while they themselves would be changing into that glorious image which they gazed upon, and be in training to succeed him in its propagation.' ' 1 Newman, op. cit. sec. 33. 2 Ibid If all this be true, is there not many a heartening con clusion in it? Anybody can take his share of it any where: on the plains of Meath, in the glens of Kerry, in the slums of Glasgow, in a mountain parish as well as in Imperial Rome, in a two-roomed lodging as in a palace. For this is certain, the influence of anybody-his personal influence -no matter how great or how small be his position, is a limited thing, and one man's differs little in extent from that of another. The least important member of a community, is as great in this matter as its head, a village as good a vantage-ground for the exhibition of it as a great city, a leaking church designed, built, and cared for in the teeth of allGoban Saor's' genial dicta, as great a platform and shrine for it as Westminster Cathedral. It is independent of place, of power, it has opportunity wherever it has a single other being in proximity to it. Fabrics, buildings, places without it are barren wildernesses, and where it is, all these things are added. Pigmies are pigmies still, Though perched on Alps, Moreover, such considerations lead us to be satisfied with the humblest and most obscure lot, by showing us not only that we may be the instruments of much good in it, but that, strictly speaking, we could scarcely, in any situation, be direct instruments of good to any besides those who personally know us. Nay, it has happened before now that comparatively retired posts have been filled by those who have exerted the most extensive influence over the destinies of religion in the times following them, as in the arts and pursuits of this world the great benefactors of mankind are frequently unknown.1 Eugenists would never have allowed the frail, sickly Newton to live, and spiritual Eugenists, who long for pinnacles and great place in order to let themselves go,' may yet awake to discover that where they are is their Indies,'' and that the bare-footed child or the girl in the shawl, whom they now think little of, may, in the cycle of this world's ups and downs, prove themselves Renans or Messalinas, where they might have been, in a more spiritually sight-seeing world, Newmans or Teresas. Grace ever works by the few. It is the keen vision, the intense conviction, the indomitable resolve of the few; it is the blood of the martyr, it is the prayer of the saint, it is the heroic deed, it is the concentrated 1 Newman, op. cit. sec. 37. 2 Reply of St. Philip Neri's confessor, when asked as to whether his penitent ought to go to the Indies: 'Rome is your Indies.' energy of a word or of a look, it is the momentary crisis which is ever the instrument of Heaven. Fear not, little flock, for He is mighty who is in the midst of you, and will do for you great things.1 Great things!' What are they? and where? In our very hands, if we would but look at them through the eyes of him in whose memory the following postscript is written : TO ONE WHO DIED IN FLANDERS. He was a great, clean-limbed boy, aged 26 last St. Stephen's Day. He was a convert of two years-I was his chaplain. One night he was called for very dangerous work. Before he started, he gave me two packets-one for his mother, the other for myself. He never came back. I opened my parcel and found his New Testament. It is before me now. I find two pages of writing papers inserted in the binding preceding the text, and they are covered with his neat handwriting. I transcribe them :— TO MY CRUCIFIX. The very God! Think, Abib, dost thou think! BROWNING,An Epistle." TO A CRIB AT CHRISTMAS. Then felt I like some watcher of the skies TO THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT. And in the strength of this I rode Shattering all evil customs everywhere, KEATS. And past through pagan realms and made them mine, No more doll's decorations for the man or woman with whom the Spirit has left his terrible sword as a gift. WRITER UNKNOWN. It is only with a measure of wild daring or mad ideals in some of us that we can be sure of a common measure of courage in the rest of us. It is not over the virtues of a curate and tea-party novel that men are abashed into high resolutions. STEVENSON, Virginibus Puerisque, English Admirals.' 'DESMOND O'NEILL.' 1 Present Position of Catholics, ix. |