Many Fathers saw the Trinity in David—"By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the Spirit of His mouth." (Ps. xxxii, 6.) Doubtless the Israelites were endowed with a larger or lesser luminance on the Scriptural depths, in proportion to their several degrees of enlightenment. This clear enlightenment or obscure foreknowledge is a supposition the New Testament facts create. —"The angel, answering, said to her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also, the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Again in St. John—"I saw the Spirit coming down as a dove from heaven, and He remained upon me, and I knew Him not, but He Who sent me, to baptize with water said to me, he upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon him, he it is who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and I saw and I give testimony that this is the Son of God." (Chap. I, 32,34.) These texts imply the conviction, in the minds of Mary and John the Baptist, of a difference in the Divine Persons. It hardly needs be said that the prophets and patriarchs were very specially favored in this matter — " Abraham, your father, rejoiced that he might see my day." (John viii, 56.) With the "spirit of his mouth" —the divine saliva, as it were, — woodland and stream and pasturage, beasts and fishes, burst into life, and experienced, for the first time, heart-throbs, the principle of productive growth; the pulse of life beat in creatures; the engine of the world's heart was prompted into action through the power generated by the steaming breath of the Third Person from the fires of His eternal love, without Whose tropical breath creation would have been sterile, a soulless thing, subject to prompt disintegration, bearing upon its silent, pale face and in its pinched eyes the decree of an early doom. "And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved over the waters." — All creation is void and empty and dark, where the Holy Ghost does not breathe forth life, that is, lift the mere existence to a living, expansive, productive and reproductive state. Not by a passing movement, such as a created zephyr, does the Holy Spirit move over creation, but by an eternal breathing forth from the Father and Son, which, when it touches men, dissolves in a power and a presence that dominates and characterizes everything. The artist imposes his personality on his works; his will is dominant; his art is there: his art is the very life of the picture. The Holy Ghost imparts life to creation ; this is his individuality, his artistry. Abolish this individuality in life and man loses his spiritual or moral life, as the case might be. Touch the rose with the frost, find the heart of the robin with shot, sever the ripening pear from its stem—it is death. The Holy Ghost has, in a natural sense, withdrawn from creation, in such cases. In the higher life which we have in Christ, and by virtue of His Sacred Passion, the Holy Ghost, which is the expression of Christianity, informs, dominates it, in the more Divine way — the supernatural. When the Holy Ghost withdraws this superior dominance and presence, the spiritual eyes grow sightless, the spiritual heart beats no more, the spirit is dead, it is void and empty, and darkness is upon its face. In the fierce glare of this truth take up your prophet and read, and, you will then catch the eloquence, the pathos, the impassioned tones of his supplication, his cry — "Cast me not away from thy face, and take not thy holy spirit from me." (Ps. 1.) It is the moan of the November gale, the mad grief of Nature's heart torn and rent, made bleak and lonely. The prophet's spiritual vision, his eyes of faith, saw in the passing of the Spirit, and understood, the void abysmal, the emptiness griping and the darkness terror-smiting of the immortal soul.
Says Pope Leo : "God alone is life." All other things partake of life, but are not life. Christ from all eternity and by His very nature is, "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades, and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him, whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word all things were made and without Him was made nothing that was made. This is true of the natural life, and, as we have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose consummation is, "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts, and actions, ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "'we, being dead to sin, should live to justice.'" (Ist Peter ii, 24), that is, to virtue and holiness. Christ is truth and life. The Holy Ghost proceeds from Him, and, the Holy Ghost is Christ's gift to us, in the workings of grace — " By the spirit of His mouth."
The Holy Ghost has, as a matter of fact, had Israel in His fervid keeping. He has strewn her way with blossoming wonders, endowing the patriarchs and leaders of the chosen people, at all passes, with various qualities, say of wisdom, courage or prudence, that the divers interests of Jehovah and the special plans of Israel demanded: "For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time, but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost." (2nd Peter i, 21.) Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and all those, who directed Israel, enjoyed a leadership, marked with a preeminence of wisdom and fidelity of government breathed into them by the Holy Ghost, whilst Daniel, Isaias, Zachary and the prophetic candelabra received into the runnels of their souls the illuminative fluid of the Holy Ghost, which effectively pierced the veil of futurity and enabled them to peer through its mists with Godlike vision: "The hand of the Lord was thereupon him."— (Ezechiel i, 3); "And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, son of man, prophesy and say, thus saith the Lord God." (xxxi, 2.)
The Holy Ghost had the direction of Othoniel. The Third Person inspired Gideon with such marvelous strength and courage. The Spirit's hand wrought about the roots of Samson's giant deeds. When this immense man stopped his ears against the whisperings of the Holy Ghost, there glitters before the imagination an awful ideal of contrast between the inspired, colossal, pyramid like mortal in his imposing grandeur and the uninspired child of mere flesh, abashed, forlorn in his subjugation, a pitiable Sybarin, the mockery of Delilah, whose devilish art had sucked from his heart, like a viper, the blood of his might and reduced the giant to the humiliating capacity of a puppet.
The Holy Ghost brightened the path of Israel's kings. Under the influence of the Holy Ghost, Israel's first king, Saul, was a model of delicate feeling, of rare modesty and humility and of genuine docility, of great self-restraint and wise forbearance, great simplicity and disinterestedness. Breathing upon him, the Holy Ghost made an effective weapon out of him to further the Divine glory. Faithless proved he to the Spirit's voice, and then? catastrophe and shame ensued and his honored crown is made to pass over to another, more worthy, because more obedient to the Spirit's voice.
