HOLINESS.
_UGLINESS is a word we seldom use nowadays, and ordinary men and women, if they think of the quality at all, think of it coldly, as of something shining far off in a celestial haze,—a term of theological praise as little rear as are many terms of theological condemnation. They no more think of those they love as "holy and humble men of heart" in any living sense than they think of themselves as miserable sinners. Yet in the New Testament—perhaps from cover to cover the most warm-hearted and least academic book that ever was written—" holiness" is used to express the aim of Christian teaching in regard to the individual. The writers )f the Greek Scriptures spoke of holy men in moments of enthusiasm when they told of heroes and when they thought of Christ. The word has lost its vitality, and its essential beauty has become somewhat chill and austere. Some redefinition of it will have to be generally accepted before it can be revived by connexion with living personalities. In Lord Morley's recent book of "Miscellanies" (already reviewed in these columns) he defines holiness in a manner which may help to restore life to the word. We quote the passage :— "By Holiness do we not mean something different from virtue? It is not the same as duty ; still less is it the same as religious belief. It is a name for an inner grace of nature, an instinct of the soul, by which, though knowing of earthy appetites and worldly passions, the spirit, purifying itself of these, and independent of all reason, argument, and the fierce struggles of the will, dwells in living, patient, and confident communion with the seen and the unseen Good."
If we accept this description, we must of course admit that none of us have known many men or women to whom it would apply. If we search our memories and find one or two, we may be thankful. As we call to mind the good people we have known we shall probably, unless we are very cynical or very unfortunate, be surprised at their number and at the great varieties of their types. First of all there stand out from the indifferent crowd the dutiful people who are always pushing forward in the direction of right. They have, however, no "instinct of the soul" such as Lord Morley describes ; they are simply men and women under the orders of conscience. In the struggle between preference and principle they risk nothing but their equanimity. When one comes to think about them, their existence is one of the most wonderful things in the world. Obedience is often irksome to them, yet they obey. Into their relations with their inward monitor there seems to enter a considerable amount of friction. Yet no irremediable act of mutiny ever takes place. Of the fierce struggles of greater characters which typify the moral tragedies and triumphs of human nature they know nothing, but for them all fear is concentrated in the thought of those spiritual pricks against which they have so seldom kicked. Sometimes they are what is called religious, sometimes they are not. But their goodness does not arise, so far as one can see, from anything that we usually mean by religious emotion. Their creed, if they have one, is to them a sanction rather than a sanctification. No set of people bear a stronger witness to the magnetic force of the Divine Spirit, yet one could hardly call them holy. They are law-abiding in the highest of all possible senses. Beside them we may set the people who believe themselves always guided by reason, and who are unaware of the fact, very patent to their friends, that with them reason is always biassed on the side of righteousness, sometimes, perhaps, of self-righteousness. They are not very attractive, but they are trustworthy. They would seem to draw their inspiration from platitudes, though in reality platitudes are but the poor expression of their inspiration.
At the other end of the scale we get a beautiful but
negative type of goodness,—a type which is very nearly holy, yet fails through want of understanding and sympathy to fulfil the idea. They are the people in whom goodness seems allied to defect. They preserve an innocence which is very near to ignorance, and are afflicted—or may we say blesFed P—with spiritual short-sight. They think every one better than he is because they cannot see the outlines of character at all. They excuse all men because they do not know what they have been doing, and deduce all personalities frern a knowledge of their own. They command the respect which good people offer to children, and all unconsciously are
tremendous instruments of discipline. The word "limited" applies in the spiritual as well as in the mental sphere. A man may have no bad in him, and yet be a very small man. There are many limited saints. By those who have known little temptation many forms of goodness are unrecognisable. But we have a sense when they are with us that, while they are certainly among the pure in heart, they are not made alter the pattern which has satisfied the aspiration of the Western world,—the pattern of the Holy Christ, of Whom that unknown man of genius who wrote to the Hebrews warns us not to think as of one who "cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," but as "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
Again, among the good who cannot be called holy, yet whose goodness is an instinct, stand those who have not fulfilled any very high standard in the matter of duty, but who retain that ingrained sense of justice, kindness, and honour with which they were born. Very often they have not taken much care of their souls, but it is impossible not to like them. Their prototypes are very tenderly treated in the New Testament. Perhaps the fact that they stand so much higher in the moral scale than their attainments would seem to account for may be due to a hidden but indestructible root of good which lies at the bottom of their nature, and that is humility,—a strong virtue which we all love when we see it, and which grows sometimes in unexpected soil. A great many good people are not humble, but all humble people are potentially good. The Publican, the Prodigal, and the Penitent Thief are heirs of Paradise by divine decree, and none but the ill-conditioned ever dispute their right.
Even among the fervently religious holiness in the sense in which Lord Morley uses the word is not common. The spiritually certain, who heartily rejoice in the strength of their salvation, are often incredibly unsympathetic, while those children of the present day who hunger and thirst after righteousness—and inwardly lament their spiritual poorness—and "wait still upon God" cannot attain to that "confident communion" which seems bn integral part of holiness. Among all these there may stand one holy person. Perhaps we shall not see him at first. Many qualities screen holiness. It may exist with what we all call wisdom, or with what St. Paul in a moment of astound- ing audacity called "the foolishness of God." We may find it in a man who could govern the State, or in a woman as incapable as St. Francis. But whatever his creed—or whatever ours—we shall presently perceive that he is the subject of divine possession. "I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him," are words ascribed by the writer of Revelation to Christ; or should we rather say, since the context would not lead us to suppose that the poet is quoting the historical Jesus, to his I conception of the Spirit which inspires holiness ? That is a door which the average good man does not know how to open,—a power of the keys the secret of which is known to few. According to the Scriptures, some Disciples received from Christ the power to forgive sin. Endless controversy has raged around the record, and has obscured the fact that there are, and always have been, men who would appear to have some analogous gift, some capacity to bind the evil and free the good in all those with whom they come in contact. Surely these are the true examples of holiness. Like Christ, they do not come into the world to condemn, but to save, to take away men's sins and bring them to a better mind. It is impossible to dissect holiness. Like genius, it is a living, an inspired thing. Like the lyrical cry, we detect it by its effect on our- selves. Those who have it are channels between "the seen and the unseen Good." They are the poets of God, the mouthpiece of the Divine Remission and Appeal.
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