IT is the experience of every observer how reluctant Christian men and women are to embrace bravely and ungrudgingly with their mind the practical conclusions that flow from the great mystery of the Incarnation. Ever so many Christians, even amongst those who profess piety, and possess education, shape their thoughts, and order their lives on principles that have no direct relationship with the central fact of Christianity, the Incarnate Son of God.
I have tried in the following pages to draw a distinction between general spirituality, and the specific Christian spirituality, which is based on the practical assimilation by our minds of the doctrine of the Incarnation. The purpose of the book is, of course, more of the nature of a philosophy of the Christian religion, than of a hortatory, or preceptive character.
It is a modest contribution to that effort of which there are so many instances in Western Christendom in our days, of building up a Christian mind, as a power of thought that rules in virtue of its own innate truthfulness and excellency.
In the building of a great fane even the one that carries the hod, feels that he is doing a great work.
My book might easily be compared with the labours of the carrier of the hod, even by a kind critic, as there is such an accumulation of scriptural texts through these pages. There seems little art required to string together quotations from Holy Writ. I must submit completely to this judgment, with the assurance however that the kind of result I aim at could not be obtained otherwise. To each man his task, be it mean or noble, in rearing up the most glorious of all spiritual buildings, the Christian Mind.
Buckfast Abbey, Easter 1918.
Anscar Vonier, O.S.B., Abbot.