Vigils Reading – St Bartholomew

THE VIRTUE OF INNOCENCE

From a sermon by St John Henry Newman1

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It is not only among the poor and lowly that the blessed character

of guilelessness is found to exist. Secular learning and dignity have

doubtless in their respective ways a powerful tendency to rob the heart of

its brightness and purity; yet even in kings’ courts, and the schools of

philosophy, Bartholomew may be discovered. Nay, like the Apostles, they

have been subjected to the world’s buffets, they have been thwarted in

their day, lived in anxiety, and seemingly lost by their honesty, yet without

being foiled either of its present comfort or its ultimate fruit.

I have in these remarks spoken of guileless persons as members of

society, because I wished to show that, even in that respect in which they

seem deficient, they possess a hidden strength, and unconscious wisdom,

which makes them live above the world, and sooner or later triumph over

it. The weapons of their warfare are not carnal; and they are fitted to be

Apostles, though they seem to be ordinary people. Such is the blessedness

of the innocent, that is, of those who have never given way to evil, or

formed themselves to habits of sin; who in consequence literally do not

know its power of its misery who have thoughts of truth and peace ever

before them, and are able to discern at once the right and wrong in

conduct, as by some delicate instrument which tells truly because it has

never been ill-treated.

Nay, such may be the portion (through God’s mercy) even of those

who have at one time departed from Him, and then repented; in

proportion as they have learned to love God, and have purified

themselves, not only from sin, but from the recollections of it.15

Lastly, more is requisite for the Christian, even than guilelessness

such as Bartholomew’s. When Christ sent forth him and his brethren into

the world, He said, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of

wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

Innocence must be joined to prudence, discretion, self-command, gravity,

patience, perseverance in well-doing, as Bartholomew doubtless learned

in due season under his Lord’s teaching; but innocence is the beginning.

Let us then pray God to fulfill in us “all the good pleasure of His

goodness, and the work of faith with power;” that if it should please Him

suddenly to bring us forward to great trials, as He did His Apostles, we

may not be taken by surprise, but be found to have made a private or

domestic life a preparation for the achievements of Confessor and

Martyrs.