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THE &039;CARDINAL VIRTUES&039;

The previous section was originally coiven as a short talk on the air

If you are allowed to talk for only tenelse has to be sacrificed to brevity One ofmorality up into three parts (within convoy) was that this seeive some idea of another way in which the subject has been divided by old writers, which was too long to use into this longer scheme there are seven &039;virtues&039; Four of the three are called &039;Theological&039; virtues The &039;Cardinal&039; ones are those which all civilised people recognise: the &039;Theological&039; are those which, as a rule, only Christians know about I shall deal with the Theological ones later on: at present I a about the four Cardinal virtues (The word &039;cardinal&039; has nothing to do with &039;Cardinals&039; in the Roe of a door&039; These were called &039;cardinal&039; virtues because they are, as we should say, &039;pivotal&039;) They are PRUDENCE, TEMPERANCE, JUSTICE, and FORTITUDE

Prudencethe trouble to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it Nowadays most people hardly think of Prudence as one of the &039;virtues&039; In fact, because Christ said we could only get into His world by being like children, ood,&039; it does notIn the first place,the things they are really interested in, and think them out quite sensibly In the second place, as St Paul points out, Christ never ence: on the contrary He told us to be not only &039;as harmless as doves&039; but also &039;as wise as serpents&039; He wants a child&039;s heart, but a grown-up&039;s head He wants us to be siood children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting tri money to a charity does not mean that you need not try to find out whether that charity is a fraud or not The fact that what you are thinking about is God Hi) does not mean that you can he content with the same babyish ideas which you had when you were a five-year-old It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have The proper ood, sweet ood, sweetas clever as you can&039; God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers If you are thinking of beco which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all But, fortunately, it works the other way round Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself That is why, an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world

Teed itsIt now usually means teetotalism But in the days when the second Cardinal virtue was christened &039;Te of the sort Temperance referred not specially to drink, but to all pleasures; and it th and no further It is a ht all to be teetotallers; Mohaion Of course it may be the duty of a particular Christian, or of any Christian, at a particular ti drink, either because he is the sort oftoo much, or because he is with people who are inclined to drunkenness andhiood reason, fro which he does not conde One of the ive up a thing hiive it up That is not the Christian way An individual Christian s for special reasons�Ce, orthe things are bad in the down his nose at other people who do use thereat piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the word Teet that you can be just as inteolf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woe or her dog, is being just as &039;inte Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-olf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road But God is not deceived by externals

Justice oes on in law courts It is the old na we should now call &039;fairness&039;; it includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life And Fortitude includes both kinds of courage�Cthe kind that faces danger as well as the kind that &039;sticks it&039; under pain &039;Guts&039; is perhaps the nearest lish You will notice, of course, that you cannot practise any of the other virtues very long without bringing this one into play

There is one further point about the virtues that ought to be noticed There is a difference between doing so a just or teood tennis player ood player is the man whose eye andinnuood shots that they can now be relied on They have a certain tone or quality which is there even when he is not playing, just as a mathematician&039;s mind has a certain habit and outlook which is there even when he is not doingjust actions gets in the end a certain quality of character Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions which we mean e talk of a &039;virtue&039;

This distinction is iht only of the particular actions we ht think that, provided you did the right thing, it did not ly or unwillingly, sulkily or cheerfully, through fear of public opinion or for its own sake But the truth is that right actions done for the wrong reason do not help to build the internal quality or character called a &039;virtue,&039; and it is this quality or character that really matters (If the bad tennis player hits very hard, not because he sees that a very hard stroke is required, but because he has lost his teht possibly, by luck, help hi hiht think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort

(3) We ht think that the &039;virtues&039; were necessary only for this present life�Cthat in the other world we could stop being just because there is nothing to quarrel about and stop being brave because there is no danger Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can beco such acts here The point is not that God will refuse you adot certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a &039;Heaven&039; for the, unshakable kind of happiness God intends for us