For Greater Things | Page 4

philosophies, that life on its material side is an incident
rather than the sum of human existence and can never satisfy the soul's
desires ? How could this mere boy have developed, so young, an iron
will which wrought that hardest of all laborious tasks, namely, the
conformation of conduct with lofty ideals? There are supernatural
answers to these and similar questions which might be raised
concerning the brief career of St. Stanislaus. We know of no merely
natural answers.
The lively and energetic style adopted in the present biography may
create a trace of mild surprise in older readers. Sanctity, it is true, some
one may say, is a very beautiful achievement in a world of poor and, at
best, mediocre performance; but, after all, the business of sanctity is a
serious business. It calls for grit and endurance, and, as a picture, is
only saved from the sordid by spiritual motives which are unseen. If all
moral life is a monotonous warfare, the life of a Saint is warfare in the
very first ranks where the trenches are filled with water and the shells
fall thickest and the general discomfort and pettiness are at their

maximum. It is misleading and not in strict accord with known realities,
to paint the portrait of a Saint in rose color and sunlight, diffusing an
iridescent atmosphere of cheerful gayety and buoyancy.
The criticism is not without some foundation; but youthful readers will
not adopt it. For youth is generous, and age is crabbed. And because
Saints never become crabbed we are right in concluding that they
always remain youthful. And, to draw out our conclusion, the lives of
Saints, contrary to the popular belief, are much more interesting to the
child than they are to the man. It is a pity that Catholic parents do not
recognize this outstanding truth. No Saint's life is dull to the average
intelligent child. Grown-ups are dull: they never yield to sublime
impulses: they measure, calculate, practice a hard-and-fast moderation,
reduce the splendid possibilities of life to a drab level of safe actuality,
and pursue ideals at a canny and cautious pace. Not so the Saints. They
always retained the freshness and confidence and generous impulses of
childhood. If God spoke to their inner ear and bade them leap boldly
forth into His Infinite Arms, spurning irretrievably the solid footing of
our spinning globe, without hesitation or question they took the leap.
And every child can see the wisdom of it. To the child it is common
sense: to his elders it is inspired heroism or unintelligible hardihood.
We have always entertained a deep- seated suspicion that there is no
child who does not think it easy to be a Saint, so native is sanctity to
Catholic childhood. Cardinal Newman, we believe, exhorted us all to
make our sacrifices for God while we are young before the calculating
selfishness of old age gets hold of us.
Still it may not be quite clear to the inquiring mind why the desperate
difficulties of sainthood can be truthfully viewed in the light of a
breathless adventure. Learn, then, the great secret. The love of God in
the heart is the magical light which touches the dreariness and hardship
of self-thwarting with a splendor of sublime Romance. You cannot
have holiness without love. Holiness can be either greater nor less than
the love of God. Let this love faint or grow cold, there is at once a loss
of holiness, even though it retain all its external gear. This is a cardinal
truth; it is a key which will solve many a puzzle. It will explain why
fanatics and similar oddities are not Saints, though secular history

sometimes honors them with the title.
Merely concede that the Saint possesses love for God in an
extraordinary measure and degree, and it is the most comprehensible
thing in the world that he will not only accept all tests of his love
readily, but will go forth in search of them with eager alacrity. First and
last and always the only keen satisfaction of great love, whether human
or divine, is to welcome opportunities of proving itself in some heroic
form of courage and endurance. Danger, suffering, battling against
odds, discouragement, overwork, pain of mind and body, failure, want
of recognition, rebuffs, contempt and persecution, are no longer the
subject matter of a strong-jawed stoicism or a submissive patience but
rather the quickening bread and wine of an intense and high-keyed life.
This is why the Saints, be the provocation ever so great, never develop
nerves, or experience those melancholy and humiliating reactions
which are the natural ebb-tide of spiritual energies. This is why Saints
can fast and keep their temper sweet, can wear hair-shirts without
cultivating wry faces, can be passed by