Growth in Holiness, Or, the Progress of the Spiritual Life 12+

📖 This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1855. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXII. THE TRUE IDEA OF DEVOTION. Devotion is a word which has a great many meanings, and it is unfortunately seldom used in the right one. Sometimes it is used to express a part of itself instead of the whole, sometimes one or other of its accidents, sometimes one of its kinds, sometimes one of its characteristics, and sometimes its effects, as its sweetness, beauty and heroism. But it is useless to appeal to etymology or to fight about words. The substance is to have a right idea of the thing intended to be conveyed. To point out some of the mistakes of ordinary conversation will be a step towards this. We say that a person gives too much time to devotion and not enough to his worldly affairs or works of charity. Here by devotion we obviously mean prayer. We say that a man is too devout; and here by devotion we understand the acts which concern the direct worship of God. When we talk of having had a great deal of devotion at a certain church or on a certain feast, we mean by the word spiritual sweetness. Or a thing is devout which inspires us with serious feelings, or is in good religious taste. We often use the word for recollection, for much church-going, and the like. There is a truth and a meaning in all these expressions, and it is useless to quarrel with them. ...