arises the further question of their acceptance and use as regards ourselves personally. To be good in general they must be in accordance with faith and the general laws of the spiritual life; to be good for any one of us individually they must not be superfluous, nor oppressive, nor formal, nor artificial, but must minister to our true spiritual needs, and foster our true spiritual aspirations. . . .
By some, who are critically disposed in the matter of devotions, the question is far too roughly answered by a mere appeal to antiquity. To such as these what is old is respectable, and what is new contemptible. They will confound in one category the extravagant outbreak of enthusiasm for the utterly unknown St. Expeditus, and such deeply spiritual, though modern, devotions as that of the Sacred Heart. Devotions not known to the first ages should not be known to ours, and they will only worship in the manner of their ancestors.
There may be a resistance to new devotions, which comes from sheer lifelessness on the part of the objectors; they dislike all that disturbs routine and forces the attention to any fresh effort. But there may, on the other hand, be a reasonable repugnance on the part of those to whom new pieties are unattractive,
