Lignum vitae

“ And now some will ask, "But why all this discipline of the body and restraint of the tongue? Surely the Higher Life can be realized and known without such strenuous labor, such incessant effort and watchfulness?" No, it cannot. In the spiritual as the material, nothing is done without labor, and the higher cannot be known until the lower is fulfilled. Can a man make a table before he has learned how to handle a tool and drive a nail? And can a man fashion his mind in accordance with Truth before he has overcome the slavery of his body? ”

“ And he thus, in his most deliberate and systematic mood, shows very clearly how deeply he has realized the dignity of the human body, as the instrument both for the development of the soul itself and for the work of that soul in and upon the visible world. ”

“ But if you are united to and resigned to God's will, you will realize that your superiors are likewise resigned to the dispositions of divine providence, and that they recognize the fact that you are a burden, not through indolence, but by the will of God. Ah, how often these desires and these laments are born, not of the love of God, but of the love of self! How many of them are so many pretexts for fleeing the will of God! Do we want to please God? When we find ourselves confined to our sickbed, let us utter this one prayer: "Thy will be done." ”

“ I will only point out how different was your education, and how you profited by it and have come to excel in looks, strength, justice, and temperance. By your active life you achieved perfect health; your temperance was the result of obedience to the laws; you enjoy a body of unusual strength by reason of your self-control, and a soul of unusual rectitude because of your physical powers of endurance. You left nothing undone to improve your natural talents, but ever acquired new talents by new studies. ”

“ A young man who has contracted a habit of sin will not abandon it even in his old age. ” His bones," says Job, ” shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust." ”

“ The choice of a state of life is compared by Father Lewis of Grenada to the mainspring in a watch: if the mainspring be broken, the whole watch is out of order; and the same holds good with regard to our salvation—if the state of life be out of order, the whole life is out of order too. Alas, how many poor youths have lost their vocation through their parents, and have afterwards come to a bad end, and have themselves proved the ruin of their family! ”

“ They master the soul by manipulating the body. Not that self-examination, honest and careful recognition of sins and weaknesses in presence of temptation, have no place in the prolonged course of discipline. This is inculcated with instructions which serve to make it detailed, intense, almost scientific. The pupil is ordered to examine himself twice a day, in the afternoon and in the evening, and to make clear to himself every sin and failure that has marked his day’s life. ”

“ A father owes two obligations to his children; he is bound to provide for their corporal wants, and to educate them in habits of virtue. It is not necessary at present to say more on the first obligation, than that there are some fathers more cruel than the most ferocious of wild beasts; for these do not forget to nourish their offspring; but certain parents squander away in eating and drinking, and gaming, all their property, or all the fruits of their industry, and allow their children to die of hunger. But let us come to the education, which is the subject of my discourse. ”

“ The force of the will, the vigour of the personality, the impulse of the spirit in its becoming, this is the wondrous power which galvanises matter and organically quickens it; which sustains life, equips it, and fits it for its march towards ever renewed, ever improved finalities. It is not temperament which is the basis of character, but character which is the basis of temperament. If we reverse this proposition, every moral conception of life becomes absurd, and every spiritual value appears ineffectual. ”

“ We do not keep an account of God’s graces; but the Lord keeps an account of them; he measures them; and when he sees them despised to a certain degree, he leaves the soul in her sins, and takes her out of life in that miserable state. ” For what things a man shall sow those also shall he reap." (Gal. vi. 8.) From labours undertaken for the attainment of posts of honour and emolument, for the acquisition of property and of worldly applause, we reap nothing at the hour of death: all are then lost. We gather fruits of eternal life only from works performed, and tribulations suffered for God. ”

“ Meanwhile, the Creator, who is the greatest of levellers, has given to every human being both a physical system, needing to be kept in order by physical labor, and an intellectual or brain power, needing to be kept in order by brain labor. Work, use, employment, is the condition of health in both; and he who works either to the neglect of the other lives but a half-life, and is an imperfect human being. ”

“ If the constructive principle is active in the physical as well as in the moral and spiritual realms, then the established harmonic relationship of the physical to the constructive law of its being must constitute the morality of the physical; and from this it follows that the achievement of health on the physical plane is as much under our conscious and voluntary control as the working out of our individual salvation on the higher planes of life. ”

“ We have, within our limits, a good deal of knowledge of anatomy, physiology, nutrition—all that pertains to a full and beautiful personal life. We have our botany and chemistry, and so on—very rudimentary, but interesting; our own history, with its accumulating psychology.”
“You put psychology with history—not with personal life?”
“Of course. It is ours; it is among and between us, and it changes with the succeeding and improving generations. We are at work, slowly and carefully, developing our whole people along these lines. ”

“ In the first place, consider that the great object of life to us is not enjoyment, but the formation of a right character; that such a character cannot be formed, except by discipline, and that the trials and difficulties of domestic life, if met in a proper spirit and manner, will, in the end, prove blessings rather than evils, by securing a measure of elevation, dignity, patience, self-control, and benevolence, that could be gained by no other methods. ”

“ He comes into the world with weakened constitution, owing to his father's strenuous career; and if he were to work as hard as his father, he would probably soon be dead; or at least his children, in their turn, would be miserable and diseased. Nature guides his inclinations, and whispers "Do not work too hard," "Do not deny yourself too much" ”

“ It is worthy of remark, that in choosing his disciples he chose plain men from the laboring classes, who had lived the most obediently to the simple, unperverted laws of nature. He chose men of good and pure bodies,—simple, natural, childlike, healthy men,—and baptized their souls with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ Of course there can be no faculty without an organ of faculty. But the potency of all the faculties is primarily in the human essence. The soul, necessarily a complete human form, having organs for all its faculties, is the real, sentient being. ”

“ Discipline, habit, and character, appear to be activity crystallized in seeking adaptation to our environments. What is the truth that stands out in relief? Clearly, that character, habit, and discipline, are the reflex upon ourselves of activity, moral, mental, or physical. Whence it seems to follow that useless or vicious activity will appear as useless or vicious character and discipline. ”

“ His heart told him that a knowledge of life was a far, far better equipment for the soul's physician than a course in theology. To help his men and women, he argued, he must know them, not only in their more potent wrongs and uglier misdeeds, but in their pleasing sins, their follies, the gaiety belonging to the idle, lighter part of their being. ”

“ Holding within himself the germ of a great life, he had reached out his roots like the trees among which he was reared, and drawn into himself such nutriment as the soil afforded. His individuality was developed and nurtured by the process. He had become a man after God's pattern, and not a machine after man's pattern ”

“ But as soon as they attain to a knowledge of good and evil, when reverence and shame and fear and ambition spring up in them, when their bodies begin to set and strengthen and be equal to toil, then we take them over, and appoint them both a course of mental instruction and discipline, and one of bodily endurance. We are not satisfied with mere spontaneous development either for body or soul ”

“ So he seems to have been a disciple to this doctrine—that the love and comprehension of truth was the principle that edified—that it was the principle that would fix and establish the palpable change in the condition of mankind.
We read of the Apostles being in prison, and we read of their getting out of prison; but we do not find them telling of anything that constitutes eternal life, but the comprehending of something. ”

“ When we come to the chapter on the Will, we shall see that the whole drama of the voluntary life hinges on the amount of attention, slightly more or slightly less, which rival motor ideas may receive. But the whole feeling of reality, the whole sting and excitement of our voluntary life, depends on our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago. ”

“ It appears from this statement that, so far as we are concerned, our moral intuitions are the results of "nervous modifications," if not in ourselves, at least in our ancestors, so that the controlling influence which rules, and which ought to rule, our conduct is a nervous, and therefore a physical, condition which we have inherited. It follows, therefore, that every man's conscience or inherited moral sense is bound by a necessity of his physical constitution. ”

“ They cannot make headway through the indifference, the sloth, the materialism, and the inherent vulgarity of the world.
The life itself is arduous. After all is said, it is not quite the same task to examine and classify either protoplasm or the most highly organized forms of nature, that it is to analyze and understand the mysterious workings of the heart, the intricacies of conscience and conduct, the possibilities of spiritual development or of moral downfall, and the many questionings, agonies, and ecstasies of the soul of man. ”

“ The light of this natural law, though much impaired by Adam's fall, is, and ever has been, imprinted on the hearts of all, and is, and ever has been, the foundation of all moral rectitude. The imperfection of this natural law was, before our Saviour came, supplied by the aid of revelation, which Almighty God communicated to mankind, at various times, through His chosen servants. ”

“ Even his moral and spiritual interests are vitally centered in his vocation. The development of will, the steadying of purpose, the unfolding of ideals, the cultivation of vocational virtues, such as industry, fidelity, order, honesty, prudence, thrift, patience, persistence, courage, self-reliance, etc.—all of this makes tremendously for his moral and spiritual development. The vocationless man, no matter to what class he belongs, suffers a great moral and spiritual disadvantage. ”

“ For God’s Will no more makes actions to be fit in themselves, than it makes things to exist in, or of themselves. No things, nor any actions, have any absolute fitness, and in themselves.
A gift, a blow, the making a wound, or shedding of blood, considered in themselves, have no absolute fitness, but are fit or unfit according to any variety of incidental circumstances. ”

“ That the discipline of God is to be observed in Church precepts.
In Jeremiah: “And I will give to you shepherds according to my own heart; and they shall feed the sheep, feeding them with discipline.” [1] Also in Solomon, in the Proverbs: “My son neglect not the discipline of God, nor fail when rebuked by Him. For whom God loveth, He rebuketh.” [2] Also in the second Psalm: “Keep discipline, lest perchance the Lord should be angry, and ye perish from the right way, when His anger shall burn up quickly against you. Blessed are all they who trust in Him.” ”

“ On the one hand, we must labour to avoid every occasion of sin; on the other, we must avail ourselves of the means necessary to obtain salvation. S. Bernard says, " The kingdom will not be given to the idle, but to those who are labouring willingly for the cause of God." Every one would wish to save himself without trouble. ”

“ In marking off the periods of education, Aristotle holds that “the care of the body ought to precede that of the soul, and Training of the body,— the training of the impulsive side of the soul ought to come next; nevertheless, the care of it must be for the 25 sake of the reason, and the care of the body for the sake of the soul.” The development of the body he wishes to sensible advice. ”

“ Granting for the present that what you urge against us is not untrue, what is there, I would ask, among the affairs of men that is either done by bodily exertion and manual labour, or attained by the mind’s learning and knowledge, which did not begin at some time, and pass into general use and practice since then? ”