Character and Conduct – 9 April – Accidie

WE may be somewhat surprised when we discover how precisely Pascal, or Shakspeare, or Montaigne, can put his finger on our weak point, or tell us the truth about some moral lameness or disorder of which we, perhaps, were beginning to accept a more lenient and comfortable diagnosis.  But when a poet, controversialist and preacher of the Eastern Church, under the dominion of the Saracens, or an anchoret of Egypt, an Abbot of Gaul, in the sixth century, tells us, in the midst of our letters, and railway journeys, and magazines, and movements, exactly what it is that on some days makes us so singularly unpleasant to ourselves and to others – tells us in effect that it is not simply the east wind, or dyspepsia, or overwork, or the contrariness of things in general, but that it is a certain subtle and complex trouble of our own hearts, which we perhaps have never had the patience or the frankness to see as it really is;  that he knew it quite well, only too well for his own happiness and peace, and that he can put us in a good way of dealing with it – the very strangeness of the intrusion from such a quarter into our most private affairs may secure for him a certain degree of our interest and attention.

The Spirit of Discipline, Bishop PAGET.

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