The Good Humor of the Saints [pp. 127-138]

134 THE ~OOD HUMOR OF THE SAJArTS. [Oct.,
clearness and simplicity. He does not desire to tell the history
of a saint, but rather to let the saint tell his own, confident that
in this way only shall we glean some true knowledge of the hidden depths of character which not even a man's actions can
always reveal, ~Vith his accustomed keenness he fully understands and appreciates the greater opportunities we enjoy of
studying the eaHy Fathers through their copious epistles, while
of so many of the modern saints we know little, save what their
biographers have told us. He acknowledges that he "exults in
the folios of the Fathers," and he is fain to confess that through
them he gains an insight into their wnters' hearts which no
amount of histories could ever give him.
"What I want to trace and study," he says earnestly in his introductory
to "St. Chrysostom," "is the real, hidden, but human life, or the interior, as
it is called, of such glorious creations of God; and this I gain with difficulty
from mere biographies. Those biographies are most valuable, both as being true and as being edifying. They are true to the letter as far as they
record'facts and acts; I know it. But actions are not enough for sanctitywe must have saintly motives; and as to these motives, the actions themselves seldom carry the motives along with them. In consequence they are
often supplied simply by the biographer out of his own head; and with
good reason supplied, from the certainty which he feels that, since it is the
act of a saint which he is describing, therefore it must be a saintly act.
Properly and naturally supplied, I grant; but I can do that as well as he.
and ought to do it for myself, and shall be sure to do it if I make the saint
my meditation. The biographer in that case is no longer a mere witness
and reporter; he has become a commentaton He gives me no insight into
the saint's interior; he does but tell me to infer that the saint acted in
some transcendent way from the reason of the case, or to hold it on faith
because he has been canonized. For instance, when I read in such a life,
`The saint, when asked a question, was silent from humility,' or`from
compassion for the ignorance of the speaker,' or`in order to give him
a gentle rebuke,' I find a motive assigned, whichever of the three is selected, which is the biographer's own, and perhaps has two chances to one
against its being the right one. We read of an occasion on which St. Athanasius said nothing but smiled when a question was put to him; it was
another saint who asked the question, and who has recorded the smile, but
he does not more than doubtfully explain it. Many a biographer would,
simply out of piety, have pronounced the reason of that smile. I should
not blame him for doing so, but it was more than he could do as a biographer; if he did it he would do it, not as an historian, but as a spiritual writer."
Neither, does Cardinal Newman take much interest in books
"which chop up a saint into chapters of faith, hope, charity, and
the cardinal virtues." He does not wish this "glorious creation
of God" to be " minced up into spiritual lessons," but rather to see