This work begins: “There are two spheres of knowledge in which every one who is endeavouring after any growth in the spiritual life must be making some advance. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self. We can all readily perceive the necessity of growth in the knowledge of God as essential to any development of the spiritual life. The connection is obvious. "This," said our Lord, " is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent." A certain moral sympathy is absolutely necessary as a condition of friendship, and holiness consists in friendship with God. If we would be in any sense the friends of God, we must have at least that desire for holiness without which such friendship would be impossible, the growth in the knowledge of God is the deepening of this friendship. " If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth."”And let us consider self-discipline: “Whatever we may be able to learn from the study of Nature, whether of art or science, all that we know of good and evil, and of the great moral struggle, we know through our own nature alone. So imbued are our minds with moral ideas that we seem to see them reflected in the world of Nature, but it is only that extraordinary responsiveness with which she always meets man. It is a strange thing when we come to analyse it, that so much light and shade, so many lines and curves, so much inanimate matter, should be able in such an extraordinary way to reflect the mind of man, that we even transfer to it our own moral ideas and struggles. Who has not felt that not only can the skies and the earth and the winds rejoice with us in our joys and sorrow with our sorrows, but that they echo our stormy passions, and reflect our wrath and rebellion and cruelty, and melt with us into tears of penitence and sing with us our Te Deums.” Here is a salient point: “Self-knowledge apart from God can indeed only lead to despair. For he who has sunk to earth knows well he can find no lever on ear.h or within himself to raise him. How can he? How can anything within himself raise him above himself? How can anything on earth raise him above the earth? Like the piece of silver, in the Parable, that has fallen to the earth, he needs the Hand of Another to raise him.”
Father Maturin was one of those men of real genius who never advertised himself, but did his work quietly and thoroughly. His was not among the great historical names of his generation; but his gifts were placed very high indeed by those who followed his career as a preacher and came under his personal influence. The touch of true genius was unmistakable in him: yet I think his friends used to feel during his lifetime that though he was generally known to be one of our best preachers, the world at large had little conception of the quality of his mind which gave him so special a position among his own disciples and friends. And when at his Requiem the huge Westminster Cathedral was filled by some two thousand mourners it came to some of us as a surprise. It was a remarkable case where many individuals owed him a deep debt for his preaching, yet there had not been that open communication between them which leads to universally acknowledged popular fame. Each one who came said, I I owe so much to Father Maturin that I must be among the mourners, though I fear that they will not be so numerous as such a man deserves. Many hundreds in London alone said the same thing, where each man had thought that it would be said only by a few score.The sermon on the mystery of suffering begins: "OF every great question that stirs the minds of men, they naturally and instinctively ask and demand a simple, direct and reasonable solution. The instinct of the mind is not content with an answer which is not direct and simple and stated in a rational form. Yet we know, as a matter of fact, that in all the great questions touching on human life man does not get such an answer as that. The result is that among those who study the deep mysteries of life we find two classes: those, namely, who profess to have an answer for everything, and think that the thing for which they have not an answer is not worth answering; and those deeper and more thoughtful men who accept the mysteries as they find them, and stand before them with question upon question rising up, for which they have not the answer they fain would have, but who have something better and more reasonable, viz. That attitude of mind which is ready to wait till the solution comes. So, if we turn to those who stand as the high priests of science, we find that those who enter most deeply into the secrets of life have learned this :-a proper attitude of expectation before the mysteries which come before them; and this also, that while answers come in many unexpected ways-rising up from the depths below and descending from the heights above-yet that the answer as to the final cause of all, the meaning of the mystery of life, the solution of all the difficulties of science is not yet attained. We find the great high priests of science ministering before Nature, in the attitude not only of inquiry but of something more, of expectation and of faith. From deep study they have learned an attitude of respect and patient expectation and of faith. ...
St. Alphonsus writes: “a single bad book will be sufficient to cause the destruction of a monastery.” Pope Pius XII wrote in 1947 at the beatification of Blessed Maria Goretti: “There rises to Our lips the cry of the Saviour: 'Woe to the world because of scandals!' (Matthew 18:7). Woe to those who consciously and deliberately spread corruption-in novels, newspapers, magazines, theaters, films, in a world of immodesty!” We at St. Pius X Press are calling for a crusade of good books. We want to restore 1,000 old Catholic books to the market. We ask for your assistance and prayers. This book is a photographic reprint of the original. The original has been inspected and some imperfections may remain. At Saint Pius X Press our goal is to remain faithful to the original in both photographic reproductions and in textual reproductions that are reprinted. Photographic reproductions are given a page by page inspection, whereas textual reproductions are proofread to correct any errors in reproduction.
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