Vigils Reading

THE ENCOURAGMENT

OF THE SAINTS

By Bishop John Vaughan1

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We may study learned treatises of ascetical theology; we may know the

theory of sanctity…but such knowledge will never affect us as does the

contemplation of it when reduced to practice, and exhibited in the actual life of

some great servant of God. To lay down the broad principles of holiness is one

thing, but to see these principles carried out and acted upon in real life is

something far more inspiring.

To know what is just, and right, and loyal, and generous is no doubt

important, but such knowledge does not stir us like the concrete example of

some fervent soul whom we can actually watch, step by step, battling with evil

in many a hand-to-hand encounter, and struggling and striving to keep a

foothold on the narrow path of virtue amid the fiercest winds and storms of

temptation.

The very difficulties appeal to us; the falls and the occasional weaknesses

reveal character as well as the difficulties of the way; the courage and

determination to surmount them at any cost, the stern refusal to allow obstacles

or even the most serious disasters to discourage or check the advance of the

onward course infuse fresh courage and hope even into ourselves.

And what adds immensely to our zest is the fact that, in contemplating

the saints, we are contemplating men and women like ourselves. Their nature

is the same as ours, and their innate strength no greater than our own. If they

wrestled successfully with evil, if they beat down every rebellious passion and

passed in safety through fire and water, it was not because they were formed13

from a different clay, but because they had learned the value of prayer and had

trusted in God and not in themselves. For the rest, they were human as we are.