Village books

He might perhaps say that, as we cannot go to
God through all creatures, but only through some (since we are not each
in contact with all), we must select according to our circumstances
those which will give the greatest expansion and elevation to our
natural affections; and that for some, the home is wisely sacrificed for
the community or the church. Yet this hardly consists with the
pre-eminence he gives to married love as the nearest symbol and
sacrament of divine.
Both these modes of imagining the truth, whatever their inconveniences,
are helpful as imperfect formulations of Catholic instinct; both
mischievous, if viewed as adequate and close-fitting explanations.
Patmore was characteristically enthusiastic for his own aspect of the
truth; and characteristically impatient of the other. Thus, of a Kempis
he says:
There is much that is quite unfit for, and untrue of, people who live in
the ordinary relations of life. I don't think I like the book quite so
much as I did. There is a hot-house, egotistical air about much of its
piety.


Pages:
52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76