The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious Experienceany special creed. Here, for instance, is what seems to be a spontaneousexample of it, simply expressing what seemed right at thetime between the individual and his Maker. Cotton Mather, theNew England Puritan divine, is generally reputed a rather grotesquepedant; yet what is more touchingly simple than his relation of whathappened when his wife came to die?“When I saw to what a point of resignation I was now called ofthe Lord,” he says, “I resolved, with his help, therein to glorify him.So, two hours before my lovely consort expired, I kneeled by herbedside, and I took into my two hands a dear hand, the dearest inthe world. With her thus in my hands, I solemnly and sincerelygave her up unto the Lord: and in token of my real resignation, Igently put her out of my hands, and laid away a most lovely hand,resolving that I would never touch it more. This was the hardest,and perhaps the bravest action that ever I did. She … told me thatshe signed and sealed my act of resignation. And though before thatshe called for me continually, she after this never asked for me anymore.”180Father Vianney’s asceticism taken in its totality was simply theresult of a permanent flood of high spiritual enthusiasm, longing tomake proof of itself. The Roman Church has, in its incomparablefashion, collected all the motives towards asceticism together, andso codified them that any one wishing to pursue Christian perfectionmay find a practical system mapped out for him in any one ofa number of ready-made manuals.181 The dominant Church notionof perfection is of course the negative one of avoidance of sin.Sin proceeds from concupiscence, and concupiscence from our carnalpassions and temptations, chief of which are pride, sensuality inall its forms, and the loves of worldly excitement and possession. Allthese sources of sin must be resisted; and discipline and austeritiesare a most efficacious mode of meeting them. Hence there are al-180 B. Wendell: Cotton Mather, New York, no date, p. 198.181 That of the earlier Jesuit, Rodriguez, which has been translated intoall languages, is one of the best known. A convenient modern manual,very well put together, is L’Ascetique Chretienne, by M. J. Ribet, Paris,Poussielgue, nouvelle edition, 1898.274