The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James

p. 313was so ordered by my Superiors, God will ask for no other {/Mfh^^ excuse.

As a passenger in a good vessel with a good pilot [A^uj/f-A^^A need give himself no farther concern, but may go to sleep in / peace, because the pilot has charge over all, and ' watches for 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 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." ^ 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 : — " I ought," an early biographer reports him as saying, "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. 1 Alfonso Rodriguez, S.

J. : Pratique de la Perfection Chr^tienne, Part iii., Treatise v., ch. x. ^ Letters li. and cxz. of the collection translated into French by Bouix, Paris, 1870.

p. 314In 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 any one ; 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." ^ 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 : — " 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 oars 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." ^ 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.

" Sister Marie Claire [of Port Royal] had been greatly imbued with the holiness and excellence of M. de Langres. This prelate, soon after he came to Port Royal, said to her one day, seeing her so tenderly attached to Mother Angelique, that it 1 Bartoli-Michel, ii. 13. ^ Rodriguez : Op. cit., Part iii., Treatise v., ch. vi.

p. 315would 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." ^ Our next topic shall 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 excitements hold lower cupidities in check.

Having just quoted the Jesuit 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.

" If any one of you," he says, " 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 in 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. Rodriguez then goes on to describe the practice of poverty in more detail.

" 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. 'A religious person,' he says, ' 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 1 Sainte-Bexjve : Histoire de Port Royal, i. 346.