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 Bersier, Eug ene, 1831-188 
 
 Saint Paul's vision 
 
Saint Paul's Vision 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER SERMONS 
 
 REV. EUGENE BERSIER 
 
 Pastor of V Eglise de l'Etoile, Paris 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 MARIE STEWART 
 
 New York 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY 
 
 900 BRdAnWAY, COR. 20th SIRF.ET 
 
Copyright, 1881, 
 Bv Anson D. F. Randolph & Company. 
 
 PRINTED nV ST. JOHNLAND 
 
 KnWARD O. JRNKINS, STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 
 
 ao north WILLIAM ST., N. Y. SUFFOLK CO., N. Y. 
 
PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 
 
 M. Bersier is widely known as one of the foremost 
 pulpit orators as well as one of the most active Protestant 
 pastors of France. No translation of his sermons having 
 appeared in this country, it has been thought that a selec- 
 tion of them would be of interest and value to the many 
 of our countrymen who have heard Mr. Bersier in his own 
 tongue, and in his own pulpit, or who know him by reputa- 
 tion ; as well as to others who may be desirous of some 
 acquaintance with the modern French pulpit. 
 
 The sermons presented in this volume were delivered by 
 the author in the ordinary services of the Lord's-day, to 
 his own congregation. They are strongly local in their 
 coloring, dealing with the special and personal needs of 
 those to whom he ministers. Yet nevertheless will they 
 be found to address themselves to the needs of men and 
 women in the great cities of our own land. The spiritual 
 difficulties which beset Christians in the midst of the materi- 
 alism and self-indulgence of the French metropolis, are just 
 such as are making themselves felt more and more pain- 
 fully among ourselves. 
 
 In this translation the attempt has been made to retain 
 so far as possible the idiomatic form of thought and mode of 
 expression of the original, and to convey in other words 
 the lights and shades of the original, so far as is possible 
 in a translation. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 
 
 Eugene Bersier, was born February 5th, 1831, in the 
 small village of Morges, on the borders of the lake of 
 Geneva, in Switzerland. He is a direct descendant of 
 French refugees exiled from their country at the revoca- 
 tion of the Edict of Nantes (1685), and it is this extrac- 
 tion which caused him to look upon France as his 
 adopted country. He studied at the College of Geneva. 
 From infancy, under the influence of a pious mother 
 who was early left a widow, he received religious impres- 
 sions which were never forgotten. His natural tastes 
 were especially directed to literature, and in college he 
 stood highest in Greek. 
 
 At the age of sixteen he came to Paris, and was 
 present at all the scenes of the revolution of 1848. Then 
 he made a visit to the United States where he became 
 familiar with the religious life of the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 During the year 1850 he resided at New Rochelle on 
 Long Island Sound, and it was then that he read 
 Macaulay, Prescott, and the works of several distinguished 
 American theologians. He was most hospitably received 
 into the family of the Rev. Dr. Robert Baird and often 
 heard the most distinguished of the New York preachers, 
 
iv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 especially Dr. Bethune, Dr. James W. Alexander and Mr. 
 Beecher. 
 
 It was during his sojourn in America that he deter- 
 mined to become a minister of the Gospel, and toward 
 the close of 1850 he returned to Europe and to Geneva, 
 where for three years he followed the course of study in 
 the school of theology, under such teachers as Drs. 
 Gaussen and Merle d'Aubigne. The influence of a 
 former distinguished professor, the late Alexander Vinet 
 was still powerfully felt in the theological school, and to 
 his writings was largely due the special type of Bersier's 
 theology. 
 
 After having finished his 'studies at Geneva, he sup- 
 plemented them by a year's sojourn in the Universities 
 of Halle and Gottingen, where he became acquainted 
 with, and highly appreciated Drs. Tholuck and J. Miiller 
 and Dorner. 
 
 Upon his return to Paris in 1855, ^^ ^^^s called to 
 the pastorate of a church in the faubourg Saint Antoine, 
 and for three years devoted himself to the evangelization 
 of working men. 
 
 He married the daughter of Dr. Holland, co-laborer 
 with the famous Agassiz, and uncle of M. Edmond de 
 Pressensé. In i860 he was called as assistant to the 
 latter, in the charge of the Église Taitbout. It was 
 there, before an intelligent, cultivated audience, that 
 he demonstrated his calling as a preacher. His first 
 volume of sermons published in 1864 had a wide cir- 
 culation, reaching its tenth edition, and was soon trans- 
 lated into several foreign tongues. M. Bersier, was then 
 called to preach in a number of towns in the provinces. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 At Geneva he gave two series of lectures, on "Chris- 
 tian Ethics" (1866), and on "Independent Ethics" 
 (1868). It was on this latter subject that he presented 
 a paper the same year at the general conference of the 
 Evangelical Alliance at Amsterdam. He then published 
 an essay on "Solidarité," ("The Oneness of the Human 
 Race.") 
 
 There followed the fatal year of 1870 and that war 
 which Bersier did not hesitate to pronounce from the 
 beginning foolish and wicked. Shut up for five months 
 in Paris, he was one of the principal organizers of the 
 service of ambulances, and as chief of the Protestant 
 litter-men {brancardiers), he was present at all the battles 
 which took place under the walls of the capital. At 
 the same time he was obliged by force of circumstances 
 to exercise with his colleagues M. de Pressensé and M. 
 Coquerel, the role of political moderator, in founding 
 and often presiding at the Club of the Porte Saint-Martin, 
 which was the central rallying point of conservative re- 
 publicans, opposed to the communistic ideas. When 
 the Commune burst forth, he remained at his post and 
 protested publicly against the imprisonment of the arch- 
 bishop of Paris. He combated the Commune in a series 
 of letters published by the "Journal de Genève." At the 
 close of the war, in 1871, he received the cross of the 
 legion of honor. 
 
 When peace was restored a new theatre of action was 
 awaiting M. Bersier. He had founded in 1868 evening 
 religious meetings in the west quarter of Paris near the 
 porte de Neuilly. This work soon became so extensive 
 that it was proposed to erect a church there, which M. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Bersier was to take entire charge of, and sever his con- 
 nection with the EgUse Taitbout. After two years of 
 work interrupted by a serious malady which endangered 
 his Hfe, he succeeded in raising the sum of five hundred 
 thousand francs, and in erecting on the Avenue <le Grande 
 Armée, a large Gothic church which is called, "l'Église 
 de l'Étoile," a few steps from the Arc de Triomphe, 
 whence its name. 
 
 The church was dedicated Nov. 28th, 1874. It will 
 seat from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred persons, and 
 it is always crowded, so much so that they contemplate 
 enlarging it. M. Bersier has introduced a liturgical ser- 
 vice, with responses from the congregation, strongly re- 
 sembling the service in the English Church, although the 
 doctrine expressed in the prayers is precisely the same as 
 tradition hands down from the ancient Reformed Church 
 of France. He has expressed his views on this subject 
 in the preface of his Liturgy. He regards the simple 
 service of the Reformed Presbyterian Church as somewhat 
 too unimpressive and cold for the sympathetic nature of 
 the French; that it gives too great a prominence to the 
 preacher, and does not sufficiently meet the needs of a 
 common worship. This attempt to ameliorate the Prot- 
 estant form of service caused at first, naturally, some 
 severe criticisms. However it responded to a great want, 
 as its success has proved. 
 
 M. Bersier has published up to the present time six 
 volumes of sermons which have gone through many 
 editions. They at last attracted the attention of the Ro- 
 man Catholic public, and one of the most celebrated 
 French critics, Mon. de Sacy, devoted to them an ex- 
 
BIOGRA rriICA L SKE TCH. 
 
 tended article in the "Journal des Débats." This appre- 
 ciation from the pen of a Catholic writer, is of particular 
 interest. 
 
 "As a moralist," writes De Sacy, "M. Bersier I have 
 no hesitation in saying is equal to the most illustrious 
 examples of our ancient Catholic pulpit. No one can 
 surpass him in truthfulness and in keenness of perception. 
 What is he as an orator .f" Has he the delivery, the action, 
 the gesture of the orator.? 1 presume so, without ever 
 having heard him. But that he is an excellent writer, 
 without affectation, without vanity, that he has attractive- 
 ness, good taste, that his style is always the true expres- 
 sion of his thoughts, the mirror of his soul, I affirm from 
 knowledge. Seldom have I been so charmed as by these 
 sermons of M. Bersier." 
 
 Although an advocate in theory of the separation of 
 Church and State, M. Bersier in 1877 reunited his church 
 to the consistory of the Established Reformed Church of 
 Paris. He expressed his views on this subject in his 
 discourses on "The Church" published in that year. He 
 thinks that the Reformed Church of France in spite of the 
 rationalistic elements which it contains through fault of 
 its organization, is still the church which has the greatest 
 chance of exercising a serious influence upon the nation; 
 that from its historic past, from the fact that the Protes- 
 tant population is deeply attached to it, it can have a 
 great future, and it is not well to enfeeble it by premature 
 secessions, which in depriving it of its best elements will 
 deliver it over to the representatives of free thinking. It 
 was under the influence of these considerations that other 
 pastors, until that time attached to the Free Church, — 
 
viii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Messrs. Théodore Monod and John Bost, — ^joined, with 
 M. Bersier, the Established Church. 
 
 Among the latest publications of Bersier, may be men- 
 tioned his letter to M. Jules Ferry, Minister of Public 
 Instruction, in which he denounces with energy the in- 
 tolerant measures which the French government proposed 
 to take in the matter of education against the Catholic 
 clergy, and especially the famous Article Seven which was 
 fortunately rejected by the French senate. Very recently 
 M. Bersier has obtained from the government an act of 
 justice which has attracted the attention of the French 
 press; it is the official promise of the concurrence of this 
 government in the erection in the heart of Paris, facing 
 the Palace of the Louvre, of a statue of Admiral Coligny, 
 the illustrious victim of St. Bartholomew. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON 
 
 I. ST. Paul's vision . 
 
 II. MOSES .... 
 
 — III. THE VISION OF ELIJAH . 
 IV. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 
 
 V. THE UNEQUAL GIFTS 
 
 — VI. LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAn's DOOR 
 VII. THE SLAVE ONESIMUS 
 
 VIII. THE STATE OF DOUBT 
 
 IX. THE STATE OF DOUBT (SECOND SERMON) 
 
 — X. DISCOURAGEMENT .... 
 
 I 
 29 
 
 57 
 
 85 
 
 113 
 
 163 
 189 
 215 
 251 
 
I. 
 
I. 
 
 $t. Paul's Vision. 
 
 "And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a 
 man of Macedonia and prayed him, saying. Come over into Mace- 
 donia and help us. 
 
 '■'■ And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to 
 go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering, that the Lord had called 
 us for to preach the Gospel unto the?n." 
 
 Acts xvi. 9, 10. 
 
 I CAN never picture to myself without emo- 
 tion the moment when Saint Paul reached the 
 sea shore at Troas, and for the first time stood 
 gazing across the blue waters of the Hellespont 
 towards Europe. The country which surrounded 
 him was, as we know, one favored above all 
 others, where, under a splendid sky, nature had 
 lavished her beauties; the most ancient poetry 
 had peopled its shores with heroes and gods. 
 But the great apostle was not arrested by such 
 thoughts; his heart and his life were devoted to 
 another end. I imagine what his feelings must 
 
Sr. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 have been when he saw the coast of old Europe 
 in the distance. 
 
 Ah'eady, in the first rapture of his mission- 
 
 /. ary ardor, had he traversed the entire western 
 Asia, proclaiming- Jesus Christ. It would seem 
 as if so many perils encountered, so many fa- 
 tigues endured, might have satisfied him. An- 
 other man would have been crushed under the 
 spiritual burden of the many churches founded 
 and the thousands of souls converted to the liv- 
 
 ^y ing God. But his heart expanded under the task, 
 his ardor grew with the difficulties; it was Europe 
 there that drew him. Beyond the sea rolling at 
 his feet he sees Greece with her arts and her di- 
 vinities which had charmed the world: he sees 
 Rome, the mistress city, with all peoples kneel- 
 ing before her; he takes in this world with the 
 broad glance of his holy apostolic ambition; he 
 dreams this dream, strange, extravagant, of sub 
 jecting it to Jesus Christ. 
 
 Then, as the Scripture tells us, when night 
 came on, Paul had a vision. A man appeared 
 before him, and calling him, said, " Come over 
 the sea and save us." Thus God was answering 
 his prayers and was transforming the ardent 
 desire of his heart into a positive call. 
 
ST. PAUUS VISION. 
 
 "Come and save us!" It was the cry of the 
 old world, a cry of distress, a cry of despair. 
 It was the last word of that magnificent civil- J 
 ization, of that wonderful development of hu- 
 manity. So many philosophers and sages, so 
 many schools and academies, so many discus- 
 sions and researches, so many laws and consti- 
 tutions, so many orators and writers of genius, 
 to end with this final word — " Come and save 
 us!" Come and save us; for doubt is tormenting 
 us; for after having been buffeted about upon 
 the troubled waves of human thought we have 
 stranded upon the quicksands of an eternal scep- 
 ticism. Come and save us ! for corruption is con- 
 suming us, the gangrene has penetrated to the 
 marrow of our bones ; for we no longer know 
 what is purity ; our depravities horrify nature 
 herself. Come and save us ! for we are all sjayes, 
 all kneeling at the foot of a being who was yes- 
 terday called Caligula, who to-morrow will be 
 called Nero. Come, for our gods are dead, our 
 temples silent, our priests scoffing at their own 
 prayers and sacrifices. Come ! for we are suffer- 
 ing, and there is no more hope for us. 
 
 The apostle then is about to embark upon 
 this vast enterprise. Often before, over the sea 
 
ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 which he is to cross, conquerors have passed with 
 their powerful armies. This was the route which 
 Xerxes, Alexander, Caesar, followed; and every 
 time that these formidable multitudes passed 
 with unfurled banners and immense prepara- 
 tions it was said, " The world is going to change 
 masters." To-day it is only a bark rapidly bear- 
 ing from one shore to the other, four ignorant 
 men, Paul of Tarsus, Luke, Silas, and Timothy. 
 No one, it is likely, notices their voyage; but 
 these men are going to found a kingdom which 
 shall never perish; and we, the descendants of 
 those races to whom they were carrying the 
 word of life, let us hail them and bless their 
 memory. 
 
 This grand page from the apostolic times will 
 serve to-day for our instruction. That which 
 happened at Troas has been re-enacted in all 
 ages of the Church, and in the history of every 
 Christian soul. All of us, if we are Christians, 
 have heard the cries of human misery, physical 
 or moral, and these sorrows have called to us to 
 come to their relief. Have you understood these 
 appeals .'' Are you fulfilling this mission } This 
 is the twofold question I wish to put to you. 
 
 If Paul, once a bigoted Jew and an unrelenting 
 
ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 Pharisee, was moved by the cry of distress from 
 the old world, it was because he had become an 
 apostle of Jesus Christ, and was following Him 
 who first had seen the sombre vision of a lost 
 humanity, and had given Himself up to save it. 
 Paul saw in Jesus Christ, his king. Now what is 
 the distinctive feature of this kingdom .■* It is a 
 kingdom of love and of sacrifice. Those who 
 before and after Him have reigned over men 
 have said to themselves, "We will ascend." 
 He said, "I will descend." They said, "We 
 will rule." He said, " I will serve." Jesus Christ 
 humbled Hirnself, He looked down; He heard 
 the groaning of a guilty humanity, and that 
 He might save it, He descended to the very 
 bottom of the abyss of our sorrows and our 
 condemnation. 
 
 Like master, like disciples ! While by nature 
 we are prone to look above us, toward whatever 
 attracts and flatters our ambition and pride, Je- 
 sus Christ would ever recall our thoughts to 
 things beneath us. He did not speak of the 
 kings of the earth. Of all those whose names 
 had resounded through the world, Jesus said not 
 a word; and what a lesson in this silence ! But 
 He spoke constantly of those to whom no one 
 
8 ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 before had paid attention. To them He sought 
 to direct the interest and love of His disciples. 
 At the last day He will recognize as His own, 
 and will welcome into glory such as have visited 
 and succored these; He puts Himself in their 
 place, He makes Himself in some way their rep- 
 resentative in all the ages. In assisting them, it 
 is He who is assisted and who is loved: and the 
 better to instruct His disciples how they should 
 serve their brethren, at the moment of leaving 
 them He girded up His loins, knelt before them, 
 and washed their feet, taking thus the posture 
 and the service of the lowest slave, and adding, 
 "That which I have done shall ye do also." 
 
 Everywhere this idea reappears in His teach- 
 ings. It strikes me particularly in one of His 
 most familiar parables, one too of those least 
 dwelt upon because we dread its meaning so 
 clear and which so utterly condemns our selfish- 
 ness. "Then said He also to them that bade 
 Him, when thou makest a dinner or a supper, call 
 not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy 
 kinsmen nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also 
 bid thee again ('Lest they also bid thee'! how 
 many are there who know anything of this fear ?), 
 and a recompense be made thee" (Luke xiv. 12). 
 
ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 Admirable illustration of the way in which relig- 
 ion, practiced in the spirit of the Master, ought 
 to act for the transforming of society ! Imagine 
 this spirit comprehended and penetrating the 
 world, what would we see ? All superiority, 
 natural or acquired, wealth, power, science, tal- 
 ent, genius, would constitute man a minister to 
 those beneath him. These endowments, which 
 sin has so often made the instruments of despot- 
 ism and pride, would become the instruments 
 of the spiritual elevation and gradual emancipa- 
 tion of all. Those who are highest would help 
 those who are beneath them to rise to the light 
 and to true moral freedom. Instead of meagre 
 alms thrown carelessly into the gulf of human 
 misery, instead of a few deeds done to ease the 
 conscience and of which one soon tires, there 
 would be a constant prepossession turning the 
 heart toward misery and suffering, as surely and 
 naturally as electricity turns the magnetized 
 needle toward the north star. 
 
 Then we should see civilized and Christian 
 nations, instead of making their superiority an 
 instrument of conquest, turning toward those 
 who are still plunged in the degradation of pa- 
 ganism and barbarism, and saying to them, in 
 
lO ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 the language of the parable, "Come and sit 
 down with us." Then the learned, instead of 
 shutting themselves up in that aristocratic dis- 
 dain by which, as they pretend, impartial science 
 should be recognized, would say to the ignorant, 
 "Come, sit at the table of science, and partake of 
 it." Then those who are rich, instead of regard- 
 ing wealth as a pedestal for their selfishness and 
 the means of an insolent display, which adds noth- 
 ing to their influence if on the contrary it does 
 not destroy it, would comprehend that God con- 
 fers upon them a true patronage of intelligent 
 solicitude for those who have no leisure, and who 
 are crushed, as it were, by daily cares and the 
 burden of unceasing toil. Yes, suppose society, 
 inspired by this spirit, acting under its strong and 
 steady impulse, to make light, life and progress 
 to penetrate even to the lowest strata, could we 
 not hope for much, and would we not be able to 
 overcome at length, otherwise than by force, that 
 levelling, savage spirit, those hatreds of class to- 
 ward class, to which I often revert with persis- 
 tency and grief, because they are the peril and 
 shame of our brilliant civilization ? 
 
 And what is the first condition of all this } 
 It is that Christian love take possession of the 
 
ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 heart; it is that, transformed by the spirit of the 
 Master, we learn from Him to look not above 
 but beneath us; it is that like St. Paul we see in 
 our visions those who suffer and are lost; it is 
 that like him we hear their cry of distress and 
 their appeal. 
 
 I have drawn the ideal; we must now compare 
 with it the reality. 
 
 Have you never felt a profound sadness in 
 looking over a map of the world and noticing 
 what a narrow space Christianity occupies on it } 
 I know all the great and heroic work which has 
 been done in the field of missions, particularly 
 in this century, since Christianity has awakened 
 to the fact that she is here on earth to win 
 the world to God. I know all the marvellous 
 acts of devotion which Japan, China, Thibet, 
 Oceanica, and Africa have witnessed. I know 
 the streams of Catholic and Protestant blood 
 which have been shed there for the Gospel; the 
 long waitings, the shocking sacrifices, the terri- 
 ble isolations, the agonies worse than death 
 which have been endured; and I know the re- 
 sults obtained; I know that Asia and Africa 
 are, as it were, enclosed by a cordon of mis- 
 sionary stations, and that in this ofttimes dead- 
 
S7\ PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 \y siege the combatants never flinch; I know the 
 churches founded under every sky and announc- 
 ing in tongues, hitherto pagan, the kingdom of 
 Jesus Christ; I count with gratitude upon the 
 first-fruits of the great harvests which await the 
 future. But can these results satisfy us ? does 
 this suffice us ? does it not seem to you that the 
 pagan world turns to the Christian world and 
 says to it, "Come and save me?"(^ 
 
 On the one side, Europe and America over 
 which the light is shining; on the other, the 
 rest of the world yet wrapped in darkness ! On 
 the one side, civilization with all its refinements, 
 all its treasures, all its sciences; on the other, a 
 barbarism often savage, a cowardly despotism, 
 ferocious and without restraint, peoples sinking 
 into death, terrible famines periodically spread- 
 ing over India and Persia. Oh, does it not seem 
 that this enormous inequality ought year by year 
 to disappear ? Does it not seem that nations 
 whom a superior life enlightens and reanimates 
 should unite in disseminating through the rest 
 of the world some little progress, some little 
 justice, some little humanity ? And then when 
 it is said that hitherto the superior races have 
 oftenest used their power and their intelligence 
 
ST. PAUL'S vis/on: 13 
 
 only to oppress and plunder the weaker; that 
 their policy toward them has been for centuries 
 a long series of iniquities; that it is the sinister 
 aureole with which "they have encircled their 
 name of Christian, — does it not seem that an 
 imperious sense of justice should urge them to a 
 mission of reparation and peace ? Alas ! we 
 would it were so; but do you know what these 
 Christian nations are doing at this moment ? 
 They are on the watch against each other, they 
 are filling their arsenals, and no one knows but 
 on the morrow they may be in bloody conflict. 
 Yes, these men you have met in all parts of 
 Europe, the men whom you have seen asso- 
 ciated in the same labors, honestly joined in the 
 same noble researches in science, inspired to 
 enthusiasm by the same splendors of art and 
 nature, their hearts vibrating with the same emo- 
 tions, and must I say it, bowing before the same 
 God, praying to the same Saviour, — alas ! they 
 will meet one day in international warfare upon 
 some yet unknown spot of Europe, upon that 
 battlefield of the future where your own beloved 
 son may fall. See where we stand ! See how 
 civilized peoples are fulfilling their mission to- 
 ward the rest of the world. 
 
14 ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 Oh, that the Church at least understood her 
 mission ! Oh, that she heard the call of the 
 world and answered it ! I have recalled what 
 she has accomplished in our days; but is there 
 yet in this anything that appears like a great 
 triumph ? In presence of these two thirds of our 
 fellow-men still heathen, have we not felt our 
 conscience tremble under the sting of remorse ? 
 Have we not heard the call which troubled St. 
 Paul ? Ah, do I speak of the heathen ! When 
 you traverse our large cities, when you see those 
 thoughtless, frivolous crowds, when vice and 
 degradation, elegant or vulgar, encounter you 
 on your way, when cynical atheism lurks at the 
 bottom of so many souls, and despair at the bot- 
 tom of so many sorrows, think you that the 
 Church can be still and say, " I have done, O 
 God, the work Thou hast given me to do"? 
 How can we help groaning at thought of so 
 much fruitless debate, of intestine strifes which 
 consume our vitality, our resources, and our 
 time ? For these controversies the material will 
 never be wanting; the first incident suffices to 
 rekindle the fiame, and then you know too well 
 how quickly it takes possession of the Church. 
 
 You will say to mc, that the truth when as- 
 
^7^. PAUL'S VISION. 15 
 
 sailed, must be defended. I know it and would 
 guard against counselling here, under the pre- 
 text of charity to others, a cowardly indifference 
 towards the revealed truth of which we should be 
 the depositaries and witnesses; I believe, more- 
 over, that to give the truth to others is the first 
 and best proof of charity toward them; I believe 
 also, that to weaken the truth is the surest way 
 to dry up this charity at the very fountain head. 
 Yes, let us defend the truth, or rather, believe 
 me, let us assert it as fully and faithfully as we 
 can, leaving it oftener than we have done to de- 
 fend itself. Let us first believe in it more fully 
 ourselves, and let us have faith in its intrinsic ^ 
 power, rather than in the arguments by which 
 we support it. Let us search the depths and 
 riches of it; let us be the priests and worship- 
 pers of the sanctuary before becoming its guard- 
 ians ; let us keep ourselves nearer the altar 
 and less often on the outer battlements. Let 
 us be less the advocates of the Gospel than its 
 witnesses. Let us be more engaged in being 
 faithful to the truth than in reasoning with our 
 adversaries. There is a triumph in dispute which 
 is but a snare, and which leaves the mind dis- 
 satisfied and the conscience troubled. To serve 
 
1 6 ST. PAUrS VISION. 
 
 the truth of religion with our passions or our 
 scoffs; to descend to the level of personalities; 
 to relish the malicious pleasure which the hu- 
 miliation of our adversaries brings, — is fruitless 
 work, is sowing seed in the sand ; it is even 
 worse, it is to discredit and calumniate the cause 
 we would save. 
 
 But do not think, I pray you, that I coun- 
 sel here a sort of idyllic peace, or an assumed 
 meekness, which would be but a mask. Ah ! 
 doubtless we will always have conflicts, but it 
 behooves us to know in what spirit we are to 
 maintain them, and whether the love of God, of 
 our brethren, and of our enemies themselves, be 
 strong enough in our hearts to expel all personal 
 concern. 
 
 And here I will refer to St. Paul, to his 
 whole life, which throws wonderful light on 
 this point. You know with what power, what 
 ardor, what logic, St. Paul defended the Chris- 
 tian truth. But see also with what energy he 
 knows how to detach himself from these con- 
 troversies, and to press on the more eagerly to 
 the conquest of souls ! Surely to one trained in 
 a school of rabbis, theologian by nature and 
 education, logician to the very marrow of his 
 
ST. PAUL'S VISION. 17 
 
 bones, the temptation was great to fall into this 
 snare. Do you find him engaging in barren con- 
 troversies, wasting upon them his marvellous re- 
 sources of skill and genius ? I do not know what 
 in that case his character would have become, 
 but I ask myself if, after all that, we would have 
 recognized his work and his name. What did 
 St. Paul do "! Leaving Judaism to waste away 
 in the discussions of the scribes, he listened, and 
 heard the groanings of the heathen world; he 
 said to himself, "The time has come; let us 
 create a new people for God," and he, the disci- 
 ple of Gamaliel, the former rabbi, the Pharisee, 
 the sectary, he has become this great, this noble 
 heart, capable of embracing in his vast love the 
 entire heathen world. 
 
 You will say to me perhaps that the cry of 
 distress which St. Paul heard does not ring in 
 our midst, and that there must be a call before 
 there can be a response. Ah! we know it only 
 too well, this cry is rare. They are material 
 sorrows which speak first, and speak loudest. 
 But think you it was different in St. Paul's time } 
 Think you that consciences were less dull, less 
 asleep at Ephesus or Athens than they are in 
 Paris .'' Is not a false, carnal security in a cer- 
 
1 8 ST. PAUL'S rrsiOiY. 
 
 tain sense the normal condition of the most 
 wicked in every age ? Think you that if St. 
 Paul had looked only at the surface of ancient 
 Greece, at her frivolous manners and at her con- 
 tinual festivals, he would have heard the cry 
 which called him away ? Unquestionably, no ! 
 It was with the divination of love that he heard 
 it and understood it. He tore away all delusive 
 veils, he saw to the bottom of things, and found 
 that bottom to be sad and hopeless. 
 
 Well, be not deceived about it; nothing is 
 changed here. Notwithstanding the proud pre- 
 tensions of an exact science, notwithstanding the 
 serenity that many men affect, there is lurking 
 in every soul which is not plunged into a sen- 
 sual life, and which has not, in the language of 
 Scripture, become flesh, a hidden sorrow Avhich 
 appeals for consolation, a moral trouble which 
 calls for peace. There are the remains, alas ! 
 often defiled and broken, but still the remains 
 of that altar which St. Paul found at Athens, 
 and which was dedicated to the unknown God, 
 but which seemed to be awaiting the holy, liv- 
 ing, and true God ! 
 
 I have spoken, thus far, of the Church in gen- 
 eral; but nothing is so deceptive as generalities. 
 
ST. PAUL'S VISION. 19 
 
 I address myself now to each one of you, my 
 brethren. Redeemed by Jesus Christ, do you 
 hear the voices which called St. Paul .'' Have 
 you like him seen the vision of a world lost, 
 and far from God ? 
 
 Your visions ! Do you know what they are .-* 
 I will tell you, for you all have visions which 
 pursue and haunt you, even into the watches 
 of the night. 
 
 That young girl who hears me, what are her 
 dreams .'' Has she ever seen pass before her 
 any of the miseries of this earth .-' When flat- 
 tering lips whisper to her, when every wish is 
 gratified, when everything is done to make her 
 life attractive and lovely, has she ever thought 
 of othet: young girls who are growing up in 
 poverty and perhaps in shame .'' Has she ever 
 said to herself that the faith which has sur- 
 rounded her young life with pure influences and 
 a sweet celestial peace, was waating elsewhere, 
 or cruelly scoffed at .'' Has she suffered from 
 this .-* Has she understood the duty and the 
 happiness of scattering over these miseries a 
 consolation which comes from on high .-' Has 
 she ever looked forward to her life as one to be 
 devoted to the austere but noble path of con- 
 
20 ST. PAUL'S vision: 
 
 secration and sacrifice ? Let us turn from this 
 delusive picture. Her visions are the world's 
 enchantments, its applause and its enticements. 
 She has seen herself charming in her beautiful 
 attire, she has heard the murmur of admiration 
 which waits upon her steps. Ah ! were this but 
 the fascination of a day, who of us would cast 
 the stone at her } But if this fascination com- 
 mence again to-morrow, if always in the midst 
 of-JJicr dreams this vision calls her and charms 
 her, if life for her is the pleasure that the world 
 gives, if it be the world's intoxications — ah, well, 
 she can be admired and feted, she can see those 
 even whom God has given her for protectors and 
 guides, and who owe to her the truth, mingle 
 
 their flatteries with those of the world It 
 
 matters not, the veil which deceives her must 
 be torn away. At the bottom of her heart is 
 selfisliness — yes, beneath that charming exte- 
 rior, cold selfishness in its frightful ugliness. . . . 
 What a destiny is hers ! What an account to 
 render at the last hour ! What an inevitable 
 sentence upon this life without God and with- 
 out sacrifice. 
 
 I will notice here an opinion very prevalent 
 in the world, and very easil}' accepted. Noth- 
 
ST. PAUL'S VISION. 21 
 
 ing is more frequent than the assertion that 
 devotion and charity are very frequently alHed 
 with dissoluteness, with the impulses of passion- 
 ate natures. The admirable traits of certain wo- 
 men of the world are readily cited, and with a 
 malicious pleasure are contrasted with the well- 
 regulated selfishness of those who live sober 
 lives. 
 
 I admit that one often sees examples of sud- 
 den devotion, of unexpected charity, of real sac- 
 rifice^, in the bosom of a very dissipated and 
 even openly immoral life. I can understand that 
 a tormented conscience, a heart disturbed by a 
 frivolous life, may throw itself impulsively into 
 charity, piety, and even into sacrifice. Such per- 
 sons need at times a refuge, a shelter, something 
 to rest and calm them for a moment. But what 
 is there true and lasting in these acts ? How 
 can they redeem the scandal of a life of gid- 
 diness to which God is but a stranger } How 
 efface the deplorable effects of such an exam- 
 ple ? Moreover, do you always have confidence 
 in the sincerity of these acts ? Men jeer at the 
 absurdity of fictitious piety; but is counterfeit 
 coin found only in religious circles .'' Has not 
 the world its false sentimentality, its blustering 
 
ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 virtues, its apparent devotion, in fine its phari- 
 saism ? Because a dissipated and frivolous wo- 
 man has on some occasion done some acts of 
 charity, which a Christian woman would con- 
 sider the most ordinary of her duties, she will 
 'be received with a chorus of praises and her 
 charity will be exalted to the very clouds; but 
 does this outburst of charity change the fun- 
 damental character of her life ? Does it pre- 
 vent the inspiration of that life's being pleas- 
 ure; that is, to speak truly, selfishness, in other 
 words the death of true love ? \ 
 
 I know also that selfishness can be perfectly 
 joined with the utmost propriety of belief and 
 life. There are natures very precise, and in- 
 capable of devotedness. Certain religious circles 
 offer too numerous examples of this. They have 
 their traditional virtues, and one of the most 
 noticeable is their love of domestic life and re- 
 spect for its duties, and beside a real aversion 
 to any glaring dissipation, a certain conventional 
 sedateness. They think well of themselves for 
 it, and are content with it; and because they 
 possess these virtues, because they have a horror 
 of scandal, they do not perceive that they arc 
 buried in their own interests, in the pride of 
 
ST. PAUL'S FIS /on: 23 
 
 position, in their good fortune, in the love of 
 affluence; and that they are managing to be 
 Christians without even knowing self-denial or 
 sacrifice. The worldling understands them and 
 mocks them; but I will not leave him that ma- 
 licious pleasure. I say to him, " Do you know 
 what causes this amazing blindness ? " It is 
 yourself Yes, yourself, for if you did not give 
 the example of dissipation and scandal, they 
 would not make a merit of the simple fact 
 that they lead an honest and regular life. It 
 is you who lower the moral standard; it is you 
 who are the cause of it, that a woman tranquilly 
 regards herself above reproach merely because 
 she has not violated her obligations as wife and 
 mother. If it were not for you, one would look 
 higher for one's ideal, and instead of believing 
 one's self virtuous because not fallen, one would 
 perceive that above these natural affections there 
 is a boundless world of devotion and charity. 
 Without you, this selfishness which we with you 
 condemn, would be without excuse. It would fear 
 for itself, it would be affrighted at its guilty inac- 
 tion. It is you who reassure it. 
 
 Let us then no longer credit the sophism that 
 a worldly life does not extinguish charity. It is 
 
24 ST. PAUUS VISION. 
 
 at the bottom its mortal enemy. It takes from 
 it first all its time, and then its resources; it 
 withers down to the very roots the power of 
 loving and of sacrificing self. 
 
 Yes, if you pass by sufferings without seeing 
 them, if you hear the cries of distress without 
 heeding them, it is because the worldly life blinds 
 your eyes, hardens your heart and closes your 
 ears; if poverty importune you, if deeds of 
 charity annoy you, it is because pride, pleasure 
 and vanity have insolently consumed their por- 
 tion. Now we must not be deceived; if the 
 Gospel be true, this is a question of life and 
 salvation. I tell you that in the course you are 
 pursuing, you will lose your soul; you will lose 
 it in spite of your orthodox faith, in spite of 
 your periodic repentance, in spite of your effu- 
 sions which even amount to tears; for God looks 
 at the heart and yours belongs to the world, 
 yours belongs to vanity: your treasure is far 
 from God upon earth, therefore your portion will 
 be far from Him in eternity. 
 
 And you, my brethren, what are the visions 
 wdiich pass before your eyes .'' When you look 
 into the future, what is it that attracts and al- 
 lures you } Do you think of all those good and 
 
ST. PAUVS VISION. 25 
 
 holy causes which are waiting you perhaps and 
 depend upon you ? Are you concerned about 
 preparing yourself for the struggle ? Do you 
 long to become bold in spirit and character, to 
 resist evil, to combat against all tyrannies, be- 
 ginning with those of the flesh and of sin ? Do 
 you ever see pass before you those whom you 
 might aid with your hand and your heart ? Do 
 you hear the voices which cry out to you as they 
 did to St. Paul, " Come and help us ! " Ah ! 
 who says to me that your dream may not be one 
 of glory ? Literary glory may be your idol. 
 Your vision is a great name on every tongue, — 
 or perhaps it is wealth with its power and its 
 credit, a high position quickly achieved, — per- 
 haps higher than all this, it is science with its 
 noble discoveries, with its pure joys; — are those 
 your visions .'' Talents, wealth, and science, ad- 
 mirable weapons when devoted to God's service 
 for the redemption and salvation of mankind, 
 but which, separated from this great end, are 
 only instruments of selfishness, only splendid 
 idols which draw away from God our worship 
 and our love. 
 
 Where are the men of this age who see the 
 vision of St. Paul pass before their eyes } Where 
 
26 ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 are those whose hearts hear the groanings and 
 miseries of their generation, and who reaHze 
 that they must consecrate their life to them ? 
 Do you know how all the great works began ? 
 Men appeared who had seen what no man had 
 ever seen before. St. Paul saw the old world 
 lost, and he brought to it the Gospel. The re- 
 formers saw the church enfeebled and dying, 
 and re-opened to it the refreshing springs of 
 grace and of the eternal word of God. Pascal 
 saw the false devotion which would ruin Cathol- 
 icism and he wrote against it his immortal book; 
 Vincent de Paul saw little orphans cast away 
 in the street, and he established his great work; 
 Wilberforce saw the negroes sold like cattle, and 
 he overturned slavery. Before all these a vision 
 passed, it followed them, it haunted them, it left 
 them no more rest. 
 
 "Visions!" say the world and they mock at 
 it. You too will meet the mockers. Twenty 
 centuries before Jesus Christ, a young shepherd 
 of the tribe of Abraham told his visions to his 
 brothers. He saw in the depth of the future a 
 great glory awaiting him; but his brethren heard 
 him with a smile of contempt and hatred, and 
 said of him as he passed by — "Behold the 
 
ST. PAUL'S vision: 27 
 
 dreamer cometh ! " Thus, when God marks with 
 His own hand some soul predestined to a great 
 mission, when He brings before his eyes the 
 vision which will decide his destiny, when He 
 unrolls before him the future He has assigned 
 him, the world repeats the mocking words 
 of Joseph's brethren, — " Behold the dreamer 
 cometh." 
 
 And when there came the child of Nazareth 
 who dared to dream of the kingdom of God on 
 earth in absolute justice and truth, and who 
 foresaw His kingdom of love increasing through 
 the centuries, His own brethren said, " He is a 
 madman ; " the Pharisees cried out, " He is 
 possessed, he is a demoniac;" and Pilate the 
 sceptic shrugged his shoulders. That which 
 happened to the Master awaits his followers. 
 Ask it of St. Paul appearing before Festus and 
 hearing those words of derision: "Too much 
 learning, O Paul, doth make thee mad." Dream- 
 er ! yes, and it is the condemnation of this world 
 that charity is to it a dream, and the cross fool- 
 ishness. 
 
 A dream, a folly, and yet it is on these terms 
 that the Gospel will conquer. If Christianity 
 dares not go as far as that to-day, the world 
 
28 ST. PAUL'S VISION. 
 
 will cast it aside like an extinguished torch, 
 like salt without savor. Leave the Gospel in ths 
 hands of sages, a hundred times would they have 
 lost it ! It is the dreamers who a hundred times 
 have saved it; it is the madmen who have dared 
 to lose their lives, who have loved without cal- 
 culation and unto sacrifice. 
 
 My brethren, when St. Paul had heard the call 
 from God, the Scripture says simply that he de- 
 parted. Let this word be our last lesson. One 
 may have contemplated the most sublime vis^ 
 ions, may have felt his heart penetrated with the 
 most lively emotions, may have trembled with 
 admiration before the ideal Christian, and yet 
 have remained none the less a poor self-seeker, 
 a useless being whom God will reject at the last 
 day. What then must be done .-' You must de- 
 part; in other words, you must sever the ties 
 which bind you to worldliness, to sensuality, to 
 pride; you must depart, that is, you must go, 
 each to his work and do it steadily even to the 
 end. "Happy are ye," the Master has said, 
 "who know these things if ye do them." Amen. 
 
IL 
 fHoSf S* 
 
II. 
 Hoses. 
 
 "For he endured as seeing Him who is invisible." 
 
 Hebrews ii. 27. 
 
 He endured. I like this phrase in which the 
 Scripture sums up the whole life of Moses. It 
 offers a striking contrast to all that we see around 
 us to-day. 
 
 Our age, more than any other, has stirred 
 the sensitive, delicate chords of the human 
 heart; it has spoken to man, in tones often 
 penetrating, of his sorrows and his joys. Its 
 literature and its art, cultivated by great mas- 
 ters, have sometimes intoxicated him with vague 
 and deep reveries. It is not only the sensibility 
 of the soul that it has developed; luxury in be- 
 coming common has destroyed all the simple 
 pleasures, and created for human nature artifi- 
 cial wants, which are ever growing. But this 
 progress, if such it be, has been dearly bought. 
 
3? MOSES. 
 
 Man's higher nature has succumbed beneath the 
 enervating influences; the human will staggers as 
 if overpowered by drunkenness. There is noth- 
 ing now more rare than men with character, 
 who know their own minds. 
 
 Look around us. Behold the humiliating spec- 
 tacle of great nations, blown about like so much 
 dust by the changing breath of passing revolu- 
 tions, cursing to-day what yesterday they adored, 
 adoring now what to-morrow they will curse. 
 See, even in the bosom of the Church, forms re- 
 placing convictions, the clergy made to march 
 like a regiment, and the most elevated con- 
 sciences forced to the most astonishing retrac- 
 tions. Penetrate to the other extreme of the 
 thinking world, to the camp of that philosophy 
 which denies God, and knows nothing real but 
 the world and man. They say, that in elevating 
 humanity, they will make men strong in will, 
 firm in convictions; but we see the very contrary. 
 This century astounds us with its recantations; 
 discouragement is one of the keynotes which 
 sound from the spirits of our day; and never have 
 there been as many suicides as since man has 
 been taught that the present fills out all his 
 destiny. The parties which now divide men 
 
MOSES. 33 
 
 have the fictitious power which the passions 
 give, rather than the real force which springs 
 firom character. 
 
 On this point I call you to witness. Where 
 among us are the men of will } Who among 
 us does not tremble when he thinks of the 
 days, perhaps years, during which he has drifted 
 from one belief to another without any real 
 direction and without aim } Who has not felt 
 with humiliation and bitterness, how hard it 
 is to-day to will and to resist } Many of my 
 hearers, perhaps, have felt at times in their in- 
 nermost souls, as if their principles were vacil- 
 lating with their beliefs, so that their moral life 
 seemed on the point of crumbling away. We 
 boast of being broad, and of embracing all things. 
 Is this a sign of strength and manhood } Is not 
 scepticism recognized by this sign, that embrac- 
 ing everything it excuses everything.^ 
 
 Feeble children of this weak age, see before 
 us the example of a man of God "who endured," 
 a man who was chosen to show by his works 
 the dominant trait of his character, to be the 
 founder of the most remarkable, the most en- 
 during monument the world has ever seen, I 
 mean the Jewish people. Think of it ! history 
 
34 MOSES. 
 
 offers nothing like it. There is upon the face 
 of the earth a strange race, insignificant in point 
 of numbers, without military genius or political 
 skill; but a race chosen to outlive all others, in 
 spite of trials the most extraordinary and cruel 
 that any nation has ever known; planted at first 
 upon a small territory which was trodden by all 
 the conquerors in their march, devastated a hun- 
 dred times by strange tribes and internal strifes, 
 she has been trampled upon by all the powerful 
 monarchies of the east, the Assyrians, the Medes, 
 the Persians, and the Egyptians, more voracious 
 than the insects which devour the harvest, more 
 withering than the simoom which parches the 
 fields. Exiled for nearly a century beyond the 
 Euphrates, she was restored for a time to her na- 
 tive soil as if to give to the world the spectacle 
 of the most frightful ruin; her temples were de- 
 stroyed, her traditions were annihilated, her sa- 
 cred books burned, and the ploughshare driven 
 through her cities. At last she was scattered in 
 exile, like a handful of dust to the four winds. 
 For eighteen hundred }'ears she has been wan- 
 dering amid the nations, without a place to lay 
 her head or gather her scattered members. She 
 has been exposed to all the corruptions which 
 
MOSES. 35 
 
 could weaken her, to all the idolatries which 
 could lead her astray, to all the temptations 
 and contempt which could crush her. 
 
 Yet to-day, thirty-five centuries after Moses, 
 she stands before the world ever true to her faith 
 in one living God, to her ancient customs, to 
 her sacred books which she reads in the lan- 
 guage of her fathers, to the mysterious waiting 
 for a divine liberator. Nothing could enfeeble 
 this marvellous vitality. Babylon and Nineveh, 
 Alexandria and Athens, Rome and Constantino- 
 ple, have fallen. She has survived all the ruins 
 of the past, as she will survive all those of the 
 present. Ever the same in her distinctive fea- 
 tures, she marks each of her children with an 
 indelible type. Whether they be counsellors or 
 kings — as once was Joseph, Nehemiah, or Daniel, 
 — whether they charm the imagination by their 
 fine arts or astonish the world by their colossal 
 wealth, as Meyerbeer, Halévy, Rachel or Roths- 
 child; — whether they be as poor as the beggars 
 in the ghettos of Italy; — everywhere, beneath 
 the fogs of Poland as under the skies of Portu- 
 gal, in Paris as in China, they are recognizable 
 at first sight. 
 
 Well, ye legislators of the nineteenth century, 
 
S6 MOSES. 
 
 creators of constitutions more ephemeral than 
 the leaves of the forests, contemplate this ex- 
 traordinary race which alone has traversed all 
 the ages; in the endurance of the work, recog- 
 nize that of the workman : and if you do not 
 see therein the divine hand, confess that genius 
 has never produced anything more amazing. 
 
 If we could ask Moses the secret of his 
 strength, he would tell us, that it was not a 
 fruit of nature, nor even an achievement of the 
 will. Timid and incompetent to such an en- 
 terprise, he shrank from the task, and accepted 
 it but with trembling. His strength did not come 
 from "flesh and blood," but from divine grace, 
 and he found it by faith. " He endured," says 
 the Scripture, " as seeing Him who is invisible." 
 Wonderful words, of which I wish to show you 
 in the career of Moses, the practical, the living 
 commentary. 
 
 The Scriptures distinguish in his secular life 
 three consecutive periods, of equal duration. 
 Moses spent his youth in Egypt, in Pharaoh's 
 court; during his ripe years, until his hair began 
 to whiten, he wandered alone in the vast desert, 
 gathering himself up for his sublime mission; 
 finally, during the last forty years of his life, he 
 
MOSES. 37 
 
 was struggling as the leader of his people, whom 
 he was conducting to the promised land. It is 
 in these three different situations that we will 
 contemplate him, realizing those simple but 
 grand words, — "He endured as seeing Him who 
 is invisible." 
 
 We find ourselves at first in ancient Egypt, at 
 the time when that country was the cradle of 
 the civilization of the world. The arts and sci- 
 ences had appeared there for the first time on our 
 globe, and from the beginning Egypt gave prom- 
 ise of her great future. Even to-day the human 
 mind is stupefied before the prodigious monu- 
 ments built by this people, and we ask, by what 
 secrets unknown to our engineers they reared 
 those gigantic pyramids; and in our expositions 
 I have seen great artists studying with admira- 
 tion the delicate handiwork of the jewellers of 
 the court of the Pharaohs. 
 
 It was amid such surroundings that a young 
 Israelite grew up, called, by a strange combi- 
 nation of circumstances, to the most brilliant 
 position which could flatter the ambition of man. 
 A child of a proscribed race, he could at- 
 tain every honor. The world offered him the 
 most intoxicating cups; he had but to bend him- 
 
38 MOSES. 
 
 self to drink the longest draughts. If it were 
 pleasure he were seeking, where could he find 
 it more exquisite and subtle than at this court 
 where multitudes of slaves lived but to gratify 
 the caprices of their masters ? If it were science 
 which attracted him, how could he better pene- 
 trate her secrets than by gathering around him 
 all the wise men and philosophers, who crowded 
 the schools and the mysterious sanctuaries of 
 this favored land ? If it were power which 
 tempted him and he wished to command the 
 multitudes, lead armies, hear his name pro- 
 claimed with enthusiasm by millions of voices, 
 and assist in his own apotheosis, the throne 
 was open to him. All these splendors, these 
 dreams passed before Moses; perhaps once his 
 heart may have been troubled by these seductive 
 visions, but other thoughts pursued him, another 
 love, another ambition possessed him and left 
 him no rest. He thought only of his people, 
 and of his God ! This people is enslaved, this 
 God unknown. Moses saw his brethren struck 
 by the rod of the taskmaster, bowed beneath the 
 burning suns of Africa, and covered with igno- 
 miny. In the palaces of the kings and in the 
 I)ub1ic places, he saw the monstrous idols which 
 
MOSES. 39 
 
 the Egyptians worshipped, and like Saint Paul 
 aftervvards in the streets of Athens, his believ- 
 ing heart was filled with a profound bitterness. 
 Ah ! the seductions of wealth, of pleasure, of 
 visible glory, may assail him. The waves of 
 the sea make no more impression upon a rock 
 than did they upon him. He endures, because 
 he sees Him who is invisible. He sees Him, 
 and that suffices him; it is his God whom he 
 will serve, it is his God to whom he would de- 
 vote himself; and as his people bear with them 
 the promise of a deliverer to come, the Messiah 
 who shall found the Kingdom of God on earth, 
 Moses, the Scriptures tell us, prefers the re- 
 proach of Christ to all the wealth of Egypt, for 
 it was the cause of Christ and of the salvation 
 of the world he was unconsciously serving. 
 
 My young brethren who listen to me, there is 
 in every man's career a time when he must make 
 the solemn choice which is to decide the course 
 of his life. Outward circumstances have changed. 
 Nothing around us reminds us of ancient Egypt 
 with her idolatries and her seductions; nothing 
 recalls the painful servitude and opprobrium of 
 Israel; but penetrate beneath the surface to the 
 bottom of things, and you will find nothing 
 
40 MOSES. 
 
 changed. There is ever the same choice be- 
 tween God and the world, between the entice- 
 ments of visible things and devotion to the truth. 
 "Live for self," says the tempter, "use your tal- 
 ents for your own benefit; seek distinction in sci- 
 ence, aspire to success and influence; or if these 
 seem beyond your reach, if they demand too hard 
 a struggle, stoop and sip the intoxicating cup 
 of pleasure, demand of the present moment all 
 its charms." So sings the enticing and treach- 
 erous voice, and the multitude follow it. Ah, 
 in your dark moments, when the will wavers 
 under the bewilderments of avarice and pride, 
 one thing alone can save you, and that is, to 
 fix your thoughts on Him who is invisible ; to 
 oppose to all that is seen, to all that dazzles, 
 to all that charms, the righteousness and truth 
 which belong to the unseen. *-^ 
 
 This is not the side, I know, which wins the 
 suffrages of the world. A genuine faith, a really 
 Christian life is a constant subject of wonderment 
 and mockery to the world; as the Scripture justly 
 calls it, "The reproach of Christ," — a reproach 
 which is just as real now as ever. Men will 
 laugh at your hopes, and ask to what delusion 
 you have yielded; your faith in God and trust 
 
MOSES. 4 1 
 
 in His word will be treated as an enthusiasm 
 or a fanaticism. Let them say and do what 
 they will. Moses was a fool to the men of his 
 time, because he sacrificed everything the world 
 coveted to the sublime folly of the Kingdom of 
 God in an unknown future. Well for you, if like 
 him you bear the reproach of the holy cause ; 
 well for you, if you endure, seeing Him who is 
 invisible, and opposing to all the jeers and 
 seductions of the passing world the unyielding 
 assertion of that which is eternal. 
 
 Moses fled from Egypt. In a moment of ex- 
 citement he had resolved to liberate his people, 
 but his own had rejected him. So with a heart 
 full of sorrow he took refuge in the desert, as 
 afterward did Elijah, and John the Baptist, and 
 all those whom God would detach from the 
 world that so their victory over it might be 
 the easier. See him amid the gloomy soli- 
 tudes of Sinai, wandering alone with the no* 
 mad tribe of Rehuel. Here, it would seem, 
 were no more temptations, no more idols. 
 Here the memories of Egypt will not follow 
 him. Here the starry skies will speak to him 
 of Jehovah, and tell him of His glory. Like 
 the patriarchs of old, he can build his altar of 
 
4 2 MOSES. 
 
 stone and with sacrifices invoke the true and 
 living God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, 
 and of Jacob. He can feed his soul with the 
 grand promises bequeathed him by his fore- 
 fathers, and prepare himself for his sublime 
 mission. All this is true; but beware! iso- 
 lation also has its tests and terrible tempta- 
 tions. To believe alone, to hope alone, to 
 love alone, is sometimes a burden too heavy 
 for the human soul. And then, if only this 
 solitude were of short duration ! But the days 
 and years pass slowly in their monotonous 
 cycle. Each evening the sun sets in the west, 
 and the exiled believer says to himself, "To- 
 morrow God will speak to me." Each morning 
 the dawn breaks in the east, and he says, 
 " My hour cometh." But the Almighty re- 
 mains silent. Moses must wait, and still wait, 
 until his soul is filled with strange doubts, and 
 perhaps he asks himself, as afterward did Eli- 
 jah, whether God has not forsaken his cause, or, 
 as Isaiah, whether he has not spent his strength 
 for naught, and in vain (Is. xlix. 4). 
 
 Ah, my brethren, these long and withering 
 agonies ! Who among us has not known them ? 
 Who of us has not wondered often at God's si- 
 
MOSES. 43 
 
 lence, and after believing that the triumph of jus- 
 tice was at hand, has not groaned in spirit to 
 find the world moving on its course, and "all 
 things continuing as they were from the be- 
 ginning of the creation ? " (II Peter iii. 4). In 
 vain have we learned that God's thoughts are 
 not our thoughts, and that it is madness for 
 the creatures of a day to bring to their puny 
 measurement the designs of the Eternal. Our 
 patience soon wearies, and faintheartedness en- 
 feebles us. 
 
 But look at Moses; his faith does not fail, he 
 endures, as seeing Him who is invisible. Years 
 pass by and his hair whitens, but he never 
 doubts the faithfulness of the Almighty, and 
 the near triumph of his cause which he is 
 serving from afar in exile. So when his two 
 sons were born in Midian, he named one Ger- 
 shon, and the other Eleazer, names which mean, 
 as the Scripture tells us, the one, *' I was a 
 stranger there," and the other, "The Almighty 
 will be my help." 
 
 And as Moses believed, deliverance came when 
 human patience seemed exhausted. Standing 
 one day before the burning bush, he heard these 
 words, " Thus shalt thou say unto the children 
 
44 MOSES. 
 
 of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you." The 
 exile of Miclian was to become the conqueror 
 of Pharaoh; and from the summits of Horeb 
 and Sinai, where he had so often wandered a 
 fugitive disowned by his people, he was to ap- 
 pear in the majesty of his historic 7'ôle, in the 
 splendor of his glory, so that the Israelites, 
 amazed, should not be able to endure the 
 brightness, as they exclaim, " He has been 
 with God." 
 
 And now the hour of his triumph has come. 
 The whole people are moved by Moses' voice 
 and promise to obey him. The passover is 
 celebrated, the Red sea is crossed, and over 
 against its raging waters which cover the Egyp- 
 tian army, this song of deliverance resounds; — 
 "The Lord is my strength and song, and He is 
 become my salvation. The Lord is a man of 
 war. Pharaoh's chariots and his hosts hath He 
 cast into the sea; his chosen captains also are 
 drowned in the Red sea; the depths have cov- 
 ered them; they sank into the bottom as a stone. 
 
 "The enemy said, I will pursue, I will over- 
 take, I will divide the spoil: my lust shall be 
 satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my 
 hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with 
 
MOSES. 4 5 
 
 Thy wind, the sea covered them; they sank as 
 lead in the mighty waters " (Exod. xv.). 
 
 While the people were filled with rapture in 
 repeating these words, Moses might well believe 
 that their deliverance was accomplished, and that 
 on the morrow he would enter the promised land. 
 
 To-morrow ! But this is to leave out of ac- 
 count human ingratitude. On the morrow, in 
 the face of formidable difficulties, Moses was 
 to learn for what God had so long been pre- 
 paring him. Foolish is he who trusts in the 
 enthusiasm of the multitude. Here are the 
 very people who chafed under the oppression 
 of Egypt, and were overjoyed at the thought 
 of liberty. Yes, they are the same; yet listen 
 now to their murmurings. "Why did you bring 
 us out of the land of Egypt? There we had 
 to eat and in abundance." 
 
 Oh, ye people, ye are ever the same ! Here 
 I read the history of my own times. How 
 often in our day have we heard these same en- 
 thusiastic cries ! Men have put away strange 
 gods, have torn asunder political and religious 
 fetters, and full of courage have set out on the 
 march to the promised land. But they find 
 liberty is stern and must be paid for at its own 
 
46 MOSES. 
 
 price. The path is steep, the desert parched 
 and dry. Then begin their cowardly regrets and 
 murmurings, as they look back towards Egypt, 
 and with curses for those they had extolled, 
 rush again into bondage, just as they had 
 plunged into liberty. 
 
 The trials of Moses were renewed each day. 
 At each step his work is imperilled. First, 
 the people were without bread, then they had 
 no water, desertions increased, those whom he 
 trusted most were the very ones to revolt, and 
 at critical moments he stands alone in face of 
 an idolatrous people. He sees them, even at 
 the foot of the mountain where the holy law 
 had first been proclaimed, make a golden calf 
 and say: "Israel, here is the God who has de- 
 livered thee." He sees them participating in 
 the shameless festivities of neighboring tribes, 
 or trembling like leaves on hearing that the 
 enemy was preparing to defend Canaan. At 
 times his soul, weary with such murmuring and 
 cowardice, bowed beneath the burden. Who 
 will lift him up and give him new hope and cour- 
 age .'' He who is invisible, and who says to him, 
 *' Go, for I am with thee." Since it is not from 
 men he has received his commission, he expects 
 
MOSES. 47 
 
 from them no reward; and their impatience, 
 revolts and ingratitude will not shake his firmness. 
 
 You who are called of God to guide your fel- 
 low-men, leaders of the people, magistrates, 
 heads of factories, pastors of souls, do you 
 comprehend what such an example should 
 teach you ? And who among us cannot prof- 
 it by it ? What position in life is there, how- 
 ever humble, in which one does not feel the 
 burden of some soul seeking guidance, of some 
 life which should be saved ? Fathers and moth- 
 ers of families, teachers on whom rests the noble 
 task of educating the young, all you who know 
 what it costs to perform with fidelity this mis- 
 sion, so grand, yet so thankless, learn from 
 Moses to endure, as seeing Him who is invisible. 
 Oh ! that the duty may seem grand, and the hum- 
 blest ministry sacred, when, instead of a merely 
 human obligation, it is recognized as a divine 
 investiture, a priesthood which comes from above. 
 
 It is in this spirit we must struggle here be- 
 low, serving those to whom God sends us, but 
 looking above them for the approval which sus- 
 tains us, and for the rule of our conscience. Un- 
 happy he who, called to lead his fellows, when 
 the trying moment comes, is guided by the 
 
48 MOSES. 
 
 whims and favor of the fickle multitude. Fool- 
 ish above all are the ministers of the Gospel, 
 who strive to please men, to accommodate re- 
 vealed truth to changing tastes, to personal 
 theories, to the prejudices of their day, and 
 then boast of their success. As well might 
 the pilot, amid the fierce winds and fearful 
 blackness of a stormy night, search for his 
 course on the face of the Avaters tossing in fast 
 and furious billows, instead of looking to the 
 compass which points him above the thick fogs 
 to where the steadfast north star shines. 
 
 Christians, it is upward that you must look 
 for light and strength. The tempests may beat 
 against you; men may reject you; prejudice, jeal- 
 ousy, and malice may league against you; slander 
 may cast its poisoned dart at your feet, and you 
 may hear the stinging hisses of bitter calumny. 
 All this may well cause you to suffer; for it is 
 inexpressibly bitter to feel one's self misunder- 
 stood, misjudged; and for a heart longing for 
 sympathy, this isolation is full of anguish and 
 often of terror. But you must endure, and above 
 the gloom of the present hour, with eyes turned 
 heavenward, you will see Him who is invisible, 
 and whose love will never fail you ! 
 
MOSES. 49 
 
 Brethren, let us understand well our mission. 
 We must prove to this realistic age, that the in- 
 visible alone can save the world. This century 
 boasts that it believes only what it can see and 
 touch. Proud of its conquests and progress, in- 
 toxicated with the triumphs of science, it sees 
 reality only there; everything else is a chimera 
 and vain dream. To know the visible is its wis- 
 dom, to deal with the visible is its work, to 
 enjoy the visible is its happiness. Everything 
 beside vanishes before its eyes. Hear with what 
 haughty and mocking accents it speaks of the 
 supernatural doctrines which, according to it, 
 have long bewildered humanity and paralyzed 
 its progress ! If it upholds religion, it is only 
 on the score of utility, for the sake of the weak 
 minds and the wretched classes who may find 
 some consolation in it. It reduces the Church 
 to nothing but a vast philanthropic associa- 
 tion. Everything which transcends this level is 
 but a barren fantasy. In • its view, humanity 
 when freed from this unwieldy load will march 
 proudly on to the conquest of the future. 
 
 It must be reiterated emphatically that if there 
 yet remains upon our poor earth any living prin- 
 ciple, any consolation, any strong hope, — we 
 
50 MOSES. 
 
 owe it to those who, like Moses, have walked 
 by faith and not by sight. Conscience, duty, 
 and right are not things visible. The positive 
 philosophy so vaunted in this day will never 
 evolve from its experience a single one of these 
 fundamental and eternal principles, which alone 
 can enlighten man. When you can cast into the 
 crucible of your laboratory a bit of mud and 
 extract gold from it, you may be able to extract, 
 from the crucible of the materialism of our times, 
 the law of conscience and the inflexible au- 
 thority of duty. Duty, what has it to do here .'' 
 Materialism does not recognize it. The law of 
 materialism is force; here is its first principle, its 
 perpetual motor. No, the moral law, shining 
 with its absolute authority, is not the result of 
 experience. As conscience, in affirming duty, 
 transcends the visible world, so the human 
 heart asserts by its profoundest wants, the re- 
 ality of that which is beyond the terrestrial 
 horizon. 
 
 Confine humanity to this present life alone, 
 bounded by the cradle and the grave, leaving it 
 no escape out into eternity, and this earth of 
 which you would make a paradise will soon be 
 converted into a hell. How will you prevent 
 
MOSES. 51 
 
 those who suffer, who consider themselves the 
 oppressed of the earth, from seeking in this 
 short space called life, all the happiness this 
 earth can, as they will say, and ought to give 
 them ? How will you impose silence upon these 
 men of rapacious passions who are all the bolder 
 for believing themselves justifiable ? Will you 
 resort to force ? But then the future will be a 
 savage combat between the rich and the poor, a 
 war of classes, relapsing into that struggle for 
 life, of which science has made, as they tell us, 
 the law which rules the world; in other words it 
 will be a return to barbarism. There are signs 
 enough to put us on our guard. Never did the 
 blood of our people flow down our streets as 
 in this century of brotherhood. In 1870, sur- 
 rounded by a material prosperity, which seemed 
 likely to be enduring, in speaking of those doc- 
 trines which deny a future life, I showed how 
 that nihility {le néant') in the world of souls 
 logically produced the annihilation of society. 
 One year later, I repeated those words in Paris 
 then in flames. In the baleful light of our 
 burning monuments one could comprehend that 
 it is only faith in an invisible world which will 
 save the present world. 
 
52 MOSES. 
 
 Moses' task is accomplished. He endured to 
 the end; once only did his heart fail him; the 
 Scriptures do not tell us clearly what was his 
 fault, only that it was the cause of his not reach- 
 ing- the promised land, upon which he could only 
 gaze from afar. Strange frankness of the Bible ! 
 Not one of its heroes is represented as faultless, 
 save Him who was without sin, the holy and just 
 One, who died for the unjust. All others have 
 their errors and their faults, and some like David 
 have fallen even into crime. The knowledge is 
 needful, lest we render that worship to man 
 which belongs to God alone, and lest also we 
 place the heroes of faith in a sphere above the 
 need of that grace which pardons, and ourselves 
 despair of ever imitating them. 
 
 However this may be, if the death of Moses on 
 Mount Nebo is a result of the justice of God, I 
 see in it also a result of His great mercy, for it 
 has pleased Him to teaclv us therein a sublime 
 lesson, so that Moses dying yet speaks to us. 
 And what is the lesson .-* To endure, even when 
 God refuses us our earthly hopes — yea, even when 
 we must die in sight of the happiness of which we 
 have dreamed. 
 
 The great leader of Israel reached at last the 
 
MOSES. 53 
 
 end toward which he had been moving for forty 
 years. Before him lay the promised land, beyond 
 the waters of the Jordan. He saw the sacred soil 
 upon which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had wor- 
 shipped the living God, and where their tombs 
 awaited Israel. It was there the Kingdom of 
 God was to be established, there Moses would 
 forget the many struggles and trials of his long 
 ministry, there Avould he find at last the realiza- 
 tion of his fondest desires, the reward of all his 
 toils. To kiss that holy ground, to build there 
 the tabernacle of Jehovah, was his sublime am- 
 bition, his supreme joy. But God said to him, 
 "Get thee to the top of the mountain; look upon 
 the land of your fathers; but thou shall- not enter 
 therein." 
 
 Let us dwell upon these last words, my 
 brethren. The promised land is not here below. 
 Ah ! you know it well, ye aged who hear me, 
 and you who, yet young, have encountered one 
 of those trials which forever embitter existence. 
 Recall life's early promise and compare with it 
 what life has given you. Alas ! what more has 
 it yet to give .'' Joys perhaps ! God keep me 
 from despising these. God keep me from for- 
 getting all the earthly blessing, and legitimate 
 
54 
 
 MOSES. 
 
 pleasure He has în store. Would I might prom- 
 ise you such, and be only the prophet of happi- 
 ness ! but we do not fill the Christian pulpit to 
 proclaim idyls; and the sad experience of all 
 ages teaches us that for the souls which hunger 
 and thirst after truth, righteousness, and love, 
 the great crises of life are marked by delusions; 
 delusions of the understanding, which has be- 
 lieved it has grasped the truth, and finds instead 
 but feeble flickering rays; delusions of conscience, 
 which has believed in the early victory of good, 
 in the triumph of righteousness, but is grieved 
 to find the struggle continue and so many fail- 
 ures to be endured; delusions of the heart, which 
 groans at finding the shallowness of human af- 
 fections and selfishness hidden under the fairest 
 words, or which after lavishing the deepest love 
 upon cherished idols sees them ruthlessly torn 
 awap by death; delusions with respect to our- 
 selves, delusions with respect to others, delu- 
 sions upon delusions. 
 
 Ah! if the worldling alone encountered these 
 trials, we might understand how after expect- 
 ing so much from the visible world, he should 
 receive from it the nothingness which is the 
 end of all things earthly. But must I say 
 
MOSES. 55 
 
 it ? to the believer also, this life is a school of 
 bitter disenchantment, of continual despoilment. 
 Surely I do not forget the infinite compensations 
 which God mingles with it, and the certain and 
 triumphant joy which is the supreme recompense 
 of faith. But it is not upon this earth that the 
 believer will receive these, and St. Paul was the 
 first to say that if our Christian hopes were for 
 this life only, we would be of all men most mis- 
 erable. Yes, the most miserable, because the 
 higher and holier the dream, the more pitiable 
 the delusion, the more cruel the awakening. 
 What a distance between that which we had 
 hoped to see on earth, and that which we do 
 see every day ! what a gulf between the ideal 
 and the real church ! what a contrast between 
 that charity which St. Paul has pictured, and 
 that which we call charity in this present time ! 
 What painful contradictions between our words 
 and our acts ! 
 
 No, it is not here below that we should 
 build our home. The promised land is be- 
 yond the veil. It is for us to press toward it 
 without wearying, to overcome evil with good, 
 to hope even against hope, and to endure to 
 the end as seeing Him who is invisible. Amen. 
 
III. 
 
 Z\}t Fiston of €ltja|). 
 
m. 
 
 E\}t îJtsion of (îHltjaïj. 
 
 " The Lord said to Elijah; Go forth and stand tipon the mount 
 before the Lord. And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and 
 strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before 
 the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an 
 earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 
 
 '^ Ajid after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord 7uas not in the 
 fire; and after the fire a still small voice. 
 
 " And it was so when Elijah heard it, that he tvrapped his face in 
 his mantle, and went out.'''' 
 
 I Kings xix. 11-13. 
 
 One of the most striking proofs of the sad 
 ignorance which prevails in our country upon the 
 subject of the Holy Scriptures, is the heedless- 
 ness with which judgment is passed upon the 
 God of the Old Testament. I speak not only 
 of tliat disparaging criticism, which from the sec- 
 ond century has assailed the most sublime scenes 
 in the Bible, and which, without even trying to 
 understand their meaning, finds in them material 
 
6o THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 for low mockery; I speak, as well, of a science 
 which professes to be more serious. I am as- 
 tonished at the prejudices to which it yields. 
 
 Thus, because the Scriptures, with an inflexible 
 straightforwardness, with a holy candor, recite 
 the weaknesses, the artifices and the lapses of 
 Abraham, of Jacob, of Moses, of David, of all 
 the heroes of the Jewish people, whose national 
 pride if it had dictated the book, would have been 
 far from painting them in such colors, there is 
 no hesitation in tracing their faults and crimes 
 even to the God whom they worshipped, without 
 inquiring whether He approved these acts, with- 
 out noticing that He condemned them, and that 
 the offenders all passed through the sad and se- 
 vere school of trial and repentance. 
 
 So, again, because Jehovah in His providential 
 dealings with humanity, uses for a time the 
 people of Israel as an instrument, subjects them 
 to the yoke of the theocracy, and consequently 
 to a system of laws which, like all laws, civil 
 and political, must be enforced by penalty, men 
 pretend to see in Jehovah only a God of ven- 
 geance, they attribute to Him the narrownesses, 
 the hatreds, the bad passions which Israel min- 
 gled with the accomplishment of its providential 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 6 1 
 
 mission; and they forget that, even at that time, 
 under the veil of the theocracy, His true nature, 
 the recognition of His universal justice, His love 
 and His mercy, shone forth in a thousand places 
 in the Old Testament, — that there breathes in it 
 sometimes a benignity, a tenderness wholly evan- 
 gelical, and that in listening to many passages 
 of the prophets, one can imagine himself already 
 at the feet of Jesus Christ. What! because this 
 God of Israel, revealing Himself in His Son, has 
 shed upon us His light in its fulness, shall we 
 despise the divine clearness with which He il- 
 lumined the former covenant ? Shall the light of 
 the sun at noonday make us forget the splendors 
 of the sunrise ? No, my brethren; under the 
 shadows with which He was yet surrounding 
 Himself, we worship the God of Abraham, of 
 Moses, of Elijah, and of David, because for us 
 He is and will ever be, the God of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 This thought was suggested to me by the 
 narrative from which I have chosen my text, 
 and I do not hesitate to say that in meditating 
 upon it and in comprehending its true sense, 
 you will see here, as I do, a sublime presenti- 
 ment of that final revelation of the gospel by 
 
62 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 which God makes Himself known to us just 
 as He is. 
 
 This narrative is taken from the history of 
 EHjah. Elijah is the true type of the heroes 
 of the theocracy. In a time of degradation, of 
 universal idolatry, he was possessed with the 
 thought of the glory of God. This passion con- 
 sumes him, he knows no other. He would re- 
 establish the reign of Jehovah; and in this 
 mission nothing stops him, no tie of flesh or 
 blood. Like John the Baptist, who nine cen- 
 turies later will become the heir to his name 
 and his work, he grows up in the desert. He 
 leaves it to appear in the palace of Ahab, to 
 proclaim there the divine threatenings, and his 
 voice then resounds like thunder; the judg- 
 ments of God accompany it, and such is his 
 power, that the whole people hang upon his 
 word; he challenges the priests of Baal, exposes 
 their deceit and puts them to death without pity. 
 Then he can believe that the reign of the Lord 
 has come, for the people proclaim Him, and 
 for one whole day the echoes of Carmcl re- 
 verberate with the cry of the multitude, "Jeho- 
 vah is God, Jehovah is God." 
 
 But, O grief! after the enthusiasm of a day, 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 63 
 
 the course of the world is resumed. Àhab is still 
 Ahab, Jezebel is still Jezebel, and the crowd, 
 for a moment borne along by the fervor of the 
 prophet, returns with insatiable zeal to the de- 
 basement of a bloody and voluptuous worship. 
 Then Elijah, like all ardent souls, passes from 
 one extreme to the other; discouragement seizes 
 him; his faith is obscured; God forsakes him, the 
 ways of the Almighty are incomprehensible to 
 him; he charges God with forgetting His cause. 
 How easy for Him to interpose, to strike with 
 thunder those who scorn Him, and thus to com- 
 plete the work of destruction begun at Carmel ! 
 But no ! the heavens remain closed, God keeps 
 silent, Jezebel is still in power and the life of 
 the prophet is threatened. Elijah in despair flies; 
 he is weary of life; he hastens to bury himself 
 in the desert. He travels toward the south, 
 far from that land of Judea whefe he has 
 fought in vain, far from that ungrateful and 
 frivolous people; he journeys even to Horeb; he 
 needs that great desert, those barren and deso- 
 late heights, that sad and wild nature which re- 
 sponds to the condition of his soul. There it is 
 that he wishes to die. And when the voice of 
 God, which follows him even to his retreat, calls 
 
64 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 out to him, " What doest thou here, Elijah ? " 
 he answers Him with a bitter complaint, and 
 he reproaches Him for having abandoned His 
 cause, and, after calling him to the most terrible 
 of struggles, for having left him to fight alone. 
 
 My brethren, let us not judge the prophet. 
 Even in his despair I recognize the zeal which 
 burns within him; his temptation is that of great 
 souls, — souls whom the thirst for righteousness 
 and holiness consumes. Would to God that even 
 at the price of errors such as his, we might see 
 to-day believers who resemble him ! 
 
 Indifferent souls will understand nothing of 
 this revolt of Elijah; as they are possessed with 
 no high ideal, as the coming of God's kingdom 
 is the least of their cares, as the cause of right- 
 eousness and truth never enkindles them, they 
 fall in easily with the course of the world, and 
 they have taken the position of being unable 
 to change it. Wisdom for them consists in tak- 
 ing men as they are, and moderation seems to 
 them the best and most prudent of all philos- 
 ophies. Why want to reform the world, why 
 vvant to excite against one's self prejudices and 
 passions, when one can live happily and quietly .-' 
 They treat as fanaticism everything which goes 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 65 
 
 beyond them, and the Elijahs of whatever period 
 seem to them as madmen. But if a man ar- 
 dently desires the triumph of the truth, if he 
 suffers in seeing the name of God disowned, His 
 glory degraded, and righteousness trampled un- 
 der foot, he will recognize in this story his own 
 history, and in the groanings of the prophet 
 the expression of his own grief 
 
 Thus, as I picture it to myself, the Christians 
 of the first centuries must have been tempted 
 when, after having expected with the whole prim- 
 itive church, the immediate return of Jesus Christ 
 and His glorious appearing, they saw the truth 
 combated and often rejected, compelled slowly 
 to win souls one by one, to plead its cause 
 before Caesars; — when they saw the church 
 growing with difficulty and subjected to the 
 conditions of all human institutions, having like 
 them, its weaknesses, its miseries, its failures, 
 and counting, in time of persecution, its apos- 
 tates by thousands. 
 
 So, moreover, must our fathers have been 
 tempted, after the days of Reformation, when, 
 after having fondly hoped for their country the 
 free and earnest religion of the conscience deliv- 
 ered from the yoke of men, and that grand future 
 
66 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 which the Gospel alone could have given it, they 
 had to see their temples razed to the ground, 
 their firesides destroyed, their Bibles torn to 
 pieces, and themselves like malefactors follow- 
 ing the road to exile. Who will tell us of 
 the anxious looks those noble outlaws had to 
 turn toward that God who seemed to desert 
 His cause ? Who will tell us of their mourn- 
 ful prayers, their repinings, their groanings full 
 of bitterness ? 
 
 And so even are they tempted who — having 
 hoped to witness with their own eyes the tri- 
 umph of the gospel, the extension of the church, 
 the union of Christians embracing each other 
 at the foot of the Master's cross, in short one 
 of those great religious movements which save 
 souls and the world — are forced to see what we 
 see; that is to say, in the face of a society in- 
 different and ready to scoff, the church divided, 
 feeble, without high impulse, without enthusi- 
 asm, and the progress of the kingdom of God 
 depending apparently upon chances wholly ex- 
 ternal and causes wholly human. — Now be- 
 fore such a spectacle, faith wavers, hearts arc 
 troubled, one begins to doubt like Elijah that 
 God is intervening and acting; like Elijah one 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 67 
 
 forgets the magnificent traces of His interven- 
 tion in the past, and if to these general causes 
 of trouble is added some especial trial, — a long 
 injustice under which one groans, a cruel inex- 
 plicable blow, — it is enough to extort from the 
 strongest a cry of anguish and of murmuring, 
 to drive them perhaps to despair. 
 
 Ye Christians, who know these temptations, 
 you know also how terrible they are. Well, let 
 me tell you nevertheless that here are noble 
 griefs ! Ah ! what would be worse than this, 
 would be for you to take your part with the 
 passing world, to find yourselves at ease in a 
 world where God is treated as a stranger, to 
 see with unfeeling heart the injustice, the suffer- 
 ings, the shames which greet us at every step, 
 to accept this life and the world such as sin has 
 made them. The gospel has said, "Blessed are 
 they who hunger and thirst after righteousness." 
 Yes, to suffer like Elijah, like John the Baptist, 
 like Paul, is after all the best and greatest thing 
 on earth, for it is on this condition alone that 
 one can find Divine consolation. Let us sec 
 how God teaches Elijah, and let us seek here 
 our strength. 
 
 And God said to Elijah, "Go forth and stand 
 
68 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 upon the mount before the Lord." The prophet 
 obeys. Standing on the summit of Horeb where 
 his view would embrace the desert and the sky, 
 he waited, for the Lord was about to appear to 
 him and speak to him. 
 
 He looks, and behold clouds of dust arise on 
 the horizon; it is the wind of the desert which 
 rises rapidly, impetuously, as it does in the East. 
 Soon the sky is covered with a sombre and livid 
 veil. To the long and gloomy gusts follow the 
 bursts of a fearful tempest; the trees sway and 
 are uprooted, the very rocks shake, the sand of 
 the desert rolls in moving billows, like the waves 
 of an angry sea. The storm passes, but the Lord 
 was not in the wind. 
 
 He looks again, and behold to his dazed eyes 
 the horizon seems to move, the rocks tremble, 
 the earth opens, the mountain, as if seized with 
 dizziness, sways upon its foundations; it is an 
 earthquake which opens abysses, which seem as 
 if they would engulf everything; for some mo- 
 ments nature is the prey of this terrible convul- 
 sion; but the Lord was not in this earthquake. 
 
 Elijah looks again, and behold a strange 
 light illumines the expanse, fire from heaven 
 inflames the earth. The reddish flame of the 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 69 
 
 burning, shining in the middle of the night of 
 the tempest, spreads rapidly as lightning, it runs, 
 it winds around the sides of the mountain, it 
 kindles the dry herbs, the trees uprooted by the 
 wind. It is soon a deluge of fire which over- 
 flows everything, and whose glowing waves whirl 
 upward toward the black vault of the sky. Eli- 
 jah, terrified, recoils; but the Lord was not in 
 the fire. 
 
 The storm, the earthquake, the fire — was it not 
 this that Elijah had asked, when groaning and 
 discouraged, he reproached the Lord for His in- 
 action and His incomprehensible silence .'' Did 
 he not say to Him in some sort, " Awake Thou ! 
 Take Thy cause in hand, sweep away Thine ene- 
 mies like the sand of the desert, crush them in 
 Thy fury, consume them like chaff.''" Well, this 
 irresistible and formidable power, he has seen 
 it in the hurricane which carried everything in 
 its rapid breath, in the earth shaken to its 
 depths, and in the fire devouring all that the 
 tempest had left in its path ! He has seen it, 
 he has trembled, and the Lord was not there. 
 Where then is He, and by what sign can Elijah 
 discern His presence .-* The prophet is about to 
 know. 
 
70 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 The terrible vision of the storm has passed. 
 The blast of the tempest has abated. Calm 
 has succeeded the convulsions of the hurricane; 
 to the frightful flashes of lightning follows the 
 pure fresh clearness of the day. The sky has re- 
 appeared, the sky of the East with its transpar- 
 ent deep blue; nature seems to be born again more 
 beautiful, more serene, and from the depths of the 
 valleys there rises even to the summit of Horcb, 
 to the grotto where Elijah has taken refuge, a 
 soft, low sound, the harmonious voice of nature 
 expanding anew under the breath of God. Eli- 
 jah goes forth from his retreat. An inexpres- 
 sible emotion seizes his soul which terror had 
 agitated, an ineffable feeling of peace, of fresh- 
 ness and of joy penetrates it. Neither the noise 
 of the tempest, nor the convulsions of nature 
 had so stirred it. In this soft low sound he rec- 
 ognized the presence of God, and covering his 
 head with his mantle, he bows himself and 
 worships. 
 
 And now, my brethren, am I wrong in saying 
 it .'' Is there not in this scene from the Old 
 Testament a sublime presentiment of the su- 
 preme revelation which God should give to hu- 
 manity through the gospel? This God whose 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 71 
 
 presence Elijah knew not how to discern save 
 in His acts of justice and wrath — this God full 
 of vengeance, since He smites so often, chas- 
 tises so much, He has not spoken His last 
 word. He makes of the winds His angels 
 and of the flames of fire His ministers, but 
 nevertheless He is not in the overthrowing 
 tempest nor in the consuming fire; and, if the 
 law of Sinai, if the theocracy of Israel, have re- 
 vealed His holiness and justice to the world, 
 some day He must make known to it that His 
 name is love. 
 
 Elijah will not yet comprehend the deep and 
 true meaning of this vision which transcends 
 him, and in that which follows the Almighty 
 reveals Himself to him but in part. He tells 
 him to return on his way and join Hazael, Jehu, 
 and Elisha, all three of whom will be the instru- 
 ments of His vengeance, who will soon chastise 
 Ahab, Jezebel, and the idolatrous people. Ha- 
 zael, Jehu, and Elisha, that is the wind, the 
 earthquake and the fire which the Almighty will 
 send when He thinks best: so God will interpose, 
 the day of His anger will come at last; but Eli- 
 jah must know that vengeance will not be His 
 last word. In these terrible interventions God 
 
72 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 will not reveal Himself wholly, and His true reve- 
 lation is yet to come. 
 
 My brethren, we have contemplated this rev- 
 elation. What is the good news represented 
 by the soft and quiet sound which the prophet 
 heard } Listen, and in the night, the memory 
 of which we celebrate this evening,^ hear the 
 holy songs of the angels from the skies, descend- 
 ing upon the plains of Bethlehem: "Glory to 
 God in the highest, peace on earth, good-will 
 to men." Draw nigh to this cradle where the 
 majesty of God is laid aside, contemplate this 
 little babe born among the poorest;^no splendor 
 surrounds Him; nothing averts you from Him, 
 nothing terrifies you; all is simple and without 
 show; and yet it is there that the God of earth 
 and heaven truly reveals Himself, and from this 
 humble cradle of Bethlehem will go forth the 
 salvation of the world. He will grow. He whose 
 birth will pass almost unnoticed; He will shoot 
 up like a feeble stem, according to the word 
 of the prophet; He will have no outward éclat, 
 nothing which would recall the terrible maj- 
 esty of that God of vengeance whom Elijah in- 
 voked: instead of a sceptre of iron of the Mcs- 
 
 ' Preached Christmas Eve, 1865. 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 73 
 
 siah dreamed of by the Jews, He will carry a reed; 
 instead of a conqueror's diadem, a crown of 
 thorns; His voice will not menace like the thun- 
 der and the tempest, it will bring pardon, peace, 
 and salvation. 
 
 "Come unto Me, for I am meek and lowly of 
 heart." He will have only prayers for His en- 
 emies, blessings for his executioners. He will 
 be despised, covered with insults, overwhelmed 
 with ignominy, nailed upon the accursed tree, 
 — but in this extreme humiliation He will reveal 
 to the world an inconceivable greatness: that 
 of victorious love, that of charity which stoops 
 even to sacrifice. A majesty which nothing can 
 approach will surround His bleeding head, and 
 in this victim disarmed humanity will recognize 
 its King. That which neither force, terror, nor 
 violence could do. His cross will accomplish, 
 — consciences will be moved, hearts will be 
 touched, the church will be founded, a new hu- 
 manity will be born, and the reign of God on 
 earth will begin. The church will increase, hav- 
 ing for her device, "faith, love, and hope;" she 
 will take possession of the nations; after eighteen 
 centuries she will preach the glad tidings of sal- 
 vation in all parts of the world, awaiting the 
 
74 Tfil'^ VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 day when upon the pacified earth there will be 
 but one Shepherd and one flock. O my breth- 
 ren, in presence of this marvellous triumph of 
 redeeming love, let us bow our heads, let us 
 worship as Elijah did, for truly the Almighty 
 is here. 
 
 Thus we have seen the true sense of this sub- 
 lime vision, we know what means the soft low 
 sound which filled the soul of Elijah with a holy 
 trembling, we know that God is love. 
 
 And now it Vemains for us to draw from this 
 scene some of the instructions that God has 
 hidden therein. 
 
 First of all, let us learn not to judge the 
 Almighty. Often, as we have said, the delays 
 of God astonish us, His silence appears to us in- 
 explicable. "Why does He not interpose.-'" we 
 ask, Avhy does He leave His cause questioned, 
 assailed and perhaps vanquished .'' Why does 
 He permit evil to triumph and to spread .'' And 
 without our lips avowing it, our irritated impa- 
 tient hearts call ibr His intervention, His judg- 
 ment and perhaps His anger. His anger, ah ! 
 my brethren, Elijah in provoking it did not know 
 what we know, for he had not seen the Holy One 
 and the Just expire on the cross: he had not seen 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 75 
 
 mercy stronger than hate conquering hearts and 
 founding the kingdom of God on earth. His 
 anger ! And what could we answer if it should 
 strike us first ? Do we merit it less than those 
 who provoke us ? When we take into consid- 
 eration the favors we have received, the light 
 which has illumined us, the patience which has 
 upheld us, the deliverance of which we have 
 been the objects, when to this wonderful history 
 of divine mercies, we oppose that of our resist- 
 ance, our ingratitude, our cowardice, our secret 
 faults, and perhaps our crimes, can we, my 
 brethren, dare we again invoke the God of ven- 
 geance ? Let us rejoice rather that the hour 
 of justice delays to strike, let us rejoice that for 
 others as for ourselves, there remains time to 
 repent, time for salvation. Let us remember 
 that the anger of man does not accomplish the 
 justice of God, and to overcome evil, let us 
 imitate that divine Providence, which, while able 
 to subdue by force, aims above all to triumph 
 by love. 
 
 Beside this admonition, I find in my text a 
 thought full of consolation. Who among us in 
 the presence of the history of humanity and of 
 his own history has not sometimes felt the chill 
 
76 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 of doubt possess him, because he has sought in 
 vain the interposition of God ? Who among 
 us has not wished at such a time to ask 
 of God His secret, yes, the secret of those 
 strange mysterious voices which confound him ? 
 Ah well ! this secret God reveals to us in the 
 vision of Elijah, this secret is love. Love is the 
 final and supreme explanation of all that God 
 has done in the history of humanity and in our 
 own history, love and not anger, love and not 
 vengeance, however our heart at times may have 
 thought it. 
 
 Nevertheless, my brethren, let us ever re- 
 member that if it is only in love that God 
 reveals Himself wholly, it is He who sends the 
 wind, the earthquake, and the devouring fire. 
 Let us beware, lest, because we believe the 
 gospel, we disarm the hand of the Almighty 
 and make for ourselves of Him an ideal, weak, 
 effeminate, altogether like the spirit of this gen- 
 eration. No, for us also the Almighty reigns; 
 for us He dwells in the heart of history, and 
 ordains and controls the disturbances which are 
 agitating the world. And are there not cer- 
 tain pages of that history where the intervention 
 of His justice becomes visible in some sort, and 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 77 
 
 where, like Belshazzar at his feast in Babylon, 
 we discern a mysterious hand which writes the 
 death sentence of powerful iniquities ? When 
 Nineveh or Babylon crumble, when those gigantic 
 empires disappear, do we not see there the in- 
 tervention of God ? When Jerusalem, murderer 
 of Jesus Christ, is trampled under the feet of 
 the Gentiles, when the plough passes over the 
 site of its superb temple, and fugitive Israel is 
 dispersed in the world, there to astonish history 
 by its unique, extraordinary destiny, do we not 
 see here the fulfilment of those fearful words: 
 " His blood be on us and on our children ? " 
 
 When Rome itself, whose downfall St. John, 
 the seer of the Apocalypse, had prophesied 
 four centuries before, is invaded by the Bar- 
 barians, and its destroyers Attila or Genseric, 
 fulfilling a mysterious destiny, call themselves 
 the scourge of God, and in embarking say to 
 their pilot, " Loose the sail there where divine 
 vengeance blows," can we ignore therein the ac- 
 tion of a revenging Providence, and if we forget 
 it, will not the smoking ruins which everywhere 
 mark their passage proclaim it in our stead ? 
 
 When, finally, in modern history we see all 
 the powers which have made war upon Chris- 
 
78 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 tianity and which have rejected it, entering 
 fatally the road to decay and death, while civ- 
 ilization, progress, respect of conscience, true 
 liberty exist only under the shadow of the cross 
 and where the gospel has entered into the life 
 of the people; — when everything shows, even 
 as it was nobly confessed the other day in a 
 proclamation by the president of a great re- 
 public where one does not blush to invoke the 
 name of the living God,^ — when everything 
 shows us that righteousness elevates nations, 
 and that sin is the ruin of peoples, we must 
 be blind to deny that God acts even in the 
 darkest days of history, and that it is He who 
 unchains, as in the vision of Elijah, the tempest 
 and the devouring fire. 
 
 Yes, God reigns; this truth must be acknowl- 
 edged, must be proclaimed aloud before a civ- 
 ilization which is intoxicated by its material 
 progress and professes such scornful indifference, 
 such insulting contempt for the realities of the 
 invisible world. It must be reminded that it 
 cannot with impunity do without Him, and that, 
 if His place remains vacant, there are powers of 
 evil which will fill it. It must be reminded that 
 
 > Allusion to the message of President Jolmson. 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 79 
 
 His justice slumbers not, although it seems to, 
 and that in order to chastise nations who forget 
 Him, He has but to abandon them a single day 
 to the evil passions which are fermenting in their 
 depths, to that rising tide of materialism, to 
 which He alone can say, " Thou shalt go no 
 farther." It must be reminded that the corrup- 
 tion of manners flaunted by the higher classes, 
 and displaying itself in an insolent luxury, kin- 
 dles in the lower classes hatreds and savage 
 passions whose explosion would produce a moral 
 tempest in comparison with which, what Elijah 
 witnessed on Horeb would be but child's play. 
 It must be reminded that God is holy, that He 
 is not to be trifled witl^^ and that, for individ- 
 uals as for peoples, His judgment is the most 
 certain of realities. 
 
 Yes, God reigns in history; but if we believe 
 in His sovereign action, how many times also 
 in history do we lose trace of His steps ! How 
 often the spectacle that this world presents 
 is to us but a labyrinth where we lose our- 
 selves ! And, in His judgments even, how 
 many things seem to us inexplicable ! Alas ! 
 in the tempests which the breath of His justice 
 raises, I see the innocent struck down with the 
 
8o THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 guilty, I see children expiating the crimes of 
 their fathers, I see the consequences of an in- 
 iquity visited upon several generations; I see a 
 mysterious fatality weighing upon individuals or 
 upon peoples, I see fortunate strokes of strength 
 and skill succeed, while good causes perish; so 
 that while knowing on the one hand that all 
 these events, even those which perplex me, are 
 sent of God, I feel on the other hand, with no 
 less of demonstration, that God is not altogether 
 there. Ah ! it is then that the vision which Elijah 
 saw brings me a beneficent and truly divine 
 light, for, if it shows me that God sends these 
 afflictions which chastise the world, it teaches 
 me at the same time that His chastenings do 
 not make us to know Him such as He is, it 
 teaches me that the secret of His ways is else- 
 where, that it is entirely in that love which 
 history does not teach me, but that God reveals 
 Himself in silence to the pardoned soul which 
 believes in His word, which listens and lets it- 
 self learn of Him. 
 
 Grasp these consolations, afflicted souls. You 
 groan perhaps to-day under the weight of the 
 trial; it seems as if God has directed against 
 you all His power, and in your life you have 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 seen realized all that is terrible in the vision 
 of Elijah. The wind of affliction has swept 
 away your hopes, your happiness has vanished 
 in a day of nnourning, and your heart is pass- 
 ing through what the Scripture calls the furnace 
 of grief. You were told to seek God in those 
 blows which struck you, but your heart shud- 
 dered, and like Elijah, you yet waited. Ah ! 
 you are right, for though these trials have 
 been determined of God, it is not here always 
 that He will reveal to you His will and His 
 innermost thought. Have faith! the day draws 
 near when you will hear the still small voice 
 which fell upon the ear of the prophet, that 
 secret voice of the Almighty which alone ap- 
 peases the soul in revolt and brings to it un- 
 speakable consolations. You will hear it and 
 you will know then that love was at the bottom 
 of all His dispensations, that love alone can ex- 
 plain your sorrows, you will know it, and bow- 
 ing with Elijah and veiling your face, you will 
 say: " Truly the Lord is here," 
 
 My brethren, when Elijah had witnessed this 
 vision on Horeb, the voice of the Almighty 
 spoke to him and said, "Go, return by way 
 of the wilderness to Damascus." Return ! That 
 
82 THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 
 
 was the word he had need to hear, he who 
 in a time of danger had deserted his post and 
 his mission. Return by way of the wilder- 
 ness. By that road which he should never 
 have taken, for it was not to the desert God had 
 called him. Return to those before whom thou 
 oughtest to have served me as a witness ! Re- 
 turn to those places where hatred, scorn, and 
 persecutions await thee. Return, for if I have 
 strengthened thy faith, and lifted up thy fainting 
 heart in showing Myself to thee on the holy 
 mountain, it is not that thy spirit may dwell 
 there wrapped in ecstasy, it is that thou mayst 
 go away, more firm and faithful, to serve Me 
 in this world which forgets Me and which is 
 perishing. 
 
 Well ! let us listen to this command of God, 
 and let it be our strength. We have come 
 here discouraged, perhaps, and groaning like Eli- 
 jah; with him we have learned once more the 
 secret of the divine ways; but happier than he, 
 we have seen the love which Jesus has revealed to 
 the world and which is for us the supreme word, 
 and the ultimate explanation of whatever happens 
 to us. 
 
 Let us return then, m\' brethren, ourselves. 
 
THE VISION OF ELIJAH. 83 
 
 to the post of duty; let us return to those wan- 
 dering souls, to that frivolous society, to that 
 unbelieving world, in the midst of which God 
 wants us to be His witnesses. Let us return 
 to the world to be humble, courageous and 
 faithful in it, let us return to bring to it a re- 
 vived faith, a brighter hope, a stronger and more 
 persevering love. Let us return to it, that this 
 world may learn in hearing our words, in con- 
 templating our works, that we have climbed 
 like Elijah the holy mountain and that there we 
 have heard the Almighty. Amen. 
 
IV. 
 
 Efje ILfgïjt of tfte Morlîr. 
 
IV. 
 
 Eïje 3Lisi)t of tijc SEorltt, 
 
 "/ am the light of the world.'''' 
 
 John viii. 12. 
 
 " I AM the light of the world." Have you ever 
 paused, my brethren, before these words .-' Have 
 you compared the impression which they must 
 have made when they were spoken for the first 
 time with what we feel in hearing them to-day .-' 
 
 On a certain day in history, in an ignorant 
 country, amid an insignificant, conquered people 
 whose name awakened among greater nations 
 only a feeling of contempt, and whose degen- 
 erate language was nothing but a barbarous 
 patois, a man whom they called the rabbi of 
 Nazareth uttered in the hearing of a few poor 
 ignorant persons and with an amazing boldness, 
 these extraordinary words: "I am the light of 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the world." He did not pretend simply to en- 
 large the luminous circle of humanity, by driving 
 back the shadows before the victorious light of 
 some new truths. It was not simply one light 
 more which he announced, an advance added to 
 all the other advances; it was light in the abso- 
 lute, eternal, infinite sense of this word. And, 
 observe, that in assuming to bring it to men, He 
 does not say, "I announce the light, I reveal the 
 light," but "/ am the light''' ; it is not His doc- 
 trine only, it is His life, it is His entire being 
 that He holds up to the gaze of the human race, 
 and of which He means to make the eternal 
 focus whose light shall illuminate their darkness. 
 
 Measure well the whole compass of these 
 words, the whole extent of the claim which they 
 express, and imagine to yourselves what a con- 
 temporary of Jesus must have thought, a philos- 
 opher of Athens or of Rome, in listening to 
 these words preserved by a few Galileans who 
 scarcely comprehended them. Folly ! would this 
 sage have said; and the Pharisees of Jerusalem, 
 as St. John relates, expressed the same idea in 
 their Jewish tongue when they said of Jesus, 
 "He is possessed of a devil." 
 
 Now let eighteen hundred years roll by; look 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 89 
 
 well at the world, look at it, I do not say as 
 Christians with what might be called the preju- 
 dices of the believer, look at it as impartial wit- 
 nesses, and you will be obliged to acknowledge 
 that these words, which seemed foolish, are to- 
 day the simple expression of a historic fact ra- 
 diant with evidence. Jesus is so truly the light 
 of the world that outside of those regions where 
 His light has spread, there is no progress, no 
 civilization, no faith in the future; the shadow of 
 fatalism falls and rests there. 
 
 To-day in the two hemispheres, in the new 
 as well as in the old world, millions of creatures 
 rise at the name of Jesus and hail Him as the 
 sun of souls. Here, too, in this assembly, poor 
 or rich, ignorant or learned, separated perhaps 
 in all other respects, we are united in this com- 
 mon experience; to-day our prayers and our 
 songs have affirmed it, joining together in the 
 grand canticle which the Christian church raises 
 everywhere to her chief Jesus is the light of 
 the world. That is what our Christian brethren 
 say, scattered ever3'where over the earth. At 
 first they said it because they had been taught 
 it; but suddenly their voice trembled; the truth 
 of tradition became to them a truth of experi- 
 
90 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ence. They said it with tears of joy and in 
 the outbursts of sublime admiration. They have 
 said it, they reiterate it, not only in a time of 
 enthusiasm and in the intoxication of happi- 
 ness, but oftenest perhaps in the hours when all 
 human illusions grow pale and vanish before the 
 stern realities of life. When the cold and livid 
 shadows of temptation, of sorrow and of death, 
 come upon them, there suddenly breaks through 
 their darkness, the light which comes from Christ, 
 Many of those who have denied Him in their joys, 
 recognize Him in their suffering; many who have 
 blasphemed Him in the pride of their strength, 
 bless Him in their anguish and find in Him 
 alleviation of their agony. 
 
 It is a story which happens every day, every 
 hour, of which each of us may have been a witness, 
 and which will repeat itself before this day is 
 ended. Hence these words, which seemed sense- 
 less, have become a truth which if it were not sa- 
 cred would be called trite; the impossible has be- 
 come the real, the supernatural has become for 
 us a thing altogether natural, the extraordinary 
 has .become habitual, and so habitual that our 
 dulled vision and stupid hearts perceive no longer 
 in it its strancre and divine character. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 91 
 
 Christ said, " I am the Hght of the world," and 
 to Him may well be applied the famous saying: 
 " He is like the sun, blind is he who sees Him 
 not." " Behold," says the book of Psalms, in 
 speaking- of the star of day, "it rises in one 
 extremity of the heavens and finishes its course 
 in the other; there is nothing hid from the heat 
 thereof" And we contemplating the splendor 
 of our Christ, the sun of our souls, we will say, 
 He has risen in the east, and the west has hailed 
 His glory, but shall not hail His decline; all 
 nations shall see Him and shall leap for joy; 
 none can escape from His light and warmth; 
 not even the sceptic who believes that night is 
 come because he has closed his eyes to the light; 
 not even the rebellious unbeliever, who says to 
 Christ, that His glory is dead and His reign 
 is over. 
 
 I have recalled, my brethren, an undisputed 
 fact. It is this fact that we are to study to-day. 
 Let us inquire, first of all, in what sense Jesus 
 wished to be called the light of the world, and 
 what is the domain in which He diffuses His 
 light. 
 
 When one speaks to-day of ligJit in any other 
 than the material sense, he almost always under- 
 
92 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 stands by that expression scientific truth, such 
 as is comprehended exclusively by the intellect. 
 And as in this age the sciences which have phys- 
 ical nature for their object, have made enormous 
 development, it is to their progress that the 
 minds of our day attach themselves with zeal; 
 they admire them, they extol them, they expect 
 from them the true explanation of our destiny, 
 and the solution of all the problems with which 
 we find ourselves engaged. Now it is evident, 
 my brethren, that the gospel does not occupy 
 itself with these questions; Jesus Christ — and it 
 is one of the most original features in His teach- 
 ing — has never rested on what is properly called 
 science; He has never pretended to solve prob- 
 lems of this kind; I defy you to point out to me 
 among all His discourses a single one which has 
 the character of a scientific demonstration. The 
 impression which His words make does not re- 
 call in any way that which one feels in human 
 schools; the kind of persuasion which they pro- 
 duce is of an entirely different nature from that 
 which is produced in us by the proof of a mathe- 
 matical axiom, or the accord of a phenomenon 
 with a natural law. 
 
 I know that very often Christians have over- 
 
THF- LIGHT OF THF WORLD. 93 
 
 looked this character, so profoundly original, of 
 the gospel; they have attempted to modify it. 
 The scholasticism of the middle ages was a 
 great effort, attempted by men of gertius, to re- 
 duce Christianity to purely scientific propositions, 
 demonstrated by the syllogism. It was thus that 
 the great Thomas Aquinas, for example, treated 
 the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It seems 
 that the Christians of those days were ashamed 
 of the scientific poverty of the gospel, as the 
 scholars of the Renaissance were ashamed of 
 its literary poverty, and forced themselves to 
 hide the simplicity of its style under the tinsel 
 that they borrowed from the tongue of Cicero. 
 In our day I see many men, young men espe- 
 cially, troubled by the thought that the gospel 
 and science are incompatible; they are told that 
 Christianity supposes an entire cosmogony now 
 obsolete, that one must admit that if the earth 
 be immovable, if the sun crosses the sky, if the 
 firmament be a solid blue surface studded with 
 stars of gold, Jesus introduced nothing new, that 
 He has given us a childish idea of rGod; that in 
 teaching the efficacy of prayer, and in pretend- 
 ing to work miracles, He failed to recognize the 
 permanence and the inflexibility of natural laws; 
 
94 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and this suffices to shake their faith. The gospel 
 can no longer give them light: they believe it 
 entirely obsolete since Copernicus, Galileo and 
 Newton, — overlooking the fact that Copernicus, 
 Galileo, and Newton were convinced Christians. 
 It seems to them then that we take pleasure in 
 defying evidence w^hen we assert that the words 
 pronounced by Jesus, "I am the light of the 
 world," are as true to-day as ever. 
 
 I do not pretend, my brethren, you will 
 understand, to deal here with the question of 
 the relation of the gospel to science: I confine 
 myself to recalling the fact, already noted a mo- 
 ment ago, that the gospel, owing nothing to 
 science, stands before it in a peculiar position 
 of quiet independence. I could wish that all 
 Christians were equally convinced of this. What 
 I dread is, not the progress of the natural sci- 
 ences, but the claim of certain followers of these 
 sciences to include in their province moral and 
 religious problems and to solve these by their 
 peculiar processes; this is what I do not hesitate 
 to call a usurpation. 
 
 I can well understand the natural irritation of 
 men of science when they see believers disputing 
 their demonstrations, imposing upon them in the 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 95 
 
 name of faith arbitrary solutions, and at once 
 casting suspicion on them if their conclusions 
 do not agree with the orthodoxy of the day. I 
 know that they boldly assert their independence, 
 and I assert it with them; I know that they wish 
 that scientific questions be met and solved only 
 by scientific minds and methods. 
 
 But this conceded, and conceded distinctly, I 
 ask them in my turn to respect the independence 
 of that other domain which is called that of 
 morals and religion, — a domain which has its 
 own laws, its own method of demonstration and 
 evidence. You cry out against intolerance, and 
 you are right, when it is attempted to impose 
 upon a contemporary master of science, scientific 
 conclusions like those of the middle ages; and 
 yet you are astonished that believers protest, 
 when, postulating as an axiom the principle of 
 the equivalence of forces, you call thought a 
 particular species of cerebral phosphorus, and 
 when you say that vice and virtue are se- 
 cretions as necessary and natural as sugar or 
 alcohol. As for me, I reply that these two 
 kinds of intolerance are alike, and if I must 
 choose between them, my choice would be 
 the one which does not grossly give the lie 
 
g 6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to the instinct of my conscience and to my 
 sense of responsibility. 
 
 But I deny that we are reduced to this choice. 
 I believe that Christianity is never called upon 
 to cast an anathema at science. On the contra- 
 ry, let science grow under the divine benediction. 
 Let it embrace the natural order which belongs 
 to it. We do not reluctantly submit to its prog- 
 ress, we joyfully recognize and hail it. Let it sub- 
 due the blind forces of matter, let it throw its iron 
 roads over vast continents, spreading civilization 
 in the deserts, bringing together the ends of the 
 world; let it with the rapidity of lightning carry 
 human thought by a mysterious thread through 
 the depths of the vast ocean; let it say to man 
 if it will, " Reign, slave emancipated from mat- 
 ter, king by thought and by will, reign over this 
 world which I have subjected to thee." We will 
 grant to its pride such a superb ovation, pro- 
 vided it concedes to us that this triumphant king 
 suffers, sins, and dies, and that the science of the 
 nineteenth century remains as ever powerless 
 and disconcerted before these three problems 
 called sin, suffering, and death. 
 
 Indeed one cannot be deceived here. All the 
 progress of science has not shed a ray of light 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE IVORLD. 97 
 
 on the problem of problems, I mean to say upon 
 our destiny itself, upon life with its trials, its 
 distractions, its shames and its downfalls, and 
 upon the final dread shipwreck which launches 
 us into the unknown. 
 
 They tell us, it is true, that we ought to 
 ignore these questions. The positivist's school 
 dogmatically enjoins it ; it asserts that these 
 are idle insoluble questions; it bids humanity to 
 confine itself between the cradle and the tomb, 
 and to know nothing beyond. It does not suc- 
 ceed in this. It will never attain it. It is the 
 honor and grandeur of humanity never to have 
 consented to stifle the voice of its troubled con- 
 science and of its suffering heart. How expiate 
 the evil I hav^e done .-* Where find consolation 
 in my distress } These are the questions which 
 have agitated and tormented humanity above 
 all others. It has looked to heaven in prefer- 
 ence to looking to earth. It has sought the be- 
 yond, rather than confine itself to the present. 
 Even in our age when it would seem as if earth 
 would attract and charm it forever, where it 
 has multiplied here below all that can amuse 
 it, where work absorbs it and where pleasures 
 enchant it, it cannot content itself with the 
 
98 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 present life, it obstinately raises the problems 
 of the invisible world. In vain it is told that 
 these are questions of no importance; it knows 
 that it will not succeed in escaping them. To- 
 morrow sickness, poverty, the deceptions of life, 
 an overwhelming bereavement, will make us see 
 the frailty of all which has sufficed us hitherto 
 and will compel us to seek something better, 
 something permanent, eternal. These questions 
 all sufferers propose to themselves; all in turn 
 feel the anguish, all need consolation. There 
 comes a moment when we demand light; yes, 
 light upon these mysteries which haunt us, 
 light in the thick darkness. And when this 
 darkness is that of a troubled conscience, when 
 it is that of death which robs us of a being 
 ardently loved, this need of certainty, of con- 
 solation, of hope, is such, that, sooner than 
 stifle it, man will seek to satisfy it with ridicu- 
 lous and often abject superstitions, and all the 
 jeers of sceptics will not stop then the outburst 
 of his despair. 
 
 We must have then an answer to these ques- 
 tions, and this answer the human intellect, de- 
 pending upon its own resources, is incapable 
 of finding. All history shows with what cour- 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 99 
 
 age, what perseverance, what obstinacy, it h;i>; 
 exhausted itself here. It has not been able 
 to attain any certainty. Is this not true } Has 
 science ever consoled any one } When one's 
 conscience is troubled by remorse will he seek 
 a philosophic consultation with a member of 
 the Institute } When you stand by the side of 
 a death-bed, or follow the path to the cemetery, 
 with a desolate, hopeless heart, does it occur to 
 you to go and cast yourself at the feet of a sa- 
 vant .'' Does not this seem to you ironical .'' Oh ! 
 bitter derision ! 
 
 This century has made an idol of science. It 
 is to science that it appeals, it is from it that it 
 seems to await deliverance, light, and peace; and 
 of this idol we must say, as the psalmist said of 
 the idols of wood and stone of his time: "They 
 have mouths but they speak not; eyes have they 
 but they see not; they have ears but they hear 
 not" (Psalm cxxxv. 15-17). Impassive and mute 
 as the sphynx of stone that ancient Egypt placed 
 at the temple gates, it has never spoken to hu- 
 manity a word of hope, of certainty, of consolation. 
 
 Well, it is here that Jesus Christ appears. It 
 is in this night of our destiny that these tri- 
 umphant words shine forth: "I am the light 
 
lOO THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of the world." He has not shed light upon the 
 problems of the material world or of pure science; 
 that is the domain which God has left to the 
 investigations of our intellect alone; but He has 
 shed it upon our life itself, upon our struggles, 
 our griefs, our agonies; here is His magnificent 
 and divine work, here is that which belongs to 
 Him alone. 
 
 How has He done it .'' I have told you from 
 the beginning; it was by the manifestation of 
 His person even more than by His doctrine, since 
 He did not say, "I bring the light and the truth," 
 but "/ avi the light and I am the truth." Here, 
 my brethren, I wish to address a few words to 
 those of my hearers for whom Christ is above 
 all a teacher of morals, but who have not 'yet 
 been able to see in Him the incarnation of God, 
 the very manifestation of divinity. They have 
 often said to us with a tone of candor that I 
 respect, "Why talk so much of the person of 
 Christ } Is it not His doctrine which is the 
 essential thing t If one does as He commands, 
 will he not be sure of pleasing Him } Will he 
 not be in the truth .? " I agree with them. 
 Listen then to the teaching of Jesus. Do we 
 not licar Him speaking continually of Himself 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and directing attention to His person ? Does 
 He ask simply an assent to His precepts ? No, 
 evidently He wishes you to see Him, to con- 
 template Him, to believe in Him; He wishes you 
 to receive Him in your hearts, and to reserve 
 for Him in this inner sanctuary, the first, the 
 most intimate and the most sacred place. He 
 is not only the prophet of truth, He is the real 
 truth; He is not only the proclaimer of light. He 
 is the light. This is the true meaning of my 
 text, and it is in interpreting it thus that one 
 can comprehend its grandeur, its richness and 
 its fruitfulness. 
 
 How has the manifestation of the person of 
 Jesus Christ been the light of the world } To 
 this question this is my reply: Because Jesus 
 Christ has revealed to us what God is, and what 
 man should be, because He has shown us then 
 the relation which should unite man with God, 
 because in solving this question, the first of all. 
 He has shed light on all other questions which 
 depend on it. He has explained magnificently 
 our destiny. . 
 
 I say first, that Christ has revealed to us what 
 God is. It was not that He discoursed upon 
 God; He has not given us a single philosoph- 
 
I02 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ical or metaphysical définition of God. But He 
 showed Him to us. He was fully conscious of 
 their meaning when He pronounced these words: 
 " He that hath seen me hath seen my Father." 
 He felt then that He was in His humanity " the 
 express image of God," as the Scripture says, 
 (Heb. i. 3), or to use another expression of St. 
 Paul, "the visible image of the invisible God," 
 (Col. i. 15). And it is a fact that with Jesus 
 Christ a new idea of God entered humanity. 
 Moses had revealed the only God, the holy 
 God, the God all powerful, the just God; Jesus 
 Christ revealed the God full of mercy and ten- 
 derness, God as providence, God as love. Light 
 was cast upon the divine character, the final 
 and supreme light. What can one add to the 
 idea of God as love .'' 
 
 At the same time in Jesus appeared a new 
 ideal of humanity. I do not mean merely in 
 the discourses, in the teaching of Christ. I mean 
 in His person. Jesus never taught a systematic 
 and scientific morality. He has simply replaced 
 the moral world on its true axis which is the 
 love of God and the love of men; but He has 
 nowhere entered into a classification of our du- 
 ties, in a thorough explanation of the motives, 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 103 
 
 the ends, the impulses and the sanctions of our 
 moral activity. In the sermon on the mount, 
 He has shown the interior and spiritual charac- 
 ter of the law, He has shown what is true pur- 
 ity and true love; in His immortal parables He 
 has taught us by some examples what are the 
 conditions of the life eternal, but it is espe- 
 cially by the manifestation of His person and by 
 the radiance of His life that He has revealed to 
 us the moral ideal of humanity. 
 
 For the first time, in Him we find a life ful- 
 filling absolutely the moral law, that is to say, 
 wholly directed by the love of God and of man — 
 a life in which there was not an act, not a word, 
 not a thought, not a motive of the heart which 
 did not harmonize with the glory of God and the 
 good of mankind, which was not inspired, filled, 
 penetrated, by the love of God and man. In 
 Him we see for the first time the wonderful 
 combination of all the virtues which seem op- 
 posed and ordinarily incompatible; authority and 
 simplicity, majesty and humility, strength and 
 gentleness; the horror of evil and tender com- 
 passion, purity without asceticism, and familiar- 
 ity without vulgarity. Just as, to employ an im- 
 age that my subject suggests, the diverse colors 
 
104 "J^HE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 decomposed by the prism, red, orange, yellow, 
 green, blue, violet, bright and dazzling as they 
 may be, make, in reuniting, the white perfect in 
 spotless splendor; so all the diverse features 
 which compose the person of Christ unite and 
 blend in an extraordinary harmony, so strik- 
 ing that it has forever impressed itself upon 
 the conscience of humanity. In Him light has 
 been cast forever on man. In Him we see 
 man as He should be. ,■ 
 
 This grand image is before us, and every- 
 where it lifts itself; the absolute return of night 
 is impossible. Doubtless the powers of darkness 
 may fall at times upon the race of man; degra- 
 dation, deception, hypocrisy, violence can even 
 use Christ's name, but malice and confusion will 
 not last long; the light will triumph; treacher- 
 ous shadows, hideous nightmares, will disappear, 
 and in the gray dawn and glorious morning, 
 righteouness, purity, and love will shine forth. 
 
 Thus Jesus has perfectly revealed to us what 
 God is and what man should be; that is to say, 
 my brethren, He has illuminated the deep abyss 
 which separates man from God. The more evi- 
 dent and luminous has been His holiness, the 
 more perceptible has it made our own imperfec- 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 105 
 
 tion; all our virtues become pale beside His per- 
 fections, as the false sparkle of trinkets grows 
 dim in the presence of the fire of a pure diamond. 
 It is not only our crimes of which His purity 
 makes apparent the repulsive hideousness; it 
 is those thoughts, those bad intentions, those 
 hatreds and those evil desires, which no human 
 law can reach, but which are made manifest by 
 Him. He makes us to discern at the same time 
 the evil we have done and the good that we 
 have neglected to do; He casts an inexorable 
 light on all false appearances, over all ostenta- 
 tion, the pursuit of human glory, self-love more 
 or less skilfully disguised. Never before Him had 
 our nature been so profoundly, so surely judged, 
 never had man been thus revealed to man. 
 Thus was fulfilled the prophetic words pro- 
 nounced upon the child Jesus by the aged 
 Simeon, " By Him the thoughts of many hearts 
 shall be revealed" (Luke ii. 35). Thus the light 
 which radiates from His person and which ap- 
 pears to us at first sublime, at length becomes 
 exacting and terrible, since it penetrates to the 
 lowest depths of our being and exposes our cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 This light would be insupportable and would 
 
Io6 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 leave us without hope, if after having revealed 
 our misery, it did not at the same time reveal the 
 divine mercy, and if it did not show to us in God 
 a love greater than our revolt, a pardon greater 
 than our iniquity. Here, my brethren, is what 
 above all Jesus crucified teaches us, and for this 
 reason those grand words, "I am the light of the 
 world," never seem grander and truer than when 
 they fall from the cross. The sinner discovers 
 and receives at the foot of the cross a grace 
 truly worthy of God, because it conserves His 
 justice, in revealing His mercy; he sees there sin 
 at the same time judged and forgiven. Strange 
 thing ! God never appears to him holier than 
 at the moment when He pardons him, and 
 in seeing at what price his salvation is gained, 
 he understands the sacred majesty of His rights 
 better than when the law resounds in solemn 
 and threatening tones from the heights of Si- 
 nai. And at the same time divine love pene- 
 trates him to depths until then unknown. That 
 active and impassioned tenderness, that mercy of 
 which the Scripture had already given us a 
 sublime idea, and of which the parables of Jesus 
 had made so touching and familiar a reality, have 
 been truly rendered clear antl striking only on 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 107 
 
 the cross. Thus whoever looks upon it with faith 
 feels that God is there, and finds Him, in one 
 transport which decides forever his life. So was 
 it with the repentant malefactor whom it first 
 saved. Here is, my brethren, a truth of experi- 
 ence, an actual fact whose reality we can daily 
 verify. 
 
 The cross illumines these three dread myste- 
 ries called sin, sorrow, and death, upon which 
 science has never been able to throw any light. 
 Nothing has ever illumined them like the cross. 
 It shows the greatness and the terrible conse- 
 quences of sin by making us to understand at 
 what price it had to be expiated; but in showing 
 us the expiation of it really accomplished, it as- 
 sures us the victory and forever destroys the 
 fatality of evil. All other religions, all philoso- 
 phies, must compromise with evil and extenuate 
 it in order to make place for it; the religion 
 of the cross alone dares to see it as it is, be- 
 cause it alone can crush it. It is the same with 
 sorrow; the cross illumines it, in revealing to us 
 in God a power of sympathy that man never 
 had dared dream of. Henceforth there will be 
 no suffering with which the cross dares not 
 grapple, because there is none which it does not 
 
I08 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 reach and console. As far as we descend in this 
 abyss, we will find there before us Jesus Christ, 
 and wherever we can find His love, we find 
 consolation. 
 
 Is there a philosophical theory of any kind, 
 a doctrine of resignation founded on the nature 
 of things or on the divine will which has ever 
 brought to wounded hearts the peace which one 
 look at the cross brings to them .-* Who can 
 count the daily victories that the cross obtains 
 in this city alone, in the century which thinks 
 itself to have long since outgrown it. The cross 
 calms the troubled conscience, it heals the bleed- 
 ing wounds of the heart, it mitigates the terrors 
 of agony. It is our supreme weapon in those 
 terrible combats where all other weapons have 
 been found ineffective and soon broken; it is 
 the last object which we present to the failing 
 vision, and we ourselves, when we feel the cold 
 sweat of agony on our brow, we know that we 
 will die tranquil if our soul can contemplate 
 with confidence the cross which has saved us. 
 
 Thus the destiny of entire humanity is illu- 
 mined by Him who calls Himself the light of 
 the world. But that which is true of our race 
 as a whole is applicable also to each of its 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 109 
 
 members; there is not one of our lives which 
 cannot itself receive from him a consolatory light. 
 Just as the visible sun, in illuminating the whole 
 world shows off the brightness of the humblest 
 flowers of the field or the sparkling plumage of 
 the birds; just as it has rays which render 
 more brilliant the attire of the young bride, 
 which charm the gaze of little children, and send 
 their joyous reflection into the cabin of the poor 
 and the garret of the sick artisan; even so the 
 gospel, in projecting a new and powerful light 
 upon the collective history of our race, illumines 
 the path of the smallest, the most ignorant and 
 the humblest; so much so that each one of them 
 will be sometimes tempted to believe that this 
 Sun of grace rises for himself alone. 
 
 Wonderful and touching multiplication of the 
 divine goodness, perpetual miracle, in which the 
 sceptic sees only illusion, but where we must 
 needs recognize adoringly the manifestation, 
 active, universal, and perpetual, of Him of whom 
 Christ has said that He worketh continually. 
 Thus, upon lives the most common and degraded 
 this light turns the royal splendors of its divine 
 rays; joys, sorrows, toils, unrest, temptations, 
 humiliations, secret wounds, heart-rendings, hid- 
 
no THE LIGHT OF 'rilE IVOR I D. 
 
 den griefs, all the acts, all the thoughts, all 
 the impressions which form the woof of our 
 existence, are illuminated and penetrated by it. 
 And this light is not that of science, Avhich 
 often, like the glitter of the moon sparkling 
 in a frosty night, illumines all without warm- 
 ing anything. Warmth, on the contrary, issues 
 from it, gentle and vivifying, such as only the 
 sympathy of a God can be; it penetrates the 
 soul and floods it with a joy hitherto unknown. 
 Under its creative and fruitful influence every- 
 thing is born again in the transformed soul, 
 even as everything upon earth blossoms again 
 at the mild breath of spring. 
 
 To see this manifestation of divine grandeur, 
 holiness and love which Christ brings to the 
 world, and the numberless blessings which every 
 day proceed from it, it would seem as if men 
 ought to worship Him on bended knee; and 
 certainly, if it were true that, as one philosophy 
 proclaims, our nature has remained pure, if our 
 spontaneous aspirations went forth toward that 
 which is just and true, Jesus Christ would soon 
 reign over humanity. But let us not indulge in 
 vain words; let us remember how Jesus Christ 
 has been received by mankind; let us remem- 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. m 
 
 ber the hatred which has followed Him every- 
 where; I do not speak of the blind hatred of 
 a misguided crowd, I speak of that of men 
 who knew whom they were hating and why 
 they hated Him. 
 
 Let us remember that if the cross is the most 
 luminous and sublime of signs, it rises up from 
 the sinister foundation of the most odious pas- 
 sions that the world has ever seen. "The light 
 shineth in darkness," said St. John, "and the 
 darkness comprehended it not." Now the gos- 
 pel is not a historic fact which happened once 
 for all eighteen centuries ago; it is a drama 
 which recommences and renews itself at each 
 period, between those two beings whom God 
 brings face to face, — the just and Holy Christ 
 and sinning man. In all human generations, 
 when holiness appears, it meets with the same 
 resistance, the same antipathies, as it did on 
 the day when it became incarnate in Christ. 
 The world dreads this light because this light 
 is exacting and implacable toward it, be- 
 cause it brings out all its corruption and fals- 
 ity, because it passes sentence on it in show- 
 ing what it is : " For every one that doeth 
 evil hateth the light, neither comcth to the 
 
112 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 light lest his deeds should be reproved" (Johr 
 iii. 20). 
 
 Nevertheless, my brethren, sooner or later we 
 must come to it. Before the Judge supreme 
 nothing can remain unknown, before the holy 
 God nothing can live which He condemns. One 
 can fly from the light for a time. Some day 
 we must be judged by it. Let us anticipate this 
 judgment ! Let it from this day penetrate our 
 lives, let it expose all that our poor hearts con- 
 tain of misery, selfishness, evil desire; let us rec- 
 ognize, let us confess, in humiliation and shame, 
 all the sins which accuse and dishonor us. Let 
 us see ourselves as we are, in spite of all that 
 is cruel and bitter in such a sight. 
 
 O Jesus Christ, light of the world, divine re- 
 vealer of the truth, substantial and living truth, 
 show us what we are in order to save us forever 
 from the illusion of pride which has destroyed 
 us. Give sight to our blinded eyes, and after 
 having made us to measure the depth of the 
 abyss into which we have fallen, reveal to us 
 each day more and more tiie splendors of Thy 
 mercy and the joys of that eternal life where 
 Thou wouldst bring all those whom Thou hast 
 redeemed. Amen ! 
 
V. 
 
 ^ï)e ®[ucpal ffiifts. 
 
V. 
 Eïje ®[ncqual 0îft5, 
 
 "Tvr the Kingdom of Heaven is as a man travelling in afar coun- 
 try, who called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods. 
 
 '■'■And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another 
 one: to every man according to his several ability; and straightway 
 took his journey.'''' 
 
 Matt. xxv. 14. 15. 
 
 What are the talents which are spoken of in 
 this parable. Must we take them in a general 
 sense as the gifts which (^od distributes in un- 
 equal measure to every man, such as health, 
 physical strength, material resources, fortune, 
 education, the favoring influences which one finds 
 in his surroundings } Or must we rather regard 
 them as purely spiritual graces scattered lavishly 
 or sparingly by the Sovereign Dispenser, from 
 whom descends every good gift, and to whom all 
 the glory should be rendered .'' 
 
 I believe, my brethren, that both of these ex- 
 planations are true, so that neither excludes the 
 
Il6 THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 Other; I believe that this parable of Jesus, like 
 nearly all of His parables, casts its light at the 
 same time over the domain of nature and that 
 of grace. It is in this sense, at once strict )'et 
 broad, that I wish to study it with you; and 
 not to dwell upon all its lessons in detail, I 
 will speak in this sermon of the unequal gifts 
 which God bestows on us, and in subsequent 
 ones of the service which He asks of us, and of 
 the account we must all one day render to Him. 
 
 At the very threshold of this parable we meet 
 with a word which touches upon the most pain- 
 ful, trying problem which our century has at- 
 tempted to solve; that is, the origin of inequal- 
 ities. Jesus attributes it without hesitancy to 
 God. He compares God to a master who un- 
 equally distributes his goods. I know well 
 enough all the resentments which this doctrine 
 has awakened in our age. In the eyes of many 
 justice and equality are synonymous, and con- 
 sequently inequality is in their view the same 
 as injustice. Well, since this question confronts 
 us, let us, my brethren, approach it with entire 
 sincerity. 
 
 Let us observe first what Jesus Christ does not 
 say. 
 
THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 117 
 
 1. He does not say that the master loves least 
 those to whom he gives the least. 
 
 2. He does not say, that the master acts from 
 caprice; on the contrary He gives us to under- 
 stand that it is of wise design; since each one 
 of his servants receives "according to his sev- 
 eral ability." 
 
 3. He does not say, that this inequality lasts 
 beyond the time of trial, that is to say, beyond 
 the present life. The two faithful servants who 
 had received different portions, obtain the same 
 recompense: "They enter into the joy of their 
 Lord." 
 
 But, these reservations made, let us observe 
 that Jesus Christ says plainly, that the master 
 gave to one five talents, to another two, and 
 to another one. 
 
 Notice now that what Jesus Christ affirms, 
 nature affirms also. Absolute equality exists 
 nowhere in nature, for absolute equality, if you 
 look well at it, would be uniformity: and there 
 is nothing less uniform than the works of God. 
 You can gather thousands of leaves from the 
 same oak, and in comparing them you will not 
 find two that are icentical, or which placed 
 side by side correspond even in their principal 
 
Il8 THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 fibres. It is the works of man that repeat 
 themselves so fatally: I mean not only the 
 products of our manufactories, cast by millions 
 in the same mould, or cut out by the same stroke 
 of the die; I mean the very works of genius, 
 those whose spontaneous inspiration makes us 
 think of the divine. Raphael and Michael An- 
 gelo reproduce themselves, and the critic's dis- 
 cerning eye easily recognizes their respective 
 styles. In nature, on the contrary, and in each 
 of the kingdoms which compose it, you will find 
 the most wonderful hierarchy, — and in each de- 
 gree of this great system, life exerting itself 
 in ever-varied forms. As you ascend in the 
 scale, the diversity increases ; at the bottom, 
 as in crystallization, you will find the rigidity 
 of geometry: at the top, with man, you will 
 find the unexpected, which is the product of 
 liberty. 
 
 I observe not only that this inequality is a 
 fact, but that it is, moreover, a bond of union 
 between men; that it obliges them to lean upon 
 each other, inasmuch as it is an assertion of 
 their mutual dependence. In a state of abso- 
 lute equality each one would be sufficient for 
 himself God has not willed it so to be. He 
 
THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 119 
 
 has established among- us all a necessary rela- 
 tionship; it is in others that I must find what is 
 lacking- in myself; it is upon me that a brother 
 should lean who is less endowed than myself. 
 
 Nowhere does this mutual dependence appear 
 more beautiful, more touching, than in the fam- 
 ily life, when this is what it should be. Here we 
 find marked inequality creating- diverse relations 
 between all its members; the man has rather 
 the creative g-ift and the initiative; the woman 
 excels in the receptive qualities; the vigor of 
 youth and the strength of maturity unite in 
 supporting the weakness of the aged and the 
 inexperience of the child. Authority here finds 
 expression, exercises itself in a thousand sweet 
 and charming ways which are called influence, 
 respect, wisdom, kindness, and love. Attempt 
 now to bring this down to the degrading level 
 of certain communistic Utopias, and you will see 
 what a protestation you will raise. Thus ob- 
 serve, at the foundation of the family and of 
 all society there is inequality. 
 
 Would you agree with me, my brethren, if I 
 stopped here and sustained on one side by the 
 authority of my text, on the other by that of 
 experience, I should just simply conclude that 
 
I20 THE UNEQUAL GIFT'^. 
 
 all inequality, every form of inequality, is a fact 
 which we must all accept ? I am sure that you 
 would not; I am sure that on the contrary you 
 would accuse me of falsifying the Gospel by pre- 
 senting it unfairly, as a partisan advocate and 
 not as a disciple of Jesus Christ; and" you would 
 be a thousand times right. 
 
 There is indeed an equality which is just, 
 which is legitimate, and to which we aspire in 
 virtue of our better nature. It is equality in our 
 eternal destiny; and you know how clearly the 
 Gospel states it. Rich or poor, learned or ig- 
 norant, great or small in earthly relations, we 
 have been redeemed by the same blood, and we 
 are called to the same heavenly heritage. In 
 this sense, before God there is no respect of per- 
 sons; there will not be any in the last judgment, 
 there cannot be any here below. 
 
 Let us beware however ! One can exaggerate 
 this idea, and draw it out to a revolting conclu- 
 sion. One might say: "Yes, we consent to this, 
 the equality in Heaven, upon condition that you 
 assure us here below the peaceful enjoyment of 
 our privileges." One might from a wholly gross 
 and worldly motive become the defender of re- 
 ligion and of the Church, especially because as a 
 
THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 121 
 
 well-known cynical saying expresses it, — "The 
 Church is the best keeper of the strong-box." 
 
 My brethren, I do not care to inquire how 
 many of our fellow beings, sceptical at heart, up- 
 hold religion for this end only. I will only say 
 that their estimate is false, for they impose on 
 no one; everybody sees through that intention, 
 and, much as they wish it, they exercise no seri- 
 ous influence; people can respect a religion which 
 is a sincere belief, but they scorn and detest a re- 
 ligion which they can make a tool of; and they 
 are right. 
 
 But I protest against those who would attri- 
 bute to the Gospel the abuses which they draw 
 from it. One might extract a fatal poison from 
 the air we breathe and which gives us life; do 
 not be astonished that any one finds in the 
 Gospel a justification for his selfishness, a seda- 
 tive to ease the conscience. What I maintain is, 
 that the true logic of the Gospel leads in another 
 direction, which I will point out to you. 
 
 I have said that we are all equal in our eternal 
 destiny, all the objects of the same love, all re- 
 deemed by the same blood, all called to the 
 same salvation. But what are we to understand 
 by this unless that every man should have an 
 
122 THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 equal right to save his soul by doing that which 
 the Gospel bids him do to this end? Well, I 
 ask you, is this possible for all of us to-day ? 
 Is this possible, I do not say for the heathen 
 who groan in the gloom of their darkness, but 
 for the thousands of beings yet held in bon- 
 dage by their ignorance and misery? Can purity 
 of soul and body be preserved in certain condi- 
 tions ? Is there not a measur^ of misery and ig- 
 norance which distorts the conscoace, as drunk- 
 enness distorts the brain ? Are there not some 
 dark and slippery declivities where the firmest 
 step will make a fatal slide ? Are there not 
 material conditions of living and of working, 
 masses of human beings, where the miasmas and 
 corruption float and ferment in the air more rap- 
 idly even than the fetid ojdors one breathes 
 there ? To sum it all up, you Christian mothers 
 who listen to me, would you like your children 
 tenderly brought up, to be exposed for a day, 
 or an hour, to the sights, to the language, to 
 the streams of immorality in the midst of which 
 thousands of children like your own are reared 
 and who like your own were capable of under- 
 standing all that is pure, great, and holy ? 
 
 Therefore I say, as long as such facts exist, as 
 
THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 123 
 
 long as such inequality manifests itself in such a 
 cruel way, opening before us such frightful per- 
 spectives, we cannot, we ought not to take sides 
 with it. We must suffer from it; the Gospel must 
 reproach us with it, and weary us with it; this 
 religion which we would fain make a pillow of 
 idleness, must be changed to a pricking needle. 
 Holding our conscience unceasingly on the 
 watch, we must in the midst of our luxuries, of 
 our frivolity, of our elegant pleasure, — in our 
 daily life, honest perhaps, but deplorably and 
 miserably selfish, — we must listen to the words 
 of the Master, " I was an hungered and ye gave 
 me no meat. I was thirsty and ye gave me no 
 drink. I was sick and ye did not visit me. De- 
 part from me ye cursed ! " 
 
 Thus the belief in equality in our eternal des- 
 tinies should lead us to combat with energy all 
 that which in the inequalities of the present life 
 might prejudice the moral life of our fellow be- 
 ings, all the excesses of misery and suffering 
 which place their souls in evident peril. He does 
 not deserve the name of Christian who consents 
 to leave his brother in a state of moral servitude 
 and abasement of which the inevitable conse- 
 quence must be his degradation. 
 
124 THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 This reservation made, and you see that it is 
 necessary, we will not return to it again, except 
 as we face it in our text — "To one five talents, 
 to another two, to another one." Inequality in 
 the present time remains a fact, and a fact de- 
 termined by God. 
 
 Before this fact what must we do } Accept 
 it, so far as it does not wound the conscience; 
 accept it in seeking to alleviate it, and to soft- 
 en its asperities; but accept it finally, humbly, 
 bravely, and without murmuring. You are poor, 
 you are a workingman, you toil; you are not 
 among those called the privileged ones of this 
 world; you have only your two talents, only one 
 talent. What difference does it make } Are you 
 less beloved by God for this } Are you less 
 a man, a child of God, an immortal soul } Is 
 your life depreciated and degraded by it .'' Do 
 not let yourself say this; let it not lower your 
 dignity as a man and Christian; look at your 
 life in its true grandeur, in t^ie light of eternity. 
 Say to yourself that if you do toil, Jesus the Son 
 of God, the. King of souls, has toiled and has 
 suffered; say that His hands, before He raised 
 them to bless humanity, were hardened by the 
 touch of the tools of labor; say that our true 
 
THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 125 
 
 nobility, our real dignity, we owe to those chil- 
 dren of the people who were called Peter, An- 
 drew, Philip, and James; and that since Christ 
 saved humanity by suffering for it and by toiling 
 for it, there is no solid greatness, no lasting 
 glory, but that which is gained by service and 
 self-sacrifice. 
 
 Moreover, one thought here should stop the 
 murmuring on your lips, and that is, the wis- 
 dom of the Almighty. 
 
 God knows no fickleness; He abides faithful 
 to His nature; He is and will ever remain just 
 and good. St. James says, " There is in Him 
 no shadow of turning." Now what rule does 
 He follow in the distribution of His gifts } "To 
 each one according to his ability." God did not 
 cast us all in the same mould. He made us 
 different, and that is well, but it must follow 
 that our abilities differ also. And by this word 
 *' abilities " you must not only understand the in- 
 tellectual capacities. There is evidently some 
 other meaning here which includes especially 
 the moral abilities, our fitness to bear such and 
 such a burden. It is just here that we are in- 
 clined to practice on ourselves prodigious delu- 
 sions. We can have an exact enough idea of 
 
126 THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 our intellectual faculties, to recoil from a task 
 which is evidently beyond them, or to judge 
 without presumption that we might be placed 
 higher than we are; but what we but imperfect- 
 ly know, what we do not sufficienty ask of our- 
 selves, is whether we are morally strong enough 
 to meet success, fortune, greatness. Just here 
 is a fact which strikes me. The men who 
 criticise most severely those who are above them 
 are most assuredly the least capable of replacing 
 them. The poor, full of envy, should they be- 
 come rich, would be full of pride; the ambitious 
 embittered, would be parvenus full of harshness; 
 those who waver under the temptations of a 
 moderate position would have been blinded by 
 the prestige of a higher position. 
 
 Do you believe, my brethren, that you are in 
 the hands of that stupid idol called chance } Or 
 do you believe in a divine intervention in your 
 destiny.? If you believe that God is great enough 
 to think of you who are small, if you believe that 
 He despises none of His creatures, and that your 
 salvation is not indifferent to Him who sent His 
 Son here below to redeem you, you will believe 
 at the same time that in His wisdom He has as- 
 signed to you the place you should have, because 
 
THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 127 
 
 He knows better than you your abilities, and 
 what will crush them. 
 
 You will doubtless say to me that I preach 
 here a resignation wholly passive, that I fix each 
 immovably in his position, that I imprison him in 
 a circle traced by the divine hand, and that this 
 will tend to stifle all progress, all ambition, and 
 to lead us back to the government of castes. I 
 beg that you will not misconstrue my thought, 
 I do not intend by any means to preach here a 
 fatalistic resignation. I believe that Christianity 
 which proposes to us nothing less than perfec- 
 tion, and which proposes this to all, tends to 
 stimulate all our faculties and incite us with 
 energy on to progress. For this idea of progress 
 has entered into humanity with the purely Chris- 
 tian idea of the kingdom of God. Nothing is 
 more natural than that one should desire to go 
 forward in an age and society where all careers 
 are open to all. But, at the same time, I be- 
 lieve that in order to advance, one must have 
 the necessary capacities, such as are self-evident: 
 I believe that Avhen God gives them to a man 
 He makes him see so clearly that it is impos- 
 sible to doubt. If you have received such ca- 
 pacities show it. This is, need I say it, the 
 
128 THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 rare exception. If you have them not, bless 
 God that He has placed you in a position where 
 giddiness cannot attack you; accept resolutely 
 your place, and murmur not because you have 
 received but two talents. 
 
 Do you know anything in history sadder than 
 the reign of a fool, or of a child incapable of rul- 
 ing, yet possessing absolute power .<* "Woe to 
 thee, O land!" say the Scriptures, "when thy 
 king is a child" (Eccl. x. i6). When I see in the 
 Louvre, portraits of the infantas of Spain of the 
 seventeenth century, such as the brush of Ru- 
 bens or Velasquez has preserved for us, in read- 
 ing upon the pale countenances of these poor 
 weaklings, their profound and helpless incapa- 
 city, I foresee the downfall of a country they 
 are called upon to govern, and I tremble when I 
 think that these imbeciles may be taken from 
 their puerile pleasures, or from their miserable 
 devotions, in order to put their signature to 
 the warrant for a heretic's death or to attend 
 some ajito-da-fe. But what we see here in a 
 grand sphere, occurs every day on a narrower 
 stage, in those families where a large inheritance 
 falls into the hands of a prodigal or a fool. Noth- 
 ing is so sad as to receive more than one can 
 
THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 129 
 
 bear. How many consciences have staggered 
 under the responsibiHties too heavy, how many 
 hearts, which seemed vaHant and pure, have 
 been unable to bear the temptations of too great 
 prosperity ? 
 
 God alone knows the foolish dreams all of us 
 here present have indulged in, dreams of pride, 
 of vanity, of fortune, of happy love, alas ! per- 
 haps of guilty passions, of detestable and shame- 
 ful pleasures. Ah ! if all of our past ambitions 
 could speak, what sad confessions we would 
 hear ! I confine myself to one question. If you 
 had been gratified, if you had received, I do not 
 say five talents, but the hundred, the thousand 
 you have dreamed of, would you be here t Would 
 you be bowed for a single moment before God 
 under the sense of your misery .'' Would you 
 with a fervent heart be praising Him for His mer- 
 cies .'* Would you be caring for eternity .-* Would 
 you be following the narrow way .'' Without af- 
 fliction, without disappointed dreams, without 
 delusions, without sorrows, without poverty, 
 would you go to Him who has said, "Come 
 unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden"? 
 To sum it all up in a word, would you be Chris- 
 tians, would you be saved t 
 
T30 THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 The talents were distributed. What says the 
 Gospel next? "The master straightway took 
 his journey." This is not the only time that 
 Jesus employs similar expressions to indicate 
 the attitude that God takes towards humanity 
 in this short period of the divine existence that 
 we call the history of the world. What does 
 this mean .'' Is God absent .'' Can God separate 
 Himself from His work .'* Would Jesus teach 
 this .'' Could His God be the God of Descartes, 
 of whom Pascal said, " Descartes only needed 
 Him to give the first impetus to a world which 
 is afterwards left to its natural laws".'' Beware 
 of thinking so. No one more than Jesus Christ 
 has spoken of the close and constant relation 
 of God with the world. Do you remember His 
 sublime and familiar teachings of the lilies of 
 the field and the birds of the air, of whom God 
 takes care and whom He clothes more magnifi- 
 cently than Solomon in all his glory .'* 
 
 If Jesus here compares God to a master 
 who is absent, it is because God seems really 
 to be so. He does not commune with us di- 
 rectly. Between Him and us there are what we 
 call the laws of nature; that is, as well as we 
 can represent it, His ideas realized in time and 
 
THE UNEQUAL GIFTS. 131 
 
 space. Well, these laws have a double effect. 
 Suppose a truly religious soul which has come 
 into direct communication with God by faith, and 
 by that exercise of faith which is called prayer; 
 these laws transport that soul by their sublimity, 
 their harmony; moreover that soul knows that 
 back of those laws there is the loving heart of 
 a living, ever-present God. Suppose, on the 
 contrary, a soul indifferent and without faith; 
 these laws produce upon it a different effect; it 
 sees only in them the character of fate, neces- 
 sary, inexorably periodic; the world seems to it 
 more and more like an immense chain of causes 
 and effects, like an endless mill-gearing, like the 
 working out of an eternal fatality. 
 
 My brethren, here is the great test of faith. 
 God hides His face, God remains silent. The 
 moral law is violated, but He speaks not; men 
 blaspheme and insult Him, He speaks not; the 
 wicked triumph, yet He speaks not. Then the 
 scoffers become bold, and the ancient challenge 
 which the sceptics flaunted before the prophet- 
 king is repeated — "What is thy God doing.'"- 
 
 I repeat it, this is the great test of faith, but 
 this test has been foretold us ; we must ex- 
 pect it. We must see the hidden God, we must 
 
132 THE UA' EQUAL GIFTS. 
 
 hear the silent God, we must always confess His 
 justice, His mercy, and His love, in spite of all 
 the wrongs which defame Him. We must serve 
 Him and await Him, as if He might appear to- 
 day. "Blessed," says the Scripture, "is that ser- 
 vant whom his Lord when He cometh shall find 
 watching." Amen. 
 
VI. 
 
 iLa^arus at tïje Eirîj Jlan's ©oor* 
 
VI. 
 Ea^arus at tije Etc]^ JEan's ÎBoon^ 
 
 " There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and 
 fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. 
 
 '■'■And there was a certain beggar ■named Lazarus, which was laid 
 at his gate, full of sores. ^^ 
 
 Luke xvi. 19, 20. 
 
 Are you not impressed, my brethren, with the 
 striking contrast which these simple words pre- 
 sent ? It is now eighteen centuries since they 
 were spoken. Have they lost anything of their 
 reality } Wealth, misery ! always before us, to- 
 day, as then; and in such sense before us that 
 
 ' In this sermon, altogether special, delivered before an audience 
 assembled to form a collection for the poor, one must not look 
 for what I neither could nor wanted to discuss here. In other 
 circles, where luxury has not attained the proportions which so 
 menace us, but where selfishness seeks elsewhere its satisfaction 
 and its pleasure there would be something else to say. Incom- 
 plete as this discourse may be, I have decided to write and publish 
 it in view of the requests that have been made for it. 
 
136 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 their conflict is of all social questions, the 
 chief, the most difficult, the darkest, the full- 
 est of menace for the future. But for this ter- 
 rible problem, solutions have not been wanting, 
 
 " No more rich ! " some have said, and we have 
 heard the crowd repeating this mad cry — " No 
 more rich ! Let us strike down opulence, let us 
 attack capital, let us do away with the right 
 of inheritance ! " and they did not see that in 
 thus saying, they struck a death blow at liberty, 
 and with liberty energy, and with energy labor 
 itself, to leave us only the equality of savages, 
 who, with nothing laid up for the morrow, fall 
 asleep, indifferent, until hunger forces them to 
 seek their prey. 
 
 "No more poor!" others have cried, and in this 
 age a loud echo has responded to them: "No 
 more poor ! " Ah ! if there had been in this but 
 a wish, an outburst of charity! But they made 
 it a motto, and a promise. No more poor ! and 
 some said, " The state ought to assure work to 
 all"; others, "The state will feed the poor"; 
 and they did not see that they are imposing 
 upon the state an impossible task, that they 
 would thus create the most artificial and tyran- 
 nical Utopia; they did not sec in short that they 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 137 
 
 ignore human nature. For, to decree that there 
 shall be no more misery, would amount to de- 
 creeing- there shall be no more indolence, no 
 more vices, no more passions, no more sin. 
 
 But, while these theories succeed in mislead- 
 ing the multitude into cruel, deceptive dreams, 
 which must leave them without consolation and 
 without bread, the evil continues its slow and 
 fatal march. 
 
 No more rich, no more poor ! Go to-day to 
 England, that classic ground of philanthropy 
 and social economy; there you will see, by the 
 side of the most colossal wealth gathered from 
 all parts of the world, a nameless misery, which, 
 after having exposed its savage degradation to 
 the sun each day, takes refuge at night in dens, 
 of which a benevolent man, who visited them, 
 said recently in a famous article, that only 
 Sodom could shelter such infamies. 
 
 See where we are — in the year 1866. The 
 rich and the poor face to face, as in the words 
 of my text, and, if the abundance and the re- 
 sources of the former have increased by the prog- 
 ress of a civilization of eighteen centuries, the 
 misery of the latter is as real, as consuming as 
 ever. 
 
138 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 To this evil, what social remedy must be ap- 
 plied ? This is not my subject, my brethren; 
 such a question is foreign to my task. I am not 
 here to examine systems, I take humanity as I 
 find it. I see before me the rich, and the poor; 
 I believe these will continue to be to-morrow, 
 as they were yesterday; and in the name of the 
 Gospel, I come once more to recall to the former 
 their duties toward the latter. The subject is not 
 new I admit, no newer than suffering. I shall 
 repeat probably what you have heard a hundred 
 times. What of that } The day when our self- 
 ishness shall die, I promise you, my brethren, to 
 cease speaking of charity, of sacrifice. 
 
 Behold Lazarus laid at the rich man's gate ! 
 Now ! what I ask first is, that the rich man fix 
 his eyes on Lazarus. I mean here by the rich, 
 all those before whom some Lazarus is lying, all 
 those who have it in their power to aid and 
 comfort him. 
 
 Look at Lazarus ! But understand me fully. 
 It is not a question of being moved to pity in- 
 cidentally, at the story of some unfortunate, of 
 throwing him a few alms, of acting a certain 
 rôle in some work of charity, and after having 
 thus eased the conscience, of complacently say- 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 139 
 
 ing, "What a philanthropic, generous age this 
 is ! " It is a question of meeting suffering face to 
 face, and of becoming acquainted with it. This 
 is what I call looking at Lazarus. Is it done ? 
 Do you believe that it should be done 1 Ours 
 is the age of systems of benevolence, of asso- 
 ciations, of institutions. There is great prog- 
 ress ! you will say. Yes, but fatal progress, if 
 it is to prevent that direct contact of the rich 
 and the poor, of the happy and the wretched, 
 which the Gospel enjoins on every page, and 
 whose healthful action no institution can su- 
 persede. 
 
 I know what you will reply — '* Time is want- 
 ing ! " And I am not of those who condemn this 
 excuse. To-day, in all vocations, life is more 
 and more like a forced march; each seeking 
 to arrive first at the end. Every career is en- 
 cumbered, the new-comers press on impatiently, 
 and want to find their place. It is a struggle, 
 a mob, through which one must push ahead for 
 fear of being quickly supplanted. Never per- 
 haps since man has worked was work more se- 
 yerc, more crushing. People do not walk, they 
 run. Woe to him who stops to breathe too 
 long ! But is it always duty which compresses 
 
I40 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 life to this point ? I ask it of those to whom 
 God has given a Httle of ease and fortune. Is 
 it true that you have absolutely no leisure, no 
 rightful leisure ? Now in a society where, I do 
 not say the Christian spirit, but simply justice 
 predominates, do you believe that the leisure 
 of those who have means does not providen- 
 tially belong to those who bear the burden of 
 daily toil? In this leisure, what part are you 
 acting towards Lazarus, what portion of your 
 time do you give to poverty and sorrow ? Ah i 
 leisure thus consecrated is a noble mission, it 
 is a grand beneficence both for the unfortunate 
 and for yourselves ! We are going then to see 
 you at the work; and we, the insignificant of 
 the earth, weighed down by work and tied to 
 our post by care for our daily bread, we are 
 going to lean upon you to whom God has given 
 a portion j^-ivileged among all. Alas ! this were 
 to leave out of account the ambition, the self- 
 ishness, the worldliness, which would usurp that 
 leisure and absorb it all. 
 
 I take an example, and I take it from a class 
 which is in constant contact with the sufferings 
 of the people, and cannot justify itself by the 
 plea of ignorance. 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 141 
 
 Here is a large manufacturer, whose fortune 
 amounts to opulence; in his workshops, in his 
 warehouses, the workmen number thousands; all 
 those arms, all those wills, all those energies 
 belong to him, and from morning till night obey 
 him. He has known how to train those produc- 
 tiv^e powers, and by practice and skill to make 
 them do all they are capable of But in those 
 workshops there is suffering; the air is unhealthy, 
 faces become pale and pinched, men and women 
 work promiscuously; the moral atmosphere is 
 charged with filth and corruption; the appren- 
 tice, to whom the law gives rest on Sunday, 
 is cheated out of it, as is the case in the ma- 
 jority of our large factories in Paris; and there, 
 bent over his machines, stupefied by work pre- 
 mature and unrelaxed, deprived more and more 
 of a religious and moral life, he languishes, 
 affected with degeneration of the blood, and 
 rickety in body and mind. 
 
 But that man upon whom rests so grave a 
 responsibility, that man, the soul and the head 
 of that industry, why does he pass coldly by 
 those sufferings which he might relieve by giv- 
 ing to them for a moment that steady look 
 and that resolute action which he gives to ev- 
 
142 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 erything he undertakes ? My brethren, he has 
 not time. ... to look at Lazarus ! What, he ! 
 And do you not see what absorbs him, what 
 is furrowing wrinkles in his brow, what is fill- 
 ing his heart and his thoughts.? There before 
 him are those rivals whom he must outstrip, 
 those fortunes whose colossal figures seem to 
 insult his own, those riches, those splendors 
 which float before his imagination ! This end ! he 
 must attain it, he must press on, press on still, 
 run, without losing a moment. 
 
 But has not that man a wife. Christian daugh- 
 ters, capable of feeling, and of thinking of those 
 thousands of beings whose existence and happi- 
 ness are so closely bound to him .'' They have 
 pious and susceptible hearts, they have wept a 
 hundred times over touching stories of imaginary 
 ills, they have groaned like yourselves over the 
 fate of the people, over those poor children cor- 
 rupted at an early age and deprived of all that 
 our own enjoy in abundance. They are surely go- 
 ing to act, they are going to visit these families, 
 to look close at these miseries, to offer to those 
 women, to those young girls a helping hand. . . . 
 Ah! you have left worldliness out of the account. 
 To look at Lazarus! What, they! But their 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 143 
 
 heart is elsewhere. Between the pleasures of 
 yesterday and those of to-morrow, between the 
 recollections of the last season and the toilettes 
 of the new season, midst all those ambitions, 
 all those rivalries, all that selfishness, how can 
 you expect them to find time to think of what 
 is passing down there in the faubourg, within 
 those sad bare walls, amid that indigent, irre- 
 ligious, miserable population ? The faiibowg, 
 they will cross it some day, proudly attired, 
 resplendent, conveyed by rapid horses; it is in 
 this way that the people will learn to know 
 them — and on the following Sunday, seated like 
 you, my sisters, in church, they will condemn 
 like you this rich man of the parable who left 
 Lazarus to suffer, abandoned, at the gate of 
 his palace ! 
 
 Let us go further, and let us say what every 
 one knows, and every one thinks. The reason 
 why many to-day do not want to look at Laza- 
 rus, is that they are not strangers to his suffer- 
 ing, and that their conscience will find in it a 
 sting. 
 
 The Gospel speaks to us of unrighteous riches. 
 What name must be given to numerous forms of 
 it which spring up to-day? A man undertakes 
 
144 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 a transaction which he knows is either wholly 
 bad, or liable at least to enormous chances of 
 failure. What difference does it make ! He un- 
 dertakes it; once undertaken it must be made to 
 succeed: the means well understood offer them- 
 selves; without putting his own hand to them, he 
 lets them act; soon a grand announcement fills the 
 newspapers; the most pressing solicitations, the 
 most brilliant promises held up before the eyes 
 of the ignorant, all the seductions of easy, rapid 
 and sure gain. They come forward, alas ! the 
 poor fools, to give to the tempting speculation, 
 one, the savings of a lifetime slowly acquired by 
 the sweat of his brow, another, the portion and 
 the bread of his children. And why should they 
 not do so } Who warns them, who informs 
 them } So they come forward, and, made up 
 of all these spoils snatched from honest labor, 
 the capital increases, increases constantly, until 
 
 all of a sudden it crumbles, it melts away 
 
 Go, now, poor father of a family; go, poor work- 
 ing man, who, during thirty or forty years have 
 faithfully done your duty ; go, poor working- 
 woman, who, denying yourself necessaries, have 
 saved up carefully the bread of your old age : go, 
 look for the fruits of your labor; go, reclaim it 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 145 
 
 from the stones of those sumptuous mansions 
 which rise up Hke magic, from all those splen- 
 dors which dazzle your gaze, from all those 
 riches, upon which Christ would have poured 
 His anathema ! 
 
 Is this a romance I am reciting ? Is it not 
 the real and heart-rending history of thousands 
 of unfortunates ? And you who hear me, are you 
 sure before God who sees you, that you are 
 strangers, absolutely strangers to such iniqui- 
 ties ? Have you contributed to them neither 
 directly nor indirectly ? Have you discouraged 
 them, and frowned upon them by your firm stand 
 and your example ? Who will do it, if not Chris- 
 tians ? Who will awaken the conscience of our 
 times, so careless, so tolerant of the evil which 
 is crowned with success ? Who will call to 
 mind that God reigns, that He reckons the suf- 
 ferings of the poor, that He listens to the groans 
 of the wronged, and that the fate of the wicked 
 rich man of the parable is a hundred times pref- 
 erable to that of the men who have themselves 
 laid Lazarus upon his bed of want and deg- 
 radation ? 
 
 Thus, your first duty, my brethren, is to look 
 at Lazarus, to see his sufferings face to face, 
 
146 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR, 
 
 This is not all. You must do yet more. You 
 must come near to him, he must feel your pres- 
 ence, he must hear your voice. I have said it 
 before; charity at a distance does not suffice; 
 besides it is this sort of charity which deceives, 
 which encourages intriguing vice adroitly cov- 
 ered with the rags of poverty. Nothing replaces 
 the direct and personal sight of those who suffer. 
 So the Gospel on every page exhorts us to see 
 the poor, to comfort them directly. And what 
 exhortation can equal the admirable example 
 which Jesus Christ has left us .'' 
 
 -Have you not remarked this fact, brief and 
 striking, which accompanies almost all the cures, 
 all the works of mercy of our Saviour.'' "Jesus, 
 drawing nigh, touched the sick, or the leper, and 
 said to him, 'Be ye healed, depart in peace.'" 
 He touched him, and this recalls to me an argu- 
 ment which the adversaries of Christianity have 
 often adduced: — "Why does Jesus," say they, 
 " since, according to the Scriptures, He can heal 
 from a distance, why does He to7ich the sick 
 with His hands } What object does He have, if 
 not to act upon the imagination of the people .-* 
 Is not this a common characteristic of all im- 
 postors .-' " Singular objection from a science 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 147 
 
 which understands everything except the in- 
 spiration of charity ! Jesus can heal at a dis- 
 tance, but He will not do it; it pleases Him to 
 touch with His divine hand those lepers, those 
 unclean, those possessed with devils, whom 
 every one shunned with disgust; and it is just 
 here that we recognize the miracle of miracles, 
 that of a charity that the world does not sus- 
 pect. Admirable example which we must follow, 
 my brethren, if we would follow Jesus Christ. 
 
 I do not hesitate to say that sympathy thus 
 understood, is half the relief of those who suffer. 
 You must have been struck with one result which 
 always follows great poverty, and great suffering. 
 The unfortunate, in proportion as he falls, thinks 
 he sees all society turn against him; it seems to 
 him that society excludes him, banishes him in 
 some sort, treats him as a pariah. There is as it 
 were a wall rising between him and the rest of 
 mankind. Hence those bitter accusations which 
 escape him against the world, against society, 
 against the church, as if the world, society, the 
 church, did not contain beings who are suffering 
 like himself and who themselves also are under- 
 going the same hallucination from grief 
 
 Well, suppose that in this bitterness the wretch- 
 
148 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 ed man sees sitting at his bedside one of the 
 favored ones, one of that privileged class whom 
 fate has spared; suppose that he feels your hand 
 press his own, and that he hears words of sym- 
 pathy fall from your lips; do you not believe that 
 his bad dream will speedily vanish ? This is not 
 all. He will learn perhaps in listening to you, 
 that grief can dwell too in the hearts of those 
 who seem to him happy; he will see by your ha- 
 biliments of mourning that fortune does not save 
 from cruel trials, and perhaps in this wounded 
 heart compassion will spring up toward you, at 
 the thought that you also have wept. 
 
 Do you remember what happened in England 
 some years ago .'* A frightful explosion swal- 
 lowed up two hundred miners; there, on the brink 
 of the open chasm, their widows and mothers 
 stood wailing, looking for their dead, and asking 
 in anguish whence would come to them their 
 morrow's bread 1 The bread came, it was made 
 sure to them for the future, and she who sent it 
 had added these words: "From a widow." A 
 widow ! It was the queen, but that day she was 
 only a widow to weep with those who wept. The 
 queen ! What, there on that throne, in those 
 palaces, in the mi 1st of those riches, of those 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 149 
 
 splendors, there is a widow who weeps with us, 
 who weeps as we do ! I venture to say that it 
 is not to the children of those poor women that 
 one could preach hatred or contempt for the 
 rich; and no one knows how many bitter feelings 
 and revolts, this cry, this simple cry from the 
 heart, has checked and rendered forever impos- 
 sible. 
 
 It is needful, then, that those who suffer should 
 learn to know you. It is needful for their sakes 
 and because God orders it, and for your own 
 good. You will never know what life ought to 
 be, so long as you do not look misery full in the 
 face. There are some things only to be learned 
 which notwithstanding one needs to know. You, 
 for example, who rejoice over the birth of a lit- 
 tle child, when you shall have seen under an- 
 other roof than your own, a child who comes 
 into this world only to be an object of sadness 
 and painful anxiety, and yet who, joyous and 
 trusting, holds out his little arms to -this great 
 world, only to be repulsed by it; you who mourn 
 the death of father or mother, when you have 
 seen an affliction like this of your own, consoled 
 with a cruel, cynical word, which only sees in the 
 event, riddance from a burden which was too 
 
150 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 heavy; you will learn what the world is, and you 
 will ask yourself whether you are permitted to 
 live here in thoughtlessness and pleasure, and 
 you will know what it is to sigh for the reign of 
 justice, and of love. 
 
 This is the lesson misery should teach us. Is 
 it understood } Alas ! when I see to-day by so 
 frightful a converse, the so-called higher classes 
 turning their eyes, not towards honest suffering, 
 but towards vulgar corruption, borrowing from 
 it their fashions, their wiles, and even their lan- 
 guage or, shall I say it, their slang; I ask myself 
 what effect this amazing spectacle must have 
 upon the toiling suffering classes, and to what 
 nameless degradation it is leading them .'' But 
 of what use is our indignation, if to the spread 
 of corruption we do not oppose that of charity .'' 
 We must act, we must descend into these depths, 
 we must learn to look the evil in the face and 
 close at hand. 
 
 I know that this contact is painful; there are 
 sights which offend our delicacy; extreme pov- 
 erty wounds our feelings; it takes a little courage 
 to confront it. A dirty, winding staircase, a 
 narrow room where the air is close and often 
 fetid, and there is that indescribable odor with 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 151 
 
 which poverty impregnates all that it touches: 
 children in rags, a truckle-bed where groans a 
 sick one, and on the table victuals the very sjght 
 of which is repugnant, — all this is hard to bear: 
 and then, admit it, this disturbs and saddens us 
 by preaching to us with a piercing voice the 
 necessity of sacrifice. How can we gratify our 
 whims in the face of creatures who have not 
 even the necessaries of life. How think of a 
 handsome toilette in face of a wretch who has 
 not even the luxury of a little linen } How give 
 one's self up to the joy of a feast, when one 
 thinks of the miserable scraps which are to sat- 
 isfy the hunger of a whole family } 
 
 You are pained then by such a spectacle and 
 in advance you would escape it. But who are 
 you to refuse to suffer } Is God's service always 
 an easy thing .-' Is it by a winding and sweetly 
 shaded path that one enters Heaven } Chris- 
 tians whom God has spared the persecutions 
 and bloody sacrifices He demanded of your fa- 
 thers, do you find your portion so grievous that 
 you would remove from it even the renuncia- 
 tions which charity involves .-' You follow Jesus 
 Christ, but what then is your Saviour .'' In this 
 vague and gentle figure which conducts you only 
 
152 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 over the ideal summits of a poetic reverie, I 
 recognize well the Christ which our age has 
 formed after its own image; but it is no longer 
 the Man of sorrows, it is no longer the Christ 
 of the publicans and the poor, it is no longer 
 He who visited sorrow and vice as low down 
 as He found them. 
 
 You suffer at the contact with misery ? Ah ! 
 what is your suffering, I ask, in comparison 
 with that of those who must live and die in 
 the atmosphere which you cannot breathe an 
 instant without disgust ? If the bare sight of 
 poverty frightens you, what is the condition 
 of those who cannot escape from it a mo- 
 ment ? You suffer, but to efface your painful 
 impressions, you have your parks, your beau- 
 tiful groves in summer; your apartments and 
 your firesides with their cheerful blaze in winter. 
 As for them, they have nothing but their four 
 walls, dark and bare, their attics either burning 
 hot, or freezing cold, their hearth without fire, 
 the sight of other wretchedness equally repulsive 
 groaning beside them; and besides on their spirit 
 the incessant and cruel anxiety of gaining each 
 day a livelihood, without which, at the first ap- 
 proach of sickness this last shelter will fail them. 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 153 
 
 The sight of their poverty disgusts you; your 
 luxury and your increasing prosperity hold you 
 so entangled in their meshes that you cannot 
 obey God's call when He sends you to the 
 wretched. But how will you dare appear be- 
 fore God and render to Him an account of your 
 task ? What will you have to answer if God 
 reject you in turn ? Would you be astonished 
 that your selfishness, your cowardice, your in- 
 dolence should displease the Supreme Love ? 
 Think you that you offer to Him a more attractive 
 sight than the misery of the poor presents to your- 
 self? Think you that beneath the most amiable 
 exterior, a heart without charity is not to the 
 eyes of the Sovereign Judge an object of just 
 abhorrence ? Do you believe you can justify 
 yourself by pleading your natural delicacy, and 
 your instinctive repugnances? Answer, or rather 
 obey that secret voice which troubles you, im- 
 portunes you, and cries to you that there is no 
 salvation without suffering, no eternal happiness 
 without sacrifice. 
 
 Have I said all, my brethren, and does it 
 suffice for the gaining of my cause that I have 
 had you face to face with suffering? Yes, if the 
 heart were right, if it obeyed the instructive 
 
154 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 logic of devotion and of charity. But it s not 
 so, and even in presence of sorrow, it argues, it 
 bargains, it disputes with love every inch of 
 ground. You acknowledge that the task is 
 great, that it rests upon you, but who knows 
 if at the first call of charity, you will not seal 
 your lips by these simple words, " I cannot." I 
 cannot ! I would like to believe that you would 
 not make this answer with levity; and it is not 
 with levity that I would take it up. No, I do 
 not judge you; if before God, you "cannot," that 
 suffices me. I know there is a limit to all things, 
 I know that liberty should be respected, and I 
 will respect it. And what would become of us, 
 I pray you, without that mutual respect which 
 the Gospel enjoins .-' What would become of us 
 if the spirit of judgment, under pretext of charity, 
 should take free course and assess the devotion 
 of each person } 
 
 I will respect your answer, but may I en- 
 treat you to inquire before making it, whether 
 it be sincere and serious.-' You cannot! And 
 why can you not .-* Is it not because the world 
 has usurped all, even the poor's portion .■' Is 
 it not that you too have yielded to this tide 
 of lu.xury which presently nothing will be able 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 155 
 
 to stay ? Ah ! my brethren, it is to the world 
 you must say, " I cannot." You must say it 
 firmly, courageously, when it demands those use- 
 less expenditures, those extravagances in dress 
 or furniture, those delicate refinements which 
 your vanity so readily has yielded to it. What 
 would you lose by such an answer.'' A tri- 
 umph of self-love, which, in exciting the envy 
 of others, would only have contracted your 
 own heart. Suppose even that you should be 
 condemned, accused of rigidness, could you not 
 accept that } Shall there then be no longer 
 anything to distinguish a Christian home from 
 a worldly one, and must one make up his mind 
 to see those who profess religion following with 
 docility the bent of a world whose approbation 
 is a snare, and its applause a danger .'' 
 
 But, for not having dared say it to the 
 world, see yourselves forced to say it to your 
 Saviour. It is to your Saviour that you re- 
 ply, "I cannot"; to your Saviour whose king- 
 dom advances but slowly, and whose poor mem- 
 bers are neglected. It is for your Saviour that 
 you reserve the courage of a refusal. Ah ! 
 Him you do not fear to grieve. His appro- 
 bation. His blame, what is it all to you ? 
 
1^6 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 True, He redeemed you with the price of an 
 unspeakable suffering; true, He comes to you 
 with His crown of thorns, with His pierced feet 
 and hands; true, in your last hour, when the 
 world will have nothing more to say to you, 
 you will call on Him that you may cross the 
 dark valley and appear with Him before the 
 eternal tribunal. Never mind ! to-day, after hav- 
 ing taken the world's part, you coldly say to 
 Him, "There is nothing left me for Thee!" 
 
 I do not wish to close, my brethren, without 
 exposing a fallacy, under which it is the fash- 
 ion now to screen luxury and worldliness. They 
 say to us, " Rather than give to the poor, let us 
 spend and enjoy. Your luxury gives the work 
 of the people, and your expenditures are their 
 profit. The more you envelop yourself in mag- 
 nificent fabrics, the more your table is laden 
 with delicacies, the more your house is deco- 
 rated, the more hands will be employed; and 
 the more families saved from poverty." Charm- 
 ing remedy, admirable process which one does 
 not always dare avow, but with which one often 
 eases his conscience when it is a question 
 of yielding to his tastes and satisfying his 
 fancies. 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 1 57 
 
 Well then ! is this excuse true, is it well- 
 founded ? This remains for me to examine. 
 
 When it is wished tq test the truth of a prin- 
 ciple, there is nothing, my brethren, like pushing 
 it to the end. You say that luxury is the sal- 
 vation of poverty. Well, if you are right, spend, 
 keep on spending, indulge in senseless fan- 
 cies, invent new pleasures and endless luxuries. 
 Apostles of a new charity, to the work, to the 
 work of redeeming humanity ! Ah 1 what a 
 convenient religion, and which responds to the 
 secret instincts of our nature ! How well it 
 will be received everywhere ! Away with that 
 gloomy piety which preaches sacrifice and self- 
 denial ! Luxury, ever luxury, and always more, 
 — and when we shall swim in an opulence with 
 which Rome and Babylon had nothing to com- 
 pare, the people saved by you will never know 
 suffering, and paradise will commence on earth. 
 
 You smile, my brethren, and yet take care. 
 If the principle which is proposed to us is true, 
 here is the direct and legitimate conclusion 
 which we must draw from it; but, if this con- 
 clusion is absurd and cruel, must we not con- 
 clude the absurdity of the principle ? Good 
 sense together with experience, has it not long 
 
Is8 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 taught that the extravagances of luxury are 
 absolutely" unproductive, that the more the liv- 
 ing forces are devoted to the creation of the su- 
 perfluous, the less of them will there be left for 
 the production of the necessary? When you have 
 drawn away from our fields a hundred thousand 
 workmen, to throw them into your carpenter 
 shops to build your palaces, or into the factories 
 where your magnificent fabrics are made, is it 
 not certain that for an unproductive luxury you 
 have greatly diminished the product of your 
 country's soil ? When you have transformed the 
 lumps of gold into jewelry and delicate orna- 
 ments, is it not certain that you have not in- 
 creased by one grain the capital which supports 
 humanity? Then your principle is false; false 
 and cruel, for it will have famine for its ultimate 
 consequence. One will see something of it on 
 the first occasion of a social disturbance. 
 
 When under the menace of an unexpected 
 crisis, all these fictitious values fall in the twinkle 
 of an eye, — what will become of those thou- 
 sands of men taken by your luxury from the 
 vigorous, healthful work of the fields ? Thrown 
 into the streets of your great cities, accustomed 
 to an easy gain and an easy expenditure too, 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 159 
 
 they will only be a peril to you; so much the 
 more formidable from having witnessed your 
 mad luxury, envy and hatred will fill their hearts 
 at the sight of their own poverty. 
 
 That is not all. Not only is this principle cruel, 
 but it is immoral. Immoral for you, for luxury 
 after all is pleasure; and unrestrained pleasure, 
 though refined as you idly call it, is the degrada- 
 tion of the soul and the will; it is the gratifica- 
 tion of selfishness, and consequently the harden- 
 ing of the heart. Immoral for others, to whom 
 your example is a lesson. At your side the 
 working man, a witness of your life, will also 
 say to himself, "Why do I not enjoy myself. -^ 
 Why impose on me the severe and cruel law 
 of renunciation } " And he will enjoy, and he 
 will waste his daily pittance upon his coarse 
 pleasures. Instead of your refined pleasures he 
 will have the vulgar pleasures of the cellar and 
 the tavern. I defy you to prevent this result. 
 
 Suppose it goes further. Soon the dregs of a 
 disturbed society will be thrown up, and like the 
 sound of a tempest, the voice of a vast people 
 I will say to you, "To enjoy, that is the right 
 of all ! You Christians point me to Paradise in 
 the sky, but you lie, for I have seen you, your- 
 
l6o LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. 
 
 selves, look for it only on earth. I have seen 
 you, religious men, enjoy here below all the 
 pleasures, all the luxuries that my work can fur- 
 nish you. Very well ! my paradise, I want it also 
 on the earth. I want it to-morrow, to-day. Long 
 enough have you shown me a heaven beyond the 
 tomb, but science has taught me, and it is not for 
 an unknowable nothing that I want to spend my 
 sweat and my tears. I am weary of waiting, I 
 must have happiness. I must have it in this life 
 where I have known nothing but deprivations. 
 My happiness too is luxury, is wealth, is pleas- 
 ure; all the fruits of the earth were given to me, 
 as well as to you. My happiness, it is there be- 
 fore me; to take it I have but to will it. Woe 
 to him who would stop me ! Woe to him who 
 puts himself in my way ! To enjoy is the dearest 
 word of life; I want to enjoy, I will enjoy, because 
 I call myself legion; on my stout arms I carry 
 the whole of society. With one blow from my 
 shoulder, on the day chosen, I will overturn it ! " 
 This is what will be said, my brethren, if it is 
 true that the pleasures of some redeem the mis- 
 ery of others. From this terrible logic you can- 
 not escape. May God spare our country from 
 such a frisfhtful demonstration ! 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S DOOR. i')! 
 
 But surely it is not upon such arguments that 
 I would ever depend for moving you. If fear 
 alone must urge you on to good, I would rather 
 descend from this pulpit where the Gospel has 
 sought to make us hear another language, more 
 elevated, more worthy of God and of yourselves. 
 To assuage misery, I will offer to you, to-morrow 
 as to-day, but the one remedy, — that is, the spirit 
 of Christ, that spirit which is at once justice and 
 charity. To work, my brethren, in this spirit ! 
 To work, to-day, to-morrow, always, as long as 
 there shall be on earth a misery to relieve, a 
 suffering to console ! Amen. 
 
VIL 
 
VIL 
 
 Eijc $la^0 ©ncstmus* 
 
 Epistle of St. Paul to Philemon. 
 
 It is a sad study for historians to penetrate 
 the inner life of great men. There are few lives 
 which can bear a close inspection. A writer, for 
 example, has received from God the most won- 
 derful gifts; his imagination thrills at all great 
 and noble ideas, and what his beating heart has 
 grasped, his lips or his pen translate into lan- 
 guage which penetrates you and wrings from 
 you a cry of enthusiasm. The man has just 
 died, and in a private journal, or some forgotten 
 page, you come upon his thoughts and his secret 
 studies. Ah ! do not read them if you would 
 preserve your illusion intact. Yes, that great 
 soul of an artist, vanity was consuming it, and 
 while its inspirations were transporting you to 
 the sky, it was the prey to incredible jealousies, 
 
l66 THE SLAVE ONE SIM US. 
 
 to mean struggles, to petty schemes which 
 astound you. This savant, this cold quiet spir- 
 it, whose thoughts free, it might seem, from 
 vulgar interests, dwelt in the serene regions of 
 the laws of nature, was pursuing in reality here 
 on earth, his plans of selfish ambition and his 
 rivalries of school and of party. History is full 
 of these sad contrasts, and he who knows it in- 
 timately must take pains with himself to main- 
 tain his respect for humanity. 
 
 I read, for example, the funeral orations of 
 Bossuet, and that last discourse in which he an- 
 nounces that, warned by his gray hairs of the 
 account which he must render, he desires to 
 reserve " for the flock which he must feed with 
 the word of life, the remains of a v^oice Avhich is 
 failing, and of an ardor which is dying out." I 
 am moved by this noble old age, and by this 
 grand voice which with such authority con- 
 trasts the eternal realities with the splendors 
 of the century which is about to close. Then I 
 open the journal where are faithfully recorded 
 the minutest details of the close of his life, and 
 I see Bossuet exhausted by sickness, multiply- 
 ing his efforts and his measures for the pro- 
 motion to the episcopacy of his nephew, one of 
 
THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 167 
 
 the lowest characters of those times, — skilfully 
 managing the Jesuits for whom he had a pro- 
 found aversion, and trying to gain strength that 
 he might be able to climb the steps at Ver- 
 sailles and to plead the sad cause before the 
 king/ 
 
 A half century elapses. Behold the great 
 adversary of Christianity, the man whose ter- 
 rible laugh announces the fall of a religion 
 which he accuses of all the infamies committed 
 in its name, the man who denounces with a 
 burning micrciless satire the corruptions of the 
 Church policy. Voltaire dies, and in his private 
 letters I find, in his attempt to crush his adver- 
 saries, a lack of principle, a disposition for in- 
 trigue, an adroitness in plotting, a boldness in 
 lying which knows no equal. By the side of 
 Voltaire see a writer whose frankness moves 
 and attracts you; he declares himself the disci- 
 ple of nature and of the natural sentiments; he 
 accuses Christianity of having slandered human- 
 
 1 " In going up and down the terraces of the Tuileries he tells us 
 that he tested his strength by the gentle slopes for the purpose of ac- 
 customing himself to going up and down — m order to be in condition 
 for entering into the presence of the king." Jourjial of the Abbé Le 
 Dien. October, 1708. 
 
1 68 THE SLAVE ONESTMUS. 
 
 ity and in order to combat its withering influ- 
 ence, he seeks, on the stage and elsewhere, to 
 show the generous emotions of the heart guided 
 solely by the inspirations of its innate goodness. 
 This man was Diderot, but his correspondence 
 exists, and I read therein fearful words. He asks 
 of Alembert if, putting rhetoric aside, there is a 
 man who would not rather lose a daughter than 
 his fortune. Near to him is Rousseau; he also, 
 listening always to the voice of nature only, 
 sought to reform the education of the human 
 race, but he has written his confessions, and we 
 read there that this great educator of humanity 
 began by sending his own children to an asylum 
 to get rid of them. 
 
 The end of the century comes. The greatest 
 of modern tribunes makes the National Assem- 
 bly of Versailles ring with his thundering voice 
 against the corruptions and the venalities of the 
 old régime, and, accused one day of betraying 
 his cause, he vindicates himself in a splendid dis- 
 course which silenced his detractors. To-day we 
 know that at the very time he was thus speak- 
 ing, Mirabeau was sold. I could multiply these 
 examples and ask you what under the first em- 
 pire became of those many savage Jacobins to 
 
THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 169 
 
 whom the one word royalty seemed an outrage 
 upon the Hberty of the people. 
 
 But I have said enough, too much perhaps. 
 Why do I recall these heart-rending facts } In 
 the interest of a party .-• Alas ! in looking at 
 them closely one could find at need, similar dis- 
 closures in all parties. To insult human nature .'' 
 God forbid ! I have wished simply to remind 
 you that we must always distrust appearances 
 and go to the bottom of things. Do you wish 
 to judge a man, to know if he is worthy of your 
 confidence .'' Do not study him in public only, 
 and when all eyes are upon him, when he is 
 discharging his mission, sustaining his part. A 
 glance at his inner life, the sight of one of his 
 acts done in silence will reveal him better to you. 
 
 These reflections have come to mind in medi- 
 tating on my text. This text is a letter of St. 
 Paul, the shortest that he has written since it is 
 contained in a few lines. On this page, written 
 as it were incidentally, we no longer have to 
 do with the teacher of the Gentiles, with the 
 theologian, with the founder of our churches of 
 Europe, we have simply before us a man writing 
 to one of his friends. Now I have thought that 
 this would be a striking opportunity of studying 
 
I70 THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 
 
 the character of St. Paul, and of taking him 
 as it were unawares and in his true light. This 
 then is the study, my brethren, to which I invite 
 3'ou to-day. 
 
 One day in a dark dungeon in Rome two pris- 
 oners met. One is Paul, a Roman citizen, son of 
 a Pharisee, whose words had stirred Asia and 
 Jerusalem, and who had come to the capital of 
 the world to answer at the tribunal of Caisar for 
 having incited the fanaticism of his compatriots. 
 The other is a pagan, a slave named Onesimus, 
 who, after having cheated his master, fled and 
 sought refuge in the great city where he was 
 arrested. Paul converted the slave to the Chris- 
 tian faith, and when the doors of the prison 
 opened to Onesimus the apostle who remained 
 imprisoned, sent him back to his master, Phile- 
 mon, with the letter which I have read to you. 
 Such a fact seems to you very simple, but per- 
 haps you will change your mind in examining it 
 more closely. 
 
 Do you know what a slave was at that time } 
 Let us speak of it coolly, or rather let us permit 
 the men of those times to speak. Thirty years 
 before Jesus Christ, a Roman savant named 
 Varron classified the implements of labor into 
 
THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 171 
 
 three categories: "the dumb implements, to wit, 
 the tool and the plough; those which utter in- 
 articulate sounds, the ox and the horse; those 
 which speak, the slaves." Long before him the 
 great Aristotle had said, " How can one love 
 slaves ? Can one have affection for base tools ? " 
 They were, as a matter of course, sold, lent, 
 given, bequeathed. When old, they were ex- 
 posed on an island in the Tiber, where they 
 often died of starvation. The Roman law, that 
 ideal type of right in the ancient world, punished 
 with the same penalty the killing a slave and a 
 beast of burden. If a master was assassinated 
 by one of his slaves all of his companions in ser- 
 vice had to be tortured with him. 
 
 A Roman, hunting one day, was about to kill 
 a wild boar, when a javelin thrown by one of his 
 slaves struck the animal; exasperated at having 
 been outdone, he had the slave crucified. Cicero, 
 that enlightened and liberal spirit, witness of the 
 fact and who relates it to us, asks himself whether 
 perhaps such conduct would not be found some- 
 what severe. At any rate, this same Cicero 
 apologized for feeling some regret at the loss 
 of an old slave; to-day we would hesitate less 
 to say that we regret an old dog. At all times 
 
172 THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 
 
 the master had over slaves the power of life and 
 death, and often, after a feast, they were put to 
 death for the amusement of the guests. Certain 
 sages advised, it is true, to be sparing of blows 
 upon them, but this was, they added, to preserve 
 them longer. Indeed the contempt with which 
 they were regarded was such, that five centuries 
 after Jesus Christ, the philosopher Macrobius, 
 certainly a high-minded man, wrote that the 
 true sage dishonors himself in speaking with a 
 slave. 
 
 It was one of these miserable creatures that 
 Paul met at Rome in his prison. You know 
 what was the nature of Paul — a Pharisee, the son 
 of a Pharisee, violent by temperament, harsh 
 and persecuting. The first time he is mentioned 
 in the Scriptures, is at the death of Stephen, 
 and, too young yet perhaps to be his execu- 
 tioner, he watches the garments of those who 
 stone him. 
 
 See then, face to face, the slave and the former 
 Pharisee. What have they to say to each other.»* 
 Answer me, you who do not believe in Chris- 
 tianity. What would they have done if the Gos- 
 pel had not been there } Ah ! you do not like 
 miracles, and you think it strange that we speak 
 
THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 173 
 
 of a revelation from on high. I will show you 
 in this Roman prison a fact which nature will 
 never explain. I will show you this Pharisee, 
 transformed, feeling for this slave a deep com- 
 passion; I will show him to you all absorbed in 
 the fate of this wretched creature, upon whom 
 no other at that time, even among the best, 
 would have deigned to cast a look, discovering 
 an immortal soul in that creature crushed under 
 the universal contempt, instructing him, raising 
 him for the kingdom of heaven, loving him, — O 
 marvel ! — loving him to the point of calling him 
 brother, a cherished brother, his own son, the 
 son of his loins, and as if this were not enough, 
 an other self 
 
 Ah ! you do not want miracles. Explain to 
 me then this transformation. Tell me whence 
 came this extraordinary power which all at once 
 made to spring up in the soul of one of those 
 Jews, whom Tacitus called the enemies of the 
 human race, a charity so amazing. We Chris- 
 tians know it; it is Jesus Christ who, in re- 
 deeming by His blood both Pharisee and slave, 
 embraced them in the same love and calls 
 them to the same heaven; it is Jesus Christ 
 who made them heirs to the same faith and 
 
174 THE SLAVE ONESTMUS. 
 
 the same hope; it is Jesus Christ who made them 
 kneel together under the same benediction in 
 that prison changed by them into a sanctuary, 
 and where for the first time, celebrating the 
 communion of saints, they illustrate the family of 
 the redeemed come from every tribe, language 
 and nation, and which was to gather under the 
 sceptre of the Prince of Peace. Arise, Onesimus, 
 take up again thy chains; go, if need be, to suffer 
 and serve again; thou bearest on thy forehead 
 a halo, and in thy heart a memory which 
 nothing will efface. There was found here on 
 earth a man who called thee his brother and 
 who begat thee to life eternal. Arms were 
 opened to welcome thee, a heart did beat 
 against thine. Go, bear to this world, which is 
 ignorant of it, the news of that strange love, go 
 show to those despots plunged in the slavery of 
 the flesh, a soul emancipated from corruption and 
 sin; go, poor slave, to fulfil the great mission 
 which awaits thee ! 
 
 It is thus, my brethren, that the dignity of man 
 has been found again. His dignity ! Is that 
 enough .-* No, for as to this slave, St. Paul not 
 only made a man of him, but by another mira- 
 cle he made of him a loving heart. He taught 
 
THE SLAVE ONE S/MUS. 
 
 him to love his master, and, of all victories 
 the most extraordinary, he taught him to serve 
 him in loving him. Ah ! that astonishes you 
 and repels you, perhaps, and you would have 
 liked it better if in giving him moral liberty, 
 he had taught him rebellion. This is the re- 
 proach one casts upon Christianity to-day; weak 
 doctrine, say they, feeble doctrine which has not 
 sought to break the fetters of the slaves, which 
 has not known how to raise up the oppressed. 
 I hear the accusation and accept it, but with this 
 reservation, that where you see feebleness, I see a 
 divine energy which man had never possessed 
 by nature. 
 
 You can only recognize power in revolt, and 
 you cannot discover it in that admirable patience 
 which will tire out the tormentors. Well, let us 
 suppose for a moment your dreams realized. 
 Servile war is proclaimed. The Gospel calls all 
 the oppressed to a vast insurrection; the throne 
 of the Caesars totters, the blood of patricians and 
 of priests flows in torrents; vengeance and envy 
 follow without truce their exterminating work, 
 and the old world is engulfed in a frightful 
 massacre. What is to come of it .-* The reign of 
 fraternity } Be not deceived ! Hatred begets 
 
176 THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 
 
 hatred, blood causes blood to flow. If that is 
 your ideal, it is not that of the God of the Gospel; 
 He wished to give to men another spectacle; that 
 of love victorious over hatred, that of mind vic- 
 torious over force, that of a crucified King of 
 souls and of the world. "When I have been 
 lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men 
 unto me." 
 
 Here is the first lesson that I find in my text. 
 Another feature strikes me; it is the manner in 
 which St. Paul interposes with Philemon, in order 
 to plead the cause of his unfaithful slave. I am 
 not sure that I know another example of deli- 
 cacy more exquisite, more ingenious, more in- 
 sinuating, shall I say, and all the more remark- 
 able because here all is true, and no flattery is 
 mingled with it. 
 
 First, see with what care the Apostle appeals 
 to everything which can dispose Philemon favor- 
 ably toward the culprit. Philemon is a Chris- 
 tian; St. Paul recalls to him his faith, his charity 
 well known to all his brethren; he writes to him, 
 persuaded that Philemon will himself do more 
 than he asks of him. See with what a noble 
 tone the Apostle avoids imposing upon him his 
 will. "Wherefore," he says to him, "though I 
 
THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 177 
 
 might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee 
 that which is convenient, yet for love's sake I 
 beseech thee, being such a one as Paul the 
 aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ." 
 Paul the aged and prisoner of Jesus Christ ! 
 What a climax, my brethren, and what pene- 
 trating eloquence in those three simple words ! 
 The Apostle wishes to do nothing without the 
 consent of Philemon, " that thy benefit should 
 not be as it were of necessity, but willingly." 
 " Yea, my brother," he adds, " let me have joy 
 of thee in the Lord; refresh my bowels in the 
 Lord." 
 
 I have recalled already the terms in which 
 he spoke of Onesimus and how the tenderest 
 epithets fell from his pen; but that is not all. 
 Onesimus had been guilty of unfaithfulness, of 
 desertion of his master. Now have you noticed 
 with what tact St. Paul recalls this fact, avoid- 
 ing everything which might exaggerate his of- 
 fence, contrasting his present conduct with his 
 past conduct .'' " He was formerly useless to 
 thee, but now he will be to thee of great use."' 
 
 I There is here a play upon words full of delicacy and untrans- 
 latable in French. Onesimus is a Greek adjective which means 
 useful. 
 
178 THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 
 
 Is there not here the tone of the Master ex- 
 tending His hand to Mary who weeps at His feet, 
 and saying to those who accuse her, " Why 
 trouble ye her ? " 
 
 And further on listen to these words: " If he 
 hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put 
 that on my account. I will repay it." But one 
 must quote the whole of this page, one must 
 weigh each of these words where grace, tact, 
 and nobleness of feeling have found an expres- 
 sion so delicate. And all this written by a Jew, 
 by a former persecutor, in favor of one of those 
 slaves of whom Roman wisdom said that it was 
 degrading to speak with them ! 
 
 Christian hearers, what do you think of such 
 love as this .'' Up to this time you have per- 
 haps only seen in St. Paul the teacher, who 
 crushes human nature beneath his inexorable 
 logic. The language of his epistles, at once 
 harsh and mystic, astonished without attracting 
 you, and you did not observe there, as in so 
 many passages in detail of his letters, a heart 
 glowing and sensitive, with attachments so keen, 
 with emotions so profound. In a word, you did 
 not know St. Paul. It was the fidelity, the con- 
 suming zeal which were presented to you, but 
 
THE SLAVE ONE SI MUS. 179 
 
 you would not have believed it possible to find 
 in him what is most tender and touching in 
 charity. You would never have expected fi-om 
 his vigorous pen those delicate considerations, 
 those respectful courtesies, that wonderful re- 
 gard for the liberty of others, that profound in- 
 tuition of all that can move a soul, those tones 
 at the same time so elevated and so pathetic. 
 See what grace has done, and yet we are told 
 that Christianity impoverishes human nature, 
 dulls the feelings and weakens the affections, 
 and I see noble hearts who will not cross the 
 threshold because, deceived by the too frequent 
 spectacle of a religion dry, cold, and without 
 compassion, they tremble before a sacrifice which 
 will leave their life sad and despoiled. Sad pre- 
 judice too prevalent among us ! 
 
 No, Christianity is not contrary to nature, I 
 mean to our essential and primitive nature, which 
 on the contrary it seeks to restore and enlarge. 
 That which it condemns, is our fallen and per- 
 verted nature, such as sin has made it, or rather 
 has unmade it. The Gospel, that truth of God 
 revealed to man, indicates itself in this, that it 
 is just as human as divine. It makes alliance 
 with normal humanity against fallen humanity, 
 
l8o THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 
 
 with man such as he should be against man 
 such as he is/ You have only seen that which 
 it takes from you, see then what it gives you; 
 see, under its fruitful breath, the regenerated 
 heart expanding into a new life; see in place 
 of selfishness, which is the bottom foundation of 
 guilty passion, the charity which sacrifices itself; 
 see this boundless world of devotion, a world 
 with immense horizons, with limitless perspec- 
 tives, because it is already heaven lived on earth. 
 See, in a word, the heart of St. Paul, — in an age 
 when everything congeals, and notwithstanding 
 the bitter delusions of a life the most tried, — 
 evermore large, more loving, more charitable, 
 like a river which ever widens in its course, and 
 whose current is rendered all the more impet- 
 uous by the very obstacles thrown up in its 
 way. 
 
 Thirdly, what strikes me again in this epistle, 
 is that it gives us, as it seems to me, the secret 
 of the wonderful ministry and of the great suc- 
 cess of St. Paul. 
 
 Have you rcfiected upon it .'^ It is St. Paul, 
 the heroic worker, laden with the burden of so 
 many souls he has converted, so many churches 
 » A Monod. 
 
THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. i8l 
 
 he has founded, St. Paul pursuing even in his 
 captivity, by letters and by interviews with those 
 .who visit him, his victorious work; it is he who 
 finds the time and the means of instructing this 
 slave, of loving him, of converting him to Jesus 
 Christ. I spoke in the beginning of the decep- 
 tions which the life of men who play a great 
 part in the world, too often occasion when 
 we look at them closely. But is it not true 
 that here St. Paul becomes greater in our eyes, 
 and that his exhortations, his appeals to the 
 churches, acquire a new power when we see 
 him thus, in secret, in the shade concentrating 
 upon a poor and ignorant soul all the treasures 
 of his intelligence and of his solicitude .'' As 
 long as you had before you the public man, you 
 could imagine that ambition mingled with his 
 zeal, legitimate without doubt, but after all un- 
 worthy the founder of churches, w^ho finds his 
 recompense in his success; you could believe him 
 stirred sometimes and excited by the mere earth- 
 ly glory of his apostleship. But where is the 
 glory, here; where the success, where the rec- 
 ompense } In what way would his ambition be 
 flattered when Onesimus, overcome by his per- 
 severance, should give himself to Jesus Christ ? 
 
1 82 THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 
 
 Ah ! I admire St. Paul in his giant activity, 
 I admire him traversing the Roman world at 
 the voice of the Holy Spirit and sowing the 
 ground, preparing the way for a succession of 
 naissant churches ; Lystra, Derby, Pergamus, 
 Antioch of Pisidia, Troas, Philippi, Miletus, 
 Cyprus, Tyre, Caesarea, Malta, Thessalonica, 
 Berea, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, and many oth- 
 ers. I admire him always ready, always coura- 
 geous, braving vigils, fatigues, perils, persecu- 
 tions, scorns, sufferings. But, if I must choose, 
 he appears to me more grand, more wonderful 
 when, in his prison in Rome, he bestows all 
 his care and all his love on the soul of a slave. 
 But why contrast these two activities, when 
 one is the sole explanation of the other .'' St. 
 Paul teaching Onesimus — here is what explains to 
 us St. Paul conquering the world for Jesus Christ. 
 Churches after all are souls; churches founded 
 are souls converted, and one does not convert 
 but by loving, St. Paul elsewhere has revealed 
 to us his secret, when, describing his ministry 
 at Ephesus, he expresses himself thus: " Re- 
 member that by the space of three years I ceased 
 not to warn every one night and day with tears." 
 Every one of you; the whole is there. In this 
 
THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 183 
 
 way of doing his work St. Paul was only follow- 
 ing the example of his Master who, having come 
 to earth to save the world, began by saving 
 Peter, Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, Mary Magda- 
 lene, Zaccheus, nameless persons, the ignorant, 
 the poor of the earth, — and who taught them 
 as if it were for their sake alone that He came 
 on earth. 
 
 Is there not here for us, my brethren, a 
 lesson and a reproof.'' Is it thus we act .-* Are 
 we acquainted with this charity, this great so- 
 licitude, able, if need be, to concentrate our- 
 selves upon one soul until that soul be brought 
 to the truth } Let me make one remark here. 
 It is the tendency of our race to see in religion 
 a social fact rather than an individual fact. The 
 church, in the eyes of our fellow-countrymen, 
 is an institution, rather than a spiritual family. 
 Speak to a Frenchman of religion; immediately 
 he will reply to you by speaking of the church, 
 of its claims, of its enemies, of its struggles, 
 and it is the questions relative to its social or 
 political destinies which will arouse him. That 
 which he will be slowest to comprehend is, what 
 is before all else the most important for him, 
 his direct and personal relations to God. 
 
1 84 THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 
 
 We ourselves yield to this current. We talk 
 freely of our century, of its miseries, its sufferings 
 and its degradations; we move in the pale and 
 vague region of generalities, and, under the pre- 
 text of elevating humanity, we forget often the 
 real man who suffers and perishes at our side. 
 Suppose that in the reign of Caesar Augustus we 
 had been called by God to save the world; we 
 would have founded religious works, published 
 writings, attacked the epicurism and the scepti- 
 cism of the age, demonstrated to stoics the futil- 
 ity of their cold morality, but we would never 
 have believed that the surest means of attaining 
 our end, was laboriously to teach, in a village of 
 Galilee, some toll-gatherers and fishermen, to 
 speak in passing to a woman of Samaria the 
 words of eternal life, to open in a prison the 
 soul of a poor slave to the truth. Who knows 
 even whether if this fidelity in small things would 
 not have seemed to us as labor lost, who knows 
 whether we would not have sought a larger field 
 for our activity, objects more worthy of our 
 solicitude, of our love .'' Is this true .'' Well, let 
 me show you, in drawing to a close, first of all 
 that this tendency is a snare for ourselves, and 
 then that it explains the futility of our efforts. 
 
THE SLAVE ONE SIM US. 185 
 
 A snare for ourselves, and see how. Noth- 
 ing is easier than to burn with enthusiasm for 
 general causes; the imagination alone suffices for 
 it; abstractions do not enlist the conscience. 
 One deplores, for example, the corruption of the 
 century, and the degradation of character; that 
 is easy; but after these bursts of indignation he 
 will not retrench in one item of his table, or 
 diminish by a cent the luxury of his toilette or 
 his furniture, nor will he resist one habit of indo- 
 lence or sensuality. 
 
 Men talk of saving the world, and after being 
 sincerely stirred at this sublime task, they make 
 no effort to instruct the ignorant who are near 
 them; they live, for example, side by side with 
 their servants without asking themselves if they 
 have immortal souls, they allow months and 
 years to pass by without addressing to them a 
 word of serious and Christian affection-, and after 
 having admired St. Paul instructing Onesimus, 
 they will not even ask themselves whether God 
 has not put some Onesimus at their gate and in 
 their path. 
 
 Men talk of instructing the people, they ap- 
 plaud the efforts of noble men Avho follow this 
 course; they are melted at the thought of the 
 
l86 THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 
 
 misfortunes of the working class; but they never 
 inquire with distress whether in some enterprise 
 which they sustain, the profit which they draw 
 from the investment is not deducted from the 
 insufficient wages of the workmen, and whether 
 they do not deserve that terrible apostrophe 
 of St. James, " Behold the hire of the laborers 
 which is of you kept back by fraud, and the cries 
 of them are entered into the ears of the Lord 
 of Hosts." But they do not love to cross the 
 threshold of the poor, but feel an invincible re- 
 pugnance at the sight of poverty. 
 
 They speak of raising up the church, but they 
 carefully avoid all too candid confession of their 
 faith which might provoke opposition and scorn, 
 and however they may desire, with passion per- 
 haps, that the pulpit at the foot of which they 
 are accustomed to sit should be closed against 
 error, they will never go to speak courageously 
 and firmly to a wandering soul of the way which 
 leads to God. 
 
 Do you know what results from this } It is 
 that we gain so little. And why.-" Because it 
 is not ideas that will save the world, because ab- 
 stractions and theories will never triumph over 
 evil and sin; because something else is necessary 
 
THE SLAVE ONESIMUS. 187 
 
 — the ardor of a heart which loves, which trans- 
 lates the truth into life; because that ideas, 
 without love which fructifies, is the winter 
 sun which shines, if you will, but under whose 
 rays one can freeze to death. Once more, be- 
 hold St. Paul teaching Onesimus, opening by his 
 divine sympathy the closed heart of that slave, 
 and instructing him far from the gaze of men, 
 under the gaze of God. To thee, great apostle, 
 faithful in little things and in the most obscure 
 of ministries, belong the great success and the 
 victorious activity; and to the Christian children 
 of this century, the sonorous words and the 
 numberless deceptions of life which are spent 
 in accomplishing so little ! 
 
 But we will not dwell upon these sad thoughts. 
 Christian humility is not the mother of discour- 
 agement. Why should St. Paul's secret not be 
 ours } It is never too late to love, and the love 
 of God sown in our hearts by the Holy Spirit can 
 to-day, as formerly, bring forth wonders. 
 
 Church of Christ, Church of the nineteenth 
 century, which groanest over thy unsuccess 
 and thy failures, and who, very far from conquer- 
 ing the world, hast often to count with tears 
 the multiplying defections, lift up thyself, cast 
 
1 88 THE SLAVE OXES/MUS. 
 
 off thy garments of mourning and shine with the 
 rays of the glory of thy God: then march into 
 the midst of this great people which surrounds 
 thee, taking upon thyself their weaknesses, bear- 
 ing their maladies. Stoop to perishing souls, 
 seek and save the Mary Magdalenes, the Zac- 
 cheuses and the Onesimuses, and while awaiting 
 the glorious conquests which thy God hath in 
 reserve for thee, rejoice with the angels of Hea- 
 ven over one sinner that repenteth. Amen. 
 
VIII. 
 
 m)t ^tate of î9oulit 
 
VIII. 
 Efje .State of ©ouijt, 
 
 " Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness.'''' 
 
 Psalm cxii. 4. 
 
 As you perceive, my brethren, from the words 
 which I have read, I wish to speak to-day to 
 those who walk in obscurity, to those whose 
 path, once perhaps bright, has gradually become 
 involved in darkness. There are many clouds 
 which can hide the light from us. Ignorance, 
 error, sin, physical or moral sufferings, often 
 spread their heavy shadow over the path of 
 every man. It is not, however, to these afflic- 
 tions that I wish to draw your attention. This 
 subject would be too vast for my limited strength. 
 I must restrict my theme for fear of resting in 
 vague generalities, and of speaking really to no 
 one in assuming to speak to all. It is solely to 
 those who are in doubt that I address myself; I 
 
192 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 wish to show them the truth contained in my 
 text: "Unto the upright there ariseth light in 
 the darkness." 
 
 Have you not often wished that you had been 
 born in one of those periods which were the 
 heroic ages of humanity, when faith filled the 
 soul, when through earnest struggles every one 
 marched with enthusiasm to the defence of his 
 cause or to the overthrow of that of his enemy, 
 when men gave the whole soul to the service 
 of their faith without doubting for a moment that 
 in serving it they were serving God ? The age 
 we live in has other characteristics. A word 
 familiar to all of us defines it precisely; it is a 
 time of crisis. No lofty impulse, no powerful in- 
 spiration; on all sides analysis which disjoins 
 and criticism which destroys ! There are no 
 longer resounding catastrophes as in the six- 
 teenth or eighteenth century; but listen, and 
 you will hear on every side the dull sound of 
 the sapping which is undermining the old foun- 
 dations. On alj sides is disturbance. A feel- 
 ing of distrust penetrates the most firm. There 
 is not one who dares look upon the future with 
 calmness, and who can announce with any con- 
 fidence what the morrow will bring forth. 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 193 
 
 What is to become of the Christian church ? 
 Ought she to hope for a near revival ? Shall we 
 see her shake off her torpor and arouse herself 
 to a sense of her great destinies ? shall we see 
 Catholicism take on new life, detach itself from 
 the political issues which devour its substance, 
 avoid the cause which is pressed upon it by a 
 faction as violent as it is blind, refresh itself at 
 the life-giving springs of the Gospel and primi- 
 tive Christianity ? Are we to see our own 
 churches starting up under the powerful breath 
 of the creative Spirit ? From the bosom of those 
 internal struggles which consume their best en- 
 ergies, in sight of a mocking world, must a pow- 
 erful movement spring up ? Is there a man 
 born to whom, as to Luther, God will give the 
 word of life and of renovation ? Is there a great 
 people preparing in obscurity to rise spontane- 
 ously at His voice ? Or rather, must we wait to 
 see the Christian cause more and more despised, 
 rejected and hated ? Must we see it baptized 
 with the double baptism of the contempt of 
 philosophers and the hatred of the people ? 
 Must we see it isolated and without influence 
 in the midst of a humanity intoxicated with in- 
 dependence and pride ? Is it persecution that 
 
194 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 awaits it ? Is it contempt ? Is triumph near at 
 hand ? Who knows ? Who dares say it ? Who 
 is wiUing to be the prophet of this troubled age ? 
 
 But, if we know not what the future has in 
 store for us, one thing at least we know, and 
 that is, that for the safety of the church the 
 present condition cannot last. Listen to truly 
 Christian souls. They suffer, they groan, they 
 wait. Upon the ruins of to-day they ask for a 
 resurrection. Through sharp struggles they long 
 after unity; and this in all camps and in all com- 
 munions. Listen well and beneath the stinging 
 words of controversy, beneath the keen attacks 
 and anathemas of the sectarian spirit, you will 
 come upon common words of humiliation, of sor- 
 row, and of earnest aspiration toward a better 
 future. 
 
 But this gloomy epoch we are traversing has 
 its temptations and its perils. Uncertainty be- 
 gets scepticism, and those even who believe in 
 the triumph of the Gospel find their faith dis- 
 turbed by the anxieties of the present hour. The 
 firmest believers have felt at times the attacks 
 of doubt; when they have need to cry out with 
 that father of whom the Gospel speaks: " Lord, I 
 believe. Help thou mine unbelief" — Mark ix. 24. 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 195 
 
 Now, it is of this state of doubt I wish to speak 
 to you; it is against this tendency that it seems 
 to me necessary to fortify you to-day. 
 
 There is a legitimate doubt which it becomes 
 us to comprehend and respect. When a man 
 has received religious faith simply as a matter 
 of tradition and of heritage, when he has be- 
 lieved less in truth itself than in the authority 
 which transmitted it to him, a day comes when 
 he looks within himself, and asks himself why he 
 believes. It is his duty-to ask this of himself. 
 
 I know that according to a well-accredited 
 opinion in France, a man should not discuss the 
 religion of his country and his fathers, and that to 
 respect tradition is in the eyes of many the first 
 duty of a citizen. But there is in this manner 
 of looking at religion something so savoring of 
 contempt for it, that I cannot disguise the pro- 
 found repugnance which I feel toward it. Thus, 
 one would be Christian because he was born in 
 France, just as he would be Mahometan were he 
 born in Turkey; and propriety would demand 
 that on no consideration shall one discuss the 
 faith in which he was brought up. They say 
 that religion thus understood has powerfully con- 
 tributed to establish the most lasting and the 
 
196 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 strongest nationalities; the pretense is made to 
 associate it indissolubly with patriotism; and it is 
 by the support of such arguments that we hear it 
 asserted every day that France should always be 
 devoted to the interest of the Holy See, because 
 she is the nation of Clovis and of St. Louis. 
 
 But what they do not say is that this is a re- 
 turn to the Pagan principle which assigns to ev- 
 ery nation its gods and its altars; that thus they 
 degrade that universal religion which according 
 to the words of St. Paul knows — " Only one God, 
 who is above us all, among us all, and in all." 
 What they do not say is, that in pretending to 
 serve religion they actually inculcate scepticism, 
 for what is this but a religious truth which 
 reaches only to the frontier and which changes 
 with nationalities } Truth on this side of the 
 Pyrenees, error beyond. A stream suffices to 
 change doctrines. It is the duty of a good 
 Frenchman to serve the Roman Church because, 
 as they tell us, it founded our nationality. And 
 since it was the Reformation which made the 
 greatness of Germany, every good German should 
 be equally devoted to the cause of Luther. But 
 beyond the Vistula, there is an immense power 
 which has grown under the shadow of the sym- 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 197 
 
 bol of the Greek Church; while at Constantinople 
 there is a vast empire which has had Mahomet's 
 crescent for its flag. What is the final word of 
 this system ? It is national religion, it is relig- 
 ious war in which each leader pretends to in- 
 voke upon his flag the blessing of God. And do 
 you not see that religion, thus put to the service 
 of politics, will descend with it into all its in- 
 trigues and all its passions; that it will be but 
 an instrument of dominion and conquest ? For 
 myself, if one should ask me to enumerate the 
 causes which have cast the greatest discredit 
 upon Christianity in our old Europe, I should cite 
 this first. Oh ! I say it with earnest conviction, 
 may that day soon come when earthly govern- 
 ments will no longer assume to protect religion, 
 when they will no longer, in return, demand of it 
 selfish prayers which change with each country, 
 and with each revolution in the same country ! 
 May that day soon come, for then the church, 
 compelled at last to look only to her Divine 
 Head, will better understand than she has ever 
 done the reality of His presence and His victori- 
 ous power ! Severed from the delusive protec- 
 tions which compromise her more than they 
 serve her, she will prove to the world, which 
 
198 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 prates of her decline, her immortal youth and 
 her strange vitality. 
 
 We must, then, give account to ourselves 
 of our faith, my brethren; it is a right, it 
 is a duty. The Gospel does not impose con- 
 victions, it would have these convictions free 
 and sincere. Nothing equals the profound re- 
 spect of Jesus Christ for the human soul ; 
 He never does it violence, never takes it by 
 surprise, and never even carries it away in a 
 rapture of enthusiasm. Need I recall to you here 
 the language of St. Paul, the care with which he 
 refrains from lording it over the faith of others, 
 his incessant appeals to the intelligence, to the 
 investigation, to the personal experience of those 
 to whom he writes .'' Now all investigation in- 
 volves the possibility of doubt. To sieze the 
 truth we must separate it from error, and this 
 supreme question formulates itself in the con- 
 science, " Have I the truth V Formidable ques- 
 tion, but one which no one has the right to evade. 
 
 I know many men who would like to shirk it. 
 "It is investigation," say they, " which ruins us; 
 it is investigation which destroys faith." I deny 
 it emphatically. And first, I ask if religious 
 sentiment is weaker, less profound in countries 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 199 
 
 where there is investigation, than where books 
 are closed, mouths stopped, inquiry stifled ? 
 What do we see around us ? Know that what 
 I complain of, is that men do not investi- 
 gate, that religion seriously occupies only the 
 smallest minority, that men plunge into unbe- 
 lief as once they did into tradition, blindly, on 
 the authority of certain leaders. It is always 
 the faith of authority; only the professor of athe- 
 ism some day undertakes to share the place 
 which has been filled hitherto by the priest, and 
 is listened to with the same docility. Fanati- 
 cism in place of fanaticism, — I do not give to it 
 the name of conviction, — and when I see the 
 carelessness, the astonishing ignorance, the sec- 
 tarian narrowness with which certain schools 
 pretend to judge the Gospel, I have the right to 
 say to them, " Do you know what you are talk- 
 ing about ? " 
 
 But, if investigation be a duty, "is it always 
 possible }" you will ask me. "Would you invite 
 the ignorant, the simple, to deal with questions 
 the most subtle, the most complicated } " No, 
 my brethren, we make no such claim, and those 
 who attribute it to evangelical Protestantism cast 
 easy ridicule upon it, but at the expense of truth, 
 
200 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 I believe, for my part, that the Gospel has its 
 proofs for all kinds of minds and for all condi- 
 tions of the soul. To some, it justifies itself by 
 arguments which lay hold upon their intelligence. 
 With others, it touches especially the conscience 
 and the heart. It is not necessary to be a theo- 
 logian to have excellent reasons for believing in 
 Jesus Christ; and when, through Him, one has 
 found the true God, when one possesses pardon, 
 peace and the assurance of eternal life, he is 
 standing upon ground which all the theologians 
 of the world cannot shake. I go further and I 
 assert that the greatest theologians, who have 
 not had this experience, run great risk of passing 
 by Christianity without having understood the 
 first word of it. But he who has had this experi- 
 ence, be he a poor workman, be he the most ig- 
 norant of hodmen, he no longer believes blindly, 
 for between his conscience and the truth there 
 has been established that intimate accordance 
 which creates convictions of sterling quality; and 
 when with the tone of one convinced, he says to 
 mc, " I know in whom I have believed," I bow 
 before his faith. Do not say then that investiga- 
 tion is impossible in such matters, and that there 
 remains no refuge but blind faith. The Gospel 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 20I 
 
 lias its proofs for all, and the most decisive, the 
 strongest, the most attractive are those which 
 are common to the ignorant and to the learned, 
 those which above all appeal to the guilty con- 
 science, to the heart which thirsts for pardon, for 
 love and for peace. 
 
 I have vindicated the need of inquiry and the 
 legitimacy of doubt. Let me show you this by an 
 example. We are in the first century of our era. 
 The apostle of salvation by faith, St. Paul, has 
 just landed in a city of Asia; he has entered the 
 synagogue, and his earnest words have won 
 hearts; a church is formed, but there are there 
 former Jews, zealous for the traditions of their 
 fathers; they see with alarm, with an honest in- 
 dignation, a doctrine proposed which declares 
 that the law of Moses is abolished, that the 
 temple of Jerusalem must fall, that Israel is no 
 longer to be the people of God, and that the very 
 heathen can call themselves the children of Abra- 
 ham. They remember the promises of the proph- 
 ets announcing to Judah an eternal covenant with 
 God, affirming that Jerusalem was to be the cen- 
 tre of the world tovvards which all nations would 
 turn their eyes. If the words of St. Paul troubled 
 them for a moment, they soon reject them with 
 
202 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 alarm, as though from an emissary of Satan. 
 They are carried away by their own zeal, and 
 believing that they are serving Jehovah, they 
 condemn, they curse, they anathematize without 
 examining, without reflecting. Is not this the 
 history of all fanaticisms; of that which pursued 
 Christ before the sanhedrim and in the judgment 
 hall with cries of hatred and holy anger; of that 
 which in the streets of Ephesus cried out all one 
 day — " Great is Diana of the Ephesians " .-* 
 
 Would you see, on the other hand, how doubt 
 in penetrating into a soul can bring to it light } 
 Look at that young disciple of the Pharisees, 
 who after having assisted at the punishment of 
 Stephen, goes away thoughtful and conscience 
 stricken. He has heard the sublime prayer of 
 the martyr and for the first time has been trou- 
 bled; he has said to himself, "Am I not mis- 
 taken } " He will not at first listen to this 
 doubt; on the contrary, to stifle this unfortu- 
 nate voice, he shows a new zeal against the 
 Christians, until one day when a thunderbolt 
 felled him to the ground on the road to Da- 
 mascus. The first doubt in the soul of St. Paul, 
 was the first ray of the new day which was to 
 enlighten him. 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 203 
 
 Thus doubt can be legitimate, it can be in ac- 
 cordance with the will of God. But on what 
 condition ? That it be produced by very love 
 of the truth, that it have for its end to arrive 
 at the truth. In this case it is, if I may so ex- 
 press it, but one of the sides of faith. From 
 the same motive which makes me affirm the 
 truth, I doubt in face of probable error, and 
 I deny in face of demonstrated error. So, in 
 another line of thought, hatred can be one of 
 the phases of love; for, because I love justice 
 and holiness, I hate and I ought to hate iniquity 
 and pollution. But if the love of good involves 
 the hatred of evil, according to those beautiful 
 words of the Psalmist, "All ye who love the 
 Lord hate evil," does it follow from this that 
 hatred can be commended, and is it not evident 
 that separated from love it is a perfect hell for 
 the human soul .'* Now, what is true of hatred 
 I apply to doubt, and I say: " Though doubt 
 can be one of the means by which the love of 
 truth shows itself, it does not remain less true 
 that doubt is fatal to the soul, that it uncon- 
 sciously degrades it, that it destroys it." This 
 is what I am now to try and show you. 
 
 The question before us is The State of Doubt; 
 
204 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 this is the malady which I demonstrate, and the 
 effects of which I see everywhere. There are in- 
 tellectual doubts. You have lent youf ear to the 
 conflicts of opinion in this troubled age. You 
 have heard men discuss the proofs upon which 
 faith rests; behind each truth -you have encoun- 
 tered a "perhaps," which rendered it suspicious. 
 You have seen acute minds treat Christianity as 
 only one religion among others a little higher than 
 the rest. You have heard negation reaching to 
 everything and sparing nothing. One page after 
 another must be torn from the Gospel; one story 
 after another must be placed thereafter among 
 the legends; the figure of Christ goes on losing 
 its distinctive features and fades away in the 
 twilight of the past. After Jesus Christ, there 
 remains at least the living God, God the creator 
 and judge; but lo, science affirms that these are 
 superannuated dogmas, wholly human concep- 
 tions which must be left to children and childish 
 people. These opinions startle at first, perhaps 
 they terrify, but at last they are reiterated every- 
 where. Some day they knock at the portal of 
 your soul. You resist, but they return to the 
 charge. Arrogant and peremptory, or insinuat- 
 ing and complaisant, they haunt you, they beset 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 205 
 
 you. The angel of doubt lights upon you when 
 you read the Scripture, he whispers in your ear 
 words of cold irony, he sits by you when you 
 listen here to the Gospel; when you bend your 
 knee to pray, he says to you, "What good does 
 it do ? " He rise^ and approaches with you to 
 the communion table; he mingles a sarcasm with 
 your holiest emotions. An hour comes at last 
 when the darkness invades your soul, when you 
 look anxiously for your vanished faith, when you 
 repeat with bitterness the words of Job, " I 
 hoped for light, but behold the darkness." 
 
 All. are not tempted in this way. Intellectual 
 doubts are the portion of but few. But life starts 
 formidable questions for all, even for the most ig- 
 norant. You look around you, and you see the 
 church, which ought to be the kingdom of God 
 on the earth, left to its fate, compromised, and 
 often ridiculed through fault of its defenders. 
 You see Christian faith remaining without effect 
 upon life, and men who are called pious lacking 
 in strict integrity; you see them selfish, narrow 
 minded, proud as other men, implacable in their 
 resentments, pitiless in their judgments; you per- 
 ceive that religious strifes possess the secret of 
 producing bitternesses of speech, a sort of odious 
 
2o6 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 mixture of mildness and crabbed zeal, of pious 
 effusions and calumnious attacks. You never 
 think of inquiring whether the Gospel is respon- 
 sible for all this, and when you see beside you 
 men without faith, indifferent men, atheists, yet 
 generous, benevolent, charitable, you let your- 
 self gradually come to believe that Christianity 
 is without influence. In this state of half-scep- 
 ticism time passes, and every day the influence 
 of the world and of life disturbs, wears away the 
 convictions like water which, penetrating into 
 the sloping ground, loosens it little by little, and 
 makes it slide imperceptibly on the edge of the 
 abyss. 
 
 Now for the proof! You pray, and are not 
 answered; you try again and the heavens are 
 closed and God remains silent. What ! God 
 does not hear! And where then are His prom- 
 ises } He docs not take from me the tempta- 
 tion which besets me ! He does not spare me 
 the anguish under which I am about to sink ! 
 He does not give me my daily bread ! He does 
 not save that life upon which mine is hung ! 
 He docs not give back to me that child for 
 which I have blessed Him so often, and whose 
 smiles, caresses and innocent confidence have so 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 207 
 
 often drawn me closer to Him ! He lets him 
 suffer, and die ! He who is Himself father, He 
 does not understand my anguish, when by a 
 word or a sign He could appease it ! Or, what 
 is worse yet, He leaves that soul which is as 
 dear to me as my own, a prey to error, to dis- 
 order, to the corruption which wastes it. 
 
 Then, in this excess of grief all is shaken, all 
 crumbles away in the soul and even God Himself 
 disappears. It is not that there is a constant 
 doubt of God. That does not happen which is 
 wished. Atheism offends too sensibly the rea- 
 son, which, seeking instinctively a cause for 
 everything, does not easily concede that the 
 world alone can dispense with a cause. One 
 acknowledges a God, but no longer believes in 
 His love, or rather, as is more frequent, imag- 
 ined that he alone does not experience its ef- 
 fects. By a monstrous error he believes himself 
 to have become the doomed of God's wrath. 
 There is something strange in this idea of a 
 creature who believes that the Almighty se- 
 lects him from all others to make him the ob- 
 ject of His merciless and persevering enmity. 
 One would be tempted to smile at it, if a smile 
 were oossible in the face of such agonies. In 
 
2o8 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 vain do we make such misguided souls hear the 
 most touching appeals of the Gospel. God, they 
 think, cannot love them. Blinded by their grief, 
 they have no discernment of His mercy, but only 
 of His severity. "God must love us much to 
 chasten us after this sort," say they with irony. 
 They sum up their trials; they extract from 
 them all the gall, they drink it to the dregs. 
 Ah ! Let us pity them, my brethren, for what 
 distress can equal theirs .-' Let us pity them, for 
 frightful as this attitude may be, it is perhaps 
 better than indifference. Ye fathers who hear 
 me, would you hesitate a moment between a 
 rebellious son and a son whose heart is abso- 
 lutely hardened toward you .'' 
 
 I have pictured to you some of the effects of 
 doubt such as I have been able to observe them 
 myself. Perhaps more than one of those who 
 hear me has recognized his own sad history in 
 this picture. Have you visited in your riper 
 years the house where you were happy in your 
 youth, where you had loved, a house once full 
 of sunshine and joyous laughter; and have you 
 found it now dismantled, sad and solitary } 
 Have you seen the family table, the grandfa- 
 ther's chair, the hearthstone once so bright, and 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 209 
 
 whose warmth was less than that of the hearts 
 which encircled it. Have you traced with mel- 
 ancholy step the path where you revelled in 
 your first dreams of youth, those dreams of in- 
 finite hope ? Have you found again the seat 
 where the long talks were protracted in the 
 shade of evening, have you contemplated all 
 this, with your heart rent by trials ? Have there 
 risen before you at each step sweet and dear im- 
 ages, appearing for a moment only to leave you 
 the more sad and lonely ? Have you stretched 
 out your arms into the void to seize again this 
 past which has escaped you forever ? 
 
 Now, it is with the soul of man, as with his 
 home, and those who doubt will comprehend 
 me. Do you remember the day when first your 
 soul opened to receive the truth, and when the 
 God of the Gospel entered in ? Do you remem- 
 ber your first tears of repentance and love.'* Can 
 you hear the words of forgiveness and of peace 
 which then filled your heart with unspeakable 
 joy .'' Do you perceive still the white robe of 
 the divine compassion descending upon you and 
 entirely enveloping you ? Do you see again 
 past blessings which rise up on all sides and 
 speak to you of the love of God .■* Do you re- 
 
2IO THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 call the days begun in prayer, the holy prompt- 
 ings of conscience heeded, the selfishness over- 
 come, and the works of devotion loved and 
 followed ? To-day you doubt, and when you 
 retire into your soul, it seems as if you were 
 wandering through an empty house where you 
 call up only the remembrance of the dead. You 
 doubt, and others know nothing of it perhaps, 
 and as you sit here by our side, apparently offer- 
 ing up your prayers with us, you seem to your- 
 self to have become a stranger to us. You say, 
 "If they but knew my thoughts!" Our lan- 
 guage of faith, of love and of hope expresses no 
 longer ,what is in your heart. 
 
 Now, I address myself to you who recognize 
 yourselves by these traits, I ask you, are you 
 willing to remain in this state } Do you not 
 feel that here you are dying so far as the true 
 life is concerned } 
 
 You must come out of it, for your soul is 
 sinking into the power of a growing paral}'sis; 
 for, upon this vessel which the sea is carrying 
 away, there is no longer a pilot at the helm, 
 as it is tossed about in vain by opposing waves. 
 You must do this, for your will becomes weakened 
 in this divided life, inspiration fails you, and your 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 211 
 
 existence goes on sad and sterile. And do you 
 not see that the world has gained all that the 
 higher life has lost in you ? Where are your 
 works of piety and charity ? What words of 
 strength and consolation do you bear to those 
 about you ? What hidden sacrifices do you sow 
 along your pathway ? What ground have you 
 conquered from error and evil ? Where are your 
 scruples in those matters which formerly trou- 
 bled you ? When temptation comes, where will 
 your refuge be, behind what rampart will you 
 take shelter ? It is by faith the soul must live, 
 and protracted doubt is death. 
 
 Am I telling you, my brethren, to escape from 
 doubt by an exaggerated enthusiasm {l'cxal- 
 tntioii) ? Do I pretend to preach to you a 
 blind faith .'' Do I induce you to cast your- 
 selves in despair into the arms of authority .-' 
 No, indeed, for exaltation is the intoxication of 
 the soul and this is not what God wishes of us; 
 what He bids you do, we will see presently; to- 
 day let me at least give you one counsel. 
 
 However severe the attacks of doubt may be, 
 there remains in your soul some ultimate con- 
 victions which have still for you a sacred char- 
 acter. If you no longer believe in certain teach- 
 
THF. STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 ings of the Gospel, you yet believe perhaps that 
 Jesus has come from God: if Jesus Christ Him- 
 self is for you but the most holy of men, you 
 believe still that His word is truth. If criticism 
 has robbed you even of this, you believe at least 
 that God exists, and that He is just and good, 
 If God is to you naught but an idea, you be- 
 lieve that good is worth more than evil, truth 
 than falsehood, love than selfishness. Well keep 
 hold of this supreme truth, and behind it shelter 
 your soul. 
 
 When a country has fallen into the power of a 
 foreign oppressor, when city after city has sur- 
 rendered, when a detested yoke presses every- 
 where, if there are left some lofty souls, still 
 capable of comprehending the value of liberty 
 and independence, they choose a last refuge, and 
 there in solitude they plant the flag of their 
 country, in order to protest till the hour of inde- 
 pendence; for, as long as that flag floats, they 
 can hope for freedom. So, I say to you, when 
 doubt shall have invaded your whole soul, 
 when your convictions and your best hopes shall 
 have receded step by step before it, take your 
 stand behind one of those supreme truths with- 
 out which life is not worth living, and which you 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 313 
 
 can only renounce by suicide; — and there, my 
 brother, upon that last corner of earth, dig with 
 your hands, even unto blood, wet that soil with 
 your tears, and then plant there the flag of faith. 
 May it remain there raised by your faithful 
 hand until the day of light and liberty; and if 
 that day should not shine for you on earth, die 
 at least in affirming that there is an eternal 
 truth. God who weighs all things in His infinite 
 justice will judge you in His mercy, and as for 
 myself, without penetrating His judgment, I will 
 remember that according to the promise of the 
 Scriptures, light will rise sooner or later for 
 those whose hearts are right. Amen. 
 
IX. 
 
 E|)e ^tate of ©ouit 
 
 (Second Sermon.) 
 
IX. 
 
 ^i)c ^tate of ÎBoulit* 
 
 (Second Sermon.) 
 
 " Unto the tipright there ariseth light in the darkness.'''' 
 
 Psalm cxii. 4. 
 
 I HAVE studied with you, my brethren, the 
 state of doubt and its effect upon the soul. I 
 have pointed out the causes which most frequent- 
 ly produce it. It remains to me now to show you 
 by what means this state can be combated. 
 
 Understand the end which I propose to my- 
 self. I am not to speak to sceptics, but to be- 
 lievers whose faith is disturbed. Nor do I by 
 any means assume to touch here upon the objec- 
 tions which are raised to-day against Chris- 
 tianity, and which may have disturbed their 
 faith. How could I accomplish this, were I so 
 disposed .? These attacks are innumerable. Not 
 one of the truths which I hold has been spared, 
 
2l8 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 there is not one upon which I have not heard 
 pronounced in the name of science, sentence of 
 irremediable condemnation: "What ! Do you 
 still believe in the supernatural," says some one 
 of our brethren, who thinks he has freed his 
 faith from every element of error, "do you not 
 see that the supernatural has had its day ! " 
 "What!" some sincere deist in turn says to him, 
 "you believe still in Jesus Christ, and do not see 
 that the human conscience is the only revelation 
 from God!" "What!" responds an apostle of 
 the independent morality, "you cling still to 
 that undemonstrable hypothesis that you call 
 God, and do not perceive that the idea of the 
 good and of moral liberty suffices the man who 
 is seeking for truth ! " " Stop ! " a materialist 
 equally sincere cries out to this last, "science 
 does not know that conception which you call 
 moral liberty." 
 
 What is the last word of this conflict ? This 
 last word has been pronounced recently in a 
 public discussion by a writer of great talents.' 
 " How can one speak," he exclaims, " of any 
 fixed rule in morals. There is no other than 
 success." Docs not this recall to you, my breth- 
 
 ' M. Emile de Girardin. 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 219 
 
 ren, the word of the Gospel, " Let the dead bury 
 their dead"? And what is strange is that all, 
 equally sincere, pretend to speak in the name 
 of a science which wants no more hypotheses. 
 Poor and noble science ! what ruins accumulate 
 in thy name ! 
 
 You do not expect me to enter into such a 
 discussion with you; I have no thought of it. I 
 undertake, not to reply to such individual doubts, 
 but to combat the state of doubt itself, that mor- 
 bid condition which to-day is invading so many 
 souls, and it may be your own. It is for me to 
 show what one who has been assailed by it ought 
 to do. 
 
 Jesus, finding one day at the gates of Jerusalem 
 a poor paralytic who for thirty-eight years had 
 dragged out a miserable existence, was moved 
 with compassion and wished to heal him; but 
 first of all He stopped in front of him, and said 
 to him, "Wouldest thou be healed .-* " Now, 
 let me, first of all, address this very question 
 to you, oh ye who doubt ! Will you be healed } 
 Do you desire it '^. You complain of the uncer- 
 tainty you are in, of your lassitude, of your in- 
 decisions, of that sickly debility which you allow 
 to consume your days and your energy: you 
 
220 THE STATE OE DOUBT. 
 
 envy, you say, the happiness of those who be- 
 lieve. It seems, to Hsten to you, that the state 
 you are in does not by any means depend upon 
 yourselves. Now it is precisely to this point 
 that I call your serious attention. Are you sure, 
 absolutely sure, that your will is in no degree 
 responsible for it .-^ You say that it is sincerity 
 which compels you to this state. Well, I ap- 
 peal now to this sincerity, and I ask you if there 
 are not in doubt certain fascinations which you 
 do not care to confess. 
 
 Let us speak first of intellectual doubts. Have 
 they nothing which flatters your self-love .'' In 
 meeting the question raised between one who 
 says, " I believe," and another who shakes his 
 head in dissent, to which does the world give 
 the palm of intelligence .-' Is it not to the lat- 
 ter .'' Singular judgment however ! Indeed if 
 doubt were a proof of superior intelligence, we 
 must conclude that such intelligence is common, 
 for doubters are everywhere; and moreover igno- 
 rance, narrow mindedness, vulgarity of thought, 
 prejudices of all kinds are not, as they should be, 
 the distinctive attributes of believers. But still 
 it is an understood thing that faith almost al- 
 ways betrays some weakness of mind. 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 221 
 
 Now, my brethren, think you that it is an easy 
 matter to confess one's faith before the world ? 
 I ask it of the student as well as of the workman 
 who may be listening to me; I ask whether, in 
 the high schools as in the workshops, faith does 
 not exact of him who professes it a courageous 
 effort and often painful sacrifices; whether it does 
 not excite ridicule or a kind of respect mingled 
 with contempt ? Notice that it has always been 
 so. In the seventeenth century, for example, at 
 a time when Christianity was outwardly accepted 
 by all, I am struck by finding the ministers of 
 the Gospel continually warning their hearers 
 against respect of man and the fear of ridicule. 
 At the bottom, the spirit of the world is ever 
 the same; to be a Christian, one must be a wit- 
 ness before the world and the bearer of a truth 
 which astonishes, irritates, and scandalizes it. 
 Do you accept this task .? Is there not here 
 that which terrifies your weakness and your cow- 
 ardice .'' If to-morrow a great current of opinion 
 should pronounce in favor of the Gospel, would 
 it cost you as much to believe and to confess 
 your faith ? Look within yourselves, examine 
 yourselves, and answer. 
 
 Do ) ou know what is the second charm of 
 
222 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 doubt ? It is the independence in which it leaves 
 us. Every conviction binds us, and we are so 
 sensible of this that when a man contradicts his 
 conviction by his life, we condemn him without 
 hesitancy in the name of simple morality. Here 
 is the source of the best founded reproaches 
 which unbelievers bring against Christians. At 
 the least show of weakness, they do not hesitate 
 at the word hypocrisy. If I am convinced that 
 Christianity is a divine revelation, you see I am 
 obliged to follow it: if, on the contrary, I only 
 recognize in it the product of the human con- 
 science, I pass judgment on it freely from the 
 height of my reason. But between these two 
 solutions there is a third, to wit, doubt, which 
 leaves me free to go to the Gospel for religious 
 emotions, and to think of it what I please. If I 
 believe that God is holy and that He desires 
 holiness, I must subdue the flesh, watch over my 
 ways, and suppress evil desires. If I know no 
 other check than the easy law of nature, I need 
 not ask you what will be my morals. But be- 
 tween these two solutions, there is doubt, Avhich 
 settles nothing, and which leaves me free to fol- 
 low the desires of my heart. If I believe in a 
 crucified Master who demands of me sacrifice and 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 223 
 
 who tells me that selfishness is a crime, my con- 
 science will reproach me for everything which 
 has respect only to myself; if on the contrary 
 I exalt only self, I can make of myself the centre 
 of my life; but between these two sides there is 
 doubt, which lets me oscillate between selfish- 
 ness and self-denial while following the impulses 
 of nature. 
 
 O doubters who listen to me, let me ask you 
 one question. You have within you, as every 
 man has, passions which you know well, which 
 you know by the wounds they have made, per- 
 haps alas, by the degrading bondage under which 
 they hold you even to-day. You know their 
 power to be great, I presume, and you are not 
 weak enough to assert that they in no way in- 
 fluence your thoughts or your decisions. Well, 
 if these passions could speak, would they be in 
 favor of a belief which proclaims that God is 
 just, that He is holy, that He is love, and that 
 you ought to belong to Him } 
 
 No, it is not true that doubt is always painful, 
 as is so often said in this age of lying senti- 
 mentality. The day when for the first time 
 in the life of a young man, belief in duty is 
 shaken, there is within him a stupefaction, I 
 
224 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 admit, perhaps a dismay, but there is also a 
 vast delight, the delight of revolt and of false 
 liberty. Yes, if temptation seduces and charms 
 him, I tell you that doubt will be to him a lib- 
 erator whom he will love, whom he will bless. 
 
 Now he who knows his own heart, who knows 
 with what repugnance we accept the yoke of 
 God, with what eagerness we shake it off, let 
 him tell us whether doubt has not its fascina- 
 tions } Is it not certain that the will feels itself 
 the more independent in proportion as faith in 
 God becomes more vague and feeble; for, just 
 as when the sun is setting our shadow on the 
 ground grows longer and larger, so, as God 
 sinks toward our horizon, our place on earth 
 expands. Is it not certain that all the unlaw- 
 ful desires, all the evil powers of the soul love 
 doubt, as wild beasts love the night .■* Is it not 
 certain that nothing eases the guilty conscience 
 so much as a pcrJiaps, and that the Tempter 
 hurls at it, in every crisis, for the purpose of 
 calming its anguish and putting to sleep its 
 remorse, the words which ruined the first man, 
 " What ! did God indeed say it t " 
 
 An example will make my thought clearer. 
 Let us suppose a man who believes in the Cos- 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 22 q 
 
 pel, and meets on his way a temptation to which 
 he yields and which leads him astray. At this 
 moment two opposing paths of life open before 
 him; one upward, into belief, into holiness; the 
 other downward, into the material, into disorder. 
 What shall he do } Alas ! he will persevere per- 
 haps in this double course, numerous experiences 
 prove it, but if this double-mindedness shocks 
 him, there remains but the two alternatives, 
 either to sacrifice his life to his faith, or to sac- 
 rifice his faith to his life. The first is heroism, 
 that heroism which makes the flesh to quiver 
 and which Jesus Christ commands to His disci- 
 ples under penalty of perdition: "If thine eye 
 make thee offend, pluck it out and cast it from 
 thee; if thy hand make thee offend, cut it off and 
 cast it far from thee." But if he does choose not 
 this bloody sacrifice, what will he do inevitably .'' 
 He will shut his eyes to the light which con- 
 demns him, and, unable to deny it, he will try 
 more and more to forget it. Let doubt come ! 
 He will welcome it with a secret but great de- 
 light, for doubt to him is sin unpunished, it is 
 liberty to escape from God. 
 
 I know, my brethren, how humiliating such 
 thoughts are for us. There are some who will 
 
226 -THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 see in them insinuations insulting to the dig- 
 nity of man. But Jesus Christ, who assured- 
 ly does not insult humanity, has too often re- 
 turned to this subject to permit us to neglect 
 it; and I add that there is not a Christian 
 who knows himself who does not know by ex- 
 perience how closely doubt in the mind affects 
 the character of the life. Now it is to this exam- 
 ination that I invite you in addressing to you the 
 question of the Saviour, "Will you be healed.'" 
 If in all sincerity of soul you wish it, what 
 must be done to attain it t Such is our inquiry 
 to-day; but even here a point detains us. We are 
 asked if there is really anything to do in order 
 to escape from such a state. It is said to us, 
 " By your own acknowledgment, faith is a gift 
 from God. Is it our fault if we have not received 
 it t Does it depend upon us to believe or not to 
 believe '^. Can we change the nature of our in- 
 tellect, and receive as true that which seems to 
 us untrue V The remark is readily added, "You 
 arc very fortunate in believing." As to this last 
 assertion, my brethren, I would like to admit 
 that it is always sincere, but I cannot refrain 
 from saying that most of those who hold this 
 language, in reality care very little for this hap- 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 227 
 
 piness for which they envy us. What is faith in 
 their view ? It is the portion of the weak- 
 minded, of the immature in intelligence, to 
 whom the guardianship of authority will always 
 be necessary, of women, of children, of cowardly 
 spirits, of souls tired and torn by the struggles of 
 life. Faith, in their view, is the shade needful for 
 eyes too feeble to bear the light of science and 
 reason. Indeed, for the moment they may envy 
 those who believe, just as the man finds pleasure 
 in regretting the candor and confidence of the 
 child; but after all, since they imagine that their 
 doubts are due to the maturity of their minds and 
 that they have no power to recede, their opinion 
 on this subject is summed up in the well-known 
 maxim, that one believes what one can. Now I 
 wish to confront this thought, and just as I have 
 shown you the part which the will plays in doubt, 
 to show you its part in faith. 
 
 There is here a fact which ought to strike 
 you. The Gospel commands faith. Now the 
 Gospel respects human nature ; it never con- 
 strains it, it never does it violence; it asks al- 
 w'ays a voluntary submission. Yet it enjoins 
 faith as it enjoins love. We are surprised at 
 this, say all, it seems to us strange, impossible 
 
228 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 against nature, for how command love, how com- 
 mand faith ? We love whom we can. We be- 
 lieve what we can. This seems very plausible : 
 and yet, that one of all books, which best under- 
 stands our nature, commands, us to believe and 
 to love. And observe that millions of souls en- 
 lightened, regenerated, saved by the Gospel, 
 bless it for making it their duty to belieye and 
 to love. 
 
 Now I ask you, my brethren, whether God 
 coujd enjoin anything upon us that did not de- 
 pend in some measure upon our will. Were He 
 to do so, where would be His justice } Let us 
 follow this to the end. Were He to do so, the 
 wicked servant in the parable would have been 
 right when he cried out, " Hard and cruel mas- 
 ter, thou reapest where thou hast not sown, 
 thou gatherest where thou hast not strewn." 
 
 But what if I should show you my brethren 
 that you yourselves agree with the Gospel, and 
 that you are constantly affirming what it teaches .-' 
 " One loves whom he can," you say. Are you 
 very sure of it } Is that the language you use 
 to your wayward son, when evil influences have 
 inflated his self-esteem and alienated his heart 
 from, you .-' And when one to whom you had en- 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 229 
 
 trusted the happiness of a daughter — I appeal to 
 any father who hears me — when he has disen- 
 chanted and blasted her life, betrayed her confi- 
 dence and alienated her heart by his indifference 
 and cruelties, do you accept his excuse when he 
 pretends that one loves whom he can ? " One 
 loves whom he can ! " Ah ! I understand this 
 maxim in the mouths of the advocates of loose 
 marriages, and of licentiousness ; I understand 
 it among those who see nothing in love but 
 pleasure, among those who have never felt all 
 that is ideal and sacred in the wife and mother. 
 
 But whoever has truly loved knows that love 
 is all penetrated with respect and fidelity, that 
 it engages the soul with holy obligations. Yes, 
 this wonderful life of love, in which you see at 
 first but the free blooming of the heart, needs 
 for its endurance and growth and increase, the 
 profound and serious sentiment of fidelity; just 
 as the stream needs banks to confine it that its 
 pure current may not lose itself in stagnant 
 swamps; just as at the hearth a watchful hand 
 is needed to bring together the coals which scat- 
 ter and would ciie out apart. Do you not know 
 this } Have you not a thousand times felt the 
 life of affection revive and throw out a briijhter 
 
230 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 gleam when the will interposes to subdue the 
 evil movements of selfishness, unjust suspicions, 
 mean resentments; when it bestirs itself to re- 
 store to its true and pure home the heart led 
 astray by outward seductions and by the temp- 
 tations of the world ? Ah ! the Gospel knows 
 us better than we know ourselves, and it is be- 
 cause it knows us so well that it commands us 
 to love. 
 
 Now what is true of love is true also of faith. 
 See that man ! he is at the age when ambition 
 influences him, when he casts upon life a look 
 of vast hope. At this moment temptation awaits 
 him; his future is made, a path opens before him 
 short and easy, and there, but two steps off, is 
 wealth, success, fame. " What ! that which I 
 have so long dreamed of, that goal which I be- 
 lieved lost in the far distance, at the end of this 
 rough path where so many others have died in 
 the attempt, — I can attain it to-morrow, this 
 prize is mine ! I have only to stretch out my 
 hand ! " Yes, but for all that, there is for that 
 man a condition: he must renounce his past con- 
 victions, he must trample on his conscience. "Is 
 it only that .'' " the world asks him with its cold and 
 cynical laugh. "Docs not success absolve for 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 23 1 
 
 every thing?" He hears it again, — and the strug- 
 gle commences in his soul, the struggle and the 
 torment; awhile, it is the night of temptation 
 which invades him, broken by blinding light- 
 nings; anon, it is the pure light of truth. But if 
 he is carried away by the world, if he comes out 
 of these struggles corrupted and conquered by 
 evil, will he believe in duty to-day as he believed 
 in it yesterday ? And if he succumbs before a new 
 temptation, do you not see that these successive 
 defeats, beating on his soul like the angry waves 
 of the raging sea, will sweep away piece by piece 
 all the beliefs which made his strength and his 
 dignity. The will, then, can act on faith. 
 
 There are decisive hours when we are bid- 
 den more than ever to believe in all those re- 
 alities which can be neither touched nor seen; 
 and which are called honor, duty, conscience, 
 humanity. You say, " One believes what he 
 can," and every day you bid men believe that 
 honor is worth more than success, dignity more 
 than money, self-sacrifice more than self-love; 
 and when scoffing scepticism answers cynically 
 that experience teaches another lesson, you re- 
 ply, that one must believe in the good and that 
 doub<- here is criminal. Thus, you acknowl- 
 
232 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 edge, the will can act on faith. And so faith 
 can be commanded. Now, this is exactly what 
 the Gospel says. It is then certain that, in order 
 to get out of your state of doubt, there is some- 
 thing for you to do. It remains for us to see 
 what it is which must be done. 
 
 I will say, first of all, search; but search seri- 
 ously; and I add, search not with your intellect 
 alone, but with your conscience and your heart. 
 I know that when we say this we shall be readily 
 accused of practising mysticism and reproached 
 for sacrificing reason. My brethren, I have no 
 thought of sacrificing reason; it has its place in 
 religion, and I have never found that it was 
 depreciated or degraded in the school of Jesus 
 Christ. We must love science sincerely, without 
 reserve, and as it has no dignity except when it is 
 independent, we must respect its liberty. Have 
 we not moreover the history of all fanaticisms to 
 recall to us the errors of the religious sentiment 
 when it separates itself violently from reason } 
 
 I know that unbelief says boldly that science 
 destroys faith, and that not a few believers trem- 
 blingly whisper the same. But what docs that 
 prove. When it is told you for example that 
 science demonstrates that the human soul is a 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 233 
 
 pure hypothesis, and that moral Hberty is a pure 
 delusion, do you believe it ? Has science spoken 
 her last word to the materialists ? Has she com- 
 missioned unbelief to be her authentic interpreter? 
 Is this peremptory and arrogant language the 
 tone by which she is to be recognized ? Let us 
 not be disturbed by these assertions, my brethren. 
 Let them not provoke us to a foolish reaction; 
 let them never make us sneer at or depreciate 
 the human intellect. Let us remember above all 
 that in such a matter anger and fear are unwor- 
 thy of a believing soul, and that the invectives 
 they prompt weigh no more than a hair in the 
 balance, against contrary arguments. 
 
 It cannot then be a question of depreciating 
 the intellect; but when we say that in order to 
 return to God, the heart and the conscience are 
 the shortest and surest roads, we have reasons 
 for this which we beg you to examine seriously. 
 I will only name three of them, which ought, 
 it seems to me, to strike every candid man. 
 
 I say first that, if there is religious truth, it 
 ought to be accessible to men of every degree of 
 culture and of every position. Now, this condi- 
 tion is absolutely impossible, if it is the intellect 
 pre-eminently which must grasp the truth, for 
 
234 THE STATE OE DOUBT. 
 
 nothing is more unequal than gifts of intellect, 
 nothing more arbitrarily distributed. I say that 
 there would be something revolting in this new 
 kind of predestination which would make the 
 knowledge of God dependent upon the degree 
 of culture, that is to say, in the vast majority 
 of cases, upon the happy chance of fortune and 
 education. I say that you do not believe in such 
 a religion, and that, at all events, humanity 
 would never want it. Now, mark well, it must 
 be wanted, if it is the intellect above all which 
 leads to God. On the contrary, appeal to the 
 heart, to the conscience; here, you are on the 
 broad ground of equality before God. Of what 
 value are birth and fortune here } Well, it is by 
 these great pathways that the God of Jesus 
 Christ, who is the Father of all without respect 
 of persons, means us to come to Him. 
 
 Oh ! how I can understand the rapture of 
 Pascal writing with tears of joy on the night 
 when he returned to God: "God of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob, not of philosophers and 
 savants." Noble tears of a genius who had 
 learned to know that God reveals Himself to 
 the heart, noble tears which recall to me the 
 rapture of a greater than Pascal, of Him who 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 235 
 
 exclaimed with bursting joy, "I praise Thee, O 
 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou 
 hast hid these things from the wise and prudent 
 and hast revealed them unto babes." 
 
 Such is my first reason; the second is this: If 
 God exists it is evident that our relation to Him 
 must be one of dependence and humility. Now, 
 I remark that the intellect alone does not pro- 
 duce these dispositions. Why .-' Because the 
 intellect examines, criticises, and judges: these 
 are its proper functions. Now, it is the tendency 
 of him who judges to place himself above him 
 who is judged, or at least on a relation of equality 
 with him. Is it after this manner, I ask you, that 
 he can meet God } Let me suppose a man thus 
 approaching the Gospel; he studies the history 
 of Jesus Christ; it is to him, if you will, a sub- 
 ject of great and curious interest; he examines, 
 he wonders, he compares; then he perceives that 
 between one gospel and another, there arises a 
 first difference, then a second; he meets here 
 and there supernatural facts which evidently he 
 cannot accept; he concludes that it is almost 
 impossible to accept the authenticity of the 
 sacred narrative. For him the question is set- 
 tled, the Gospel is judged, and in good faith he 
 
236 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 believes the problem solved, for he has only 
 seen here a question of historical criticism. 
 
 But here is another man who seeks the truth 
 with sorrow, with anguish; he suffers and he 
 feels himself guilty. Will you say that these are 
 unfavorable conditions for reaching the truth ? 
 Yes, apparently, if it were a question of mathe- 
 matics; but for this man it is a question of know- 
 ing the law of his destiny, it is a question of 
 knowing whether his life is ruled by fatality or 
 by the love of God. Will you say that he has 
 not a right to try to satisfy his conscience and his 
 heart .'' What ! you admit that he is solving all 
 problems, and that he should leave unsolved 
 the very ones which disturb the lowest depths 
 of his being ! By what right would you forbid 
 him .'' Now, this man opens the Gospel, he lis- 
 tens to Jesus Christ, and lo, he understands what 
 God is for him, and what he should be toward 
 God. To the ideal of holiness which Jesus 
 Christ presents to him, his conscience responds 
 with a profound consent. "Yes," he says to him- 
 self, "if God exists, this is just what He must 
 ask of me ! " But what a distance between that 
 ideal and his life ! He recognizes it sadly, and 
 the cause of his miseries and his sufferings ap- 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 237 
 
 pears to him clear and distinct. He feels him- 
 self guilty; the more he studies himself, the 
 more has he need of pardon, and when this par- 
 don is presented to him in its magnificence and 
 holiness, he believes in it, he accepts it, because 
 this is what he needs. 
 
 I have traced here the history of more than 
 one of those who hear me. It is just in this way 
 we are brought back to God; our troubled con- 
 science, our heart deceived by the world have 
 led us back to Him more surely and more quickly 
 than reason would have done. Well ! when we 
 have re-entered by this path into order, into the 
 true life of obedience and of a holy love, who 
 will dare tell us that we are deceived } 
 
 Thus, in the name of the Gospel, in the name 
 of the experience of all believing souls, we say 
 again to those who are seeking God: Search, but 
 remember that the God of truth does not reveal 
 himself to curious minds. Quit that lofty atti- 
 tude from the height of which you pretend to 
 dictate to Him the conditions upon which you 
 will deign to surrender yourselves. Listen to 
 the voice within which accuses you; listen to the 
 deep unrest, the groanings of your heart which 
 longs for pardon, for love and for peace; bow 
 
238 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 yourselves as sinners, before the God of holi- 
 ness, humble yourselves, for this becomes you; 
 it is to the humble, the Scripture has said, that 
 the Almighty points out the path which leads 
 to Himself. 
 
 My third reason is this. If there is religious 
 truth, it ought to make us better. You think 
 as I do, for a thousand observations which es- 
 cape you proceed from this principle, and when- 
 ever you see injustice, pride and avarice allied 
 to religion you pronounce thereupon a sentence 
 which accords with what I assert. Yes, religion 
 ought to make us better; and this recalls to me 
 one of the most beautiful sayings of antiquity. 
 
 Socrates was talking with one of his disciples, 
 and by one of those prophetic flashes which 
 strike us in his teachings, he announced that 
 one day a personage would come who would re- 
 veal what God is. "Let Him come, let Him 
 come," replied his disciple, " let Him command 
 me as He will. I will do everything, provided 
 He makes me better! " Admirable word ! Pro- 
 vided that He make me better. Ah ! he who 
 said that, was not far from the kingdom of 
 heaven. Well, what is the shortest way to make 
 ourselves better, to transform ourselves, to sane- 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 239 
 
 tify ourselves ? Will you hesitate to reply ? Do 
 you not see every day men who know and do 
 not, men capable of admiring everything even 
 the purest sacrifices, and incapable themselves 
 of sacrificing anything. And you yourselves, 
 have you not groaned to see how mere knowl- 
 edge is powerless to change the will ? You saw 
 the good, but you were incapable of doing it. 
 You contemplated holiness, and you remained 
 slaves to evil desires. It is that you lacked the 
 inspiration; it is that to ask knowledge alone to 
 change the man is to ask the pale winter sun 
 to ripen the fruit, and make the harvest golden. 
 It is the heart that must be touched. It is to 
 the heart that the God of the Gospel speaks, 
 because, as the Scriptures so admirably express 
 it, " out of the heart are the issues of life." 
 — Prov. iv. 23. 
 
 I have shown the part which the heart takes 
 in the search after truth. 
 
 Now, the heart, my brethren, has its own 
 language, and this language is called prayer. 
 Does the heart deceive itself when it thirsts for 
 love, and when it believes that infinite love can 
 hear and answer it .■* Are you sure that the 
 heavens are empty ? Were those deceivers who, 
 
240 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 before you and in your own day, have accom- 
 plished the hoHest work, the most difficult self- 
 sacrifice, and who say that their strength was 
 drawn from that secret spring of prayer ? We 
 weary ourselves with vain reasonings, we ask 
 ourselves, whence we come and whither we go; 
 but can we not say these words, '* O thou who 
 has made us, deign to deliver me from my 
 doubt and misery ? " Who cannot pray thus ? 
 Who is not inexcusable, if he does not try to 
 found his faith on prayer ? 
 
 "Indeed, prayer is ever on our lips in our 
 intercourse with our fellow men. God has not 
 intended that we should be sufficient unto 
 ourselves; and in like manner it has been His 
 will to give us that by which our mutual needs 
 may be satisfied, in such a way that we may 
 always be subject to asking and being asked." ^ 
 Every human society rests thus upon mutual de- 
 pendence, and prayer forms the very woof of it; 
 it passes continually from one to the other, 
 knitting between us ties of sympathy, of obliga- 
 tion, of gratitude, of reconciliation, of reciprocal 
 condescension. A society without prayer — have 
 you ever thought of it .'' — would be barbarism, it 
 
 » Aug. Nicolas, "The Art of Dclicviiiij," II. 83. 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 241 
 
 would be the isolation of selfishness and death. 
 You feel it, and yet you, who pray to men, do not 
 understand that you must pray to God, and that 
 here in this dependence so reasonable of the 
 creature upon the Creator, of the sinner upon 
 Him who pardons, of the child upon his Father, 
 is found the source of life, of light, and of truth. 
 Believe in your heart, which calls upon God, 
 which brings His name to your lips in all your 
 griefs. Seek God, follow Him, ask and it shall 
 be given you. 
 
 I have told you how you must seek for God. 
 To this first counsel I add another. Place your- 
 self in direct contact with Jesus Christ who alone 
 has revealed God to us. How many doubts will 
 then vanish imperceptibly ! First of all, intel- 
 lectual doubts. You had compared systems, dis- 
 cussed contrary arguments, and in this chaos of 
 opposite opinions you fluctuated irresolute, but 
 you were brought near to the Master, you heard 
 Him, and a calm ensued. Whence did it come .-* 
 From the prestige or the eloquence of His word } 
 You had no thought of it; it was the radiance 
 of the truth directly penetrating your heart; His 
 words fell upon you with an accent of irresistible 
 authorit}'; even as He spoke, it seemed to you 
 
242 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 that .the sky opened and unrolled itself before 
 your eyes. How many the doubts and objections 
 which have thus fallen at the feet of Jesus Christ 
 in the hour of sorrow, of mourning and death, 
 just when human words are so absolutely power- 
 less ! How many souls comforted by His simple 
 touch ! It has been truly said, that one is not 
 warmed simply by knowing what elements com- 
 pose the sun and by what laws it shines upon us. 
 Better a thousand times to put one's self under 
 its rays. It is the same with the Sun of souls. 
 And it is also by the light of Jesus Christ that 
 you will see the doubts vanish which come to 
 you from the view of life and the apparent fatal- 
 ity of things. 
 
 I have shown you how this view disturbs 
 faith; first in seeing the life of Christians, in 
 witnessing their faults and their falls, the con- 
 clusion is drawn that the Gospel is without in- 
 fluence; and then in seeing them left like others 
 to the thousand hazards which seem like chance 
 — it is concluded that God does not interpose 
 in their destiny. Well! do you not feel that 
 these doubts will surely disappear for him who 
 is in close communion with Jesus Christ, who 
 thinks of Him and listers to Him .'' He will 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 243 
 
 be the first doubtless ^to see the faults of Chris- 
 tians, he will deplore them, he will grieve over 
 them, but they will never make the believer 
 forget the splendor, the moral beauty which 
 he sees in Jesus Christ Himself. Yes, I confess, 
 it, the miseries of believers, their meanness, 
 their sordid passions, their harshness, their bitter 
 judgments, are one of the mysteries which most 
 painfully perplex us; but, shall I say it, it is 
 when seeing how imperfect the best are, how 
 under the most benign influences the heart can 
 become hard, that the Gospel seems to me 
 so much the more beautiful, sublime and di- 
 vine. This atmosphere so serene and so pure, 
 I feel that it does not rise from here below, 
 that it verily descends from the skies. And as 
 to the doubts which come from the apparent 
 fatality to which God abandons us, who can bet- 
 ter forewarn us against them than the Gospel } 
 Is it not here that we are continually brought 
 face to face with the plan of God in our educa- 
 tion .'' Is it not here that we learn to walk by faith 
 and not by sight } Where are illusions encour- 
 aged in the Gospel .'' When have you ever seen a 
 page of it, even a line, painting your existence in 
 false colors and warranting you to count upon out- 
 
244 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 ward signs radiant with Divine agency? When 
 have you seen here that the multitude would 
 be on the side of truth, that the Christian life 
 would be easy, that the church would escape the 
 humiliating conditions which the miseries and 
 weaknesses of her own children joined to the op- 
 position of the world make for her ? 
 
 Disciples of the nineteenth century, remember 
 the first disciples, remember the trouble which 
 filled their souls when they saw their Master 
 crucified; remember their distress, their discour- 
 agement, their bitter despair. And yet, did the 
 Master hide that death from them ? Did He ever 
 proclaim to them success and popularity ? Had 
 He not often held up before their eyes His 
 bloody cross ? Yes, if they had remembered 
 His words at the critical hour, they would not 
 have doubted; but, infatuated by their own 
 dreams of earthly grandeur, they did not even 
 listen to Him. Disciples of to-day, how many 
 of your doubts would disappear if you knew how 
 to wait at the feet of the Master and listen to 
 Him.? 
 
 I have tried to point out to you, my brethren, 
 how you can regain Christian truth when it is 
 hidden to your eyes. I have shown you the 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 245 
 
 paths by which many prodigals have returned to 
 their Father's house. Before leaving this subject 
 there are yet two counsels I would like to give 
 you. 
 
 The first, which I have already given when 
 speaking of convictions in general, and which 
 appears to me even more necessary when the 
 question is as to Christian faith, is this: when 
 your beliefs are shaken upon a point, even upon 
 an important point, take care that you do not 
 thence conclude, by a blind and hasty logic, 
 that your entire faith must be involved in the 
 fall of one of your convictions. Hold fast, ra- 
 ther, then, more than ever, the truths in which 
 you yet believe, and live up to what remains to 
 you while waiting to recover what you have lost. 
 I know that this is not the way in which many 
 believers regard it. It is a very popular saying 
 with certain men of authority, and one that un- 
 belief loves to repeat, "All or nothing." All 
 truth, or absolutQ doubt; all light, or all dark- 
 ness. I know this maxim, and in the name of 
 the Gospel and of experience, I call it a misera- 
 ble sophism. 
 
 They tell us, " Truth is one ! No one has the 
 right not to accept the whole of it; who touches 
 
246 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 one stone makes the whole edifice totter." Yes, 
 without doubt truth is one in itself; but truth in 
 itself is one thing, the truth in the mind of him 
 who receives it is another. Now, do we receive 
 the whole of it in a day .■' Are you to-day where 
 you were yesterday ! Have we, you and I, ap- 
 prehended the same truth in the same manner } 
 We must always return here to the example of 
 the Master. How did Jesus form His disciples } 
 Did He impose upon them truth in subjecting 
 them to His authority } Did He bow their 
 heads and their hearts under an inflexible sys- 
 tem .'' Undoubtedly He commands them to be- 
 lieve, and a moment ago I showed you why. 
 But is that a forced belief.'* And do you not 
 remember at the same time His wonderful con- 
 descension. His respect for the human soul, the 
 Divine patience with which He bears the errors 
 of His disciples, their failures, their prejudices, 
 their backslidings, — that patience which never 
 failed Him, but when He sees obstinate unbelief, 
 when He must needs cry out, " O faithless and 
 perverse generation, how long shall I bear with 
 you .'' " Is faith with Him the full-grown tree .'' Is 
 it not rather the grain of mustard seed which must 
 slowly ripen and germinate ? Did all those who 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 247 
 
 followed Him at once understand Him in the 
 same way ? Thomas and Philip, did they think 
 all at once as Peter thought, and feel as John the 
 beloved apostle felt ? And the training to which 
 the Master subjected them, ought it not to show 
 us in every age how sincere souls reach the 
 truth ? 
 
 And yet men go on saying, " all or noth- 
 ing," and we have the sorrow of seeing, in 
 France, souls vacillating between 'absolute un- 
 belief and a religious system which logically 
 applied would take us back to the Middle Ages ! 
 Behold that young man until now quietly bend- 
 ing beneath the yoke of the Church; one day in 
 his studies, he learns that the court of Rome 
 solemnly condemned Galileo and repudiated the 
 detestable error of the movement of the earth. 
 That is enough ! For him, that day, Christi- 
 anity is wholly shaken — the Gospel, its hopes, 
 its teachings, Jesus Christ and His cross, even 
 moral life itself, all totter before his eyes, all 
 plunge into the void of a universal scepticism. 
 
 Well, we must say it boldly that this is 
 folly, we must reject such a method which 
 in enforcing truth spreads unbelief and death. 
 What ! Because upon one point your faith is 
 
248 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 troubled, will you abandon all the rest ? Be- 
 cause in the Old Testament you meet with facts 
 which surprise you and which confound you, will 
 you cease to bow before Jesus Christ ? Because 
 in the teaching of Christ Himself, there are some 
 words before which you stop hesitatingly, will 
 you listen to it no more ? No ! no ! my brother, 
 you will not do it. On the contrary, in these di- 
 vine words, you will grasp those which touch your 
 heart by an irresistible evidence, you will walk 
 by the light which is given you, you will re- 
 member that to him who has shall be given, 
 you will not hide your talent because you have 
 received but one ; faithful in the little you 
 have received you will receive more, and who 
 knows but that one day you will precede us in 
 the kingdom of heaven ? 
 
 Finally I say to you, and it is with this I will 
 close, act according to your faith, do the works 
 of your faith. You believe that God is holy, 
 and that your life should be pure; you believe 
 that God is love and that we must love even 
 to sacrifice; do this, and I venture to say to 
 you, that to-morrow you will have more faith. I 
 remember what my Master replied to those who 
 came to Him and asked Him what they must do 
 
THE STATE OF DOUBT. 249 
 
 I 
 
 to obtain everlasting life. " Fulfil the law," said 
 He to them. It is not that any one is able to 
 do this. And if we could, why should Jesus 
 Christ have come on earth, why the cross, why 
 redemption.'' But is it not in seeking to fulfil the 
 law to the end, that one learns to understand 
 one's self, to sound his misery, to despair of his 
 strength, and to demand a Saviour .-* Candid 
 doubter who listens to me, I have often heard 
 you say that if there was nothing in the Gospel 
 but the sermon on the mount, you would accept 
 it wholly. Now I take you at your word, and I 
 say to you: carry out the sermon on the mount, 
 and if you do it faithfully, I will await the re- 
 sult, and I will meet you humbled, repentant, 
 and Christian. 
 
 Yes, suffer for truth and righteousness, become 
 poor in your own eyes, try to pardon those who 
 offend you and to love them, avoid not only the 
 crime but the evil desire, the first, appearance 
 of hatred and the unchaste look; hide in the 
 darkness thy beneficence; pray in secret; be, in 
 a word, if thou canst, perfect as your heavenly 
 Father is perfect; and then come to-morrow and 
 tell us like the rich young man, "all these things 
 have I done," and I will reply, "yet one thing 
 
250 THE STATE OF DOUBT. 
 
 thou lackest: go and free thyself from the il- 
 lusions which blind thee. Foolish man, thou 
 thinkest thou hast fulfilled the law, and seest 
 not that thou art poor and miserable and naked." 
 
 Yes, take the law in earnest, and in the name 
 of the Gospel, in the name of all men who 
 through the law have arrived at grace, I will 
 say to thee, " Obey the truth, and the truth 
 shall make thee free." Jesus Christ said, " He 
 who follows me shall not walk in darj:ness." 
 He did not say, " He who looks at me," He 
 said, " He who follows me." 
 
 Follow Him, my brethren, in humility, in self- 
 denial, in sacrifice. Then, convinced of all you 
 lack, weak, burdened with the sense of your mis- 
 ery, you will call for deliverance and you will 
 seek for pardon; then to you will be fulfilled the 
 words of my text, "Unto the upright there aris- 
 eth light in the darkness." Amen. 
 
X. 
 
 ©iscouraçjrmrnt 
 
X. 
 
 ÎBisrouraçjrmcnt, 
 
 " T have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and 
 in vain; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and îiiy work with 
 my God.'''' — Isaiah xlix, 4. 
 
 Each epoch has its special temptations and 
 trials. In the spiritual as in the physical world 
 we find at certain times widely prevailing dis- 
 eases, so much the more formidable because 
 while all are subjected to their influence, none 
 perceives the whole danger of it. Now, for 
 Christians of to-day, one of these maladies is 
 discouragement. 
 
 Discouragement ! not in that acute and pas- 
 sionate form which strikes us in the bitter and 
 despairing complaints of the prophets and be- 
 lievers of other centuries. We know little of 
 those inner dramas, those outburstings of great 
 
2 54 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 souls deceived by the heart-rending spectacle of 
 life and of the world. We suffer from a less vio- 
 lent ill, less dangerous in appearance, but dull, 
 slow, and treacherous. 
 
 Many causes explain it to us. The human mind, 
 in its progressive march, passes by turns through 
 phases of assurance and of disturbance. There 
 are centuries when one sees truths generally ac- 
 cepted, which suffice fully for thought and action. 
 Such for example was the seventeenth century 
 when in the social order, monarchical traditions, 
 — in the religious order, the authority of the 
 Church with Catholics, that of the Bible with 
 Protestants, — were the very elements of every- 
 day life. And so, though in an entirely opposite 
 sense, was the close of the eighteenth century — 
 when confidence in the sovereignty of human 
 reason, in the natural goodness of man, in his 
 endless progress, intoxicated minds and hearts, 
 even to the moment when Terror, in its dread- 
 ful explosion, showed what there was undcrl)-ing 
 these dreams. 
 
 There are other centuries, when, far from be- 
 lieving and affirming, man, disconcerted, stops 
 and seeks out his path. What had been ac- 
 cepted hitherto no longer suffices him. lie 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 255 
 
 wants to analyze, to sift, to call in question 
 everything'. This tendency in itself is legiti- 
 mate, but it has its dangers. The property of 
 analysis is to decompose the objects which it 
 studies. Now it is evident that the analytical 
 spirit, if it predominate exclusively, is fatal to 
 the creative spirit, to enthusiasm, to religious 
 faith, to all those impulses by which the soul 
 instinctively seizes the sublimest truths. Take 
 it then for certain that at an epoch when anal- 
 ysis is carried to excess, the vital powers of the 
 soul become weak and are in danger of dying. 
 Now, one of the first fruits of this tendency in 
 religious minds, will be languor. How can one 
 love, act and believe, when at each of its aspira- 
 tions the soul finds planted before it a perhaps; 
 when in every man, beneath the heart which 
 feels and would fain live, there is the inquisi- 
 tive reason which discusses, which staggers, and 
 scoffs } 
 
 If this spirit of analysis is destructive to in- 
 dividual enthusiasm, it acts in a still more ener- 
 vating manner upon the collective life. Nothing 
 is more rare to-day than energetic action under 
 common impulses. The Church, like society, di- 
 vides itself up. Every one asserts his independ- 
 
256 DISCO URA G EM E NT. 
 
 X 
 
 ence, his right to examine; and often the spirit 
 of party alone replaces the unity which disap- 
 pears. I do not pass sentence upon this ten- 
 dency; I believe it providential, necessary. I be- 
 lieve that the external or wholly political bonds 
 which have hitherto united souls in the same 
 Church by right of birth and of tradition, should 
 be broken, and that in future it is upon the 
 ground of a common faith that unity should be 
 sought. 
 
 But without enlarging upon this thought which 
 does not fall in Avith my subject, I affirm that 
 this dull process of disintegration disturbs us 
 all; that, born to be members of a spiritual 
 famil}', made to love, to believe and suffer with 
 sister souls, and feeling all our moral strength 
 multiplied tenfold by sympathy, we do not pass 
 unscathed through our era; impulse fails us, and 
 for want of being drawn on by one of those vast 
 currents of life and of zeal which have often 
 swept over the world, we fall into apathy and 
 discouragement. 
 
 That is not all. Our age has another char- 
 acter; it is, it wants to be, practical. The enor- 
 mous progress of exact sciences and the wonders 
 of invention attract niiiids with strange force 
 
DISCOUR A G E MENT. 257 
 
 toward this lower world. Men believ-e in what 
 they touch, in what they feel. A scorn scarcely 
 dissembled confronts inquiries which reach be- 
 yond the world of sense or of pure logic. The 
 supernatural passes for mysticism, and this word, 
 with many, is a condemnation without appeal. 
 
 This tendency reacts on the Church. It is 
 certain that the same utilitarianism is invad- 
 ing it. A religion of facts and of sentiments 
 is desired. When preaching sets forth pre-emi- 
 nently the great Christian doctrines, when it 
 shows the divine supernatural side of revealed 
 truths, it loses its interest. Our hearers, without 
 knowing it, wish to have to do with man rather 
 than with God. If we speak to them of them- 
 selves, of their struggles, of their doubts, of 
 their temptations, of their sorrows, their sym- ^ 
 pathy and emotion are awakened. If we fathom 
 the revealed doctrine, their interest languishes. 
 But this, believe it, is fatal to the soul. It is 
 neither good nor healthful for man to dwell too 
 long upon himself; it is not thence that he will 
 ever draw strength and elevation. The Gospel 
 has wonderfully understood this, since it tends 
 always to lift our thoughts on high toward 
 "the hills from whence cometh our help"; on 
 
2^S DISCO URA G E ME NT. 
 
 high, that is, toward the upper world, toward 
 Him who when here was the living image of 
 the invisible God. The great epochs of life, of 
 ^ faith, of powerful action, have been those Avhcn 
 Heaven has opened upon humanity. Man in 
 depending upon himself, can become but a stoic, 
 and the last word of stoicism is despair and 
 suicide. Thus, always when religion is, and 
 wants to be, only human, it produces discour- 
 agement. 
 
 These are some of the causes which will ex- 
 plain to you the condition in which so many 
 souls languish at the present time. Add to 
 these the influence of certain tendencies of spirit 
 and temperament, causes entirely physical, which 
 act in a mysterious but powerful manner on the 
 moral state. Add to these that inclination which 
 the most serious minds have to look on the 
 sad side of human things. Add those tendencies 
 which exist in all ages, but which, in the gen- 
 eral condition which I have just described de- 
 velop with much more power and rapidity; — 
 and you will comprehend why nothing is rarer 
 in these days than that joyous, heroic, serene 
 faith which characterized other ages; you will 
 understand that discouragement is an enemy 
 
DISCO UNA G EM E NT. 259 
 
 which must be combated at all hazards. All 
 feel it, all mourn it. 
 
 In certain circles it is sought to escape from 
 it by excesses of feverish zeal. The imagination 
 is excited by the prospect of the immediate real- 
 ization of the promises of prophecy. There is 
 thus produced an enkindling more or less sin- 
 cere; but this galvanic excitement is soon fol- 
 lowed by a more profound prostration. These 
 fictitious but intermittent flashes only terminate 
 in changing this languor into incredulity. What 
 must be done then '^. you will say to me. I will 
 answer you, Build up your life on another foun- 
 dation than that of your passing impressions; fix 
 it upon the central, eternal truth which domi- 
 nates over the fluctuations of opinions and beliefs; 
 live in Jesus Christ; and upon the heights to 
 which this communion lifts you, breathe the vivi- 
 fying air which alone can give you strength. 
 Then only can you oppose faith to sight, the 
 eternal to the transitory, and thanksgiving to 
 discouragement. But this is to tell you that you 
 must be, must (it may be) become again. Chris- 
 tians. Now this remedy, the only efficacious 
 one for the evil under which we all suffer, is not 
 to be reached in a single day. 
 
26o DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 V 
 
 I agree to it; so, after having pointed it out to 
 you, I hasten to descend with you upon th6 
 ground of immediate action. Let us inquire un- 
 der what forms discouragement most frequently 
 takes possession of us, and by what weapons 
 it can be repulsed. This invisible and gloomy 
 enemy which attacks us secretly in the twilight 
 of our vacillating faith, let us bring it out to-day 
 into broad daylight; let us look at it with a firm 
 straightforward look: to understand it well, is 
 already to have half vanquished it. 
 
 In going to the bottom of things I discover 
 two principal causes of the discouragement of 
 the Christian. The first is the greatness of the 
 task which God sets before him; the second is 
 his inability to accomplish it. 
 
 I say first, the greatness of the task which 
 God sets before us. What ! doubtless some en- 
 thusiastic soul will reply to me, is it not this 
 very greatness which kindles in the heart of the 
 Christian an ambition that nothing can extin- 
 guish .-* Yes, I agree to it, we are so constituted 
 that every time the ideal of love and holiness to 
 which the Gospel calls us, is presented to us in 
 its sublime beauty, our' heart vibrates with a 
 profound assent, and we feel that it is for this 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 26 1 
 
 end that we were created. But when we must 
 not only admire but act, when we must no longer 
 let the imagination kindle at a perfection which 
 ravishes it, but must realize this perfection in life, 
 then we measure with dismay the distance which 
 separates us from it, and discouragement seizes 
 us. 
 
 See what takes place in human affairs. Let a 
 commonplace mind propose some end common- 
 place like himself, it will cost him but little 
 trouble to attain it; artist, thinker or poet, he 
 will be easily satisfied. But let a true genius con- 
 ceive a sublime ideal, let him seek to reproduce 
 it, you will hear him mourn over his failures. 
 Each of his efforts will perhaps produce a chef- 
 d'œuvre which will satisfy everybody but himself. 
 It will be like the greatest poet of Rome com- 
 manding that his immortal work be burned at 
 his death; like Saint Cecilia, according to one 
 of the most beautiful legends of the middle 
 age, breaking her musical instruments when 
 she hears in the distance the chorus of angels. 
 
 Suppose now that the Scriptures had proposed 
 no other end for us to attain than worldly in- 
 tegrity, that wholly external probity which looks 
 to the outside of life, which confines itself to the 
 
202 D I SCOUR A CEMENT. 
 
 worship of honor and decorum. All would aim 
 at it without doubt, for all would be confident of 
 reaching it. But when it is a question of being 
 holy before God as well as before men, of sub- 
 jecting to the divine law not only our acts, 
 but our intentions, and of bowing day after day, 
 hour after hour, under the sanctifying discipline 
 of the Spirit of God, — then the further we ad- 
 vance, the farther off seems the end, and the 
 very greatness of our task rises before us some- 
 times, as before one in a nightmare there rises 
 a huge wall which must be scaled at all hazards. 
 Let us suppose again that the Gospel had 
 proposed to us no other ideal of charity than 
 the love of country, and that it called upon us 
 to seek in humanity only the triumph of a po- 
 litical system; none would recoil before this end. 
 But you all know that it demands something 
 other than this. You know that it prescribes 
 for us not only that love of our neighbors, 
 which is after all only an enlarged selfishness, 
 but charity, and, if need be, charity which goes 
 even as far as sacrifice; you know that it spreads 
 before us like an open field all the miseries, all 
 the sufferings of humanity; that it does not per- 
 mit us to ifjnore even the cries of distress which 
 
DISCO URA GEMENT. 263 
 
 come to us from the extremities of the world. 
 You know that it forbids us to repose in our 
 ease and in a satisfied selfishness; that it binds 
 us in some measure to all the sorrows which 
 surround us; that it cries out to us as to Cain, 
 " What hast thou done with thy brother ? " and 
 that before our cowardice, always ready to give 
 up this sublime task, it lifts up like an accusing 
 image, the bloodstained and divine form of cru- 
 cified Love. 
 
 Now, this is what terrifies us, this is what 
 wounds and irritates us. Oh ! how much more 
 would we prefer a religion which leaves us to 
 ourselves, and does not invade our independence 
 and lay its hand upon our heart ! Shall I dare 
 to say it } There are times when all the wicked 
 powers of our soul angrily revolt against that 
 law of love and holiness; times when we say 
 to God, " Why hast Thou made it known unto 
 me .'' Why, while others go along careless and 
 joyous, carried away at the will of their pleasure, 
 their interest and their lusts, why hast Thou put 
 before me this task which overwhelms me by its 
 very greatness } Why hast Thou created in my 
 conscience that thirst for holiness which troubles 
 all my wicked joys } Why hast Thou placed in 
 
204 DISCO URA G E ME NT. 
 
 my heart that love which poisons all my pleas- 
 ures and makes me feel, even in their delights, 
 their bitterness and the nothingness of their 
 vanity ? " 
 
 Thus do our foolish complainings ascend to 
 God, and yet, what would we wish Him to do ? 
 That He demand less of us, that He propose to 
 us less than holiness, less than love ? But what 
 a God would He be who would be satisfied in 
 this way ? Ah ! you would not believe in Him for 
 a single day. He would be inferior to you, and 
 your conscience would exact that which He Him- 
 self no longer exacted. My brethren, we must 
 choose, either to degrade the divine law to the 
 level of our base nature, or to raise our nature 
 to the level of the divine law. 
 
 Alas ! You know what most men are doing; 
 they are effacing, by continuous contact with the 
 world, the image of God engraven on their hearts, 
 deforming the soul in order to bend it to the ac- 
 cepted standard of morals, smothering the voice 
 of their conscience and heart. But you cannot 
 do this. If I should counsel you thus for a mo- 
 ment, if from this pulpit, in order to please your 
 selfishness, I preached a degraded standard of 
 morals, you might applaud me, but there would 
 
DISCO UK A G EMENT. 265 
 
 be something- in you which would despise my 
 preaching. No, you know too much to renounce 
 the ideal to which God calls you. All the rea- 
 sonings, all the sophisms of the world and of 
 your own heart will try in vain to bring about 
 the change. A voice, supreme, imperative, cries 
 out to you, that it is to God your life must be 
 brought back, to that God who owns you by 
 right of creation, and by right of salvation. In- 
 stead of degrading the divine law to the level 
 of your nature, the only solution to this terrible 
 problem which is worthy of God and of your- 
 selves is to elevate your nature to the level of the 
 law of God; but is this solution possible.'' It is, 
 for it ought to be; it is, because our conscience 
 affirms it to us; it is, because God declares it 
 to us; and He who knows of what we are made, 
 He who knows our miseries, our corruption, and 
 our incurable weakness, does not wish to present 
 to us any other end than to be like Him. Dare 
 to say He beguiles us, dare to say that He holds 
 up before us an end impossible of attainment, 
 that He trifles with us in creating in our souls a 
 desire without object, a hunger without appease, 
 a search without issue; — or, rather, believe in the 
 God of the Gospel who places before us the ideal, 
 
266 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 > 
 
 and incites us unceasingly to realize it; who calls 
 us, converts us, regenerates us, and after hav- 
 ing commenced the work of our salvation wishes 
 to continue and complete it. 
 
 But here I hear your objection. You agree 
 with me that the end which the Gospel pro- 
 poses to us is alone worthy of God and of your- 
 selves; but you oppose to me your experience, 
 you show me your languishing faith, your sta- 
 tionary life, your fruitless efforts, and you are 
 ready to repeat with the prophet, " As for me 
 I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength 
 for naught, and in vain." The ill success of his 
 labor is, as we have already said, the second 
 cause of the Christian's discouragement. 
 
 Before replying to you, my brethren, let me 
 recall to you a fact which you like myself may 
 have observed. Do you know what Christians 
 mourn the most deeply over the ill success of 
 their efforts .■' They are almost always the most 
 active and the most advanced Christians. Yes, 
 listen to it, that man whose sanctified life is a 
 model to you, who lives in the midst of the 
 world as not of the world, who preaches by 
 his works more than by his words, who, severe 
 toward himself, lenient toward others, astonishes 
 
DISCO URA G E ME NT. 267 
 
 you by his vigilance, his self-denial, his charity. 
 You will hear him mourn over his weaknesses, 
 his lukewarmness, his little zeal: you will hear 
 him speak with a sincere dismay of all the boun- 
 ties God has bestowed on him for so many years, 
 of the responsibility which weighs on his soul, of 
 the time he has lost, of the opportunities he has 
 missed; you will hear him apply to himself with- 
 out affectation the most humiliating passages of 
 Scripture, and ask God to pardon even his good 
 works where his own eye recognizes the tares 
 with the wheat, and the dirt mixed with the 
 pure gold. Or yet again, draw near to those 
 giants of the spiritual order, those workmen of 
 God who in different ages have been called Elijah, 
 St. Paul, Chrysostom, St. Bernard, Luther, or 
 Whitfield, and who confound you by the immense 
 work which they have accomplished: — you will 
 hear them groan under the small results of their 
 works. Elijah cries out to God: " Take away my 
 life, I am not better than my fathers." Isaiah 
 pronounces the words of my text: "I have spent 
 my strength for naught, and in vain." St. Paul 
 trembles in fear of having been a useless la- 
 borer; St. Bernard expresses in his last letters 
 the painful feeling of having accomplished al- 
 
268 nrSCOURAGEMRNT. 
 
 most nothing. Calvin dying said to those who 
 surrounded him: " All that I have done has been 
 of no value. The wicked will gladly seize upon 
 this word. But I repeat it, all that I have 
 done has been of no value, and I am a miser- 
 able creature."^ 
 
 What must we conclude .'' That these men 
 did nothing.^ No, but, that in the presence 
 of the ideal which God has put in their heart, 
 their work appeared to them almost lost. It 
 is in effect, my brethren, that it enters into 
 God's plan to conceal from us almost always 
 the results of what we do for Him. In oth- 
 er domains the success of truth appears often 
 visible, illustrious. Here it seems as if the 
 seed were lost, the bread swallowed up under 
 the waters on which it was cast, and all work in 
 the end remained fruitless. 
 
 Why does God will it .-* First of all, doubtless, 
 that faith may be exercised. Picture, if but an 
 instant, a Christian life, where each effort will 
 bear its fruits, where response will follow prayer, 
 harvest seed-time, and the joy of deliverance 
 long and painful sacrifices. In such a case who 
 would not be a Christian, who would not want 
 ' Les Lettres Françaises de Calvin, II. p. 576. 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 269 
 
 to be one at this price ? Self-interest would be 
 the first motive with all, and the kingdom of God 
 would be peopled with mercenaries. But where 
 would be the sublime spectacle of the faith which 
 hopes, which waits and acts without seeing, and 
 how could God glorify Himself therein ? But 
 God does not wish to be served by mercenaries. 
 He often hides from His children the fruit of 
 their labors, to the end that they may work for 
 Him and not for themselves; He hides it from 
 them in order that they may find in Him their 
 recompense, and not in the result of their work, 
 nor in the outward success which would take 
 the place of His approbation, nor even in the 
 progress of a sanctified life, for perfection apart 
 from Him might become an idol. 
 
 But it is not only to strengthen our faith that 
 God treats us thus, it is also to humble us. Ah! 
 my brethren, how seldom is it that man can bear 
 success, and not bend under its weight ! You 
 have often in the world admired a great man 
 from a distance; as long as you knew only his 
 works, he seemed to you placed on a pedestal, a 
 prestige surrounded him, everything about him 
 seemed on the level of his genius, and you would 
 have believed him elevated far above all our 
 
270 DISCO URA CEMENT. 
 
 littleness. So have you thought until you got 
 a close view of him ; then you were aston- 
 ished to find in that soul of savant, artist, or 
 writer, all the miseries that overexcited self-love 
 and vanity can develop; you have seen him, a 
 prey to sordid envies, depreciate his rivals, deny 
 the genius of others, unite pedantry with osten- 
 tation; you have seen the finest talents asso- 
 ciated with the smallest character, and you 
 have grieved over humanity because of it. Do I 
 draw here an imaginary picture, and is it not a 
 fact a thousand times observed } There is in 
 success an intoxication which few men can bear. 
 Picture to yourself, then, success in a divine 
 work becoming thus a source of intoxication to 
 him who obtains it, seducing his mind, swelling 
 his heart and filling it with vanity the most un- 
 worthy, at the very moment when he is talking 
 of what is grandest, most sacred in the world. 
 Picture to yourself, oh the blasphemy of it, a St. 
 Paul, full of himself, intoxicated with his own 
 glory, seeking to make a name for himself, work- 
 ing but for his own interests. Now this is the 
 scandal which God would spare His Church, and, 
 while in all other domains the most ardent self- 
 ishness and the most glaring pride often attain 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 27 1 
 
 the grandest results, God has willed that, in His 
 kingdom, the empire of souls shall belong only 
 to those who renounce themselves. Thus, in 
 order to save His servants from the intoxication 
 of success, it pleases Him to hide from them the 
 result of their work and to send them in the 
 midst of their most fruitful activity the most bit- 
 ter incitements to discouragement. Severe dis- 
 cipline of love, by which He recovers those whom 
 He loves, and chastises those whom He makes 
 His chosen instruments ! 
 
 It is not only humility which He teaches them 
 in this school, it is moreover gentleness and 
 compassion. Success alone will never develop 
 these. Success gives strength. Strength ! Ah ! 
 that is a great deal, without doubt: but some- 
 thing besides strength is needed to do good here 
 below. If there are times when a strong arm 
 is necessary, there are other times when what 
 is most necessary is a soft and delicate hand 
 which does not break the bruised reed. When 
 Jesus pronounced that sublime word, " Come 
 unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden 
 and I will give you rest," He did not add, 
 " Come unto Me, for I am strong," He said, 
 *' Come unto Me, for I am meek and lowly of 
 
272 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 heart." Admirable expression which shows all 
 the power of the lowly, hidden virtues of ten- 
 derness and of compassion. These virtues He 
 possessed to the full, He whom the Bible calls 
 by turns the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God. 
 But He will produce them — Oh the marvel of 
 it ! — in a former Pharisee, in Saul of Tarsus. He 
 will make of this hero of the faith, of this giant, 
 this invincible wrestler, a man who can write to 
 the Thessalonians, " I was gentle amon^ you, 
 even as a nurse cherisheth her children." He will 
 produce in this rugged, haughty, proud nature 
 the most delicate features of the most exquisite 
 charity. How will He do it .'' By breaking His 
 power, by leaving a thorn in the flesh, by ex- 
 ercising Him in the austere school of patience. 
 Is it not this that can alone explain to you the 
 gentleness of Paul, and that tender solicitude for 
 the feeble which throbs all through his epistles. 
 Well, I appeal to yourselves, when you are 
 suffering, when your soul wavers under doubt, 
 do you need then one of those strong souls, 
 whose serene and never troubled faith ignores 
 your perplexities .-* No, you need a soul, which 
 like your own, has mourned, which has suffered 
 with your sufferings, known your doubts, fol- 
 
DISCO URA CEMENT. 273 
 
 lowed your obscure paths. O my brethren, all 
 ye who have known, as we, the sorrows of dis- 
 couragement, you who have prayed without a 
 response, have labored without result, what was 
 it that most consoled you in those bitter hours ? 
 Was it not such avowals as this of my text ? 
 When you have heard an Elijah groan because 
 of having labored in vain, an Isaiah crying, " I 
 have spent my strength for naught and in vain," 
 have you not blessed those sister souls, in whom 
 you may recognize your own struggles, your 
 griefs, your pains, and have you not felt your 
 heart become calm, your faith grow strong, in 
 seeing that at so many centuries distance you 
 are but enduring the trials from which these 
 great believers came out victorious ? 
 
 Here is the reason, my brethren, so far at 
 least as we can understand it, why God conceals 
 from us the fruit of our labors. Mark it well, 
 however, that this fruit is only hidden; it will 
 appear in due time. No, no one in serving the 
 Lord has the right to say, " I have labored in 
 vain." Let him say it who has succeeded in 
 everything, and who has cared only for him- 
 self — him who has seen his coffers filled, his 
 schemes realized and prosperity surpassing his 
 
2 74 DISCO URA CEMENT. 
 
 hopes. Let him say it even when all come to 
 congratulate him on his immense labor, on his 
 life so well filled up, on his enormous success; 
 for, in working for himself alone, he has done 
 but a work of naught. But the believer who 
 has referred his life to God, though he has 
 been able only to accomplish in secret the 
 humblest of works, though he has been able 
 only to mourn in forced inaction and in sick- 
 ness, has never the right to say, " 'Tis in vain 
 I have labored." There is no work so small 
 that God does not accept and reward it, if it 
 has been prompted by love to Him. You never 
 know all the good you do, when you do good. 
 Those heroes of the Bible when, faithful to duty, 
 they humbly died to accomplish it, did they 
 know what a heritage of strength, courage, and 
 edification they were leaving to all the cen- 
 turies to come .'' When St. Stephen, the first of 
 the martyrs, sinking under the blows of those 
 who stoned him, lifted heavenward an angelic 
 look and prayed for his executioners, did he 
 know that that look and that prayer would 
 make upon the conscience of one of the wit- 
 nesses of that scene an indelible impression, 
 and that, by a wonderful union the magnificent 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 275 
 
 apostolate of Paul would be connected with his 
 death ? 
 
 And you, when you utter an humble and firm 
 word of testimony to the truth, do you know 
 whither the wind will carry that precious seed 
 and in what heart it will take root ? Do you 
 know what result will follow some day from that 
 sacrifice which was unobserved, that devotion 
 which is despised, that patient love which seems 
 to remain without fruit ? 
 
 And even when nothing of it shall remain upon 
 the earth, and the indifference of the world shall 
 seem to conceal forever your labors and your 
 sacrifices, there will be left you the consolation 
 of the prophet, " My judgment is with the Lord, 
 and my work with my God." Yes, this it is 
 which ever constitutes the strength of the Chris- 
 tian. Solitary, deserted, despised by men, he 
 has for witness, for approver, for judge, the in- 
 visible Master, whom nothing escapes and by 
 whom nothing is forgotten. God has seen him, 
 that suffices him; he has not lost his reward. 
 
 Does this imply, my brethren, that I would ap- 
 peal indirectly to interested motives, and exhort 
 you to labor with the view of assured wages .■* 
 We are often reproached with this; I hear to- 
 
2 76 DISCOUR A CEMENT. 
 
 day a haughty philosophy tell us that after all we 
 only know how to work for success; I hear our 
 modern stoics thus assail, from the height of 
 their serenity, our hope in the final recompense. 
 They tell us, these pretended sages, that the 
 approbation of conscience suffices, and that the 
 honest man needs nothing more. What do they 
 mean by this .'* That the good should be loved 
 for itself, and not from a motive outside of the 
 good, that God should be served not because He 
 rewards, but because He is the truth itself.^ Is 
 this their idea .'' But we have said this before 
 them, and a thousand times have we in the name 
 of the gospel combated that servile, interested 
 spirit, which seeks its own while pretending to 
 serve God. But while condemning the grosser 
 motive, the inferior allurement of recompense, 
 shall we go so far as to say that the approval 
 of conscience suffices .'' No, my brethren, this 
 were to ignore human nature, to crush its best 
 instincts. We cannot be our own end, nor our 
 own judge; we cannot be a reward unto our- 
 selves. We must have a witness of our conduct, 
 a look which encolu-agcs us, a heart which un- 
 derstands us. What demands it also is that 
 imperative need of justice which wills that the 
 
DISCO UNA CEMENT. 277 
 
 good never come to naught, but that it find its 
 sanction in the disposition, in the approbation of 
 the universal Judge. If you only leave to man 
 his conscience, you will have the grand but hope- 
 less spectacle of the stoicism which commits sui- 
 cide in order to escape from the triumph of evil. If 
 on the contrary you show us a God who under- 
 stands us, who encourages us, who counts our 
 sighs, our tears, our sacriiices, you kindle in the 
 heart of humanity a courage which nothing can 
 extinguish, not even the bitterest ill-success. 
 Count, if you can, all the souls which this feel- 
 ing alone upholds against despair. 
 
 Often on Sunday morning when we unite in 
 our songs and prayers, and feel our faith grow 
 strong in fraternal communion, I think of those 
 from whom these blessings are withheld; I think 
 of that isolated pastor, pursuing laboriously his 
 ministry in the midst of an indifferent or perhaps 
 hostile people, praying without response, preach- 
 ing without success, and forced to say in looking 
 back — " I have labored in vain, I have spent my 
 strength for naught and in vain " ; I think of 
 that missionary stationed in a pagan land, gath- 
 ering together a few proselytes who scarcely un- 
 derstand him, and feeling that all the aspirations 
 
278 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 of his heart are withering under a freezing indif- 
 ference, a stupid and gloomy opposition. For 
 such, each of these Sundays, which are the 
 church's festivals, is as it were a new trial of 
 faith, when the bitter sense of the vanity of their 
 efforts comes to haunt them unceasingly. Ah ! 
 my brethren, these are the heroes of the faith. 
 One often looks at ministers who are encouraged 
 by success and says of them, "What ardor! what 
 zeal ! " As for me, I would say to you, even as 
 Jesus Christ, " Is it there you look .-'" Is it a great 
 task and a very difficult mission to preach to 
 sympathetic hearts and minds, to speak the truth 
 where one is sure beforehand that it will be lis- 
 tened to and perhaps accepted ? Ah ! if God in 
 His divine wisdom did not see fit to join to such 
 a ministry secret crosses and hidden humiliations, 
 how much reason would there be to fear that in 
 pursuing it one is walking by sight rather than 
 by faith, that the approbation of man takes the 
 place of the approbation of God ! No, the real 
 combatants, the true heroes are those in unknown 
 and inglorious posts, confronting alone an incred- 
 ulous world, alone in believing, in hoping, in lov- 
 ing, called by a severe dispensation to sow with- 
 out reaping, and scoffed at perhaps by an unbelief 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 279 
 
 which thrusts at them the word of the psalm, 
 "What is thy God doing?" 
 
 Ah ! I know that God who sees them and 
 knows their anguish, reserves for them secret 
 compensations; I know that in their isolation, 
 they advance farther than we in the communion 
 of Christ's sufferings, and that they feel more 
 closely united to the crucified Witness of un- 
 heeded truth, who saw His own ministry despised, 
 who reached out His arms to a rebellious people, 
 who wept over Jerusalem, and whose dying eyes 
 gazed upon a people who cursed Him. But what 
 would they do, I ask you, if they had not this 
 refuge ? What would they do if they could not 
 say with the prophet, " My judgment is with the 
 Lord, and my work with my God." 
 
 But why choose these extreme examples ? 
 After all, mark it well, this trial is the lot of all 
 of us, if we are truly disciples of Jesus Christ. 
 The best part of our life escapes the world, for 
 the world sees but the exterior. There are vir- 
 tues, sacrifices, which are recompensed here on 
 earth by recognition and love. But this is the 
 exception. Do you know what keeps the world 
 alive, do you know what saves humanity .!* It is 
 those thousands of obscure acts, of unknown de- 
 
28o DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 votions, of silent sacrifices of which God alone 
 is witness, and which would not happen but for 
 Him. Yes, if there are Christian nations who 
 carry with them the future of the world — that is 
 to say progress, liberty, faith and hope — if there 
 is on earth an asylum for the suffering, if there is 
 a church where the gospel can be preached, all 
 this had not been possible, be sure of it, except by 
 virtue of heroism in the past, of self-sacrifices 
 buried in oblivion. Like those Roman walls, 
 formed of small stones joined by an imperish- 
 able cement, which have braved the assaults of 
 centuries, the foundations of the church are 
 formed of small virtues which none can ever 
 estimate. 
 
 We are the inheritors of eighteen centuries of 
 sacrifices, and of these the world sees but the 
 least part. No ear hath heard, no voice will 
 rehearse all of the anguish, nor of the firm- 
 ness, the sublime courage which is hidden in 
 those cells, in those dungeons where the martyrs 
 of the faith have yielded up their lives by thou- 
 sands; nor can any one tell all of the forgivings, 
 the generous forgettings, the sacrifices, the vic- 
 tories over the flesh and over pride, which the 
 Christian faith accomplishes every day in our 
 
DISCO URA G EM E NT. 2 8 1 
 
 own midst. But how would these dearly bought 
 triumphs, which often cost so many tears, be pos- 
 sible if the Christian were not able to say, " My 
 judgment is with the Lord and my work with my 
 God ? " 
 
 To work then, discouraged souls ! Shake off 
 that gloomy torpor which paralyzes you, that 
 unhealthy sadness in which you delight. To 
 work ! And do not add to the many days lost 
 in the past, as many new days given up to a 
 fruitless regret. Oh, that you may bring to the 
 service of the adorable Master all that world- 
 lings know how to give of their time, heart and 
 life, to that vanity which destroys them ! Is it 
 not in the service of the world that it may be 
 said, " I have labored in vain ! I have spent my 
 strength for naught and in vain } " And if one 
 does not say it to-day while dazzled by its fleet- 
 ing lustre, will he not be compelled to say it 
 at that dreadful moment when illusion will be 
 impossible, when Death will speak, when the 
 world can no longer offer consolation or hope, 
 and when account must be rendered to God of 
 the talents He has confided to us. O despair ! 
 O misery ! To have lived only for self; to have 
 played perhaps a great rôle, attained a high 
 
282 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 position, gained fortune and fame, and after all 
 that, to discover that one's life has been wasted 
 and that the all-essential has been forgotten ! 
 To learn all this, but too late, to see the night 
 of one's agony illuminated by the light of the 
 Gospel as by the lightning's flash, to understand 
 how one ought to live at the moment when one 
 must die ! 
 
 Well, these dreadful surprises you, my breth- 
 ren, do not fear. You know whither your life 
 leads, for it reaches to eternity, and whatever 
 may be your trials, you have the unspeakable joy 
 of serving the living and faithful God. And you 
 who know all the grandeur, all the beauty of a 
 Christian life, who believe that not one of your 
 efforts is lost, who bring each his stone to the 
 great edifice which God is raising through the 
 centuries, — do you groan, do you bow your heads 
 and drop your arms from weariness, do your 
 hearts fail you .-' You believe in the victory of 
 redeeming love, and do you show to the world 
 a languishing and joyless piety, a discolored re- 
 ligion, an extinguished hope .-* And what suc- 
 cess, what triumph do you expect to obtain, 
 what proselyting would you accomplish .-• No, 
 no, it is not in looking at yourself or your barren 
 
DISCO URA G E ME NT. 2 83 
 
 work, it is in looking to the Captain and the Fin- 
 isher of the faith, that you will feel strengthened. 
 Security, strength, salvation, victory, are found 
 in beholding the Sun of righteousness, who car- 
 ries healing in His beams. 
 
 Lift your eyes on high, then, disciples of 
 Jesus Christ ! Against all the evils of nature, 
 all the sadness of the soul, all the delusions of 
 earth, hold up the unspeakable beauty of the 
 everlasting good. Above this world, which de- 
 spises you and scoffs at you, see your God who 
 is looking at you, listen to the saints who ap- 
 plaud you. Rejoice even in those who mock 
 your efforts, for they will obtain inheritance from 
 your sacrifice; and if anything can save them, 
 it is your indomitable fidelity, your untiring love. 
 Courage ! and after every ill-success and every 
 defeat, repeat these steadfast words, " My judg- 
 ment is with the Lord, and my work with my 
 God ! " Amen. 
 
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