Whenever I hear the saying, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” I picture, in my mind’s eye, an actress like Margaret Hamilton or Agnes Moorehead scrubbing away at the back of a boy’s ears till they’re quite raw. Or I think of whitewashed tombs, as Jesus says, all bright and clean on the outside, but on the inside it’s all corruption and dead men’s bones. So I guess I am not naturally inclined to approve of the saying. But there is more to it than I have wanted to admit. And by the way — and it may not be utterly by the way — both of those actresses were fond of children, and Agnes Moorehead was also a devout and outspoken Christian woman, who always brought her Bible with her to the set. Strange, that we should remember Hamilton as the green-fleshed hook-nosed eagerly cruel Wicked Witch of the West, and Moorehead as Endora, the quintessential bad mother-in-law, and a witch to boot, in the old television comedy Bewitched.But the more I think about it, the more the saying does make sense, so long as we don’t use it to push cleanliness by itself, calling up Godliness only as a token on the clean person’s behalf. God commands his people, through the prophet Isaiah, to scrub away their dirt: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil.” If they do so, and they relieve the suffering of the widow and the orphan, though their sins be as red as scarlet, “they shall be as white as snow.” When my father was an altar boy, preparing for Mass with the prescribed prayers, he would hear the priest, in Latin, repeat the words of the repentant Psalmist: “Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, O Lord, and I shall be made clean; thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Cleanliness can be a way of acknowledging the purity of God, and our own impurity before him. To clean the house is, or at least it can be, a reminder that we ought to clean ourselves too, or ask God to clean us, to use on us that antiseptic cleanser, hyssop. When I was a boy and I got dressed for school, with shirt and tie and slacks and decent shoes, I somehow understood, not so much in words as in action, that school was somehow set apart from the rest of the day, special, just a bit elevated, and when we trooped on over to the church every first Friday of the month for Benediction and the Divine Praises, followed by confession, the girls on one side and the boys on the other, it did not seem entirely different from the rest of our scholastic life. The sign can have a powerful effect on the person who uses it.
Then there’s the social power. I’m certainly not talking here about expensive or flashy clothing, but about simple, modest cleanliness — which, to my view, rules out all clothing that makes the wearer into a billboard; that’s not modest but aggressive. You make yourself clean and well-dressed not so much for yourself as for other people. It says, “I respect your home.” It says, “I hold your person in esteem.” It does not draw attention to itself. It isn’t loud or boorish. And there’s a certain care about cleanliness that makes you more likely to consider other people — how they feel, what they need, whether they will encounter you first as a possible friend or as a rival or aggressor or troublemaker.
All of which serves as a preface to our Poem of the Week, some selections on cleanliness from George Herbert’s long advice-giving poem, “The Church Porch.” It’s the opening poem in his volume, The Temple. Herbert really intended the volume to be a single coherent work, setting forth the trials and the consolations and the joys of the spiritual life, moving from the porch or vestibule of the church, to the altar and the reception of the Sacrament. So then, what advice does our poet give to the young man preparing to enter? It’s all founded in the natural virtues, that common sense that used to go by the name of reason, what you will find also in the Chinese and Indian sages. Don’t drink too much. When you’re in conversation, let other people take the lead, and ask them about things they know. Don’t gamble. If you do play cards for fun, determine what you’re willing to lose or win, and when you’ve done that, get up from the table. Don’t tell fibs. Be diligent in your work. Plan what you are going to do, and do it as well as you can. Don’t listen to malicious tales about other people, and don’t carry them yourself. Don’t fawn before the rich and powerful, and don’t scorn a poor man or a man of modest means. Get to church on Sunday. And here, in a few passages I’ve selected — be clean.
A note on the text: to “bate” here means to reprobate, to forbid. Herbert means that even if he were an Epicurean, which he is not, he would still forbid swearing. “Oaths” are swear-words, vulgarities, or obscenities. “Stays” is a plural noun here, meaning “boundaries.” “Virtue” means “power”; Herbert is thinking of the holy name of Jesus, and such time when the fellow he is advising will need to invoke that name, pleading.
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…Beware of lust: it doth pollute and foul Whom God in Baptism washed with his own blood. It blots thy lesson written in thy soul; The holy lines cannot be understood. How dare those eyes upon a Bible look, Much less towards God, whose lust is all their book? Abstain wholly, or wed. Thy bounteous Lord Allows thee choice of paths: take no by-ways, But gladly welcome what he doth afford; Not grudging that thy lust hath bounds and stays. Continence hath his joy. Weigh both; and so If rottenness have more, let Heaven go…. Take not His name, who made thy mouth, in vain: It gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse. Lust and wine plead a pleasure, avarice gain: But the cheap swearer through his open sluice Lets his soul run for nought, as little fearing. Were I an Epicure, I could bate swearing. When thou dost tell another’s jest, therein Omit the oaths, which true wit cannot need: Pick out of tales the mirth, but not the sin. He pares his apple, that will cleanly feed. Play not away the virtue of that name Which is thy best stake, when griefs make thee tame…. Pick out of mirth, like stones out of thy ground, Profaneness, filthiness, abusiveness. These are the scum with which coarse wits abound: The fine may spare these well, yet not go less. All things are big with jest: nothing that’s plain But may be witty, if thou hast the vein. Wit’s an unruly engine, wildly striking Sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer. Hast thou the knack? pamper it not with liking: But if thou want it, buy it not too dear. Many affecting wit beyond their power, Have got to be a dear fool for an hour…. Affect in things about thee cleanliness, That all may gladly board thee, as a flower. Slovens take up their stock of noisomeness Beforehand, and anticipate their last hour. Let thy mind’s sweetness have his operation Upon thy body, clothes, and habitation.
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