 Bertrand Russell Quotes 366 |
Confining our attention to the more famous among the Saints (for some, like the excellent St. Gubby, have only local celebrity), we find that a very large proportion owe their position to their activities in spreading the Faith. Some have done this by their writings, like the Evangelists, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas; others have done it as missionaries, like St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Boniface, and St. Francis Xavier; a third group, like King Louis IX, distinguished themselves in war against the infidel; a fourth were noted as organizers of persecution, like St. Cyril and St. Dominic. Above all there is the Noble Army of Martyrs - men who died rather than renounce the Catholic Faith, for to die on behalf of any other faith is no credit to the victim. It is possible to achieve saintship by notable benevolence, for instance in almsgiving, but this alone does not, as a rule, lead to great fame.
Source: Bertrand Russell: Human Society in Ethics and Politics, (1954), chapter 5
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