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Vigils Reading – St Bartholomew
August 24
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.