PRACTICAL PIETY by Hannah More
CULTIVATION OF A DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT
To maintain a devotional spirit two things are especially necessary;
habitually to cultivate the disposition, and habitually to avoid whatever is
unfavorable to it. Frequent retirement and recollection are indispensable
together with such a general course of reading, as, if it does not actually
promote the spirit we are endeavoring to maintain, shall never be hostile to
it. We should avoid as much as in us lies all such society, all such
amusements as excite tempers which it is the daily business of a Christian
to subdue, and all those feelings which it is his constant duty to suppress.
And here may we venture to observe, that if some things which are apparently
innocent, and do not assume an alarming aspect, or bear a dangerous
character; things which the generality of decorous people affirm (how truly
we know not) to be safe for them; yet if we find that these things stir up
in us improper propensities; if they awaken thoughts which ought not to be
excited; if they abate our love for religious exercises, or infringe on our
time for performing them; if they make spiritual concerns appear insipid; if
they wind our hearts a little more about the world; in short, if we have
formerly found them injurious to our own souls, then let no example or
persuasion, no belief of their alleged innocence, no plea of their perfect
safety, tempt us to indulge in them. It matters little to our security what
they are to others. Our business is with ourselves. Our responsibility is on
our own heads. Others cannot know the side on which we are assailable. Let
our own unbiased judgment determine our opinion; let our own experience
decide for our own conduct.
In speaking of books, we cannot forbear noticing that very prevalent sort of
reading which is little less productive of evil, little less prejudicial to
moral and mental improvement, than that which carries a more formidable
appearance. We cannot confine our censure to those more corrupt writings
which deprave the heart, debauch the imagination, and poison the principles.
Of these the turpitude is so obvious that no caution on this head, it is
presumed, can be necessary. But if justice forbids us to confound the
insipid with the mischievous, the idle, with the vicious, and the frivolous
with the profligate, still we can only admit of shades -- deep shades, we
allow -- of difference.
These works, if comparatively harmless, yet debase the taste, slacken the
intellectual nerve, let down the understanding, set the imagination loose,
and send it gadding among low and worthless objects. They not only run away
with the time which should be given to better things, but gradually destroy
all taste for better things. They sink the mind to their own standard, and
give it a sluggish reluctance, we had almost said a moral incapacity, for
every thing above their level. The mind, by long habit of stooping, loses
its erectness, and yields to its degradation. It becomes so low and narrow
by the littleness of the things which engage it, that it requires a painful
effort to lift itself high enough, or to open itself wide enough, to embrace
great and noble objects. The appetite is vitiated. Excess, instead of
producing a surfeit by weakening the digestion, only induces a loathing for
stronger nourishment. The faculties which might have been expanding in works
of science, or soaring in the contemplation of genius, become satisfied with
the impertinences of the most ordinary fiction, lose their relish for the
severity of truth, the elegance of taste, and the soberness of religion.
Lulled in the torpor of repose, the intellect dozes, and enjoys, in its
waking dream,
"All the wild trash of sleep without its rest."
In avoiding books which excite the passions, it would seem strange to
include even some devotional works. Yet such as merely kindle warm feelings
are not always the safest. Let us rather prefer those which, while they tend
to raise a devotional spirit, awaken the affections without disordering
them; which, while they elevate the desires, purify them; which show us our
own nature, and lay open its corruptions. Such as show us the malignity of
sin, the deceitfulness of our hearts, the feebleness of our best
resolutions; such as teach us to pull off the mask from the fairest
appearances, and discover every hiding place where some lurking evil would
conceal itself; such as show us not what we appear to others, but what we
really are; such as, cooperating with our interior feelings, and showing us
our natural state, point out our absolute need of a Redeemer, lead us to
seek to him for pardon, from a conviction that there is no other refuge, no
other salvation. Let us be conversant with such writings as teach us that,
while we long to obtain the remission of our transgressions, we must not
desire the remission of our duties. Let us seek for such a Savior as will
not only deliver us from the punishment of sin, but from its dominion also.
And let us ever bear in mind that the end of prayer is not answered when the
prayer is finished. We should regard prayer as a means to a farther end. The
act of prayer is not sufficient, we must cultivate a spirit of prayer. And
though, when the actual devotion is over, we cannot amid the distractions of
company and business always be thinking of heavenly things, yet the desire,
the frame, the propensity, the willingness to return to them, we must,
however difficult, endeavor to maintain.
The proper temper for prayer should precede the act. The disposition should
be wrought in the mind before the exercise is begun. To bring a proud temper
to an humble prayer, a luxurious habit to a self-denying prayer, or a
worldly disposition to a spiritually-minded prayer, is a positive anomaly. A
habit is more powerful than an act, and a previously indulged temper during
the day will not, it is to be feared, be fully counteracted by the exercise
of a few minutes devotion at night.
Prayer is designed for a perpetual renovation of the motives to virtue; if,
therefore, the cause is not followed by its consequence -- a consequence
inevitable but for the impediments we bring to it, we rob our nature of its
highest privilege, and are in danger of incurring a penalty where we are
looking for a blessing.
That the habitual tendency of the life should be the preparation for the
stated prayer, is naturally suggested to us by our blessed Redeemer in his
sermon on the Mount. He announced the precepts of holiness and their
corresponding beatitudes; he gave the spiritual exposition of the law, the
directions for alms-giving, the exhortation to love our enemies, no, the
essence and spirit of the whole Decalogue, previous to his delivering his
own Divine prayer as a pattern for ours. Let us learn from this that the
preparation of prayer is, therefore, to live in all those pursuits which we
may safely beg of God to bless, and in a conflict with all those temptations
into which we pray not to be led.
If God be the center to which our hearts are tending, every line in our
lives must meet in him. With this point in view, there will be a harmony
between our prayers and our practice, a consistency between devotion and
conduct which will make every part turn to this one end, bear upon this one
point. For the beauty of the Christian scheme consists not in parts (however
good in themselves) which tend to separate views and lead to different ends;
but it arises from its being one entire, uniform, connected plan, "compacted
of that which every joint supplies," and of which all the parts terminate in
this one grand ultimate point. The design of prayer, therefore, as we before
observed, is not merely to make us devout while we are engaged in it, but
that its odor may be diffused through all the intermediate spaces of the
day, enter into all its occupations, duties, and tempers. Nor must its
results be partial or limited to easy and pleasant duties, but extend to
such as are less alluring. When we pray, for instance, for our enemies, the
prayer must be rendered practical, must be made a means of softening our
spirit and cooling our resentment toward them. If we deserve their enmity
the true spirit of prayer will put us upon endeavoring to cure the fault
which has excited it. If we do not deserve it, it will put us on striving
for a peaceful temper, and we shall endeavor not to let slip so favorable an
occasion of cultivating it. There is no such softener of animosity, no such
soother of resentment, no such allayer of hatred, as sincere, cordial
prayer.
It is obvious that the precept to pray without ceasing can never mean to
enjoin a continual course of actual prayer. But while it more directly
enjoins us to embrace all proper occasions of performing this sacred duty,
or rather of claiming this valuable privilege, so it plainly implies that we
should try to keep up constantly that sense of the Divine presence which
shall maintain the disposition. In order to this, we should inure our minds
to reflection; we should encourage serious thoughts. A good thought barely
passing through the mind will make little impression on it. We must arrest
it, constrain it to remain with us, expand, amplify, and, as it were, take
it to pieces. It must be distinctly unfolded and carefully examined, or it
will leave no precise idea; it must be fixed and incorporated, or it will
produce no practical effect. We must not dismiss it until it has left some
trace on the mind, until it has made some impression on the heart.
On the other hand, if we give the reins to a loose ungoverned imagination,
at other times if we abandon our minds to frivolous thoughts, if we fill
them with corrupt images; if we cherish sensual ideas during the rest of the
day, can we expect that none of these images will intrude, that none of
these impressions will be revived, but that the temple, into which foul
things have been invited, will be cleansed at a given moment; that worldly
thoughts will recede and give place at once to pure and holy thoughts? Will
that Spirit, grieved by impurity, or resisted by levity, return with his
warm beams and cheering influences to the contaminated mansion from which he
has been driven out? Is it amazing if, finding no entrance into a heart
filled with vanity, he should withdraw himself?
We cannot in retiring into our closets change our natures as we do our
clothes. The disposition we carry there will be likely to remain with us. We
have no right to expect that a new temper will meet us at the door. We can
only hope that the spirit we bring there will be cherished and improved. It
is not easy, rather it is not possible to graft genuine devotion on a life
of an opposite tendency; nor can we delight ourselves regularly for a few
stated moments in that God whom we have not been serving during the day. We
may, indeed, to quiet our conscience, take up the employment of prayer, but
cannot take up the state of mind which will make the employment beneficial
to ourselves, or the payer acceptable to God, if all the previous hours of
the day we have been careless of ourselves and unmindful of our Maker. They
will not pray differently from the rest of the world who do not live
differently.
What a contradiction is it to lament the weakness, the misery, and the
corruption of our nature in our devotions, and then to rush into a life,
though not perhaps of vice, yet of indulgences calculated to increase that
weakness, to inflame those corruptions, and to lead to that misery! There is
either no meaning in our prayers, or no sense in our conduct. In the one we
mock God, in the other we deceive ourselves.
Will not he who keeps up an habitual communion with his Maker, who is
vigilant in thought, self-denying in action, who strives to keep his heart
from wrong desires, his mind from vain imaginations, and his lips from idle
words, bring a more prepared spirit, a more collected mind, be more engaged,
more penetrated, more present to the occasion? Will he not feel more delight
in this devout exercise, reap more benefit from it, than he who lives at
random, prays from custom, and who, though he dares not omit the form, is a
stranger to its spirit?
We speak not here to the self-sufficient formalist, or the careless
profligate. Among those whom we now take the liberty to address, are to be
found, especially in the higher class of females, the amiable and the
interesting, and, in many respects, the virtuous and correct; characters so
engaging, so evidently made for better things, so capable of reaching high
degrees of excellence, so formed to give the tone to Christian practice as
well as to fashion; so calculated to give a beautiful impression of that
religion which they profess without sufficiently adorning, which they
believe without fairly exemplifying; that we cannot forbear taking a tender
interest in their welfare, we cannot forbear breathing a fervent prayer that
they may yet reach the elevation for which they were intended; that they may
hold out a uniform and consistent pattern of "whatever things are pure,
honest, just, lovely, and of good report!" This the apostle goes on to
intimate can only be done by thinking on these things. Things can only
influence our practice as they engage our attention. Would not then a
confirmed habit of serious thought tend to correct that inconsideration
which, we are willing to hope, more than lack of principle, lies at the
bottom of the inconsistency we are lamenting?
If, as it is generally allowed, the great difficulty of our spiritual life
is to make the future predominate over the present, do we not, by the
conduct we are regretting, aggravate what it is in our power to diminish?
Miscalculation of the relative value of things is one of the greatest errors
of our spiritual life. We estimate them in an inverse proportion to their
value, as well as to their duration: we lavish earnest and durable thoughts
on things so trifling that they deserve little regard, so temporary that
they "perish with the using," while we bestow only slight attention on
things of infinite worth; only transient thoughts on things of eternal
duration.
Those who are so far conscientious as not to omit a regular course of
devotion, and who yet allow themselves, at the same time, to go on in a
course of amusements which excite a directly opposite spirit, are
inconceivably augmenting their own difficulties. They are eagerly heaping up
fuel in the day on the fire which they intend to extinguish in the evening;
they are voluntarily adding to the temptations against which they mean to
request grace to struggle. To acknowledge, at the same time, that we find it
hard to serve God as we ought, and yet to be systematically indulging habits
which must naturally increase the difficulty, makes our character almost
ridiculous, while it renders our duty almost impracticable.
While we make our way more difficult by those very indulgences with which we
think to cheer and refresh it, the determined Christian becomes his own
pioneer; he makes his path easy by voluntarily clearing it of the obstacles
which impede his progress.
These habitual indulgences seem a contradiction to that obvious law, that
one virtue always involves another; for we cannot labor after any grace --
that of prayer, for instance -- without resisting whatever is opposite to
it. If, then, we lament that it is so hard to serve God, let us not by our
conduct furnish arguments against ourselves; for, as if the difficulty were
not great enough in itself, we are continually heaping up mountains in our
way, by indulging in such pursuits and passions as make a small labor an
insurmountable one.
We may often judge better of our state by the result than by the act of
prayer; our very defects, our coldness, deadness, wanderings, may leave more
contrition on the soul than the happiest turn of thought. The feeling of our
needs, the confession of our sins, the acknowledgment of our dependence, the
renunciation of ourselves, the supplication for mercy, the application to
the "fountain opened for sin," the cordial entreaty for the aid of the
Spirit, the relinquishment of our own will, resolutions of better obedience,
petitions that these resolutions may be directed and sanctified -- these are
the subjects in which the supplicant should be engaged, by which his
thoughts should be absorbed.
Can they be so absorbed, if many of the intervening hours are passed in
pursuits of a totally different complexion -- pursuits which raise the
passions which we are seeking to allay? Will the cherished vanities go at
our bidding? Will the required dispositions come at our calling? Do we find
our tempers so obedient, our passions so subservient, in the other concerns
of life? If not, what reason have we to expect their submission in this
grand concern? We should, therefore, endeavor to believe as we pray, to
think as we pray, to feel as we pray, and to act as we pray. Prayer must not
be a solitary, independent exercise; but an exercise interwoven with many,
and inseparably connected with that golden chain of Christian duties, of
which, when so connected, it forms one of the most important links.
Let us be careful that our cares, occupations, and amusements may be always
such that we may not be afraid to implore the Divine blessing on them; this
is the criterion of their safety, and of our duty. Let us endeavor that in
each, in all, one continually growing sentiment and feeling of loving,
serving, and pleasing God, maintain its predominant station in the heart.
An additional reason why we should live in the perpetual use of prayer,
seems to be, that our blessed Redeemer, after having given both the example
and the command while on earth, condescends still to be our unceasing
intercessor in heaven. Can we ever cease petitioning for ourselves, when we
believe that he never ceases interceding for us?
If we are so unhappy as now to find little pleasure in this holy exercise,
that however is so far from being a reason for discontinuing it, that it
affords the strongest argument for perseverance. That which was at first a
form will become a pleasure; that which was a burden will become a
privilege; that which we impose upon ourselves as a medicine will become
necessary as nourishment, and desirable as a gratification. That which is
now short and superficial will become copious and solid. The chariot-wheel
is warmed by its own motion. Use will make that easy which was at first
painful. That which is once become easy will soon be rendered pleasant.
Instead of repining at the performance, we shall be unhappy at the omission.
When a man recovering from sickness attempts to walk, he does not
discontinue the exercise because he feels himself weak, nor even because the
effort is painful. He rather redoubles his exertion. It is from his
perseverance that he looks for strength. An additional turn every day
diminishes his repugnance, augments his vigor, improves his spirits. That
effort which was submitted to because it was salutary, is continued because
the feeling of renovated strength renders it delightful.