 12. So much for the human love aroused by the faith state. Let me next speak of the equanimity, fortitude, and patience which it brings. A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result, and it is easy, even without being religious oneself, to understand this. A moment back, in treating of the sense of God's presence, I spoke of the unaccountable feeling of safety which one may then have. And indeed, how can it possibly fail to steady the nerves, to cool the fever, and appease the fret, if one is sensibly conscious that, no matter what one's difficulties for the moment may appear to be, one's life as a whole is in the keeping of a power whom one can absolutely trust. In deeply religious men, the abandonment of self to this power is passionate. Whoever not only says, but feels, God's will be done, is mailed against every weakness, and the whole historic array of martyrs, missionaries, and religious reformers is there to prove the tranquil mindedness under naturally agitating or distressing circumstances which self surrender brings. The temper of the tranquil mindedness differs, of course, according as the person is of a constitutionally somber or of a constitutionally cheerful cast of mind. In the somber, it partakes more of resignation and submission. In the cheerful, it is a joyous consent. As an example of the former temper, I quote part of a letter from Professor Lagnau, a venerated teacher of philosophy who lately died, a great invalid at Paris. Quote, My life, for the success of which you send good wishes, will be what it is able to be. I ask nothing from it, I expect nothing from it. For long years now, I exist, think, and act, and am worth what I am worth, only through the despair which is my soul strength and my soul foundation. May it preserve for me, even in these last trials to which I am coming, the courage to do without the desire of deliverance. I ask nothing more from the source whence all strength cometh, and if that is granted, your wishes will have been accomplished. Close quote. There is something pathetic and fatalistic about this, but the power of such a tone as a protection against outward shocks is manifest. Pascal is another Frenchman of pessimistic natural temperament. He expresses still more amply the temper of self-surrending submissiveness. He writes in his prayers, quote, Deliver me, Lord, from the sadness at my proper suffering which self-love might give, and put into me a sadness like your own. Let my sufferings appease your collar. Make them an occasion for my conversion and salvation. I ask you neither for health, nor for sickness, for life, nor for death, but that you may dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for your glory, for my salvation, and for the use of the church and of your saints, of whom I would by your grace be one. You alone know what is expedient for me. You are the sovereign master. Do with me according to your will. Give to me, or take away from me. Only conform my will to yours. I know but one thing, Lord, that it is good to follow you and bad to offend you. Apart from that, I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world. That discernment is beyond the power of men or angels, and is hidden among the secrets of your providence which I adore, but do not seek to fathom. When we reach more optimistic temperaments, the resignation grows less passive. Examples are sown so broadcast throughout history that I might as well pass on without citation. As it is, I snatch at the first that occurs to my mind. Madame Guyon, a frail creature physically, was yet of a happy native disposition. She went through many perils with admirable serenity of soul. After being sent to prison for heresy, she writes, Some of my friends wept bitterly at the hearing of it, but such was my state of acquiescence and resignation that it failed to draw any tears from me. There appeared to be in me then, as I find it to be in me now, such an entire loss of what regards myself that any of my own interests gave me little pain or pleasure, ever wanting to will or wish for myself only the very thing which God does. In another place she writes, We all of us came near perishing in a river which we found it necessary to pass. The carriage sank in the quicksand. Others who were with us threw themselves out in excessive fright. But I found my thoughts so much taken up with God that I had no distinct sense of danger. It is true that the thought of being drowned passed across my mind, but it cost no other sensation or reflection in me than this, that I felt quite contented and willing it were so, if it were my Heavenly Father's choice. Sailing from Nice to Genoa, a storm keeps her 11 days at sea, she writes, As the irritated waves dashed around us, I could not help experiencing a certain degree of satisfaction in my mind. I pleased myself with thinking that these mutinous billows, under the command of him who does all things rightly, might probably furnish me with a watery grave. Perhaps I carried the point too far in the pleasure which I took in the scene myself beaten and bandied by the swelling waters. Those who were with me took notice of my intrepidity. The contempt of danger which religious enthusiasm produces may be even more buoyant still. I take an example from that charming recent autobiography with Christ at Sea by Frank Boulin, a couple of days after he went through the conversion on shipboard of which he there gives an account. He writes, quote, it was blowing stiffly and we were carrying a press of canvas to get north out of the bad weather. Shortly after four bells we hauled down the flying jib and I sprang out astride the boom to furl it. I was sitting astride the boom when suddenly it gave way with me. The sail slipped through my fingers and I fell backwards hanging head downwards over the seething tumult of shining foam under the ship's bows suspended by one foot. But I felt only high exultation in my certainty of eternal life. Although death was divided from me by a hare's breath and I was acutely conscious of the fact, it gave me no sensation but joy. I suppose I could have hung there no longer than five seconds, but in that time I lived a whole age of delight. But my body asserted itself and with a desperate gymnastic effort I regained the boom. How I furl the sail I don't know, but I sang at the utmost pitch of my voice praises to God that went peeling out over the dark waste of waters. Close quote. The annals of martyrdom are of course the signal field of triumph for religious imperturbability. Let me cite as an example the statement of a humble sufferer persecuted as a Huguenot under Louis XIV. Blanche Gaumont writes quote they shut all the doors and I saw six women each with a bunch of willow rods as thick as the hand could hold and a yard long. He gave me the order undress yourself which I did. He said you are leaving on your shift you must take it off. They had so little patience that they took it off themselves and I was naked from the waist up. They brought a cord with which they tied me to a beam in the kitchen. They drew the cord tight with all their strength and asked me does it hurt you and then they discharged their fury upon me exclaiming as they struck me pray now to your God. It was the roulette woman who held this language but at this moment I received the greatest consolation that I can ever receive in my life since I had the honor of being whipped for the name of Christ and in addition of being crowned with his mercy and his consolations. Why can I not write down the inconceivable influences, consolations, and peace which I felt interiorly? To understand them one must have passed by the same trial they were so great that I was ravished for there where afflictions abound grace is given super abundantly. In vain the women cried we must double his blows she does not feel them for she neither speaks nor cries and how should I have cried since I was swooning with happiness within. The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry to equanimity, receptivity, and peace is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium those changes of the personal center of energy which I have analyzed so often and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about not by doing but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down. This abandonment of self-responsibility seems to be the fundamental act in specifically religious as distinguished from moral practice. It anti-dates theologies and is independent of philosophies. Mind cure, theosophy, stoicism, ordinary neurological hygiene insist on it as emphatically as Christianity does and it is capable of entering into closest marriage with every speculative creed. Christians who have it strongly live in what is called recollection and are never anxious about the future nor worry over the outcome of the day. Of St. Catherine of Genoa it is said that she took cognizance of things only as they were presented to her in succession moment by moment. To her holy soul the divine moment was the present moment and when the present moment was estimated in itself and in its relations and when the duty that was involved in it was accomplished it was permitted to pass away as if it had never been and to give way to the facts and duties of the moment which came after. Hinduism, mind cure and theosophy all lay great emphasis upon this concentration of the consciousness upon the moment at hand. The next religious symptom which I will note is what I have called purity of life. The saintly person becomes exceedingly sensitive to inner inconsistency or discord and mixture and confusion grow intolerable. All the mind's objects and occupations must be ordered with reference to the special spiritual excitement which is now its keynote. Whatever is unspiritual taints the pure water of the soul and is repugnant. Mixed with this exaltation of the moral sensibilities there is also an ardor of sacrifice for the beloved deity's sake of everything unworthy of him. Sometimes the spiritual ardor is so sovereign that purity is achieved at a stroke. We have seen examples. Usually it is a more gradual conquest. Billy Bray's account of his abandonment of tobacco is a good example of the latter form of achievement. Quote, I had been a smoker as well as a drunkard and I used to love my tobacco as much as I loved my meat and I would rather go down into the mine without my dinner than without my pipe. In the days of old the Lord spoke by the mouths of his servants the prophets. Now he speaks to us by the spirit of his son. I had not only the feeling part of religion but I could also hear the small still voice within speaking to me. When I took the pipe to smoke it would be applied within. It is an idol, a lust, worship the Lord with clean lips. So I felt it was not right to smoke. The Lord also sent a woman to convince me. I was one day in a house and I took out my pipe to light it at the fire and to marry Hawk, for that was the woman's name, said, do you not feel it is wrong to smoke? I said that I felt something inside me telling that it was an idol, a lust, and she said that was the Lord. Then I said now I must give it up, for the Lord is telling me of it inside and the woman outside so the tobacco must go. Love it as I may. There and then I took the tobacco out of my pocket and threw it into the fire and put the pipe under my foot, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and I have not smoked since. I found it hard to break off old habits but I cried to the Lord for help and he gave me strength for he said, call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee. The day after I gave up smoking I had the toothache so bad that I did not know what to do. I thought this was owing to giving up the pipe but I said I would never smoke again if I lost every tooth in my head. I said, Lord Thou hast told us my yoke is easy and my burden is light and when I said that all the pain left me. Sometimes the thought of the pipe would come back to me very strong but the Lord strengthened me against the habit and bless his name I have not smoked since. Close quote. Bray's biographer writes that after he had given up smoking he thought that he would chew a little but he conquered this dirty habit too. Bray said quote on one occasion when at a prayer meeting at Hicks Mill I heard the Lord say to me worship me with clean lips so when we got up from our knees I took the quid out of my mouth and whipped in under the form but when we got on our knees again I put another quid into my mouth then the Lord said to me again worship me with clean lips so I took the quid out of my mouth and whipped in under the form again and said yes Lord I will from that time I gave up chewing as well as smoking and have been a free man. Close quote. The ascetic forms which the impulse for veracity and purity of life may take are often pathetic enough. The early Quakers for example had hard battles to wage against the worldliness and insincerity of the ecclesiastical Christianity of their time. Yet the battle that cost them most wounds was probably that which they fought in defense of their own right to social veracity and sincerity in their theing and vowing in not doffing the hat or giving titles of respect. It was late on George Fox that these conventional customs were a lie and a sham and the whole body of his followers thereupon renounced them as a sacrifice to truth and so that their acts and the spirit they professed might be more in accord. Says Fox in his journal. Quote. When the Lord sent me into the world he forbade me to put off my hat to any high or low and I was required to thee and thou all men and women without any respect to rich or poor great or small and as I traveled up and down I was not to bid people good morning or good evening. Neither might I bow or scrape with my leg to anyone. This made the sects and professions rage. Oh the rage that was in the priests, magistrates, professors and people of all sorts and especially the priests and professors. For though thou to a single person was according to their acedence and grammar rules and according to the Bible yet they could not bear to hear it and because I could not put off my hat to them it set them all into a rage. Oh the scorn heat and fury that arose. Oh the blows, punches, beatings and imprisonments that we underwent for not putting off our hats to men. Some had their hats violently plucked off and thrown away so that they quite lost them. The bad language and evil usage we received on this account is hard to be expressed besides the danger we were sometimes in of losing our lives for this matter and that by the great professors of Christianity who thereby discovered that they were not true believers and though it was but a small thing in the eye of man yet a wonderful confusion it brought among all professors and priests but blessed be the Lord many came to see the vanity of that custom of putting off hats to men and felt the weight of truth's testimony against it. Close quote in the autobiography of Thomas Elwood and early Quaker who at one time was secretary to John Milton we find an exquisitely quaint and candid account of the trials he underwent both at home and abroad in following Fox's cannons of sincerity. The anecdotes are too lengthy for citation but Elwood sets down his manner of feeling about these things in a shorter passage which I will quote as a characteristic utterance of spiritual sensibility. Says Elwood quote by this divine light then I saw that though I had not the evil of the common uncleanliness debauchery profaneness and pollutions of the world to put away because I had through the great goodness of God and a civil education been preserved out of those grosser evils yet I had many other evils to put away and to cease from some of which were not by the world which lies in wickedness accounted evils but by the light of Christ were made manifest to me to be evils and as such condemned in me as particularly those fruits and effects of pride that discover themselves in the vanity and superfluity of apparel which I took too much delight in this evil of my doings I was required to put away and cease from and judgment lay upon me till I did so I took off from my apparel those unnecessary trimmings of lace ribbons and useless buttons which had no real service but were set on only for that which was by mistake called ornament and I ceased to wear rings again the giving of flattering titles to men between whom and me there was not any relation to which such titles could be pretended to belong this was an evil I had been much addicted to and was accounted a ready artist in therefore this evil also was I required to put away and cease from so that thence forward I durst not say sir master my lord madam or my dame or say your servant to anyone to whom I did not stand in the real relation of a servant which I had never done to any again respective persons in uncovering the head and bowing the knee or body in salutation was a practice I had been much in the use of and this being one of the vain customs of the world introduced by the spirit of the world instead of the true honor which this is a false representation of and used in deceit as a token of respect by persons one to another who bear no real respect one to another and besides this being a type and a proper emblem of that divine honor which all ought to pay to Almighty God and which all of all sorts and take upon them the Christian name appear in when they offer their prayers to him and therefore should not be given to me I found this to be one of those evils which I had been too long doing therefore I was now required to put it away and cease from it again the corrupt and unsound form of speaking in the plural number to a single person you to one instead of thou contrary to the pure plain and single language of truth thou to one and you to more than one which had always been used by God to men and men to God as well as one to another from the oldest record of time till corrupt men for corrupt ends in latter and corrupt times to flatter fawn and work upon the corrupt nature in men brought in that false and senseless way of speaking you to one which has since corrupted the modern languages and hath greatly debased the spirits and depraved the manners of men this evil custom I had been as forward in as others and this I was now called out of and required to cease from these and many more evil customs which had sprung up in the night of darkness and general apostasy from the truth and true religion were now by the in shining of this pure ray of divine light in my conscience gradually discovered to me to be what I ought to cease from shun and stand a witness against close quote these early quakers were puritans indeed the slightest inconsistency between profession and deed jarred some of them to active protest john wolman writes in his diary quote in these journeys I have been where much cloth hath been died and have at sundry times walked over ground where much of their dye stuffs has drained away this hath produced a longing in my mind that people might come into cleanness of spirit cleanness of person and cleanness about their houses and garments dies been invented partly to please the eye and partly to hide dirt I have felt in this weak state when traveling and dirtiness and affected with unwholesome sense a strong desire that the nature of dying cloth to hide dirt may be more fully considered washing our garments to keep them sweet is cleanly but it is the opposite to real cleanliness to hide dirt in them through giving way to hiding dirt in our garments a spirit which would conceal that which is disagreeable is strengthened real cleanliness become a holy people but hiding that which is not clean by coloring our garments seems contrary to the sweetness of sincerity through some sorts of dies cloth is rendered less useful and if the value of dye stuffs and expensive dying the damage done to cloth were all added together and that cost applied to keeping all sweet and clean how much more would real cleanliness prevail thinking often on these things the use of bats and garment dies with a dye hurtful to them and wearing more clothes in summer than are useful grew more uneasy to me believing them to be customs which have not their foundation and pure wisdom the apprehension of being singular from my beloved friends was a straight upon me and thus I continued in the use of some things contrary to my judgment about nine months then I thought of getting a hat the natural color of the fur but the apprehension of being looked upon as one affecting singularity felt uneasy to me on this account I was under close exercise of mind in the time of our general spring meeting in 1762 greatly desiring to be rightly directed when being deeply bowed in spirit before the Lord I was made willing to submit to what I apprehended was required of me and when I returned home got a hat of the natural color of the fur in attending meetings this singularity was a trial to me and more especially at this time as white hats were used by some who were fond of following the changeable modes of dress and as some friends who knew not from what motives I wore it grew shy of me I felt my way for a time shut up in the exercise of the ministry some friends were apprehensive that my wearing such a hat savored of an effective singularity those who spoke with me in a friendly way I generally informed in a few words that I believed my wearing it was not in my own will close quote when the craving for moral consistency and purity is developed to this degree the subject may will find the outer world too full of shocks to dwell in and can unify his life and keep his soul unspotted only by withdrawing from it that law which impels the artist to achieve harmony in his composition by simply dropping out whatever jars or suggests a discord rules also in the spiritual life to omit says Stevenson is the one art in literature quote if I knew how to omit I should ask no other knowledge close quote and life when full of disorder and slackness and vague superfluity can no more have what we call character then literature can have it under similar conditions so monasteries and communities of sympathetic devotees open their doors and in their changeless order characterized by omissions quite as much as constituted of actions the holy minded person finds that inner smoothness and cleanness which it is torture to him to feel violated at every turn by the discordancy and brutality of secular existence that the scrupulosity of purity made be carried to a fantastic extreme must be admitted in this it resembles asceticism to which further symptom of saintliness we had better turn next the adjective ascetic is applied to conduct originating on diverse psychological levels which I might as well begin by distinguishing from one another one asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardy hood disgusted with too much ease to temperance in meat and drink simplicity of apparel chastity and non-pampering of the body generally may be fruits of the love of purity shocked by whatever savers of the sensual three they may also be fruits of love that is they may appeal to the subject in the light of sacrifices which he is happy in making to the deity whom he acknowledges for again ascetic mortifications and torments may be due to pessimistic feelings about the self combined with theological beliefs concerning expiation the devotee may feel that he is buying himself free or escaping worse sufferings hereafter by doing penance now five in psychopathic persons mortifications may be entered on irrationally by a sort of obsession or fixed idea which comes as a challenge and must be worked off because only thus does the subject get his interior consciousness feeling right again six finally ascetic exercises may in rarer instances be prompted by genuine perversions of the bodily sensibility in consequence of which normally pain giving stimuli are actually felt as pleasures i will try to give an instance under each of these heads in turn but it is not easy to get them pure for in cases pronounced enough to be immediately classed as ascetic several of the assigned motives usually work together moreover before citing any examples at all i must invite you to some general psychological considerations which apply to all of them alike a strange moral transformation has within the past century swept over our western world we no longer think that we are called on to face physical pain with equanimity it is not expected of a man that he should either endure it or inflict much of it and to listen to the recital of cases of it makes our flesh creep morally as well as physically the way in which our ancestors looked upon pain as an eternal ingredient of the world's order and both caused and suffered it as a matter of course portion in their day's work fills us with amazement we wonder that any human beings could have been so callous the result of this historic alteration is that even in the mother church herself or ascetic discipline has such a fixed traditional prestige as a factor of merit it has largely come into destitute if not discredit a believer who flagellates or macerates himself today arouses more wonder and fear than emulation many catholic writers who admit that the times have changed in this respect do so resignedly and even add that perhaps it is as well not to waste feelings in regretting the matter for to return to the heroic corporeal discipline of ancient days might be an extravagance where to seek the easy and the pleasant seems instinctive and instinctive it appears to be in man any deliberate tendency to pursue the hard and painful as such and for their own sakes might well strike one as purely abnormal nevertheless in moderate degrees it is natural and even unusual to human nature to court the arduous it is only the extreme manifestations of the tendency that can be regarded as a paradox the psychological reasons for this lie near the surface when we drop abstractions and take what we call our will in the act we see that it is a very complex function it involves both stimulations and inhibitions it follows generalized habits it is escorted by reflective criticisms and it leaves a good or a bad taste of itself behind according to the manner of the performance the result is that quite apart from the immediate pleasure which any sensible experience may give us our own general moral attitude in procuring or undergoing the experience brings with it a secondary satisfaction or distaste some men and women indeed there are who can live on smiles and the word yes forever but for others indeed foremost this is too tepid and relaxed a moral climate passive happiness is slack and insipid and soon grows mockish and intolerable some austerity and wintry negativity some roughness danger stringency and effort some no no must be mixed in to produce the sense of an existence with character and texture and power the range of individual differences in this respect is enormous but whatever the mixture of yeses and knows may be the person is infallibly aware when he has struck it in the right proportion for him this he feels is my proper vocation this is the optimum the law the life for me to live here i find the degree of equilibrium safety calm and leisure which i need and here i find the challenge passion fight and hardship without which my soul's energy expires every individual soul in short like every individual machine or organism has its own best conditions of efficiency a given machine will run best under a certain steam pressure a certain average an organism under a certain diet weight or exercise you seem to do best i heard a doctor say to a patient at about 140 millimeters of arterial tension and it is just so with our sundry souls some are happiest in calm weather some need the sense of tension of strong volition to make them feel alive and well for these latter souls whatever is gained from day to day must be paid for by sacrifice and inhibition or else it comes too cheap and has no zest now when characters of this latter sort become religious they are apt to turn the edge of their need of effort and negativity against their natural self and the ascetic life gets evolved as a consequence when professor tendall in one of his lectures tells us that thomas carlyle put him into his bathtub every morning of a freezing burlin winter he proclaimed one of the lowest grades of asceticism even without carlyle most of us find it necessary to our soul's health to start the day with a rather cool immersion a little farther along the scale we get such statements as this from one of my correspondence and agnostic quote often at night in my warm bed i would feel ashamed to depend so on the warmth and whenever the thought would come over me i would have to get up no matter what time of night it was and stand for a minute in the cold just so as to prove my manhood close quote such cases as these belong simply to our head one in the next case we probably have a mixture of heads two and three the asceticism becomes far more systematic and pronounced the writer is a protestant whose sense of moral energy could doubtless be gratified on no lower terms and i take his case from starbucks manuscript collection quote i practiced fasting and mortification of the flesh i secretly made burlap shirts and put the burrs next to the skin and wore pebbles in my shoes i would spend nights flat on my back on the floor without any covering close quote the roman church has organized and codified all this sort of thing and given it a market value in the shape of merit but we see the cultivation of hardship cropping out under every sky and in every faith as a spontaneous need of character thus we read of channing when first settled as a unitarian minister that quote he was now more simple than ever and seemed to have become incapable of any form of self-indulgence he took the smallest room in the house for his study though he might easily have commanded one more light airy and in every way more suitable and chose for his sleeping chamber an attic which he shared with a younger brother the furniture of the latter might have answered for the cell of an anchorite and consisted of a hard mattress on a cot bedstead plain wooden chairs and table with matting on the floor it was without fire and too cold he was throughout life extremely sensitive but he never complained or appeared in any way to be conscious of inconvenience says his brother i recollect after one most severe night that in the morning he sportively thus alluded to his suffering if my bed were my country i should be somewhat like bonaparte i have no control except over the part which i occupy the instant i move frost takes possession in sickness only would he change for the time his apartment and accept few comforts the dress too that he habitually adopted was of most inferior quality and garments were constantly worn which the world would call mean though an almost feminine neatness preserved him from the least appearance of neglect Channing's asceticism such as it was was evidently a compound of hardy hood and love of purity the democracy which is an offshoot of the enthusiasm of humanity and of which i will speak later under the head of the cult of poverty doubtless bore also a share certainly there was no pessimistic element in his case in the next case we have a strongly pessimistic element so that belongs under head four john scenic was methodisms first lay preacher in 1735 he was convicted of sin while walking in cheapskine quote and at once left off song singing card playing and attending theaters sometimes he wished to go to a popish monastery to spend his life in devout retirement at other times he longed to live in a cave sleeping on fallen leaves and feeding on forest fruits he fasted long and often and prayed nine times a day fancing dry bread too great an indulgence for so great a sinner as himself he began to feed on potatoes acorns crabs and grass and often wished that he could live on roots and herbs at length in 1737 he found peace with god and went on his way rejoicing closing quote in this poor man we have morbid melancholy and fear and the sacrifices made are to purge out sin and to buy safety the hopelessness of christian theology in respect of the flesh and the natural man generally has in systematizing fear made of it one tremendous incentive to self-mortification it would be quite unfair however in spite of the fact that this incentive has often been worked in a mercenary way for hortatory purposes to call it a mercenary incentive the impulse to expiate and do penance is in its first intention far too immediate and spontaneous an expression of self-despair and anxiety to be obnoxious to any such reproach in the form of loving sacrifice of spending all we have to show our devotion ascetic discipline of the severest sort may be the fruit of highly optimistic religious feeling m viani the cure of arse was a french country priest whose holiness was exemplary we read in his life the following account of his inner need of sacrifice m viani said quote on this path it is only the first step that costs there is in mortification a balm and a savor without which one cannot live when once one has made their acquaintance there is but one way in which to give oneself to god that is to give oneself entirely and to keep nothing for oneself the little that one keeps is only good to trouble one and make one suffer accordingly he imposed it on himself that he should never smell a flower never drink when parched with thirst never drive away a fly never show disgust before a repugnant object never complain of anything that had to do with his personal comfort never sit down never lean upon his elbows when he was kneeling the cure of arse was very sensitive to cold but he would never take means to protect himself against it during a very severe winter one of his missionaries contrived a false floor to his confessional and placed a metal case of hot water beneath the trick succeeded but the saint was deceived god is very good he said with emotion this year through all the cold my feet have always been warm close quote in this case the spontaneous impulse to make sacrifices for the pure love of god was probably the uppermost conscious motive we may class it then under our head three some authors think that the impulse to sacrifice is the main religious phenomenon it is a prominent a universal phenomenon certainly and lies deeper than any special creed here for instance is what seems to be a spontaneous example of it simply expressing what seemed right at the time between the individual and his maker cotton mather the new england puritan divine is generally reputed a rather grotesque pendant yet what is more touchingly simple than his relation of what happened when his wife came to die he says quote when I saw to what a point of resignation I was now called of the lord I resolved with his help therein to glorify him so two hours before my lovely consort expired I kneeled by her bedside and I took into my two hands a dear hand the dearest in the world with her thus in my hands I solemnly and sincerely gave her up unto the lord and in token of my real resignation I gently put her out of my hands and laid away a most lovely hand resolving that I would never touch it more this was the hardest and perhaps the bravest action that ever I did she told me that she signed and sealed my act of resignation and though before that she called for me continually she after this never asked for me any more close quote father Viani's asceticism taken in its totality was simply the result of a permanent flood of high spiritual enthusiasm longing to make proof of itself the roman church has in its incomparable fashion collected all the motives towards asceticism together and so codified them that anyone wishing to pursue christian perfection may find a practical system mapped out for him in any one of a number of ready made manuals the dominant church notion of perfection is of course the negative one of avoidance of sin sin proceeds from concupiscence and concupiscence from our carnal passions and temptations chief which are pride sensuality and all its forms and the loves of worldly excitement and possession all these sources of sin must be resisted and discipline and austerities are a most efficacious mode of meeting them hence there are always in these books chapters on self-mortification but whatever a procedure is codified the more delicate spirit of it evaporates and if we wish the undiluted ascetic spirit the passion of self-contempt reeking itself upon the poor flesh the divine irrationality of devotion making a sacrificial gift of all it has the sensibilities namely to the object of its adoration we must go to autobiographies or other individual documents saint john of the cross a spanish mystic who flourished or rather who existed for there was little that suggested flourishing about him in the 16th century will supply a passage suitable for our purpose quote first of all carefully excite in yourself an habitual affectionate will in all things to imitate jesus christ if anything agreeable offers itself to your senses yet does not at the same time tend purely to the honor and glory of god renounce it and separate yourself from it for the love of christ who all his life long had no other taste or wish than to do the will of his father whom he called his meat and nourishment for example you take satisfaction in hearing of things in which the glory of god bears no part deny yourself this satisfaction mortify your wish to listen you take pleasure in seeing objects which do not raise your mind to god refuse yourself this pleasure and turn away your eyes the same with conversations and all other things act similarly so far as you are able with all the operations of the senses striving to make yourself free from their yolks the radical remedy lies in the mortification of the four great natural passions joy hope fear and grief you must seek to deprive these of every satisfaction and leave them as it were in darkness and the void let your soul therefore turn always not to what is most easy but to what is hardest not to what tastes best but to what is most distasteful not to what most pleases but to what disgusts not to matter of consolation but to matter for desolation rather not to rest but to labor not to desire the more but the less not to aspire to what is highest and most precious but to what is lowest and most contemptible not to will anything but to will nothing not to seek the best in everything but to seek the worst so that you may enter the love of christ into a complete destitution a perfect poverty of spirit and an absolute renunciation of everything in this world embrace these practices with all the energy of your soul and you will find in a short time great delights and unspeakable consolations despise yourself and wish that others should despise you speak to your own disadvantage and desire others to do the same conceive a low opinion of yourself and find it good when others hold the same to enjoy the taste of all things have no taste for anything to know all things learn to know nothing to possess all things resolve to possess nothing to be all things be willing to be nothing to get to where you have no taste for anything go through whatever experiences you have no taste for to learn to know nothing go whether you are ignorant to reach what you possess not go whether so ever you own nothing to be what you are not experience what you are not close quote these later verses play with that vertical of self-contradiction which is so dear to mysticism those that come next are completely mystical for in them saint john passes from god to the more metaphysical notion of the all quote when you stop at one thing you cease to open yourself to the all for to come to the all you must give up the all and if you should attain to owning the all you must own it desiring nothing in this spoliation the soul finds its tranquility and rest profoundly established in the center of its own nothingness it can be assailed by not that comes from below and since it no longer desires anything what comes from above cannot depress it for its desires alone are the causes of its woes close quote and now as a more concrete example of heads four and five in fact of all our heads together and of the irrational extreme to which a psychopathic individual may go in the line of bodily austerity i will quote the sincere suso's account of his own self-tortures suso you will remember was one of the 14th century german mystics his autobiography written in a third person is a classic religious document quote he was in his youth of a temperament full of fire and life and when this began to make itself felt it was very grievous to him and he sought by many devices how he might bring his body into subjection he wore for a long time a hair shirt and an iron chain until the blood ran from him so that he was obliged to leave them off he secretly caused an undergarment to be made for him and in the undergarment he had strips of leather fixed into which 150 brass nails pointed and filed sharp were driven and the points of the nails were always turned towards the flesh he had this garment made very tight and so arranged so as to go around him and fasten in front in order that it might fit the closer to his body and the pointed nails might be driven into his flesh and it was high enough to reach upwards to his navel in this he used to sleep at night now in summer when it was hot and he was very tired and ill from his journeys or when he held the office of lecturer he would sometimes as he lay thus in bonds and oppressed with toil and tormented also by noxious insects cry aloud and give way to fretfulness and twist round and round in agony as a worm does when run through with a pointed needle it often seemed to him as if he were lying upon an ant hill from the torture caused by the insects for if he wished to sleep or when he had fallen asleep they vied with one another sometimes he cried to Almighty God in the fullness of his heart alas gentle God what a dying this is when a man is killed by murders or strong beasts of pray it is soon over but I lie dying here under the cruel insects and yet cannot die the nights and winter were never so long nor was the summer so hot as to make him leave off this exercise on the contrary he devised something farther two leather loops into which he put his hands and fastened one on each side his throat and made the fastenings so secure that even if his cell had been on fire about him he could not have helped himself this he continued until his hands and arms had become almost tremulous with the strain and then he devised something else two leather gloves and he caused a brazier to fit all over with sharp pointed brass tacks and he used to put them on at night in order that if he should try while asleep to throw off the hair under garment or relieve himself from the nines of the vile insects the tacks might then stick into his body and so it came to pass if ever he sought to help himself with his hands and his sleep he drove the sharp tacks into his breast and tore himself so that his flesh festered when after many weeks the wounds had healed he tore himself again and made fresh wounds he continued this tormenting exercise for about 16 years at the end of this time when his blood was now chilled and the fire of his temperament destroyed there appeared to him in a vision on which sunday a messenger from heaven who told him that god required this of him no longer whereupon he discontinued it and threw all these things away into a running stream close quote suso then tells how to emulate the sorrows of his crucified lord he made himself a cross with 30 protruding iron needles and nails this he bore on his bare back between his shoulders day and night quote the first time that he stretched out this cross upon his back his tender frame was struck with terror at it and blunted the sharp nails slightly against the stone but soon repenting of this womanly cowardice he pointed them all again with a file and placed once more the cross upon him it made his back where the bones are bloody and seared whenever he sat down or stood up it was as if a hedgehog's skin were on him if anyone touched him unawares or pushed against his clothes it tore him close quote suso next tells of his penitences by means of striking this cross and forcing the nails deeper into the flesh and likewise of his self scourgings a dreadful story and then goes on as follows quote at this same period the servitor procured an old castaway door and he used to lie upon it at night without any bedclothes to make him comfortable except that he took off his shoes and wrapped a thick cloak around him he thus secured for himself a most miserable bed for hard pea stalks lay in lumps under his head the cross with the sharp nails stuck into his back his arms were locked fast in bonds the horsehair undergarment was round his loins and the cloak too was heavy and the door hard thus he lay in wretchedness afraid to stir just like a log and he would send up many a sigh to god in winter he suffered very much from the frost if he stretched out his feet they lay bare on the floor and froze if he gathered them up the blood became all on fire in his legs and this was great pain his feet were full of sores his legs dropsicle his knees bloody and seared his loins covered with scars from the horsehair his body wasted his mouth parched with intense thirst and his hands tremulous from weakness amid these torments he spent his nights and days and he adored them all out of the greatness of the love which he bore in his heart to the divine and eternal wisdom our lord jesus christ who's agonizing sufferings he sought to imitate after a time he gave up this penitential exercise of the door and instead of it he took up his abode in a very small cell and used the bench which was so narrow and short that he could not stretch himself upon it as his bed in this hole or upon the door he lay at night in his usual bonds for about eight years it was also his custom during the space of 25 years provided he was staying in the convent never to go after complying in winter into any warm room or to the convent stove to warm himself no matter how cold it might be unless he was obliged to do so for other reasons throughout all these years he never took a bath either with water or a sweating bath and this he did in order to mortify his comfort seeking body he practiced during a long time such rigid poverty that he would never receive nor touch a penny either with leave or without it for a considerable time he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body save only his hands and feet close quote i spare you the recital of poor suso's self-inflicted tortures from thirst it is pleasant to know that after his 40th year god showed him by a series of visions that he had sufficiently broken down the natural man and that he might leave these exercises off his case is distinctly pathological but he does not seem to have had the alleviation which some ascetics have enjoyed of an alteration of sensibility capable of actually turning torment into a perverse kind of pleasure on the founder of the sacred heart order for example we read that quote her love of pain and suffering was insatiable she said that she could cheerfully live till the day of judgment provided she might always have matter for suffering for god but that to live a single day without suffering would be intolerable she said again that she was devoured with two unassuageable fevers one for the holy communion the other for suffering humiliation and annihilation nothing but pain she continually said in her letters makes my life supportable close quote end of lecture 12 lecture 13 of the varieties of religious experience this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the varieties of religious experience by William James lecture 13 saintliness so much for the phenomena to which the ascetic impulse will in certain persons give rise in the ecclesiastically consecrated character three minor branches of self-mortification have been recognized as indispensable pathways to perfection i refer to the chastity obedience and poverty which the monk vows to observe and upon the heads of obedience and poverty i will make a few remarks first of obedience the secular life of our 20th century opens with this virtue held in no high esteem the duty of the individual to determine his own conduct and profit or suffer by the consequences seems on the contrary to be one of our best rooted contemporary Protestant social ideals so much so that it is difficult even imaginatively to comprehend how men possessed of an inner life of their own could have ever come to think the subjection of its will to that of other finite creatures recommendable i confess that to myself it seems something of a mystery yet it evidently corresponds to a profound interior need of many persons and we must do our best to understand it on the lowest possible plane one sees how the expediency of obedience in a firm ecclesiastical organization must have led to its being viewed as meritorious next experience shows that there are times in everyone's life when one can be better counseled by others than by oneself inability to decide is one of the commonest symptoms of fatigue denerves friends who see our troubles more broadly often see them more wisely than we do so it is frequently an act of excellent virtue to consult and obey a doctor a partner or a wife but leaving these lower prudential regions we find in the nature of some of the spiritual excitements which we have been studying good reasons for idealizing obedience obedience may spring from the general religious phenomenon of inner softening and self-surrender and throwing oneself on higher powers so saving are these attitudes felt to be that in themselves apart from utility they become ideally consecrated and in obeying a man whose fallibility we see through thoroughly we nevertheless may feel much as we do when we resign our will to that of infinite wisdom add self-despair and the passion of self-crucifixion to this and obedience becomes an ascetic sacrifice agreeable quite irrespective of whatever prudential uses it may have it is a sacrifice a mode of mortification that obedience is primarily conceived by Catholic writers a sacrifice which man offers to God and of which he is himself both the priest and the victim by poverty he immolates his exterior possessions by chastity he immolates his body by obedience he completes the sacrifice and gives to God all that he yet holds as his own his two most precious goods his intellect and his will the sacrifice is then complete and unreserved a genuine holocaust for the entire victim is now consumed for the honor of God accordingly in Catholic discipline we obey our superior not as mere man but as the representative of Christ obeying God in him by our intention obedience is easy but when the textbook theologians marshal collectively all their reasons for recommending it the mixture sounds to our ears rather odd says a Jesuit authority quote one of the great consolations of the monastic life is the assurance we have that in obeying we can commit no fault the superior may commit a fault in commanding you to do this thing or that but you are certain that you commit no fault so long as you obey because God will only ask you if you have duly performed what orders you received and if you can furnish a clear account on that respect you are absolved entirely whether the things you did were opportune or whether there were not something better that might have been done these are questions not asked of you but rather of your superior the moment what you did was done obediently God wipes it out of your account and charges it to the superior so that saint Jerome well exclaimed in celebrating the advantages of obedience oh sovereign liberty oh holy and blessed security by which one becomes almost impeccable saint john clemicus is of the same sentiment when he calls obedience an excuse before god in fact when god asks why you have done this or that and you reply it is because i was so ordered by my superiors god will ask for no other excuse as a passenger in a good vessel with a good pilot need give himself no further concern but may go to sleep in peace because the pilot has charge over all and watches over him so a religious person who lives under the yoke of obedience goes to heaven as if while sleeping that is while leaning entirely on the conduct of his superiors who are the pilots of his vessel and keep watch for him continually it is no small thing of a truth to be able to cross the stormy sea of life on the shoulders and in the arms of another yet that it is just the grace which god accords to those who live under the yoke of obedience their superior bears all their burdens a certain grave doctor said that he would rather spend his life in picking up straws by obedience than by his own responsible choice busy himself with the loftiest works of charity because one is certain of following the will of god in whatever one may do from obedience but never certain in the same degree of anything which we may do of our own proper movement close quote one should read the letters in which Ignatius Loyola recommends obedience as the backbone of his order if one would gain insight into the full spirit of its cult they are too long to quote but Ignatius's belief is so vividly expressed in a couple of sayings reported by companions that though they have been so often cited i will ask your permission to copy them once more an early biographer reports him as saying quote i ought on entering religion and thereafter to place myself entirely in the hands of god and of him who takes his place by his authority i ought to desire that my superior should oblige me to give up my own judgment and conquer my own mind i ought to set up no difference between one superior and another but recognize them all as equal before god whose place they fill for if i distinguish persons i weaken the spirit of obedience in the hands of my superior i must be a soft wax a thing from which he is to require whatever pleases him be it to write or receive letters to speak or not to speak to such a person or the like and i must put all my fervor in executing zealously and exactly what i am ordered i must consider myself as a corpse which has neither intelligence nor will be like a mass of matter which without resistance lets itself be placed wherever it may please anyone like a stick in the hand of an old man who uses it according to his needs and places it where it suits him so must i be under the hands of the order to serve it in the way it judges most useful i must never ask of the superior to be sent to a particular place to be employed in a particular duty i must consider nothing as belonging to me personally and as regards the things i use be like a statue which lets itself be stripped and never opposes resistance close quote close quote the other saying is reported by rodriguez in the chapter from which i a moment ago made quotations when speaking of the pope's authority rodriguez writes quote saint ignatius said when general of his company that if the holy father were to order him to set sail in the first bark which he might find in the port of ostia near rome and to abandon himself to the sea without a mast without sails without ores or rudder or any of the things that are needful for navigation or subsistence he would obey not only with alacrity but without anxiety or repugnance and even with a great internal satisfaction close quote with a solitary concrete example of the extravagance to which the virtue we are considering has been carried i will pass to the topic next in order quote sister marie claire of port royale had been greatly imbued with the holiness and excellence of m day lungray this prelate soon after he came to port royale said to her one day seeing her so tenderly attached to mother angelique that it would perhaps be better not to speak to her again marie claire greedy of obedience took this inconsiderate word for an oracle of god and from that day forward remained for several years without once speaking to her sister close quote our next topic will be poverty felt at all times and under all creeds as one adornment of a saintly life since the instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature this is one more example of the ascetic paradox yet it appears no paradox at all but perfectly reasonable the moment one recollects how easily higher excitement holds lower cupidities in check having just quoted the jessuit rodriguez on the subject of obedience i will to give immediately a concrete turn to our discussion of poverty also read you a page from his chapter on this latter virtue you must remember that he is writing instructions for monks of his own order and bases them all on the text blessed are the poor in spirit he says quote if any one of you will know whether or not he is really poor in spirit let him consider whether he loves the ordinary consequences and effects of poverty which are hunger thirst cold fatigue and the denudation of all conveniences see if you are glad to wear a worn out habit full of patches see if you are glad when something is lacking to your meal when you are passed by and serving it when what you receive is distasteful to you when your cell is out of repair if you are not glad of these things if instead of loving them you avoid them then there is proof that you have not attained the perfection of poverty of spirit close quote rodriguez then goes on to describe the practice of poverty in more detail quote the first point is that which saint ignatius proposes in his constitutions when he says let no one use anything as if it were his private possession he says a religious person ought in respect to all the things that he uses to be like a statue which one may drape with clothing but which feels no grief and makes no resistance when one strips it again it is in this way that you should feel towards your clothes your books your cell and everything else that you make use of if order to quit them or to exchange them for others have no more sorrow than if you were a statue being uncovered in this way you will avoid using them as if they were your private possession but if when you give up your cell or yield possession of this or that object or exchange it for another you feel repugnance and are not like a statue that shows that you view these things as if they were your private property and this is why our holy founder wished the superiors to test their monks somewhat as god tested abraham and to put their poverty and their obedience to trial that by this means they may become acquainted with the degree of their virtue and gain a chance to make ever farther progress in perfection making the one move out of his room when he finds it comfortable and is attached to it taking away from another a book of which he is fond or obliging a third to exchange his garment for a worse one otherwise we should end by acquiring a species of property in all these several objects and little by little the wall of poverty that surrounds us and constitutes our principal defense would be thrown down the ancient fathers of the desert used often thus to treat their companions saint dosytheus being sick nurse desired a certain knife and asked saint dorotheus for it not for his private use but for employment in the infirmary of which he had charge whereupon saint dorotheus answered him ha dosytheus so that knife pleases you so much will you be the slave of a knife or the slave of jesus christ do you not blush with shame at wishing that a knife should be your master i will not let you touch it which reproach and refusal had such an effect upon the holy disciple that since that time he never touched the knife again close quote father audrigus continues quote therefore in our rooms there must be no other furniture than a bed a table a bench and a candlestick things purely necessary and nothing more it is not allowed among us that our cells should be ornamented with pictures or odd else either armchairs carpets curtains nor any sort of cabinet or bureau of any elegance neither is it allowed us to keep anything to eat either for ourselves or for those who may come to visit us we must ask permission to go to the refectory even for a glass of water and finally we may not keep a book in which we can write a line or which we may take away with us we cannot deny that thus we are in great poverty but this poverty is at the same time a great repose and a great perfection for it would be inevitable in case a religious person were allowed to own superfluous possessions that these things would greatly occupy his mind be it to acquire them to preserve them or to increase them so that in not permitting us at all to own them all these inconveniences are remedied among the various good reasons why the company forbids secular persons to enter our cells the principal one is that thus we may the easier be kept in poverty after all we are all men and if we were to receive people of the world into our rooms we should not have the strength to remain within the bounds prescribed and should at least wish to adorn them with some books to give the visitors a better opinion of our scholarship close quote since hindu faqirs buddhist monks and mohammedan dervishes unite with jesuits and franciscans in idealizing poverty as the loftiest individual state it is worthwhile to examine into the spiritual grounds for such a seemingly unnatural opinion and first of those which lie closest to common human nature the opposition between the men who have and the men who are is immemorial though the gentleman in the good old fashioned sense of the man who is well-born has usually in point of fact been predacious and reveled in lands and goods yet he has never identified his essence with these possessions but rather with the personal superiority the courage generosity and pride supposed to be his birthright to certain huckstering kinds of consideration he thanked god he was forever inaccessible and if in life's vicissitudes he should become destitute through their lack he was glad to think that with his sheer valor he was all the freer to work out his salvation vierner selbst was heiter says lessing's temple hair in nathan the wise mein Gott mein Gott ich hab an its this ideal of the well-born man without possessions was embodied in knight erentry and templar dumb and hideously corrupted as it has always been it still dominates sentimentally if not practically the military and aristocratic view of life we glorify the soldier as the man absolutely unencumbered owing nothing but his bare life and willing to toss that up at any moment when the cause commands him he is the representative of unhampered freedom in ideal directions the laborer who pays with his person day by day and has no rights invested in the future offers also much of this ideal detachment like the savage he may make his bed wherever his right arm can support him and from his simple and athletic attitude of observation the property owner seems buried and smothered in ignoble externalities and trammels waiting in straw and rubbish to his knees the claims which things make are corruptors of manhood mortgages on the soul and a drag anchor on our progress toward the impirion whitefield writes quote everything i meet with seems to carry this voice with it go thou and preach the gospel be a pilgrim on earth have no party or certain dwelling place my heart echoes back lord jesus help me to do or suffer thy will when thou seist me in danger of nestling in pity in tender pity put a thorn in my nest to prevent me from it close quote the loathing of capital with which our laboring classes today are growing more and more infected seems largely composed of this sound sentiment of antipathy for lives based on mere having as an anarchist poet writes quote not by accumulating riches but by giving away that which you have shall you become beautiful you must undo the wrappings not case yourself in fresh ones not by multiplying clothes shall you make your body sound and healthy but rather by discarding them for a soldier who is going on a campaign does not seek what fresh furniture he can carry on his back but rather what he can leave behind knowing well that every additional thing which he cannot freely use and handle is an impediment close quote in short lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or on being and in the interest of action people subject to spiritual excitement throw away possessions as so many clogs only those who have no private interests can follow an ideal straight away sloth and cowardice creep in with every dollar or guinea we have to guard when a brother novice came to st francis saying father it would be a great consolation to me to own a salter but even supposing that our general should concede to me this indulgence still i should like also to have your consent francis put him off with the exchanges of charlemagne roland and oliver pursuing the infidels in sweat and labor and finally dying on the field of battle he said so care not for owning books and knowledge but care rather for works of goodness and when some weeks later the novice came again to talk of his craving for the salter francis said after you have got your salter you will crave a breviary and after you have got your breviary you will sit in your stall like a grand prelate and will say to your brother hand me my breviary and thence forward he denied all such requests saying a man possesses of learning only so much as comes out of him in action and a man is a good preacher only so far as his deeds proclaim him such for every tree is known by its fruits close quote but beyond this more worthily athletic attitude involved in doing and being there is in the desire of not having something profound or still something related to that fundamental mystery of religious experience the satisfaction found in absolute surrender to the larger power so long as any secular safeguard is retained so long as any residual prudential guarantee is clung to so long the surrender is incomplete the vital crisis is not passed fear still stands sentinel and mistrust of the divine obtains we hold by two anchors looking to god it is true after a fashion but also holding by our proper machinations in certain medical experiences we have the same critical point to overcome a drunkard or a morphine or cocaine maniac offers himself to be cured he appeals to the doctor to wean him from his enemy but he dares not face blank abstinence the tyrannical drug is still an anchor to the windward he hides supplies of it among his clothes arranges secretly to have it smuggled in in case of need even so an incompletely regenerate man still trusts in his own expedience his money is like the sleeping potion which the chronically wakeful patient keeps beside his bed he throws himself on god but if he should need the other help there it will be also everyone knows cases of this incomplete and ineffective desire for reform drunkards whom with all their self reproaches and resolves one proceeds to be quite unwilling seriously to contemplate never being drunk again really to give up anything on which we have relied to give it up indefinitely for good and all and forever signifies one of those radical alterations of character which come under our notice in the lectures on conversion in it the inner man rolls over into an entirely different position of equilibrium lives in a new center of energy from this time on and the turning point and hinge of all such operations seems usually to involve the sincere acceptance of certain nakedness and destitutions accordingly throughout the annals of the saintly life we find this ever recurring note fling yourself upon god's providence without making any reserve whatever take no thought for the morrow sell all you have and give it to the poor only when the sacrifices ruthless and reckless well the higher safety really arrive as a concrete example let me read a page from the biography of Antoinette Boregnon a good woman much persecuted in her day by both Protestants and Catholics because she would not take a religion at second hand when a young girl in her father's house quote she spent whole nights in prayer after repeating lord what wilt thou have me to do and being one night in a most profound penitence she said from the bottom of her heart oh my lord what must i do to please thee for i have nobody to teach me speak to my soul and it will hear thee at that instant she heard as if another had spoke within her for sake all earthly things separate thyself from the love of the creatures deny thyself she was quite astonished not understanding this language and mused long on these three points thinking how she could fulfill them she thought she could not live without earthly things nor without loving the creatures nor without loving herself yet she said by the grace i will do it lord but when she would perform her promise she knew not where to begin having thought on the religious and monasteries that they forsook all earthly things by being shut up in a cloister and the love of themselves by subjecting of their wills she asked leave of her father to enter into a cloister of the barefoot carmelites but he would not permit it saying he would rather see her laid in a grave this seemed to her a great cruelty for she thought to find in the cloister the true christians she had been seeking but she found afterwards that he knew the cloisters better than she for after he had forbidden her he told her he would never permit her to be a religious nor give away any money to enter there yet she went to father laurens the director and offered to serve in the monastery and work hard for her bread and be content with little if he would receive her at which he smiled and said that cannot be we must have money to build we take no maids without money you must find the way to get it else there is no entry here this astonished her greatly and she was thereby undeceived as to the cloisters resolving to forsake all company and live alone until it should please god to show her what she ought to do and wither to go she asked always earnestly when shall i be perfectly thine oh my god and she thought he still answered her when thou shalt no longer possess anything and shalt die to thyself and where shall i do that lord he answered her in the desert this made so strong an impression on her soul that she aspired after this but being a maid of 18 years only she was afraid of unlucky chances and was never used to travel and knew no way she laid aside all these doubts and said lord thou wilt guide me how and where shall please thee it is for thee that i do it i will lay aside my habit of a maid and i will take that of a hermit that i may pass unknown having been secretly made ready this habit while her parents thought to have married her her father having promised her to a rich french merchant she prevented the time and on Easter evening having cut her hair put on the habit and slept a little she went out of her chamber about four in the morning taking nothing but one penny to buy bread for that day and it's being said to her on the going out where is thy faith in a penny she threw it away begging pardon of god for her fault and saying no lord my faith is not in a penny but in thee alone thus she went away holy delivered from the heavy burden of the cares and good things of this world and found her soul so satisfied that she no longer wished for anything upon earth resting entirely upon god with this only fear lest she should be discovered and be obliged to return home for she felt already more content in this poverty than she had done for all her life in the delights of the world close quote footnote another example from starbucks manuscript collection quote at a meeting held at six the next morning i heard a man relate his experience he said the lord asked him if he would confess christ among the quarrymen with whom he worked and he said he would then he asked him if he would give up to be used of the lord the four hundred dollars he had laid up and he said he would and thus the lord saved him the thought came to me at once that i had never made a real consecration either of myself or of my property to the lord that had always tried to serve the lord in my way now the lord asked me if i would serve him in his way and go out alone and penniless if he so ordered the question was pressed home and i must decide to forsake all and have him or have all and lose him i soon decided to take him and the blessed assurance came that he had taken me for his own and my joy was full i returned home from the meeting with feelings as simple as a child i thought all would be glad to hear of the joy of the lord that possessed me and so i began to tell the simple story but to my great surprise the pastors for i attended meetings in three churches opposed the experience and said it was fanaticism and one told the members of his church to shun those that professed it and i soon found that my foes were those of my own household close quote and footnote the penny was a small financial safeguard but an effective spiritual obstacle not till it was thrown away could the character settle into the new equilibrium completely over and above the mystery of self-surrender there are in the cult of poverty other religious mysteries there is the mystery of veracity naked came i into the world etc whoever first said that possessed this mystery my own bear entity must fight the battle shams cannot save me there is also the mystery of democracy or sentiment of the equality before god of all his creatures this sentiment which seems in general to have been more widespread in mohammedan than in christian lands tends to nullify man's usual acquisitiveness those who have it spurned dignities and honors privileges and advantages preferring as i said in a former lecture to grovel on the common level before the face of god it is not exactly the sentiment of humility though it comes so close to it in practice it is humanity rather refusing to enjoy anything that others do not share the profound moralist writing of christ saying sell all thou hast and follow me proceeds as follows quote christ may have meant if you love mankind absolutely you will as a result not care for any possessions whatever and this seems a very likely proposition but it is one thing to believe that a proposition is probably true it is another thing to see it as a fact if you loved mankind as christ loved them you would see his conclusion as a fact it would be obvious you would sell your goods and they would be no loss to you these truths while literal to christ and to any mind that has christ's love for mankind become parables to lesser natures there are in every generation people who be getting innocently with no predetermined intention of becoming saints find themselves drawn into the vortex by their interest in helping mankind and by the understanding that comes from actually doing it the abandonment of their old mode of life is like dust in the balance it is done gradually incidentally imperceptibly thus the whole question of the abandonment of luxury is no question at all but a mere incident to another question namely the degree to which we abandon ourselves to the remorseless logic of our love for others close quote but in all these matters of sentiment one must have been there oneself in order to understand them no american can ever attain to understanding the loyalty of a britain towards his king of a german towards his emperor nor can a britain or german ever understand the peace of heart of an american in having no king no kaiser no spurious nonsense between him and the common god of all if sentiments as simple as these mysteries which one must receive as gifts of birth how much more is this the case with those subtler religious sentiments which we have been considering one can never fathom an emotion or divine its dictates by standing outside of it in the glowing hour of excitement however all incomprehensibilities are solved and what was so enigmatic from without becomes transparently obvious each emotion obeys a logic of its own and makes deductions which no other logic can draw piety and charity live in a different universe from worldly lusts and fears and form another center of energy all together as in a supreme sorrow lesser vexations may become a consolation as a supreme love may turn minor sacrifices into gain so a supreme trust may render common safeguards odious and in certain glows of generous excitement it may appear unspeakably mean to retain one's hold of personal possessions the only sound plan if we are ourselves outside the pale of such emotions is to observe as well as we are able those who feel them and to record faithfully what we observe and this I need hardly say is what I have striven to do in these last two descriptive lectures which I now hope will have covered the ground sufficiently for our present needs end of lecture 13