PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Shelf 
 
 BX 9445 rTt^ 7^ * 
 ^-tto .B413 1883 
 
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THE GOSPEL IN PARIS. 
 
"BaQantgne -pres? 
 
 BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
THE GOSPEL IN PARIS: 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 REV. EUGENE BERSIER, D.D. 
 
 OF L'EGLISE DE L':6tOILE, PARIS. 
 
 WITH PERSONAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR 
 
 REV. FREDERICK HASTINGS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 " SUNDAYS ABOUT THE WORLD," ETC. ; 
 
 AND EDITOR OF THE " HOMILETIC MAGAZINE." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 
 
 MDCGCLXSXIII. 
 
A PERSONAL SKETCH 
 
 OP 
 
 THE REY. DR. EUGENE BERSIER. 
 
 To read such sermons as those composmg this volume is 
 a great pleasure ; to hear them preached a high privilege. 
 The orator cannot be printed, and Eugene Bersier is an 
 orator of the loftiest rank. It was in the Oratory in the 
 Eue de Eivoli, of Paris, that it was my joy to hear the man 
 with whose " winged words " I had already, through the 
 press, become familiar. That church has a history, and 
 I was glad that there I first heard Bersier. It stands 
 near the spot where the St. Bartholomew massacre com- 
 menced and Coligny fell. It was built in the seventeenth 
 century by Pierre de Berulle, who had first consecrated 
 himself to the conversion of Protestants, and afterwards 
 endeavoured to extirpate Protestantism, and to destroy 
 the political power of the Huguenots. He had already 
 founded convents of the order of Ste. Therese, and the 
 congregation of the Oratorians — whence the name of the 
 church. For nearly two centuries it had been in the 
 occupation of the Church of Eome, but the building was 
 appropriated by the Government of Napoleon to the 
 worship of the Eeformed Church, which had previously 
 been celebrated in tlie Church of St. Louis du Louvre, 
 
vi PERSONAL SKETCH. 
 
 then about to be taken down. The pulpit, where preached 
 the Jesuit Bourdaloue, and the Oratorians Massillon and 
 Mascaron, has been no less memorably occupied by 
 Adolphe Monod and Bersier. 
 
 As I linger, waiting for the reader to finish the 
 chapter, and for Bersier to appear, I try to picture to 
 myself the place filled by the court of Le Grand Monarque, 
 listening to Massillon's marvellous eloquence and pointed 
 rebukes. In those pews, or hidden in those deep re- 
 cesses, royal and courtly sinners saw themselves in their 
 true characters, and trembled in view of a judgment to 
 come. The church is a spacious edifice, with a number 
 of recesses all around, and a large gallery at the end. 
 The pulpit is at one side, half-way down the church ; it 
 has a heavy sounding-board, and a deep green fringe 
 depending i'rom it, shading the face of the preacher. I 
 wished it had been away, for it destroyed ofttimes the 
 expression on the face ; and the face of Bersier is one on 
 which the eye rests with satisfaction. It is a firm, manly 
 countenance, with somewhat of the expression and com- 
 manding force of the first Napoleon. He was arrayed in 
 the Geneva gown, and stood ready to point the sinful to 
 Christ, or to enter the lists with the sceptic or atheist in 
 the city which is a centre of unbelief. 
 
 Of course the writer was prepared to appreciate the 
 measured, stately utterance, the intense fervour, the cul- 
 tured emphasis and impassioned rhetoric of which Bersier 
 is a perfect master. I have heard him at other places, 
 but have never felt more powerfully his pulpit eloquence. 
 I'encil and note-book had to be laid aside, and eyes and 
 ears riveted on the speaker. 
 
 Many of his references were evidently caught readily 
 by tlie congregation, for they were adapted to the times 
 and place. 
 
 Bersier seemed to realise that he was speaking within 
 
PERSONAL SKETCH. vii 
 
 a stone's throw of the spot where the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew began, and under the shadow of the tower 
 from which the tocsin of slaughter sounded. 
 
 How stirringly further on he spoke of the office of the 
 preacher. He has evidently an enthusiasm for his voca- 
 tion, and at the same time he has a knowledge of the 
 dangers and temptations that beset the man who succeeds 
 in the pulpit. Here are a few sentences, jotted down 
 rapidly, and carrying with them warning and encourage- 
 ment. He spoke of how Christ went up into a moun- 
 tain to pray, after the attempt of the multitude to hail 
 Him as King, as an example for all His servants, and said : 
 " if any are liable to be deceived by the allurements 
 of the world, or the fickle breath of popularity, let them 
 hie away to some solitary place of prayer, and by com- 
 munion with Heaven conquer the entanglements of earth. 
 . . . God has confidence in His own truth. He will 
 ensure its triumph. God is love, justice, mercy. The 
 Gospel is nothing else. It is to bless the world. The 
 simple preacher and pastor has to spread this Gospel. 
 He has to have faith in it, even though persecution dis- 
 perse the flocks and harass the herd. . . . Ecclesiastical 
 corruption must wither in face of that truth which is 
 liberal, generous, and free. . . . God could have built 
 up His Church, free from evil and corruption, by miracle, 
 had He so willed it, but He lias left it to pass through 
 temptation, and to be purified by trial. It will find out 
 in time, that it is not by alliance with the world, not 
 by seeking political power, not by the voice of the multi- 
 tude, but by the power of the Cross that it will conquer. 
 . . . Christ has not said, ' Go, preach My Gospel : you 
 shall have the help of men, dominion from men, popu- 
 larity from men, approval of men;' but, 'Go, preach My 
 Gospel : for lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
 of the world.' Yet why does the Kingdom of God delay ? 
 
viii PERSONAL SKETCH. 
 
 heavenly King, let Thy power descend ! Let not the 
 heavens be closed to your cry ! " 
 
 How the orator's face crlowed and his voice gained 
 greater force as he spoke further of the opposition from 
 Voltaire and Strauss, He defied them, asserting that 
 "the accounts of Christ's life are too real and sublime to 
 have been the work of the human imagination ; " while 
 he exulted with those who are not troubled by these 
 problems, having experience of Christ's power. They do 
 not say, " Christianity is seized with despair, because 
 they know never man spake like Christ. In Him they 
 see living truth and their incarnate God." 
 
 Fearlessly and scathingly in that luxurious city of 
 Paris, Bersier upbraids selfishness and indifference to the 
 ills of others. One is glad that such a preacher has 
 such influence, and that with boldness he denounces the 
 " shining sins " of the gay, the wealthy, and the worldly. 
 Fashion would doubtless close its eyes when listening, 
 but it must have writhed under such sarcasm as the fol- 
 lowing : — " 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 ? " 
 
 The great French orator is not a mere rhetorician, but 
 a thinker. His sermons are not thrown into the form 
 that has obtained so widely in our own pulpits, but 
 they are logical throughout. Moreover, they are full of 
 sympathy and throbbing with life. This all who look in 
 this volume will find, and it is believed that they have 
 only to be presented to English readers in suitable guise 
 to become as popular as those of the best English dis- 
 courses. It will be seen that Bersier speaks the truth, 
 and that with tremendous force, for his sentences are 
 often like forked lightning. 
 
 We cannot wonder, when listening to him, that the 
 
PERSONAL SKETCH. ix 
 
 small religious meetings held in the evening at the west 
 end of Paris, just after the war, grew so rapidly that a 
 large church, costing <^20,ooo, had to be erected. It 
 stands in the Avenue de la Grande Armee, near to the 
 Arc de Triomphe, and is called " L'Eglise de I'Etoile." It 
 is a chaste Gothic edifice, with pews far more comfortable 
 than those of the church in the Eue de Eivoli, and a 
 pulpit less contracted and gloomy. The whole of the wide 
 space on which stands the table of communion is covered 
 by a carpet of great cost, all wrought in wool by ladies ; 
 and the vestry is furnished with exquisite taste, and hung 
 with portraits of some of the noblest men of the Huguenot 
 Church. A liturgy is used in the service. It has been com- 
 posed by M. Bersier, and is highly prized by the people. 
 
 This great French orator is descended from refugees 
 who fled from France after the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes, but he was born in Switzerland, and has adopted 
 France as his country. After being trained at Geneva he 
 went to America, where he came under the influence of 
 some of the foremost preachers of the Eepublic ; and the 
 influence of this American sojourn is often detected in 
 the method and matter of his sermons. When returning 
 to Europe, he went to Geneva, where, under Drs. Gaussen 
 and Merle d'Aubigne, he gained a knowledge of systematic 
 theology. He also studied at Halle and Gottingen, and 
 came into association with Tholuck, Miiller, and Dorner. 
 
 The life of Dr. Bersier, owing to the terrible war of 
 1870, has evidently been a stirring one. During those 
 dreary months of the siege of Paris, he was one of the 
 principal organisers of the Ambulance Service, and was 
 present in all the conflicts that raged close around the 
 beleaguered city. In conjunction with M. de Pressense, 
 he had to act as " political moderator " during the time 
 that the Commune held its disastrous sway in Paris. 
 Gazing on the firm face of the orator, it was easy to see- 
 
X PERSONAL SKETCH. 
 
 that there M'as will and daring enough in that man to 
 hold his own, even against a Felix Pyatt. What slaughter, 
 misery, terror, the intervention of Bersier supported by 
 Pressenso must have saved ! The interest in listening 
 to him is increased by trying to imagine something of 
 what he had witnessed and passed through. While 
 swept away by the rhetoric, one feels that there is behind 
 the rhetoric the force of conviction, and of a large expe- 
 rience. He has a definite spiritual aim, and we can only 
 hope that he will be long spared to preach the Gospel of 
 Christ to the people of Prance ; and that his spoken words, 
 re-echoed through the press on this side the Channel, 
 may bring spiritual strength and stimulus to thousands. 
 
 FREDK. HASTINGS. 
 London, 1833. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON. PAGE 
 
 I. THE SAYING OF CAIN I 
 
 II. THE AVIDOW'S MITE ; OR, THE UNEESEKVED GIFT . . 21 
 
 III. HUMILITY 38 
 
 IV. FAITH AND SIGHT 57 
 
 V. OBEDIENCE 79 
 
 VI. THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE lOO 
 
 VIL PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY II5 
 
 VIIL THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF FOR HIS 
 
 BRETHREN 144 
 
 IX. THE SABBATH 163 
 
 X. TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT 183 
 
 XI. THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST 196 
 
 Xn. A COURT PREACHER 2l8 
 
 XIIL WASTED LIVES 237 
 
 XIV. FOOLISHNESS AND POWER . . . ' . . . .258 
 
 XV. THE SIN OF OTHERS 276 
 
 XVL THE PROMISED LAND 294 
 
 XVIL ELIJAH'S VISION 309 V^ 
 
 XVIII. REPENTANCE . . 325 . 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SKK.MOV 
 
 XIX. LITTLE THINGS . 
 XX. SIMEON .... 
 
 XXL THE UNGRATEFUL 
 
 XXIL HIDDEN GUILT . 
 XXIIL THE SALT OF THE EARTH 
 XXIV. DISCOURAGEMENT 
 
 XXV. LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE 
 
 PACE 
 
 359 
 376 
 
 393 
 409 
 427 
 448 
 
/ 
 
 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 " And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he 
 said, I know not : Am I my brother's keeper ? " — Gen. iv. 9. 
 
 These are the words of the first fratricide. Wliat a con- 
 trast between the mournful drama from which they are 
 drawn and the account of creation which ahnost im- 
 mediately precedes it ! Creation is the plan of God. 
 There all is peace, harmony, and light. It seems as 
 though the human family must of necessity go on in- 
 creasing and developing itself, yet at the same time 
 remaining united in an unalterable affection, Alas ! 
 I turn over that bright page only to hear the words. 
 Am I my hrothers keeper ? uttered close by the bleeding 
 corpse of Abel. 
 
 Since then these words of Cain have been repeated at 
 every period and in all places of the earth. We may 
 say that where the Gospel has not been known they have 
 become, as it were, the motto of humanity. Seek in 
 ancient societies the link which should unite all men ! 
 Each nation is penned up within its own territory and 
 within its own religion. Even its deity is confined 
 within its boundaries. Strangers are barbarians. The 
 hope of a religious union, of a brotherhood of souls, is so 
 remote from the ideas of antiquity that, in the second 
 century of our era, the philosopher Celsus, the famous 
 
 A 
 
2 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 opponent of Christianity, wrote : " Men were fools indeed 
 to suppose that Greeks and barbarians, Asia, Europe, Libya, 
 and all the other nations can ever be united in the bond 
 of a common religion." And what Celsus affirmed with 
 so much confidence, all think, be they Eomans, Greeks, 
 or even Jews. No one rises above that more or less 
 elevated selfishness. Every nation seems to say : " Am 
 I the keeper of others ? " And Eome, when she conquers 
 the world, brings men together only in the unity of servi- 
 tude and degradation. 
 
 Even between the various classes of tlie same people 
 we find the same indifference, the same distance. Eor 
 instance, who in antiquity feels any concern for the poor, 
 the slaves, the destitute ? 
 
 The poor ! would you know what antiquity thought 
 of them ? Plato — that noble and beautiful genius who 
 has often been called a forerunner of Christ — Plato coldly 
 questions, in his book on the Eepublic, if, when the poor 
 are ill, it is our duty to help them ; and he comes to the 
 conclusion that it is not, because, says he, they are not 
 ■worth the trouble ! The slaves ! never was a heathen 
 philosopher surprised at their lot. The orphans, the sick, 
 the destitute ! in all antiquity, as still to-day in China, 
 Japan, the Indies, in all places where the Cross has not 
 been raised, not a hospital, not an orphanage, not an 
 asylum for old age or poverty. Do I then go too far 
 when I affirm that previous to Christianity, and apart 
 from its influence, man has taken for his motto the saying 
 of the fratricide, and that he has always answered the 
 groans of the slaves and the poor by asking, through the 
 medium of his philosophers, legislators, and priests, " Am 
 I my brother's keeper ? " 
 
 So the world would have gone on to the end, plunging 
 deeper and deeper in selfishness, had not Jesus Christ 
 come. When entering upon the dark path of His humilia- 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. 3 
 
 tion, at the end of which rose the cross of Calvary, the 
 Son of God might indeed have said to His Father : " Am 
 I the keeper of that depraved and rebellious race who 
 outrage and forget Thee ? " He might have spoken 
 thus, and remained in the light and glory which had 
 surrounded Him from the beginning. What He did say 
 you know. You have heard it at Bethlehem, at Nazareth, 
 in Gethsemane, on Calvary. You have seen Him, this 
 King of kings, taking upon Himself, with our mortal 
 flesh, all the humiliations of poverty ; you have seen 
 Him accepting to bear the burden of our sorrows and 
 sufferings ; you have seen Him, mystery of love ! so 
 identifying Himself with guilty humanity as to talce upon 
 Himself the weight of its crimes, all the horror of its 
 condemnation. On the cross you have heard these ex- 
 traordinary words: "My God, my God, why hast Thou 
 forsaken me ? " Yes, He, the Holy One and the Just, has 
 felt the consequences of our rebellion. No wonder then, 
 that, at the sight of His cross, the heart of the sinner 
 has trembled. On that cross guilty man has recognised 
 his substitute. It is for us that the blood of the 
 Crucified flows. " It is," we are told in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, "the blood of sprinkling which speaks 
 better things than the blood of Abel." The blood of 
 Abel reminds us of the words of the fratricide : " Am I 
 my brother's keeper ? " The blood of Jesus Christ is that 
 of the Chief Shepherd dying, not merely for His brethren, 
 but for His enemies. 
 
 We call ourselves Christians. This signifies that we 
 are to be changed into the image of Jesus Christ ; that 
 what He was we also desire to be. At the foot of His 
 cross we learn to hate selfishness ; we learn that we no 
 longer live for ourselves, but that we are members of one 
 body, and that in a measure we are the keepers of our 
 brethren. But our brethren, where are they ? Ask it 
 
4 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 of Jesus Christ. " And I, if I be lifted i;p from the 
 earth, will draw all men unto me," said He. Yes, all 
 men ! His arms extended upon the cross would embrace 
 the whole human family, not only the children of Abraham, 
 but all the children of Adam. Look, then, for a soul 
 which Jesus Christ rejects ; for a soul for which His 
 blood has not flowed. Your brethren ! they are every- 
 where. Your brethren! they are those who love you, but 
 they are also your enemies. They are those who com- 
 municate with you, but they are also those who refuse 
 you a place by their side in the Church and in heaven. 
 Has God given you wealth ? That poor man sitting 
 beside you is your brother. Are you poor ? That rich 
 man, towards whom you feel perhaps more envy than 
 love, is your brother. Are you endowed with a noble 
 intellect ? That ignorant and narrow-minded being, with 
 whom you have scarcely a common language or one 
 point of intellectual contact, is your brother. Are you 
 virtuous ? That fallen being who drags about in your 
 streets the sad spectacle of his misery, of his degrada- 
 tion, of his abjection, that wretch is your brother. Our 
 brethren ! they are the publicans, they are those whom 
 society lays under its ban. And beyond the limits 
 of our civilisation and of our churches, our bretliren are 
 those poor negroes to whom some so-called Christians 
 still deny the title and character of men ; they are those 
 heathen whose customs we loathe ; they are those savages 
 of Australia, concernino- whom the most intelligent of 
 our sceptics lately asked with a smile if it was worth 
 while that a Papuan should have an immortal soul. Our 
 brethren ! they are everywhere. When we go through 
 the world proclaiming Divine mercy, and inviting wander- 
 ing sinners to the Father's house, we tell them all, as did 
 the messenger in the parable : " Come, for there is still 
 room." From every land and clime we bid them come 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. 5 
 
 to the banquet of Divine love ; the poor and the rich, 
 the learned and the ignorant, the virtuous and the vicious, 
 till the day when, from the most remote extremities 
 of the most gloomy and desolate region, the last of the 
 savages will arrive in his turn to take his seat there. 
 
 Such is the idea which Christianity gives us of the 
 human family. Thinkers and even infidels are to-day 
 laying hold of it and making it a title of honour ; we 
 have a philosophy which bears the pretentious name of 
 Humanitarian, as though it had been the first to feel any 
 concern for humanity. Let us not deceive ourselves in 
 this matter ; that idea is a Christian idea ; it was born at 
 the foot of the cross. Mankind has understood that it 
 formed but one family only since the day in which the 
 Chief Shepherd died to gather together its scattered 
 members. 
 
 We are therefore the keepers of our brethren ; their 
 interests are our interests. Such is the general truth 
 which I now desire to recall to your minds. But this 
 general duty presents itself to us under two different 
 aspects, which wull occupy us in turn. Man has two 
 natures ; he has a body and a soul. He suffers in his 
 body ; he suffers in his soul. Thence, for us, a twofold 
 mission : we are called to relieve the sufferings of the 
 body, and to save souls. In presence of this double 
 mission, we have all, perhaps, replied : " Am I my 
 brother's keeper ? " It is this sentiment I would com- 
 bat now. God grant I may be successful ! 
 
 With both these forms of suffering Jesus Christ was 
 brought into contact. Let us see what w^as His attitude 
 with regard to them. 
 
 First, the sufferings of the body. Jesus Christ met 
 with them under their two most common forms, sickness 
 and poverty. What He did for their victims all the 
 Gospels tell. We see Him ever surrounded by the sick 
 
6 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 and the poor. These, we may truly say, are the society 
 of His choice. For them He performs His most magnifi- 
 cent works. See how those unfortunate creatures flock 
 around Him ! Woukl you find Christ, you have but to 
 observe the direction taken by the poor. Before He 
 appears their cries call for Him. No voices welcome 
 Him with louder shouts of " Hosannah ! " than those of 
 the suffering multitude. Alas I I well know all there is 
 of materiality and self-interest in this eagerness. I know 
 that what they seek is, above all, the powerful hand 
 which feeds and relieves them. I know that later on 
 they will fly from Him, perhaps even curse Him. But 
 that is precisely why His love appears to me more 
 wondrous, more sublime, more Divine. How He raises 
 them ! With what tender solicitude He cares for them ! 
 He chooses His disciples from among them. He who 
 has not so much as a look for the splendours of earth, 
 He who, in the whole of his Gospel, has never a word 
 for such as Tiberius or Coesar, bequeaths to immor- 
 tality the names of a Lazarus, and of a Mary Magdalene, 
 thus showing what He has made of the poor, of the 
 lowly, of the most depraved. He is born amongst them ; 
 He lives with them ; He dies wuth them, so that, at 
 whatever page you open the Gospel, you find Jesus and 
 the poor inseparably united. And what is more marvel- 
 lous still, a fact of which I cannot think without a feeling 
 of deep emotion, it is not only during the days of His 
 flesh, but to the end of the world, that it has pleased 
 Jesus Christ to be united with the sick and the poor. 
 Since He left the earth, the Lord has chosen a repre- 
 sentative of Himself here below, one who will be His 
 representative until the end of the world. Eecall to 
 mind the sublime scene recorded by St. Matthew in his 
 Gospel. 
 
 The world has ended its course, which seemed to 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. 7 
 
 he eternal ; the din of earth has ceased, and here are 
 all the generations of men appearing before Jesus Christ, 
 like flocks before their shepherd. And what are the 
 words which Christ will address in that solemn hour to 
 those whom He will acknowledge as the beloved of His 
 Father, and whom He will admit to His glory ? He 
 might say : " I was your Master, and ye served me ; I 
 was your King, and ye announced my kingdom ; I was 
 your God, and ye worshipped me." But no. On that 
 day He will not speak to them of His royalty, nor of His 
 glory, nor even of His Divinity. He will say : " I was 
 poor !",..! was poor ! this then is the supreme title 
 of the Son of God, of the King of kings. " I was poor, 
 I was sick, and ye visited me, and ye gave me meat, and 
 ye clothed me." Do you understand what there is in 
 these words ? As for me, though I should possess but 
 this fragment of the Gospel, I would adoringly recognise 
 in it the mark of the God whose name is love ; I would 
 say, " Surely the Lord is in this place." 
 
 Now see what has been the result of this sublime 
 teaching. The faithful Church has ever considered the 
 poor as the representatives of Jesus Christ. Thence the 
 marvellous spectacle of the primitive Church at Jeru- 
 salem, in which all social distinctions seem to vanish, in 
 which not one of the brethren is left to struggle with 
 poverty. The same love for the poor reappears in the 
 epistles. When the great Apostle Paul sets out on his 
 missionary journeys, and asks of his brethren in the apos- 
 tolate their last counsels, their final recommendations, 
 he says : " They would only that I should remember the 
 poor ; the same which I also was forward to do." In 
 fact, he is constantly preoccupied with the poor in the 
 midst of his travels, of his perils, of his heroic labours. 
 
 Wherever the Gospel has been faithfully preached, the 
 same preoccupation is awakened. At Ephesus, in the 
 
8 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 Churcli where St. John wrote these sublime words : 
 " God is love," the first hospital was founded. Soon 
 after it was followed by the first orphanage. Slaves 
 received the name of brethren, given them for the first 
 time. In fine, notwithstanding the veils with which 
 Christianity is covered, and under which men endeavour 
 to stifie its mighty voice, it everywhere reminds man 
 that the suiferings of his brethren are his sufferings, that 
 none have the right to close their heart to them. 
 
 You have heard of the oration in wdiich the most 
 eloquent of the Forum orators startled his hearers by 
 relating to them the tortures of one of their countrymen. 
 He pictured him beaten with rods by the orders of an 
 iniquitous judge, and exclaiming in his anguish : " Civis 
 romanus sum ! I am a Eoman citizen ! " This cry 
 alone repeated by Cicero in the market-place at Eome 
 would have been enough to gain his cause, for these 
 words, " Civis romanus sum ! " had an extraordinary 
 influence throughout the whole world; they surrounded 
 the man who uttered them with the inviolable majesty 
 of the queen of cities, and covered him with a protection 
 which nothing equalled. There is indeed in this feeling 
 of civil solidarity something grand, something which 
 moves us deeply; and yet, if we look at it closely, this 
 feeling rested merely upon the selfish pride of the royal 
 nation, and Cicero would certainly have left his hearers 
 unmoved had he spoken to them of the punishment of a 
 Greek, of a barbarian, or of a slave. But in the present 
 day, though we love our own native country, can we 
 confine our hearts within such narrow bounds ? When 
 we are the witnesses of an injustice, is it not the man 
 rather than the citizen who in us is attacked to the very 
 depths of the soul ? Now whence comes, if not from 
 Christianity, that power of sympathy which nought can 
 stay ? How is it we now see, in the midst of Christian 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. 9 
 
 nations, and there only, that ardent and unflagging 
 interest for the suffering classes ? How is it that all 
 the problems connected with it force themselves irresist- 
 ibly upon us ? How is it that, in this respect, the 
 modern world pursues a course wholly opposed to that 
 of antiquity ? How is it that the saying of the fratri- 
 cide, "Am I my hrothcrs keeper?^' is so energetically 
 contradicted in all social and political questions ? In a 
 word, how is it that we see this feeling of solidarity 
 increasing more and more, and becoming so intense that, 
 in reality, naught that is human can be foreign to us ? 
 
 We owe this to the Gospel ; for, thanks be to God, it 
 is still the salt of the earth. Ah ! I know you will tell 
 me that this is not always the case ; you will point out 
 to me the many iniquities practised under the shadow 
 of Christianity, heathens corrupted and degraded by 
 Christian nations, slaves whose chains are rivetted in 
 the name of Christ Jesus. But is not the very impres- 
 sion which these facts produce the strongest argument in 
 favour of Christianity ? How account for the immediate, 
 irresistible indignation which seizes even the most un- 
 believing in presence of these facts ? Would they feel 
 so indignant if these crimes were committed under the 
 shadow of another religion ? No ; what rouses their 
 indignation is the fact that Christians are guilty of them. 
 Ah ! men feel that the Gospel is opposed to such 
 deeds, that it is calumniated and altered when such 
 actions are perpetrated in its name. Well, this very 
 indignation is my answer. It attests that the Gospel is 
 innocent of the crimes committed under its shadow ; it 
 attests that it is still the safest refuge for all who suffer ; 
 it attests, in line, that He has not deceived men who 
 said to all : " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 When iniquities are committed in those lands where 
 
lo THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 the Gospel has been preached, the infidel triumphs and 
 exclaims : " Of what use then is your religion ? " But in 
 presence of those facts, we, on the contrary, must re-echo 
 the grand words of Franklin : " If men are so vile even 
 with religion, what then would they be without it ? " 
 Yes, what would they be, what would they become with- 
 out that Gospel against which they thunder forth their 
 accusations ? What was the world before Jesus Christ, 
 what would it be without Him ? Ah ! endeavour to 
 blot out that Sun of souls M'hose brightness troubles 
 you. And if, supposing an impossibility, you should 
 succeed in your attempt, the fearful darkness which would 
 cover the world would reveal to you, but too late, what 
 the past splendour of the extinguished luminary must 
 have been. 
 
 That is what Christianity has done for the sufferings 
 of the body ; but, as we have already said, that is but a 
 part of its mission. Above the body there is the soul. 
 Now, the soul is the eternal part of man. If we are 
 called to sympathise with the temporal interests of our 
 fellow-men, what will it be when that which in them 
 is grandest and noblest, when their soul, is in question ? 
 I have referred to the dignity which the Gospel has 
 restored to the poorest — to the most destitute. But on 
 M'hat does this dignity especially rest ? On the belief 
 that even in the poorest, in the most degraded, there is 
 an immortal soul made for the felicity of heaven — a soul 
 which Christ has come to save by His blood. It is 
 because I believe in the existence of that soul, that the 
 lowest of slaves or the most benighted of savages has a 
 right to my regard. As the sculptor who, gazing upon 
 the shapeless block, already beholds the graceful or 
 majestic figure which his chisel is about to carve from it ; 
 as the smelter who, looking upon the dross-covered ore 
 before him, already sees the glitter of the purified gold, 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. ii 
 
 SO in the most untaught, in the most defiled of beings, I 
 see and hail a regenerated soul, which is capable of 
 reproducing the very image of God. It is a soul in ruins 
 I know, but these ruins are those of a sanctuary which 
 God can soon raise up again and fill with His ineffable 
 presence. 
 
 Deprive me of this belief, and man, for me, becomes 
 but a being that appears for a moment in the world, a 
 figure in the immense addition, a wheel in the vast 
 machinery. If I believe only in matter, why should I 
 care to develop that superior life which is in him, but 
 whose full opening his low or miserable condition will 
 never permit him to witness here below ? It were better 
 to abandon him to his sad and fatal destiny. It were 
 better to say with Cain, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " 
 
 But if I have understood what my soul is ; if I have 
 felt that in it lies my dignity, my greatness, my true life, 
 then I will be anxious to awaken that life in others. It 
 is in this spiritual sense that I will desire to know and 
 love my brethren ; and I feel that, in this way, I will 
 know and love them for all eternity. 
 
 We have, therefore, the charge of souls, for we know 
 what the human soul is worth. Let me add that this 
 charge is a doubly important one ; for we know into 
 what a state sin has plunged them. 
 
 We have spoken of the sufferings of the body, but is 
 the soul less injured ? Is not the soul labouring under 
 an evil far deeper, far more terrible, since it may be 
 eternal ? Look around you ! How many souls that 
 know not God, that deny Him, that blaspheme Him ? 
 How many souls are pursuing their course amidst what 
 is but dissipation and vanity ? How many souls are 
 falling further and further away from communion with 
 God ? In a word, how many souls are being lost ? All 
 this you know. Well, these souls — they must be saved ! 
 
12 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 To save souls ! For this Jesus came upon the earth. 
 He saw those lost souls. By the glance of His holiness 
 He measured the depth of the abyss in which they 
 were plunged, and to draw them out of it He gave 
 everything — His heart, His blood, His life — everything, 
 ay, even the love of the Father, of which He lost the 
 sense on Golgotha, Henceforth the love of souls has 
 gushed forth at the foot of the cross. See St. Paul. No 
 sooner is he seized with this love, than all else fades and 
 grows dim in his life. His heart has found its supreme 
 passion. He must needs set out, he must march on, he 
 must go forward, he must carry salvation e^'erywhere. 
 One church is founded. He leaves it to found another. 
 After Antioch, Galatia, then Ephesus, then Macedonia, 
 then Greece, then Eome ; soon it will be Spain. Even 
 during the hours of niglit he is beset by visions. Voices 
 cry to him : " Come over and help us ! " And when, in 
 his weakness, he would fain murmur : " Am I my 
 brother's keeper ? " the voice of his conscience replies 
 with inexorable power : " Woe art thou, if thou preach 
 not the Gospel! " 
 
 The love of souls ! Whenever the Church has lived 
 the life of her Master she has felt this love ; she has 
 been penetrated by it. That is how we can account for 
 the existence, in our modern world, of a fact utterly 
 unknown to antiquity, of a fact peculiar to Christianity 
 alone — missions. Missions ! Oh, I know to what 
 attacks they have been exposed ; I know how unbelief 
 has sneered at their apparent failures. And yet, know 
 you of anything grander than that mysterious link which 
 causes us to take an interest in what takes place at 
 our antipodes, to pray for souls from which we are sepa- 
 rated by thousands of leagues ? Here are our children 
 gathered together. We tell them of the Esquimaux of 
 Greenland, of the negroes of the Gold Coast ; their 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. 13 
 
 young hearts are moved and softened ; they feel an 
 irresistible compassion for those unknown heathen. For 
 them they make sacrifices, and the savings of many a 
 poor apprentice will he employed in procuring food for 
 the heart and mind of some savage of Africa. What 
 philosophy, what philanthropy has ever produced any- 
 thing like this ? Missions ! Ah ! Christianity alone was 
 capable of giving them birth. Men may sneer at them ; 
 but have you ever reflected on what our civilised Europe 
 would have given to the heathen world had not the 
 missionaries been there ? Alas ! what has it brought 
 them ? Arms to destroy one another, brandy or opium 
 to demoralise and degrade themselves. But, behold ! 
 among those conquerors who have proved more barbarous 
 than their victims, there have been, and there are still 
 found, men in whose hearts a strange love burns. They 
 come to those heathens and tell them that there is in 
 heaven a Father who loves them, and on earth brethren 
 who would save them ; they relate to them the wondrous 
 story of the Incarnate Son of God, and plant in their 
 hearts the cross of Jesus Christ. They are persecuted, 
 scoffed at, killed ; but others follow them, and soon on 
 the land watered with their blood are seen, springing 
 into life, the flourishing churches of New Zealand and 
 Labrador, in which, at this very hour, thousands of souls 
 are outstripping us in the kingdom of heaven by their 
 love and zeal. And thus the net of the Gos23el, borne of 
 yore by the fishermen of Galilee, sees its two extremities 
 meet after having enveloped the whole world. 
 
 But the souls to be saved are not found only on dis- 
 tant shores. Let us beware lest we allow ourselves to 
 be drawn, by imagination only, into those grand enter- 
 prises whose heroism inflames all generous spirits. The 
 souls that are intrusted to us are also those quite near to 
 us, in our family, in our dwelling, at our fireside ; they 
 
H 
 
 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 are in our streets and in our workshops. It is amongst 
 those we are first of all to display our activity ; it is to 
 them we must carry life and light. Ah ! what would it 
 avail us, I pray you, to travel over sea and land to make 
 proselytes, if we leave at our gate a Lazarus covered with 
 sores, or a soul ignorant of the truth that saves ? Let us 
 have love enough to embrace the whole world, but let 
 the first objects of that love be those whom God has 
 given us ! 
 
 Such is our mission in all its extent. It were, on 
 my part, unfaithfulness to the truth to limit it in any 
 measure. Now, let us see how we fulfil this mission. 
 
 What, in the first place, shall we say of those who do 
 not fulfil it at all ? Alas ! it must be confessed there is 
 a religion which is closely linked with coldness of heart. 
 There is an intellectual orthodoxy which is the most fatal 
 of heresies, for it teaches the world, as far as it lies in its 
 power to do so, that the Gospel has no efficacy, and that 
 the blood of Jesus Christ has watered the earth only to 
 leave after it the aridity of the desert. There are people 
 who believe themselves saved, and who have never loved. 
 In their opinion, to be saved is to have settled their 
 affairs with God once for all. They accept the doctrines, 
 whether broad or narrow, easy or severe, which prevail 
 in the Church to which they belong ; and having thus 
 solved the weighty problem of eternity, they return with 
 a light, dry, and worldly heart in the midst of a world 
 which is suffering and perishing far from God. 
 
 Is that saving faith ? No ; it is but its pitiful coun- 
 terfeit. Jesus Christ has described saving faith in these 
 beautiful words : " He that believeth in me, out of his 
 belly shall flow rivers of living water." 
 
 No, I do not believe in a religion which leaves the 
 heart untouched, in a religion which does not energetic- 
 ally call forth abnegation and sacrifice. The faith which 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. 15 
 
 saves is the faith that impels us to save others. Well, 
 once again let nie ask, — How do you fulfil this mission 
 of renewal and salvation ? 
 
 " Am I my hrothcrs keeper ? " We dare not say it, but 
 dare we not think it ? Are not these words the most 
 faithful expression of the feeling we experience when we 
 consider the mission with which God has intrusted us ? 
 And if selfishness has never prompted us to utter them, 
 have we not often uttered them out of mere discourage- 
 ment ? Ah ! it is in presence of such a task we must 
 humbly recall to mind the words of the Master : " The 
 spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." The spirit is 
 willing, and, in fact, who is there among us that has 
 not been seized with profound emotion in presence of 
 this sublime mission with which God charges us ? Who 
 is there that has not felt that life thus understood is the 
 true life ? But soon, to-morrow perhaps, when once 
 again you will be placed in presence of this mission, 
 when you will be called no longer to admire, but to act, 
 the flesh will be weak. Let us admit it, the task is 
 great, and this very greatness appals us. There are 
 times when the thought of all that is to be done pur- 
 sues, besets, and paralyses us. There are times when we 
 hear a vague and deep murmur rising from the depths of 
 our soul, and growing louder and louder. It is the sound 
 of the sorrows of earth, the groans of the oppressed, the 
 bitter complaint of the hungry, the cry of rebellion, or 
 the horrible mirth of perishing souls. All these voices 
 unite and swell like the waves of an angry sea which 
 the stormy wind has raised ; their despairing cries reach 
 us. Then, bending over these unfathomable depths, we 
 say : " Of what use would it be to speak my feeble 
 words in this tumult, of what use would it be to crumble 
 my bread upon the surface of this vast ocean ? " 
 
 You who have felt these temptations, you who know 
 
1 6 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 liow strong, in these evil hours, becomes the discourage- 
 ment which steals into the heart, listen, I have a good 
 word for you. I say to you all : " Look to Jesus ! " 
 You sink beneath the weight of your task though you 
 have but a few souls to rescue, a few sorrows to relieve. 
 How then was He, who had the whole world to save, 
 enabled to pursue His work to the end ? Because He 
 accepted the will of the Father from day to day ; because 
 His work of renewal and salvation was wholly con- 
 centrated in each of the duties which every hour brought 
 before Him. His business is to save the world. Yes ; 
 but it pleases God that this gigantic work should begin 
 in an humble district of Galilee, and that the first fruits 
 of this great harvest should be a few poor fishermen. 
 AYell, in this lowly and insignificant task which many 
 ; a world-wise man or many a great preacher of our days 
 'would perhaps have despised, Jesus is faithful, faithful 
 in each little detail, faithful towards every one of the 
 souls which God intrusts to Him, towards every one of 
 the sorrows which the Father sends Him. Oh, wondrous 
 example ! Who could have supposed that among that 
 obscure nation, in that remote country, the salvation of 
 the world was being prepared ? It was thus that Jesus 
 imderstood His task. He whose heart was large enough 
 to sympathise with all our griefs, He who felt that a 
 love deep enough to save all mankind filled His soul, 
 begins by healing and saving those who surround Him. 
 Not one of them appears to Him to be beneath His 
 notice, and it is in connection with the lowliest and 
 humblest that He will teach the world His most sublime 
 lessons. 
 
 Let us, therefore, learn of Christ. Let us begin to act 
 as He did in the humble sphere where God has placed 
 us. Let us accept each work which He sends us, let us 
 comfort each sorrow which He places directly iu our 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. 17 
 
 way, and, in this faithful and persevering toil, discourage- 
 ment will certainly never seize upon us. One will 
 labour to gather some souls around the Word which 
 raises and cheers ; another in a school will pursue a 
 course of instruction rendered powerful by prayer; a 
 third will seek to obtain work for some poor outcast, who 
 will thus be enabled to earn an honest living ; another, 
 again, will watchfully and lovingly follow through life 
 orphans adopted in the name of Christ. What more ? 
 The work is infinitely varied, but even its greatness is 
 not discouraging for the Christian M'ho pursues it in the 
 spirit of Christ, for he knows that not one of his efforts 
 will be vain, that not even the most insignificant sacri- 
 fice will be lost. 
 
 But I hear your final objection. Yes, say you, we are 
 ready to work iu the humblest sphere and to work 
 courageously, but on condition that our labour bear at 
 least some fruit. But this labour has been fruitless, we 
 have seen our efforts rendered powerless by obstinate 
 indifference or heart-rending ingratitude. Then follows 
 the mournful story of those vain attempts, of those 
 humiliating failures, of those painful discouragements 
 which every Christian knows, and might, doubtless, 
 recount in his turn. 
 
 To all those objections, to all those reasons for losing 
 heart, let me oppose the answer you have just heard, let 
 me once again say to you, " Look to Jesus ! " 
 
 Did Jesus Christ succeed while He was on earth ? 
 Were His benefits met by gratitude, were hearts touched 
 by His words or converted by His miracles ? Did He 
 see the multitudes He had fed undertake His defence in 
 the hour of danger, or give Him some token of their 
 sympathy ? Did the apostles whom He had taught, the 
 apostles whom He had surrounded with the most tender 
 care, remain faithful to Him ? Alas ! we must own it, 
 
 B 
 
i8 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 there never was a ministry less productive of apparent 
 results than that of Jesus Christ. What a contrast 
 between the charity displayed and the results obtained ! 
 Three years of sublime teaching ; three years of a holy 
 and spotless life ; three years of incomparable love ; in 
 fine, a ministry so grand that all others pale before it 
 like as the most brilliant stars pale before the sun, and 
 all this to end in gathering together at the foot of the 
 cross two or three women weeping and trembling in 
 presence of a scoffing and cursing multitude ! 
 
 Well, ye discouraged souls, who mourn over your 
 want of success, what would you have said at the foot of 
 the cross ? Would you ever have supposed that this 
 cross was His triumph, and that the day was drawing 
 near when all the nations of earth would come and 
 worship at His feet ? 
 
 That is the Divine plan. That is the holy foolishness 
 of which the apostle speaks. To conquer in defeat, to 
 conquer in humiliation, to conquer by giving His life, 
 such is the victory of Jesus Christ ! 
 
 That will, perhaps, be yours also. Like Him you 
 may not be permitted to see the fruits of your activity, 
 like Him you will sow in tears, like Him you will call 
 souls who will refuse to answer, like Him you will 
 multiply the bread of your charity to ungrateful poor, 
 like Him you will see your best intentions misconstrued, 
 your love slighted. . . . Well, in those gloomy hours 
 when discouragement is ready to steal into your souls to 
 draw from you the words of the fratricide, " Am I my 
 brother's keeper ? " in those hours, behold Jesus Christ ; 
 and, looking to His unalterable love, to His extraordinary 
 patience, to His mercy which is greater than all the 
 hatred heaped upon Him, you will find strength to go 
 on Ijving, working, blessing, till the day when God will 
 welcome you with the words, " Enter into my rest." 
 
THE SAYING OF CAIN. 19 
 
 No, we will not grow weary. And, moreover, listen. 
 If you, Christians, forget your poor, suffering, and sinful 
 brethren, if you cease to labour with a view to raise and 
 save them, there is in the world a vast and mysterious 
 power propagating darkness, vice, and iniquity, and 
 which slackens not its efforts for one moment. He 
 whom the Scriptures call the Prince of this World, he 
 has also his army and his missionaries. They are con- 
 tinually on the march, calling souls ; their voice is heard 
 everywhere ; they speak and they write, seeking disciples 
 and imitators. " Follow me," says the man of pleasure 
 or the unscrupulously ambitious worldling to the poor, 
 but still pure youth, as he passes before him in the pride 
 of his wealth and of the homage by which he is sur- 
 rounded. And the young man follows, dazzled by the 
 fascinations of fortune and ease, and he sells to the 
 world the soul which yesterday yet had been pure and 
 generous. " Follow me," says the harlot to the young 
 workwoman, as she passes before her, rioting in the noisy 
 mirth and luxury of a day. And the unhappy maiden 
 follows her into that existence of demoralisation and 
 infamy ; she sacrifices to vice the soul, alas ! consecrated 
 to God by a mother's tears, the soul for which so many 
 silent prayers had been wafted heavenward. " Follow 
 me," says the sceptic to the rising generation, as he goes 
 on sowing by his words and by his pen his doctrines of 
 unbelief and death. " Follow me, for the homage of the 
 noblest minds is mine, for the most exquisite of all 
 glories, intellectual glory, attends me in the path I 
 tread." Alas ! how many are there who follow him ! 
 How many there are who, amid the plaudits of the age, 
 Ijroclaim with a maddened enthusiasm to all the hearts 
 embittered by misery and suffering that heaven is empty, 
 that there is no God there to receive their prayers, and 
 that annihilation is the end of all things. " Follow me," 
 
20 THE SAYING OF CAIN. 
 
 they cry to all as they hurry down the broad way. 
 They are not content with losing themselves, they 
 must needs ruin the souls of others also. 
 
 And yet, Christ ! Thou wert waiting for them ; 
 for them also Thoir hadst suffered, and from the cursed 
 tree Thou hadst said to them all, " Come unto me." But 
 have they seen that cross ? Do they know Him whom 
 we call the Saviour ? What have we done to proclaim 
 Him ? What have we done to win souls for Him ? 
 Lord ! speak to our consciences ; snatch us from our 
 languor, from our unconcern, from our love of ease ; 
 inflame our hearts, enable us to achieve great sacrifices, 
 and give us grace to show the world that Thy work is 
 continuing still, and that the final victory is promised to 
 the faith which works by love ! 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 IT. 
 
 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, THE UNRESERVED 
 
 GIFT. 
 
 " And Jesus sat over against the treasurj'', and beheld how the people 
 cast money into the treasuiy : and many that were rich cast in much. 
 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, 
 whicli make a farthing. And He called unto Him His disciples, and 
 saith unto them. Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath 
 cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasurj'^ : For all 
 they did cast in of their abundance ; but she of her want did cast in 
 all that she had, even all her living." — Maek xii. 41-44. 
 
 A GRAND spectacle was that presented by the Temple of 
 Jerusalem when, at the close of the divine service, the 
 crowd descended Mount Zion to return to the holy city. 
 The songs had ceased in the sanctuary ; the multitude of 
 the faithful thronged the porches. No one, at that time, 
 would have willingly kept away from the solemn assem- 
 blies ; for the Temple, to the Jews of those days, was 
 not merely a religious edifice, it was the refuge of their 
 national memories, of their past glory and of their future 
 hopes ; it was the only spot throughout the land of Judea 
 which the brutal foot of the conqueror had, till then, 
 respected. When the Levites struck up the Psalms, and 
 thousands of voices responded, a powerful emotion seized 
 this invincible people that quivered beneath the stranger's 
 yoke ; they looked forward, with inward rapture, to the 
 approaching day of deliverance, in which all the promises 
 
22 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, 
 
 of the prophets would be fulfilled, in which Jerusalem 
 would be more brilliant, more honoured than it had been 
 in the reigns of David and Solomon, in which, even from 
 the most distant isles of the sea, the nations would bring 
 their tribute to the Temple of the Almighty. When, 
 therefore, the Jews passed before the treasury in which 
 were deposited the offerings destined to the embellishment 
 of the Temple and the support of the national worship, 
 they cast in their gifts with a secret pride ; and fondly 
 indulging in their carnal hopes, they returned to their 
 dwellings with a lofty brow and a satisfied heart. 
 
 It was on such a joyous day that crowds were coming 
 down the steps of the Temple ; first came the Pharisees, 
 distinguished by their stern expression and their religious 
 attitude. The rich passed on, followed by their retinues 
 of slaves ; and, drawing the silver or the gold from their 
 purses, they dropped it ostentatiously before the admiring 
 gaze of the multitude. But here, in the midst of the 
 throng, is a poor woman, advancing with a meek and 
 gentle step. Who was she ? We know nothing of her 
 past life. She was a widow ; in other words, her heart 
 had been stricken in its tenderest affections ; life stretched 
 out before her a lonely and dreary waste ; and whilst 
 loved and loving ones passed her on her solitary way, 
 whilst happy and smiling mothers accompanied their 
 children, whom they had consecrated to Jehovah, whilst 
 others joyfully retired to the homes where so much feli- 
 city awaited them, she walked slowly on, for she knew 
 that none would welcome her at her fireside, that no 
 loving voice would hail her return. She was a widow, 
 and she was poor. Poor ! that is, doubly widowed. For 
 the consolations and sympatliy which are generally 
 lavished upon those whose sorrows are brought into 
 evidence by the distinguished rank they occupy, are 
 rarely proffered to those who have the greatest need of 
 
THE UNRESERVED GIFT. 23 
 
 them. She was a widow, and she was poor ; that is, to 
 her life appeared henceforth as an unceasing contiict 
 with misery, as a hard and painful struggle, with the 
 continual dread of sickness without provision, and the 
 gloomy prospect of a lonely death. 
 
 And yet, you who pity this poor woman, you fail to 
 •discover, beneath her mourning garb, the profound joy 
 which fills her heart. She is happy, for she has found 
 God in His Temple. Whilst so many others have gone 
 thither with minds full of their dreams of national glory, 
 or hearts satisfied with their wholly formal worship ; 
 whilst the priests themselves think only of exalting 
 Israel, and ascribe to the God they serve their own 
 narrow, ambitious, and vulgar notions, her heart has 
 taken in what the scribes who sit in Moses' seat know 
 nothing of — the love and compassion of the Lord. She 
 has seen in the Scriptures that Jehovah has promised a 
 special tenderness to all sufferers like herself; she has 
 been drawn towards Him by a deep sense of gratitude ; 
 ties of love have been formed between herself and her 
 Heavenly Father, and she has found in heaven w"hat has 
 failed her on earth. When the songs of the Levites have 
 extolled the glory of the God of Israel, how fervently has 
 she joined in them ! How consoling have these words 
 of the Psalmist appeared to her : " The Lord executeth 
 judgment for the oppressed ; He giveth food to the 
 hungry ; He raiseth them that are bowed down ; He 
 relieveth the fatherless and the widow!" All this she 
 has understood and believed ; from the depths of her 
 broken heart those beautiful utterances have risen to hei 
 lips as the natural language of gratitude, and in this vast 
 assembly none perhaps have more sincerely proclaimed the 
 goodness of the Lord than this poor disinherited widow, 
 apparently so much to be pitied. 
 
 But she is anxious to give expression to that gratitude 
 
24 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, 
 
 wliicli fills her soul ; she has sung the praises of God, she 
 has paid Him her tribute of adoration, but that is not 
 enough for her. She too would bring her offering to the 
 sanctuary, and contribute for her share towards the 
 beautifying of the Temple of Jehovah. How will she do 
 this ? Alas, she is so poor ! a farthing is all she has ! 
 But what is the value of so insignificant a sum where 
 the embellishment of that vast edifice, and the support 
 of that magnificent worship are concerned ? With a 
 farthing one cannot even replace a worn-out stone, nor 
 buy a little incense, nor so much as purchase a turtle- 
 dove for the sacrifice. And yet with this farthing she 
 might procure a little oil or bread for herself; it would 
 suffice to maintain her existence for a day or two. 
 Surely she needs it sadly, for what can be more uncertain 
 than her position, what more precarious than her resources ? 
 Even supposing she might, by this meagre offering, con- 
 tribute to the beautifying of the sanctuary, can she be 
 expected to do so ? Are there not others who might 
 give more easily than she ? Poor as she is, can she, ought 
 she, to deprive herself of all that is left her ? All these 
 thoughts have doubtless entered the heart of the widow, 
 but she will not entertain them ; thoughtful, unperceived, 
 she drops her little gift into the treasury and walks on, 
 rejoicing in her sacrifice, towards the dwelling where 
 indigence awaits her. 
 
 Poor woman ! who can have seen her in the crowd ? 
 Who among those noble and wealthy worshippers, who 
 among those priests and Pharisees, has taken notice of 
 her ? Alas ! the world forgets her as it forgets so many 
 silent acts of heroism, so many unknown sacrifices, which, 
 after all, are that which is noblest and best upon earth. 
 But there is One who has seen her and whose eye follows 
 her with tender sympathy. It is He whose name is 
 Truth, it is the Eternal Son of God ; He also is contemned 
 
THE UNRESERVED GIFT. 25 
 
 by that multitude who admire nothing but visible and 
 ostentatious grandeur. Ah ! go in peace, poor woman, 
 Jfe has seen thee ! He has seen thee, and that look of 
 His is enough for thy silent act to be transmitted to all 
 coming ages, when not one stone of Jerusalem and of her 
 magnificent Temple will be left standing. He has seen 
 thee, and He has blessed thee. Go in peace ; thou wilt 
 perhaps never meet Him again upon earth, but one day, 
 when thou wilt have ended thy humble career. He will 
 receive thee in the everlasting habitations ! 
 
 Let us now endeavour, with God's help, to learn the 
 lessons which this touching narrative teaches. 
 
 The treasury was placed at the Temjjle door. A pro- 
 found thought underlies this simple detail. It is this : — 
 All sincere worship must result in sacrifice. We must 
 assemble in the sanctuary to adore Jehovah. We must 
 join, in thought, with the celestial beings who surround 
 His throne, and with them proclaim His greatness and 
 His holiness. That is our reasonable service, our calling ; 
 thus shall we sanctify our lips, so often profaned by 
 trifling, frivolous, or wicked words. We must humble 
 ourselves before Him whose eyes are too pure to behold 
 iniquity ; we must unburden our hearts to Him, tell Him 
 of our open transgressions and of our secret sins, beseech 
 Him to dispel our natural unconcern and to give us a 
 sense of our misery, so keen that we shall bring Him a 
 broken and contrite heart, for that is what He demands. 
 We must contemplate the salvation which God has pre- 
 pared for us, worship the Saviour He has given us, rejoice 
 in the thought of His mercies, and to His glory raise the 
 hymns of our gratitude and praise. That is the adoration 
 God requires of us, that is the incense which is agreeable 
 to Him. But if, at the close of this service, after this 
 humiliation, these thanksgivings, we go away fully satis- 
 lied; if we think we have offered to God an adequate 
 
26 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, 
 
 worship ; if this inward rapture, these tears, these prayers, 
 lead not to sacrifice, — then indeed is our worship vain, 
 and God will surely reject it. 
 
 Moreover, this truth is graven upon the human con- 
 science in characters so deep and ineffiiceable, that all 
 religions have proclaimed it. Everywhere, connected 
 with the sanctuary, you find the altar; here, consisting 
 of a monument of marble and gold, admirably sculptured 
 by ancient art ; there, composed of two or three stones, 
 which the savage, obedient to an irresistible instinct, has 
 raised in the wilderness, to offer upon them his bloody 
 offering. And what is the altar but the place for sacri- 
 fice ? This, then, is the centre of all serious religion, 
 and whenever the satisfaction of the inward law which 
 urges man to sacrifice has been concerned, you well know 
 that he has shrunk from no suffering, that he has offered 
 to his gods all that was dearest to him ; ay, his own chil- 
 dren, and sometimes his own life. Argument has been 
 powerless against this profound instinct. That is what 
 so many nations which we are pleased to call by the 
 disdainful name of heathen have so well understood. As 
 for me, when I see those rivers of blood which every- 
 where mingle with the worship of the Deity, I am terrified 
 by that spectacle ; and yet, even in those fearful excesses, 
 I recognise the voice of conscience attesting the necessity 
 of sacrifice. By those immolations which appal us, man 
 proclaims that he owes himself to God. 
 
 Well, that law of sacrifice, which has never been 
 obliterated in the human conscience, Christianity affirms 
 it with incomparable power. What is the cross but the 
 irreatest of sacrifices ? What do we see there but the 
 most perfect offering which any being has ever made of 
 his life and of his blood for the glory of God and the 
 salvation of his brethren ? What says tliat spectacle but 
 that you owe yourselves wholly to God, and that, if 
 
THE UNRESERVED GIFT. 27 
 
 religion be not the gift of one's self, it is indeed a sense- 
 less thing ? Thus did the apostles understand it, St. 
 Paul, St. Peter, St. John, when in every page of their 
 epistles they remind us that we are no longer our own, 
 but that we belong to Him who has saved us, that we 
 are to offer ourselves to Him as a living, holy, and accept- 
 able sacrifice. Yes, self-consecration, that is the true 
 sacrifice, the only one which God accepts, and which fully 
 satisfies Him. 
 
 But however clear this truth may be, we always find 
 a way to escape it. Ah ! the multitude is large of those 
 wRo go up to the Temple for praise and adoration ; but 
 how many of those worshippers offer to God only out of 
 their superabundance, and then depart happy and self- 
 satisfied ? Now, God will not be content with our super- 
 abundance. He wants an unreserved gift, and that is what 
 Jesus teaches us with so much authority by the example 
 of the poor widow. 
 
 But here I must anticipate a doubt which assuredly 
 arises in your minds. " What ! " some will say, " you 
 pretend that man must give to God, not his superfluous 
 wealth only, but even that which is necessary to his 
 existence ! You would have wished those wealthy nobles 
 who preceded the widow to cast the whole of their for- 
 tune into the treasury ! That, in your opinion, was the 
 only way for them to please the Lord. But what would 
 become of society if everybody, in order to be agreeable 
 to God, should dispossess himself of all he has ? Would 
 not this be permanent indigence, that is, an immoral and 
 impossible thing ? " 
 
 That is how modern unbelief has interpreted the words 
 of the Lord. It has overdrawn their meaning in order 
 to weaken it. It has taken them as the expression of a 
 superhuman and chimerical charity. This surely is rather 
 too convenient a method of settin;? at naught the teach- 
 
28 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, 
 
 ing of Jesus Christ. Men alter it, they give it an ex- 
 travagant signification, that they may the more easily set 
 it down as the enthusiastic dream of a generous soul. 
 
 Could it be true that the aim of Jesus, in placing this 
 example before us, has been to persuade us to live in 
 absolute poverty ? Could it be true that His design has 
 been to teach us that none can keep what is necessary 
 to his existence and be agreeable to God notwithstanding: ? 
 Ah ! how little do those wlio pretend this to be the case 
 understand the character of the teaching of Christ, of the 
 most spiritual teaching to which the world has ever 
 listened. What ! Jesus would have dreamed of a social 
 revolution ! The ideal, in His eyes, would have been 
 poverty, nay, hopeless misery, set up as a system ! But 
 then, if this was His thought, why should we still speak 
 of the grandeur of His views, or of the wondrous pene- 
 tration of His mind ? His kingdom would be nothing 
 more than a foolhardy enterprise ! Ah ! I know that 
 Christ bade His first disciples leave all their possessions 
 to follow Him. It was to be so. Their mission obliged 
 them to tliis. For that stupendous work men were re- 
 quired, willing to break all the ties of flesh and fortune. 
 But when has Jesus rendered this rule universal ? When 
 has He made of it a condition of salvation for all ? What 
 He preaches to all is quite a different doctrine ; it is the 
 inward, spiritual sacrifice, that poverty according to the 
 spirit which the rich may know as well as the poor. 
 And, in the very example before us, what Jesus wishes 
 to teach is that God looks to the heart and not to the 
 offering. Why has this widow's mite so great a value 
 in the eyes of Jesus ? Because this gift, paltry though 
 it be, is the expression of an inward, complete, unreserved 
 sacrifice. She has given herself to God, this poor woman! 
 That is what renders her offering more precious than all 
 the treasures of the Pharisees, than all the splendours of 
 
THE UNRESERVED GIFT. 29 
 
 the Temple. When the others, on the contrary, have 
 given liberally out of their abundance, this has been, on 
 their part, an eftbrt to escape the complete sacrifice which 
 she has offered so lovingly. You are not, therefore, re- 
 quired to give your fortune, your all, towards some special 
 religious work ; the point is to know, taking the spirit of 
 our text, if, like the widow, you have given yourselves 
 entirely to God, or if, in all things, you have given Him 
 only a portion of your superfluous wealth. Such is the 
 teaching of the Master, such is the thought I beseech 
 God to impress deeply upon all your consciences to- 
 day. 
 
 To give God one's superabundance ! To give Him 
 one's overplus when one owes Him everything ! Do you 
 know who is capable of such a mode of reasoning, of 
 such a method of calculation ? The man who does not 
 believe. God, the future life, heaven, perdition, none of 
 these are realities for him. He does not believe in them, 
 and yet he is not at ease, for he sees continually rising 
 before him the phantom of a perhaps which suffices to 
 disturb his peace. Whatever he does, this uncertainty 
 troubles him ; he has often been mistaken, mistaken in 
 visible and palpable things, might he not also be mis- 
 taken in things invisible ? Is there not a mystery in 
 death ? Is the grave to be the end of his destiny ? 
 Under the influence of these thoughts, I understand that 
 such a man should say to himself : " It is true that I do 
 not believe in God any more than in an eternal future ; 
 but nevertheless I might be labouring under an error. 
 I will, therefore, save a plank for the shipwreck. I will 
 keep a supreme resource. I will give to the present life, 
 to my present interests, to my present happiness all these 
 interests, this happiness, this life demand, and I will give 
 the remainder to God. If I have something left, a little 
 money, a little strength, I will consecrate it to the Lord, 
 
30 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, 
 
 that will be my refuge." I can understand this com- 
 bination of a prudent egotism on the part of an unbeliever; 
 but on the part of a Christian I cannot understand it. 
 
 Let us now endeavour to put into words the senti- 
 ments of a Christian who, refusing to God the complete 
 sacrifice He claims, will consent to give Him only the 
 residue of his wealth. Hear how he speaks, and how he 
 unwittingly bears witness against himself. 
 
 "I believe in God," says he, '"'that is to say, I acknow- 
 ledge that all I have I owe to God ; my life, my health, 
 my faculties, my intelligence, my heart, all these come 
 to me from Him. Those affections which gladden my 
 heart, those cherished beings, those children in whom I 
 feel, as it were, my life beginning anew, He has given 
 them to me. Not only has He given them, but He has 
 restored them to me. Those blessings have seemed to 
 escape me once ; the gloomy prospect of distress has cast 
 its shadow over me ; that health has seemed ready to 
 disappear; I have seen sickness, and perhaps death, 
 holding me in its grasp. Those beloved ones who are 
 my joy, I have seen them pining away, I already con- 
 sidered them as lost ; but in His infinite love God has 
 recalled them to life ; I have come again into possession 
 of that vanished strength ; that daily bread has never 
 failed me, — and all this has been God's doing. 
 
 " But, above all these gifts, there is another infinitely 
 superior, and far more wondrous still. I had wandered 
 iar from God, I was living for the world and for myself; 
 I had transgressed the Divine law, I had brought upon 
 myself a just condemnation. I had fled from the paternal 
 roof and delighted in sin. Then God, who desired not my 
 death, but my life, sent me not only His prophets, not 
 only His apostles, but His only and well-beloved Son. 
 Jesus Christ has come to seek and save me. To snatch 
 me from eternal death, He has given Himself up to the 
 
THE UNRESERVED GIFT. 31 
 
 most painful of sacrifices. He has known all my 
 miseries ; He has fallen upon Himself all my sins. He, 
 the Holy One and the Just, has willingly submitted to 
 the Divine desertion which / had merited. He has 
 offered to God all that a man may offer Him, and though 
 I should exhaust the tongues of men and angels, I would 
 find no fitting words in which to express the depths of 
 His mercy. All this God has done for me, who had fled 
 I'rom Him ; and now, to prove my gratitude towards 
 Him, this is what I shall do : of all I possess, of my 
 fortune, of my affections, of my life, I shall make two 
 portions, — the largest and best I shall keep for myself, 
 and then, if there is something left, well, it will be the 
 share of my God ! " 
 
 This language shocks you. I do not wonder at it. 
 The soul has a modesty of its own, which causes it to 
 blush with shame whenever it looks evil in the face. 
 But the supreme art of the seducer of souls is to conceal 
 liis designs. I certainly know none who would be will- 
 ing to hold this language, but what if, though we dare 
 not utter it, we dare realise it in our life ? Oh, the 
 depth of misery of our depraved hearts ! What we blush 
 to speak we blush not to do ! This language which 
 revolts us, does, after all, but express clearly the line of 
 conduct of the greater number, even among those who 
 continually speak of the love of God, and who have the 
 .appearance of piety. A supposition will show you if I 
 am mistaken. In the narrative from which our text is 
 drawn, w'e are told that Jesus sat down to see what the 
 worshippers cast into the treasury, and that amongst all 
 those who offered to God out of their abundance only. 
 He perceived but one woman, one poor widow, who gave 
 Him all she had. Let me suppose ior a moment that to- 
 day, at the very door of this sanctuary, Jesus should 
 watch us passing before Him one by one, and let us 
 
32 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, 
 
 endeavour to picture to ourselves the spectacle He would 
 behold. 
 
 rirst of all, a young man steps forward. He is full 
 of joy and hope. He is strong, and life opens before 
 him as a field for noble struggles. His is a generous 
 soul, whose dream is of a grand and useful career upon 
 earth. Methinks I read in his heart and discover there 
 all his plans for the future. He feels himself born for a 
 superior role, he loves art and the lofty research of science, 
 he hopes one day to see a ray of glory surrounding his 
 name. His ambition, it may be, reaches not so high ; 
 it is limited to the bettering of his condition, to the 
 attainment of some advantageous situation, which would 
 enable him to realise the fond desires of his heart. The 
 career is difficult, numerous rivals surround him ; there 
 is no time to be lost; he must march, march on un- 
 tiringly. That, for him, is the aim of life ; that, for him, 
 is the essential. Now in all this I see the share of man, 
 but in vain do I seek the share of God. I question him; 
 he answers that he keeps this portion in store, that he 
 hopes to be able to offer it at some future time. He 
 really means that God will some day come in for a share 
 of all those labours, of those successes, of that fortune, of 
 that glory which are his day-dream. Ah ! pass on, my 
 youthful brother, pass on with your offering, for what 
 you have reserved for God is simply a part of your 
 superfluous wealth ! Your heart, your life, you have 
 kept them all for yourself. 
 
 Here is a maiden advancing with a trusting heart, for 
 the future, for her, is fraught with mysterious promises. 
 Who will tell the countless dreams among which her 
 thought wanders ? She sees herself ha})py, admired, 
 envied ; she pictures to herself an existence suited to her 
 tastes and the desires of her heart. Hers, too, may be a 
 generous soul whom the love of dress and worldly 
 
THE UNRESERVED GIFT. 
 
 33 
 
 frivolity would fail to satisfy. But however noble her 
 tastes be, her true aim in life is the satisfaction of self 
 And yet she believes, her conscience has spoken ; she 
 feels that she must give God a portion of her life. This 
 portion, she keeps it in store. Yes, in store. When 
 her heart will have tasted all the joys she dreams of; 
 when she will have drained all the cups of bliss ; when 
 she will have known all slie longs to know, then she will 
 go to God for refuge. Ah! pass on, my youug sister, 
 pass on with your offering, pass on amid the approving 
 smiles of the world. Tliere is Que wliose eye follows you 
 sadly, it is He who is sitting at the door of the Temple ; 
 He hoped you would give Him your heart, and you have 
 given Him only what you wanted not for yourself. 
 
 Here is a business man. God has blessed his enter- 
 prises. His affairs have prospered. His fortune is large. 
 He approaches in his turn, with the buoyancy and confi- 
 dence which wealth and a strong will give. Oli, if he 
 gave himself to God, what good might he not do ! What 
 excellent works might he not sustain ! How many of 
 his suffering and degraded brethren might he not raise 
 from tlieir abjection ! How many young minds might 
 he not snatch froin moral corruption, and tlius prepare 
 them for the kingdom of heaven ! Will he do so ? He 
 believes in God, he knows that God claims a share in 
 his life ; but tliis share, he keeps it in store. Later, says 
 lie; later, when I shall have increased my fortune; when 
 I shall exert a wider influence ; when I shall have left 
 behind me all those rivals by whom I am surrounded ; 
 then I shall consecrate an abundant tithe to the Lord. 
 Ah ! pass on, you also, my brother, pass on with your 
 offering ! God demanded the gift of your life, you have 
 given Him only out of your abundance ! 
 
 But here is an aged man who has but a few years, or 
 even, it may be, but a few days to live. What remains 
 
 c 
 
34 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, 
 
 of liis existence, what is left of a withered heart, that 
 residue of strength and energy, to whom might he give 
 them if not to God ? To whom could he confide them 
 with greater security ? Everything is about to escape 
 him ; all around him has gradually disappeared ; all 
 things speak to him of the vanity of his desires and of 
 his approaching end. Ah ! with those trembling hands, 
 so soon to be frozen in death, what will he give to the 
 Lord ? He has only half of himself to offer now. "Well, 
 God would accept even that ; He would not refuse this 
 labourer of the eleventh hour. But no ; he will not 
 give himself. In his will, perhaps, he has marked out 
 the Lord's share ; but, until then, what remains to him 
 of life he will live for himself. Ah ! pass on, brother, 
 pass on with your miserable offering, pass on with your 
 superabundance ! 
 
 When will she come then, the poor widow ? When 
 will he come then, the man who is to give himself wholly 
 to God ? Jesus is waiting for them still. Alas ! how 
 long has He waited ! They are, perhaps, in this assembly. 
 Have they come hither fully resolved to bring to God 
 only their usual offering of a purely outward adoration, 
 in which the heart has no part ? Ah ! if there be any 
 such, let them come ; had they nothing to give God save 
 their extreme poverty ; had they nothing to bring Him 
 save their moral and spiritual misery ; were they but 
 defiled sinners, let them come, and in the silence of the 
 sanctuary, let them give themselves to the God who calls 
 them ! And God will see them, and, turning His eyes 
 away from so many worshippers who to-day have brought 
 Him gifts out of their abundance. He will bless them in 
 secret until the day when He will receive them in the 
 abode of peace. 
 
 But you who still hesitate, — you who are unwilling 
 to give God more than your overplus, — you who, like 
 
THE UNRESERVED GIFT. 
 
 35 
 
 misers, press the best portion of your treasure upon your 
 hearts, — think you that because you have refused to 
 yield it to God, it will always be yours ? It will be 
 taken from you to-morrow, perhaps, and then what 
 bitter regret at not liaving consecrated it to God ! For, 
 had you consecrated it to Him, you would never have 
 lost it. What we give Him we find again, and thus is 
 realised that strange saying of the Gospel : " Whosoever 
 will lose his life for my sake shall find it." Yes, that 
 youth snatched from the world and devoted to God, 
 nothing could have withered it ; those powers, employed 
 in the service of the best of Masters, would have 
 been restored to you ; that fortune, lost in the eyes of 
 the worldly, you would have recovered it, increased 
 a hundredfold; those affections, placed in God, would 
 have lasted for ever. It is the Master who tells us so. 
 Whoever will have renounced what is dearest to hini 
 upon earth, will receive, even in this life, an hundred- 
 fold ; and in the future, everlasting life. Blessed loss, 
 which, after all, is the surest gain ! 
 
 But though you have refused the best portion of your 
 possessions to God, it does not follow that you will be 
 able to refuse them to death. Now death will surely 
 come. Hark ! the gloomy messenger is already on the 
 wing ; lie is approaching ; he is about to knock at your 
 door. Of what use, then, will be those treasures so sel- 
 fishly guarded, — those worldly affections, — those calcu- 
 lations of a prudent egotism ? Oh, how bitterly will you 
 then repent that you have not kept the essential part 
 for God, and given to the world only what remained of 
 your heart, of your time, of your life ! But the terrible 
 angel will come, and he will not be content with your 
 overplus. He will require all ; you will be obliged to 
 yield everything to him. He will force you to open 
 those arms which you so jealously cross upon your 
 
36 THE WIDOW'S MITE; OR, 
 
 treasure in a supreme effort. He will force you to leave 
 those riches which you had thought to reserve for your- 
 selves alone. miserable wealth ! delusive pos- 
 sessions ! If all is to finish thus, is life indeed worth 
 living ? Is the end of so much labour, of so much 
 planning and scheming, of so much suffering to be 
 annihilation ? Annihilation ! Ah, if there were nothing 
 more than annihilation to expect ! But there is an 
 account to be rendered. God will not be mocked. How 
 do you suppose God will judge a life of which the share 
 assigned to Him has been but a derisive homage ? How 
 do you suppose He will welcome those who have so 
 easily dispensed with Him here below ? Think you He 
 will be able to say to such servants as those : " Enter 
 into your Master's rest ? " Ah, what manner of servants 
 are they who have served only their own interests and 
 personal glory, who have centered all in self ? Christ 
 has foretold their future. To them will be addressed this 
 awful and just sentence : " Depart from me, ye cursed ; 
 I know you not ! " 
 
 I feel a misgiving as I draw towards the close of my 
 discourse. I fear I have not been sufficiently faithful to 
 the narrative I have selected for my text. What do I 
 see in it ? A poor woman offering all she has to the Lord. 
 I have shown that what we are called to imitate in this 
 example is the inward sacrifice, of which her offering is 
 the faithful expression. This is true ; for if, in this gift 
 of her all, she had been actuated by a feeling of pride 
 or fanaticism, her action would have had no value what- 
 ever before God. It is therefore to the intention of her 
 heart we must look ; it is in this respect we are to con- 
 sider her as our pattern ; what we are to learn from her 
 is not to give all we possess, but to give ourselves. 
 
 All this is true, and yet there is something more in 
 this story. The poor widow has given her all ; I cannot 
 
THE UNRESERVED GIFT. 37 
 
 forget tins fact, even though I acknowledge its spiritual 
 meaning. Vainly do I endeavour to persuade myself 
 that we are not called to such sacrifices as this, and that 
 we are to take them in their spiritual sense. I am not 
 satisfied with my explanation. She has given her all. 
 That is the fact I would leave upon your hearts to-day 
 without any commentary. I do not say, " Give all, as she 
 did." I feel that this cannot be a duty. Nevertheless, 
 " she has given all she had." Sublime folly ! I hear some 
 exclaim. Yes ; but it is by folly such as this that the 
 world is to be saved. This folly is not a duty for all ; 
 but does it not stand out before us as a bitter reproach ? 
 Where are they now, the Christians who have made 
 themselves poor for Christ ? I could point you to men 
 who have given their all for their country. I could tell 
 you the name of a mother who sent, one after the other, 
 her three sons to die for the independence of their 
 fatherland. "What more shall I add ? I humble my- 
 self and bow my head low. Alas ! will the heroic ages 
 of the Church never again dawn upon her ? Will such 
 sacrifices be admired by the world only in other spheres ? 
 O God ! in presence of the temptations of the world, in 
 this age of comfort and self-indulgence, may these words, 
 uttered by Thine own Son, thrill through our consciences 
 to-day as a withering reproach, " She of her want hath 
 cast in all that she had, even all her living ! " 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 III. 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 "The meek will He teach His way." — Ps. xxv. 9. 
 
 When we read the heathen moralists we j&nd in their 
 writings a blank which cannot fail to strike every atten- 
 tive observer. They have many admirable pages which 
 are well calculated to astonish us ; they often express 
 on the human life and its duties the noblest and most 
 elevated sentiments ; they eloquently describe all the 
 human virtues — uprightness, purity, firmness of soul, 
 mansuetude, and even charity. But there is one which 
 is always forgotten, and that is humility. Vainly will 
 you seek throughout all antiquity, in all the works of the 
 greatest philosophers, a single exhortation to humility. 
 The word itself existed not for them, because the term 
 humility, before Christianity, always denoted in their 
 language whatever was low, contemptible, and vile ; it 
 was always taken in the worst sense. Christianity 
 transformed the word by giving us the thing itself, and 
 that which till then had been a virtue only in the Bible, 
 found its way as a new virtue in universal morals. 
 
 How account for this strange omission ? If we reflect 
 upon it we shall understand its real cause. Humility 
 can only be the result of the knowledge of oneself, and 
 man has truly obtained this knowledge only when he 
 
HUMILITY. 39 
 
 has studied himself in the light of the holy God. So 
 long as man compares himself with man, so long as he 
 has no other standard of comparison than himself, he 
 may entertain on his moral value the most simple and 
 complete illusions, and, whilst confessing certain failings 
 inseparable, he thinks, from human nature, he may be 
 so perfectly satisfied with himself that humility will 
 appear to him a meaningless word. But place before him 
 the image of the holy God. Let him examine himself in 
 that pure light, and then he will see the brightness of his 
 boasted qualities dying away, then he will perceive, at 
 the root of what he called his virtues, a profound misery, 
 traces of pride and vanity which, up to this time, he had 
 totally ignored. The brighter becomes the light, the 
 paler grows that natural goodness in which he had 
 believed, the more clearly he discovers, beneath the 
 superficial gloss of worldly morality, those secret lusts, 
 those shameful feelings of envy, hatred, and selfishness, 
 which lie concealed in every soul of man. Henceforth 
 delusion becomes an impossibility; he has seen himself 
 such as he is, he understands that, in the presence of 
 God, the only attitude which beseems him is that of 
 humility. Therefore the Jews of the old covenant who 
 knew the true God, could already know and practise 
 this virtue ; nevertheless, it was only with Jesus Christ 
 that it made its full appearance into the world. 
 
 In fact, Jesus Christ has not merely revealed to us 
 the character of God, He has also taught us what man 
 should be. " Behold the man ! " said Pilate to the Jews ; 
 but he knew not the profound, the eternally true signifi- 
 cance M'hich these words of cowardly desertion were 
 destined to have in the future. Yes, that is the man, 
 such as He must be, such as it has pleased God that He 
 should be. That is the man ! greater than the prophets 
 liad hoped, greater than in their proudest dreams the 
 
40 HUMILITY. 
 
 nations Lad imagined He could be ; that is the man, 
 pure and undefiled, faithful to truth in word and deed ; 
 that is the man, surrounded with the halo of an immacu- 
 late holiness, submissive to God, working His will, plac- 
 ing obedience where the first Adam had placed revolt, 
 reflecting clearly and vividly the very image of the 
 Father; that is the man, loving as God loves, loving 
 always, loving to the end. That is the man ! I appeal 
 to human conscience, which bows in presence of this 
 ligure, awed by a majesty wdiicli surpasses it and im- 
 poses itself to all. Bring together all the splendours of 
 earth, all the human virtues, place them before Him, 
 and tlie Divine head of the Crucified will rise, in the 
 brightness of its majesty, above all that men admire, 
 . . . That is the man ! and when we compare ourselves 
 with Him we see what we are, and in the same glance 
 we measure the depth of the abyss into which sin has 
 plunged us. 
 
 That is how we can explain that humility came into 
 the world only with Jesus Christ. At the feet of the 
 Saviour, at the feet of Him whom St. John called the 
 Light, all w^orldly virtues pale and vanish, just as the 
 lustre of the most skilfully imitated jewels grows dim 
 beside the unequalled brilliancy of the pure diamond. 
 That is an experimental truth. There are in this as- 
 sembly persons who, before they had fully resolved on 
 becoming Christians, lived the purest and most honour- 
 able life in the eyes of the world. They enjoyed 
 unbroken peace of mind, they delighted in the esteem and 
 consideration by which they were surrounded. And when 
 by accident they opened some religious book, in which 
 they read the confessions of a humbled and repentant 
 soul, or the cries of anguish of a troubled sinner, they 
 unhesitatingly set these down as pious exaggerations in 
 which it seemed to them impossible to join. What then 
 
HUMILITY. 41 
 
 has occurred that their ideas should be so totally differeut 
 to-day ? They have drawn near to Jesus Christ, they 
 have studied themselves in His light. Henceforth, how- 
 many discoveries in their past and present life ! How 
 many forgotten sins which the light of day has brought 
 into evidence ! How much misery and shame of which 
 they had lost the very memory ! How many temptations 
 indulged and which they would certainly have realised 
 had but a favourable opportunity presented itself ! How 
 much lukewarmness and indifference for good ; how 
 much selfishness, and how much cowardly compliance 
 with the world ! But now, let worldly flatteries be ad- 
 dressed to them, they will reject them with energy. But 
 now, bid them hearken to the artful discourses of a com- 
 plaisant preacher who will extol their qualities, skilfully 
 veil their faults, and seek to inspire them with a carnal 
 security — they will refuse to listen. What they now 
 want is truth, for it is truth that saves. They know too 
 much to accept a religion which lowers God while it 
 exalts man. What they now want is a teaching both 
 frank and firm, a teaching which w^ill trouble and humble 
 them, but to which their conscience will be forced to 
 yield a full assent. 
 
 Nevertheless, to produce humility there is something 
 more efficacious still than the sight of the perfection of 
 Jesus Christ — it is the sight of His love. When a sinner 
 who has learned to know himself, to perceive his defile- 
 ment and misery, understands that he is the object of the 
 love of God, and of a love such as that which is described 
 in the Gospel, it is impossible that the sense of this 
 mercy should not overpower him. Show him a God who 
 is ready to crush and terrify, he will bow the head in the 
 feeling that he deserves it all ; but show him a God who 
 comes to him, who loves and pardons him — oh ! then, 
 all the pride of his heart is broken. True, he was 
 
42 HUMILITY. 
 
 humbled, the prodigal son, when, seized with remorse, 
 he rose to return to his father with the confession — 
 " Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, 
 and am no more worthy to be called thy son." But 
 what must have been his feelings when he saw himself 
 pressed upon that heart which his errors had caused to 
 bleed, when he felt his father's tears falling upon his 
 guilty head ? True, they were humbled, the publicans 
 and Zacchseus and Mary Magdalene, when they beheld 
 Christ, and when the sight of the holiness spread in His 
 countenance, in His looks, in His discourses, all the more 
 clearly set forth their own misery ; but what must they 
 have felt when Jesus entered their dwellings, when 
 they understood that they were the objects of His love 
 and of His tender solicitude ? And we who have seen 
 His cross ; we who believe that we are not destined to 
 remain strangers to this wondrous story ; we who believe 
 in redeeming love ; we who know that for us also the 
 Saviour came — shall we not feel overwhelmed by the 
 greatness of that mercy ? shall we still hesitate to bring 
 to God the sacrifice of a broken heart ? I have often 
 heard vinbelief exclaiming against that pride of Christians 
 which leads them to believe that the heavens have been 
 shaken for their salvation, and that it was necessary that 
 the Son of God Himself should suffer in their stead. 
 But you who believe in that sacrifice, tell us if what 
 the cross teaches and inspires is not precisely humility ? 
 Ah ! at the foot of the cross humility was born ; from 
 the earth watered by the blood of Christ, sprang that 
 Divine liower which, till then, had been unknown to the 
 world. That is its native soil. Transplanted on any 
 other it can but wither away and die. 
 
 We can now understand why, outside of Christianity, 
 humility has ever been ignored. Alas ! it does not 
 follow from this that all Christians know this virtue. 
 
HUMILITY. 43 
 
 We shall be forced to acknowledge this as we retrace the 
 features by which it is distinguished. 
 
 Christian humility should penetrate the whole of our 
 being. Since all the parts of our being have participated 
 in the revolt of sin, they must all be brought to bow the 
 head before God. In the first place, our intellect must 
 be humble. That is what we are in danger of forgetting 
 in this age of criticism and discussion, we Protestant 
 Christians especially ; for by our position we are called 
 to watch over the interests of personal investigation in 
 respect to the traditional faith of the Church. It is not 
 that I would have the intellect forget its mission, which 
 it has truly received from God ; but what I ask is that 
 all its research be stamped w^ith humility, that, in the 
 handling of religious questions, it may never profane 
 them as did, with regard to the vessels of the sanctu- 
 ary, the Levites whom the Lord chastened. What I ask 
 is that raillery or disdain may never mingle with the 
 discussions it enters upon. What, in fine, I ask is, that 
 we may ever remember that, if we seek religious truth, 
 we seek it that we may the better adore and obey. I 
 admit that, ere we acknowledge it, we should examine 
 it seriously ; but from the day when we fully possess it, 
 our duty is to bow before it. It is written that truth 
 makes us free. Yes, but it is on condition that we shall 
 become its willing slaves ; if we break through all 
 human formulas, it is that we may the better obey God. 
 A noble Christian woman once said : " I prefer shadow 
 on the side of God, to light on the side of men." Well, 
 it is good for the soul to sit beneath this shadow ; to 
 breathe the air of the mysteries which humble and 
 sanctify us. There is a reasoning piety which always, 
 and under every possible form, aims simply at in- 
 struction. Is that the piety which does most good ? 
 Is that the piety which exercises the most communicative 
 
44 HUMILITY. 
 
 and sympathetic influence ? I think not ; and, for my 
 own part, I know of nothing more truly grand than a 
 nohle mind which humbles itself, and adores before God. 
 
 Intellectual humility thus understood is closely allied 
 with meekness of heart. In reality they should be 
 inseparable, but this is not always the case. Men may 
 profess to submit their minds wholly to God ; they may 
 offer to Him the sacrifice of their reason ; they may 
 make a boast of their blind faith, and yet shelter in 
 their hearts a world of pride. Again, men may believe 
 by the intellect that salvation is a free gift, and yet be 
 anything but humble before God. Nay, more than this, 
 men may take merit to themselves for not believing in 
 merit ; they may rely upon argument for their salvation, 
 and preserve in their hearts the leaven of pharisaism. 
 Which, think you, is the greater Pharisee of the man 
 wdio trusts in his good works, or the man who trusts 
 in his intellectual orthodoxy ? Is it not obvious that 
 between such dispositions as those, and the humble de- 
 pendence of the sinner, whose hope is in Divine mercy 
 alone, there is an immeasurable distance — the same 
 distance, alas ! which separates the heart from the brain, 
 intellectual faith from saving faith ? Therefore, so long 
 as humility fails to reach and subdue our hearts, it re- 
 mains a mere theory, an additional word in the vocabulary 
 of our Christianity, and it is to be feared that we have 
 not understood the Gospel. 
 
 Bat this meekness of heart must pass into our life ; it 
 must be recognised by the very manner in which we 
 accept the will of God. The Lord warns us by events as 
 well as by His word ; it is this double voice we must 
 hear and obey. AVhat would it avail us to bring a 
 broken heart at the foot of the cross, to offer ourselves 
 there as a living sacrifice, and then to arise anxious 
 to accomplish our own purposes and our own will, in 
 
HUMILITY. 
 
 45 
 
 a word, full of the pride of life ? No, no ; humility 
 must manifest itself day by day, hour after hour, in the 
 ordinary course of existence; it lies in that docility of 
 the heart which accepts the lessons which each of the 
 events of life is destined to teach ; it lies in that respect- 
 ful attitude of the believer who awaits the signs of the 
 Divine will, fearing lest his own should be found opposed 
 to God's ; it lies in the fulfilment of the obscure and 
 unpretending duties whicii it chooses in preference to all 
 others ; it lies in the unmurmuring acceptance of trials, 
 of painful dispensations. It has sometimes been seen 
 adorning with a sublime beauty the close of the most 
 eminent careers. It happens in the Church that men, on 
 whom God had bestowed the noblest gifts, grow in 
 humility as they advance in years and experience. Like 
 those branches which bend towards the earth in propor- 
 tion as they are loaded with fruit, they also, the more 
 they abound in good M'orks, the lower they bow before 
 God ; in them we find nought of the bitter censure, 
 nought of the gloomy morosity which betray spiritual 
 pride. We see them making themselves smaller and 
 smaller, if I may so speak, as they advance ; turning 
 their looks away from themselves, and saying with the 
 Forerunner, " I must decrease, and He must increase." 
 
 What a grand lesson is this progress in sacrifice ! 
 There is in it a secret charm which attracts and subdues 
 us. Like those lofty summits of the Alps which appear 
 less beautiful in the dazzling light of noonday than when 
 the setting sun clothes them with a delicate and mysteri- 
 ous hue, those Christian lives are less attractive to us in 
 the day of their most powerful activity than when, at the 
 close of the conflict, God crowns them with Imnnlity. 
 
 Such, brethren, is Christian meekness. Such, at least, 
 are some of its features, for to picture it fully is impos- 
 sible. It is felt rather than seen. We have still to 
 
46 HUMILITY. 
 
 consider the promise which God, in my text, makes to 
 it : " The meek will He teach His way." 
 
 The way of the Lord ! I like this expression, for it 
 imites earth to heaven. There is, then, here below a 
 way which leads to God, a way in which we walk with 
 God ; amongst all those paths which cross each other in 
 all directions and which finally lead to vanity, there is 
 one, however, which leads to no precipice, and which 
 victoriously runs through the valley of the shadow of 
 death. It ends on the shores of eternity. It leads us 
 to the land of rest, light, and justice, where those who 
 have followed it before have already arrived and await 
 lis. Happy is he who knoweth this way, for it is tlie way 
 of salvation ; but how is it to be found ? The Divine 
 Word answers that the Lord teacheth it to the humble. 
 
 Allow me to apply these words to you who have dis- 
 played all the powers of your intellect in seeking that 
 way, but who have not yet found it. Can you, within 
 the whole range of history, show us one man who, by the 
 mere force of his reason, has succeeded in finding the 
 way that leads to God ? God has allowed the ancient 
 world to go on discussing this question during forty 
 centuries. " What is the path of truth ? " has been 
 asked in every clime. With what ardour have men 
 endeavoured to solve this problem ! What studies ! 
 what deep intellectual research ! what wonderful 
 investigations ! Will the ancient philosophers ever be 
 surpassed in this respect ? Will more patient or pene- 
 trating minds than theirs ever be seen ? And yet, if in 
 the golden age of ancient thought you had entered one 
 of the schools to ask to be taught the way that leads to 
 God, what answer would you have received ? what light 
 could you have obtained from so many contradictory 
 opinions 1 But if, at the same period, in the land of 
 Judea, you had questioned that son of Jesse, that sliep- 
 
HUMILITY. 47 
 
 herd of Bethlehem, who called himself David, he would 
 have spoken to you of God in the most simple and 
 sublime language man has ever uttered ; he would have 
 pointed out to you that way which ancient wisdom was 
 seeking in vain, and which we ourselves have entered 
 upon thirty centuries after him. The Lord teacheth His 
 way to the humble. 
 
 Has it not been so in every age ? Have not the 
 humble always been the witnesses of God upon earth ? 
 Were they not humble, those who for the first time came 
 to worship the Saviour in the night of Bethlehem ? 
 Were they not humble, those who listened to the teach- 
 ing of Jesus Christ whilst the great and the wise shunned 
 or despised Him ? Were they not humble, those who, in 
 the day of His modest triumph at the gates of Jerusalem, 
 first struck up those hallelujahs which henceforth will 
 never cease, but will be re-echoed from world to world 
 throughout all eternity ? Were they not humble, those 
 who first confessed Him whom we all confess to-day ? 
 Have not the meek always been the instruments God 
 has used to conquer the strong ? Where then is the 
 page of the Gospel or of history in which we do not 
 find a commentary of these words : " Tlie meek shall He 
 teach His way ? " 
 
 In our day, human intelligence has acquired a haughty 
 and unlimited confidence in itself; it has faith in its 
 own powers, it believes that it will arrive at a solution 
 of all problems, that it will surmount all obstacles. And, 
 in fact, how many impossible paths has it not opened ! 
 It has traced, in the depths of the earth, the roads which 
 lead to inexhaustible riches ; it has cast over our globe 
 that iron network which is covering it more and more, 
 and, outreaching the earth, it has followed, through the 
 immensity of the skies, the paths of the stars, it has 
 calculated most accurately their volume and their density. 
 
48 HUMILITY. 
 
 Truly, man is the king of nature. But amidst all those 
 gigantic discoveries, has he found the way that leads to 
 God ? He thinks he might discover it by the power of 
 liis genius. We are continually being told that some 
 new enthusiast has caught a glimpse of it, and our minds 
 sometimes delight in following up these systems ; but 
 when, oppressed by doubt and suffering, terrified at our 
 darkness and weary of our wanderings, we seek that way, 
 to whom do we go ? We go to the school of those 
 meek ones of earth who heard the Saviour in Galilee ; we 
 ponder over their words, and they alone give us satisfac- 
 tion and peace. Contrast with their few pages all your 
 systems, the newest as well as the most ancient, and 
 find, if you can, one which is capable of replacing the 
 Gospel ? Ah ! when men speak of the insufficiency of 
 Christianity, I ask where is the new way which will 
 more surely or more directly lead to God ; and I feel 
 utterly unconcerned, for each system which crumbles is 
 a proof of the insufficiency of human wisdom, and, at the 
 same time, a further demonstration of the truth that " the 
 meek will God teach His way." 
 
 Shall men reproach us here with exalting ignorance, 
 intellectual mediocrity, or with lowering reason ? Far 
 from us be such a thought. Do we not know that 
 neither ignorance nor intellectual mediocrity give humi- 
 lity ? On the contrary, we have often seen them produce 
 pride. Let the intellect grow and its powers increase ; 
 let it widen the sphere of its free research, and we shall 
 rejoice ; what we ask of it is to acknowledge with sim- 
 plicity what it ignores, and never to forget its dependence 
 upon God. It is impossible not to observe once more 
 how closely intelligence is allied with the moral condition 
 in religious matters. In Saul, the persecutor of the 
 Church, and in Paul, the apostle, the intellectual vigour 
 is the same. How then are we to account for the vast 
 
HUMILITY. 49 
 
 distance which separates those two men ? By the fact 
 that the heart of Saul has been humbled. Therefore, 
 point out to me a man who deeply feels both his depend- 
 ence upon God and his natural misery, I will fear 
 nothing for him, for, had his reason the eagle-flight of 
 Bossuet, Newton, or Pascal, I feel that it will willingly 
 submit to be taught of God. 
 
 That is the Divine plan, and God will not alter it to- 
 day. Would you learn the way that leads to Him ? Be 
 humble. If you seek religious truth only as a critic or 
 amateur, if you acknowledge it only to dissert upon it, 
 to make of it a pedestal for your penetrating spirit, 
 think not it will ever be given you. But if you seek it 
 with the earnest desire to yield your heart and life to it, 
 in the name of the living God I declare unto you that 
 you will find it, for to seek it thus is to have already 
 found it in part. We read that a great and pious 
 preacher of the middle ages one day met a young man 
 who had just completed his studies, and who, to display 
 his penetration of mind, began a subtle dissertation upon 
 God. The old man listened for some time in silence, 
 then, placing his hand on the youth's shoulder, said : 
 " Lift thine eyes, friend, and look at the sun." The 
 young man raised his eyes, but, blinded by that dazzling 
 light, he was forced to bow his head. " Thou fool," said 
 the aged man, " thou canst not gaze upon the visible sun, 
 and thou pretendest to penetrate God who is the sun 
 of souls ! " He spoke true. Pride would see God face 
 to face, and His splendour dazzles it. Humility bows 
 before Him, and its path is flooded by His light. The 
 Lord teacheth His way to the humble. 
 
 I have spoken of the doubts of the intellect. But 
 they can never be the portion of the multitude, for there 
 are but few who reason their unbelief. If I should ask 
 of the great majority of men whether they know what 
 
 D 
 
50 HUMILITY. 
 
 the Bible calls the way of the Lord, they would answer 
 that they have never seen it, and that it is impossible it 
 should exist in the labyrinth of life. The spectacle of 
 life and of the world, such as sin has made them, is the 
 most frequent cause of unbelief. How believe in the 
 way of the Lord when everything seems to be the effect 
 of chance, when the just is chastened with the unjust, 
 when death pitilessly strikes to the right and to the left, 
 when prayers remain unanswered, when events cross 
 each other in a bewildering disorder ? This temptation 
 besets the Christian especially when he is passing 
 through trial. Then it is that God must teach him His 
 way, and is it not evident that if he could clearly 
 discern that Divine way, if he could see it shining in 
 the midst of his darkness, if he could feel that he is 
 advancing in it, and that each trial is an incentive to 
 greater and more rapid progress, is it not evident, I ask, 
 that be would derive immense consolation from this 
 thought ? 
 
 Now, that God may teach you this way through 
 which He leads you, do you know what, perhaps, is 
 lacking in you ? Humility. Humility which accepts 
 whatever God sends and which does not argue with 
 Him. Oh, we sometimes imagine that revolt must 
 always be haughty and threatening, but it is clever at 
 disguising itself, it takes refuge in apparently broken 
 hearts, it hides under a gloomy resignation, it lurks 
 under many a mourning garment. There are hearts 
 which refuse to be comforted of God and which will not 
 forgive Him for having overthrown their plans, de- 
 stroyed their happiness, broken their affections. Brethren, 
 beware ! Men will not confess that they are resisting 
 God, but in reality they are braving and defying Him. 
 And do you know what happens ? The more they 
 resist, the less they understand the purposes of God ; 
 
HUMILITY. 
 
 51 
 
 the blinder they become, the deeper their darkness 
 grows, the more inextricable the cliaos of life ap- 
 pears. What then is required that tlie way of the 
 Lord may be traced out in this labyrinth, and that the 
 light of heaven may ilhimine it ? For this men must 
 humble themselves, fall on their knees and no longer 
 ask to understand. 
 
 We speak of the benefits of affliction. Yes, when it 
 is accepted with meekness of heart. Otherwise it may 
 harden, and alas ! harden for ever. But when it is accom- 
 panied with humility, it is indeed a blessed messenger. 
 It leads us, it brings us back to God, it teaches us to 
 say with David : " Before I was afflicted I went astray, 
 but now have I kept thy word." And when trial is 
 accepted in this spirit, it is almost always followed by 
 light. The more humble a Christian becomes, the 
 more fully God enlightens him. He gets to understand 
 those strange and singular dispensations by wliich God 
 leads him. He learns to say, not theoretically, but from 
 experience, that all things work together for good to 
 them that love God. The more he advances, the 
 brighter is the light that shines from heaven upon his 
 way, and he feels that this beautiful joromise is being 
 realised for him : " The path of the just " (why should 
 we not say of the humble ?) " is as the shining light, that 
 shineth more and more unto the perfect day." 
 
 It is, therefore, true that the Lord teacheth the meek 
 His way. To them He reveals His truth, to them He 
 gives comfort in the hour of trial ; but that is not 
 enough for us. The Christian is not satisfied with 
 being enlightened and comforted by God. He wants 
 more than this. He wishes to worlv for God, to be His 
 witness, His representative upon earth. Well, to the 
 man who is inflamed with this noble desire, to the man 
 who asks God to show him the best means to be used 
 
52 HUMILITY. 
 
 for the advancement of His reign, the Divine \Yord 
 again says : " Tlie meek "will He teach His way." 
 
 It is a marvellous fact that the God of Christianity 
 has never selected the strong for His service, hut that 
 He has always chosen the Immhle, that it might appear 
 that it was His power indeed which was made manifest 
 in their weakness. Bring np before yonr memory's eye 
 all those who have served His purposes, all those by 
 whom He has instructed and saved men, and you will 
 see that all have been trained in the school of humility. 
 In none of them will you find that factitious grandeur 
 which is the fruit of pride and enthusiasm, that studied 
 attitude of the heroes of this world, who seek to dazzle 
 us by their majesty. No ; all the heroes of the Bible 
 confess their agitations, their failings, their falls, they 
 all tell us that it has pleased God to crush their strength. 
 Here is Moses, whom the Bible calls the meekest among 
 the sons of men, Moses, who trembles in presence of 
 his mission ; here is David, who goes down to the brook 
 to gather stones for his sling in presence of an army 
 in battle array, David, the humblest of all those whom 
 God has ever invested with the responsibility of a 
 crown ; here is I'eter, bearing everywhere with him 
 the humiliating remembrance of his threefold denial ; 
 here is Paul, who is exposed to the meanest humili- 
 ations, and who continually mourns beneath the weight 
 of his mysterious affliction. Here they are, such as 
 God has prepared them for the conllict, armed with 
 their weakness ; and yet, to them the Lord has taught 
 the way of success. 
 
 You then who are anxious to labour for the Lord, 
 lay hold of this thought, for it alone will be capable 
 of preserving you against inevitable discouragement. So 
 long as you will rely upon your own strength and re- 
 sources for success, God will destroy your confidence by 
 
HUMILITY. 53 
 
 repeated failures, and then you will, perhaps, be tempted 
 to believe that He has forsaken you, wliile, on the con- 
 trary, He is training and preparing you to become a 
 willing instrument in His hands. For the performance 
 of some excellent work you had trusted on the wealth 
 which was yours. He will show you one, in poverty, 
 accomplishing with his limited resources works far 
 greater than yours. You had trusted in your talents, 
 in your eloquence, in the penetration of your mind ; 
 it seemed to you that to these noble gifts, employed in 
 the service of God, nothing could resist. He will show 
 you uncultured men, men of very commonplace capaci- 
 ties and talents, enlightening more minds, saving more 
 souls, gathering in a richer harvest than you. You had 
 trusted in the power and energy of your will ; He will 
 show you characters infinitely weaker than yours, men 
 who would be incapable of conceiving any grand design, 
 yet by their daily fidelity attaining results which are 
 denied you, and, by all these successive trials. He will 
 say to you, my brother : " Thou hadst thought that my pur- 
 poses could not be worked out without thy aid, and thou 
 didst not know that I have no need of thee." But when, 
 by this mysterious education. He will have crushed, and 
 well-nigh annihilated you, He will raise you up again in 
 His mercy, and those gifts which He had bestowed on 
 you, after having all been adorned with humility, will 
 be employed by Him to His glory. 
 
 Before I conclude I will observe how opposed to the 
 present current of thought are the truths I have brought 
 before you. I have said that ancient wisdom has never 
 known humility ; that is one of the teachings of Christi- 
 anity which has always been folly in its sight. In our 
 day, in contemporary unbelief, I meet an exactly similar 
 opinion. The watchword of our epoch is this : " Eely 
 on thyself alone, believe in thyself alone." Whilst 
 
54 HUMILITY. 
 
 the boldest unbelief tells us that heaven is empty, and 
 that there is no other god than man, the mass of those 
 whose minds reach not to those extreme consequences, 
 none the less proclaims, in practice, that the man who 
 wishes to succeed must rely upon himself alone. What 
 then will they think of Christian humility, of that 
 strange doctrine which teaches man to sacrifice himself, 
 to lower himself in his own eyes ? They can only 
 regard it as folly, if even they do not see in it an 
 instrument of authority for evil, a means of maintaining 
 man in a perpetual state of servitude and infancy. 
 
 Folly! Well, be it so. But men must know that 
 this folly has been the source of all that is grandest 
 and most lasting upon earth. It is right that this 
 proud age, whose confidence is all in man, should 
 remember that the greatest moral victories the world 
 has ever witnessed have been won by the meek, and 
 that to these also the final triumph has been promised. 
 
 When, eighteen centuries ago, mankind had reached 
 the lowest stage of abjection and misery, when servitude 
 was the universal watchword, when the civiliesd world 
 had fallen so low as to bow in adoration before the 
 image of a crowned monster, who raised humanity, who 
 saved it, by restoring to it the dignity of the soul, the 
 moral independence from which was to spring modern 
 liberty ? Those philosphers who exalted man, those 
 proud stoics who believed in nought but human will 
 and energy ? No ; those meek and humble believers 
 in the Gospel, who, while bowing their humbled heads 
 before God, had learned to raise them in presence of 
 universal thraldom and degradation. And, in the six- 
 teenth century, when the whole of the Christian world 
 bent beneath the yoke of Julius II. or Alexander VI., 
 who delivered human conscience ? Those sceptics and 
 ^theists, who then, as now, ajftirmed that heaven is empty 
 
HUMILITY. 55 
 
 and that man must depend upon himself alone for -will 
 and action ? No ; these mocked in private, but in 
 public they bowed their heads low. Those who en- 
 franchised the human soul then, were those humble 
 Christians, who in their theology referred all to God, 
 all to His grace, and after having humbled themselves 
 before Him, learned to free themselves from the bondage 
 of men, and to shake off all authority which was not 
 Divine. 
 
 And here before our mind's eye passes that immortal 
 scene of Worms which was as the dawn of the lieforma- 
 tion. Three centuries ago, at a diet held in Germany, 
 a young emperor sat surrounded by all the splendour 
 and glory of the realm ; his were power and wealth, the 
 homage of earth and the blessings of heaven. He held 
 beneath his sceptre a great part of Europe, and almost 
 the whole of the New World. The sun never set upon 
 his states, and his flatterers beguiled him with dreams of 
 universal dominion. When Charles V., intoxicated with 
 his unparalleled greatness, saw a pale and haggard 
 monk called Martin Luther enter the hall, we are told 
 that he was unable to repress a motion of surprise and 
 contempt. He knew not that, in this solemn day, a 
 great struggle was about to begin, and that this unknown 
 monk would be the victor ; he knew not that, after the 
 lapse of three centuries, the cause for which this monk 
 was struggling would have on its side more than half 
 of the Christian nations, while nought would be left of 
 that earthly grandeur which dazzled even himself. Now, 
 whence came this wondrous power which enabled 
 Luther, alone before that assembly, alone before the 
 whole of Europe, to affirm his faith unflinchingly, and to 
 win that triumph to which we are indebted for our 
 own enfranchisement ? His adversaries have answered : 
 " Monkish pride ! " Ah 1 if ever he was proud, it 
 
56 HUMILITY. 
 
 was surely not in that eventful hour. No ; he had 
 gathered his strength in that long and fervent prayer 
 •which, on the eve of that memorable day, he had uttered 
 with tears, and in which he pronounced these simple and 
 touching words : " Thou knowest, my God, that I too 
 
 would prefer my rest and peace Who am I that 
 
 I should resist so many great lords ? but it is Thy cause, 
 not mine." Luther on his knees, Luther crushed by his 
 solemn mission, Luther broken down before God, that is 
 the explanation of his courage and triumph, for the Lord 
 teacheth His way to the meek. 
 
 Let us then seek our strength where the Eeformer 
 found his ; let us go to work, in meekness and self- 
 abasement, and to Him who alone can give the victory, 
 to Him from whom all things proceed, and to whom all 
 things return, to Him be glory for ever and for ever. 
 Amen. 
 
( 57 ) 
 
 IV. 
 
 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 " For we walk by faith, not by sight." — 2 CoE. v. 7. 
 
 There are two worlds, the visible and the invisible. But 
 for the Fall these two would still constitute one. Had 
 we remained pure, the visible world would be to us as 
 the mirror of the eternal realities which the eye of the 
 body is unable to perceive ; the presence and action of 
 God would be everywhere manifest, and we would see 
 His adorable image reflected in nature far more distinctly 
 than the majestic summits of the Alps in the crystal 
 waters of Geneva on a calm day. To separate God from 
 His works would be an impossibility ; we could more 
 easily separate the flower from the fragrance it yields, or 
 the sun from the rays it sends forth eternally. 
 
 See how Jesus contemplates nature ; for Him the 
 invisible world is everywhere. He finds it in the s|)ring 
 which gushes forth at His feet, in the branches united 
 with the vine, in the tree which covers Him with its 
 shade, in the golden harvests, in the glowing skies, and 
 even in the minutest details of the life of the publicans 
 and sinners who surround Him. Everything, in his 
 eyes, becomes a transparent image of the human soul 
 and of its divine destinies. Beyond all wliich clouds 
 our vision, He perceives the invisible world, He sees it so 
 
58 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 clearly that it is needless for Him to believe, and we 
 would feel greatly surprised should any one speak of the 
 faith of Jesus. Jesus sees heaven, He lives in it, He 
 breathes in it, He bears it with Him everywhere upon 
 earth. 
 
 That is how it should be. Alas ! you know how it is. 
 Ask of the great majority of men what they see beyond 
 the visible world, or rather, seek those whom visible 
 things do not absorb entirely ; for the greater number 
 those are the only realities ; all the rest is set down as 
 wild fancies or day-dreams. To know visible things, 
 that is their wisdom ; to act upon visible things, that is 
 their work ; to enjoy visible things, that is their happi- 
 ness. Beyond that, everything vanishes before their 
 eyes. Even religion, which, above all, should be the 
 revelation of the invisible world, is degraded by being 
 made subservient to the interests of the present life. 
 Some make of it an instrument of political authority ; 
 others consider it as a civil and social institution ; others 
 would reduce the Church to the simple role of a vast 
 philanthropic association ; others see in prayer and 
 worship the mere satisfaction of certain wants of human 
 nature. Underlying these various ideas, you find the 
 more or less plainly avowed negation of the invisible 
 world ; and, whilst for the man who has remained pure, 
 the things that are seen are but an image of the in- 
 visible, for the sinful man, on the contrary, the things 
 which are invisible have no value except in so far as 
 they can be made to minister to present interests, to the 
 security of that which is transitory. 
 
 But without a,ccusing others, let us ask ourselves 
 what place the invisible world occupies in our own life. 
 How difticult it is for us to lay hold of it ! That we 
 may open our eyes to its pure light, are not a more pain- 
 ful operation, a more laborious preparation required than 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. 59 
 
 those which a blind man must undergo in order to 
 recover his sight? And how quickly do we forget it, 
 how easily is our attention diverted from it ! What a 
 mighty power do present preoccupations exercise upon 
 our minds ! How all eternal realities pale before them ! 
 Who knows this better than we do, we ministers of the 
 Gospel ? From our pulpits we speak to you of the 
 things of eternity, we tell you of the approbation of God 
 which you are to seek in preference to the praise of men, 
 of the love of God which should consume all the worldly 
 lusts and passions that dwell in your hearts, of the com- 
 munion with God which is to be your delight in the 
 world to come ; we picture the unspeakable felicity of 
 the redeemed, their peace, their unalterable joys. . . . 
 And yet, must we confess it ? How often do we not 
 feel that this language surpasses our present impressions, 
 and that it springs more from our imagination than from 
 our soul .' Oh ! how easy it is to speak, and with what 
 terrible temptations is even the preaching of the Gospel 
 accompanied ! What efforts, what unceasing w^atchful- 
 ness are required in order that our hearts may be con- 
 tinually penetrated with the truths we proclaim, that our 
 emotion may not resemble that of the artist or poet, that 
 the mean desire for the present success of our words may 
 not absorb our thoughts, that we may not be wholly 
 chained down to earth in the very moment when we 
 pretend to open heaven to your enraptured gaze ! That 
 is the humiliating confession which now escapes my lips, 
 but cannot you all join your personal avowals to mine ? 
 Heirs of the invisible world, what a contrast between your 
 life and your Christian profession ! Those hearts which are 
 so unconcerned for the interests of Jesus Christ, so im- 
 passioned for their own ; those minds which are so 
 engrossed by the affairs or the news of the day, so 
 indifferent to the progress of the reign of God; those 
 
6o FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 existences wliicli are carried away, absorbed, consumed 
 by what is transient, do you not know them, and do you 
 not feel how completely the visible world keeps you 
 under its subjection ? 
 
 Such is our condition, and God who knows it, God 
 who wishes to save us, has traced out for us a plan of 
 education, which St. Paul sums up in these grand 
 words : " We walk by faith, not by sight." Now, I 
 would have you make of these words your motto, I 
 would have you learn to refer every detail of your life 
 to them. 
 
 " By faith and not by sight ! " Before explaining 
 these words, we cannot fail to observe how they clash 
 with all the ideas and tendencies of the age. There 
 exists a philosophical school which enjoys the immense 
 advantage of knowing clearly what it aims at, and which 
 is represented by men whose talents and character 
 exercise an incontestable influence. This school has 
 written upon its banner the word j^ositivisni. It says to 
 man : " What does it avail thee to let thy thoughts 
 wander through the invisible world, and to pursue those 
 fleeting shadows men call by the name of religions ? 
 Give lip all those wild fancies which have ineffectually 
 wearied the human soul during so many ages. Believe 
 what thou seest. Lay hold of the visible world, study 
 it, make of matter thy servant, mend the laws and consti- 
 tutions of humanity ; in this alone is progress possible, 
 in this alone is happiness secured to thee." Such is the 
 language of this school, and what constitutes its strength, 
 is the fact that it unhesitatingly expresses the thoughts 
 of the great majority in the present day. Its doctrines 
 are re-echoed by all the voices of the age ; some express 
 them in grave language, others with cynical fli2:)pancy. 
 What is the invisible world to most of our moneyed 
 men ? AVhat place does it occupy in their ardent and 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. 6r 
 
 feverish speculations ? They do not so much as consider 
 it wortliy of their attacks. They do Avithout it, they set 
 it aside with the disdainful self-satisfaction you have 
 seen — ^you, believers in the eternal realities, when, in your 
 zeal to propagate your faith, you have so often encoun- 
 tered tlie icy indifference of the multitude whom reality 
 fully satisfies. 
 
 Arguments would certainly not fail us if our purpose 
 in this discourse was to avenge the invisible world for 
 the contempt to which it is exposed. In the name of 
 progress itself, in the name of that civilisation which 
 men oppose to us, we would accept the conflict. Yes, 
 we could easily demonstrate that all the grandest actions, 
 those which have been most beneficial to mankind, have 
 been performed by men who, in a higher or humbler 
 sphere, have walked by faith and not by sight. Who are 
 those who have won the great moral victories to which 
 the Christian nations are indebted for their position at 
 the head of the civilised world ? History answers : Men 
 who believed. Men who believed in conscience, in duty, 
 in justice. Now neither conscience, nor duty, nor justice 
 are visible. The things that are seen are pleasure, 
 fortune, actual success. Yes, if humanity had walked 
 only by sight, as men would have it do to-day, then 
 might we blot out the noble and dramatic history of 
 eighteen centuries of suffering, of martyrdom, of glorious 
 progress ; but we will not blot it out, and it will ever 
 remain true that in the midst of Christian nations, and 
 there only, is progress a reality. It will ever remain 
 true that the nations which have dwelt longest upon 
 earth, and have traced the deepest furrows in the paths 
 of the future, are those which have been most en- 
 lightened by the full radiance of eternal truth. When 
 St. Paul wrote the words of my text, the ancient world 
 was precisely in the state to which men would lead back 
 
62 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 the modern world ; it had ceased to believe in all that 
 was not visible and palpable ; whatever was beyond this 
 it considered as foolish and void. It believed neither in 
 Providence, nor in prayer, nor in the hopes whose accom- 
 plishment eternity alone will see. And yet, this world 
 which believed in nought beyond itself, what had it 
 arrived at ? On what shore had it stranded ? Did it 
 believe in progress ? did it believe in justice ? did it 
 believe in liberty ? had it preserved a ray of hope ? 
 Ah ! who is not fully aware that never before had a 
 more shameful abasement, a more complete degradation, 
 a more universal disregard for the native nobility and 
 dignity of man been witnessed ? Who restored it to 
 life ? Who saved it from sinking into nothingness ? 
 Who reminded humanity of what constitutes its true 
 greatness ? Those men, those believers who opposed to 
 the present world the world to come, and who refused to 
 limit man's destinies to the present life. That is a 
 striking and evident fact which alone would be sufficient 
 to justify the Gospel against the accusations to which I 
 have referred. Now, this fact has not been accomplished 
 once for all. During the eighteen centuries which form 
 the history of our religion, how often has the world been 
 on the point of sinking back into the state in which 
 Christianity had found it, on the point of giving up its 
 best conquests to believe only in what may be handled 
 and seen ! At every one of these epochs, what has 
 restored it to life has been an energetic appeal to the 
 invisible world, the testimony of those who have walked 
 by faith and not by sight. 
 
 It was to be so, and we should form a strange idea of 
 Christianity if we believed that it teaches us to desjnse 
 the earth and the present life. I know that many 
 causes may have favoured this error. Monastic life, 
 opposed by lionian Catholicism to active and social life. 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. 63 
 
 and considered by it as more elevated and more perfect, 
 the deplorable exaggerations of certain Christians who 
 have neglected the most imj)ortant duties of existence, 
 alleging that their eternal interests required all their 
 thoughts, have but too often furnished unbelief with 
 weapons. But Christianity itself is innocent of these 
 errors and excesses. ISTever, I repeat it, has it taught us 
 to forget, or even to neglect the world or its duties ; on 
 the contrary, it bids us regard both, but without allow- 
 ing ourselves to be completely absorbed in either. Earth 
 is not, neither can it be the aim of the Christian, but it 
 is the scene of his activity, the place in which his 
 eternal future is prepared. Doubtless, the thouglit of 
 eternity will hush many of the preoccupations by which 
 we are absorbed, it will reduce to their real value all 
 selfish joys and pleasures, all that pertains only to the 
 present hour ; but what a mighty impulse will it not 
 give to all that is generous, noble, and useful, to all that 
 contributes to the good of others and to the glory of 
 God ! It is maintained by many that eternity lowers 
 the present life ; but I assert, on the contrary, that it 
 gives it an incomparable grandeur. What is man, what 
 are all his desires, hopes, labours, affections, if everything 
 is to disappear with the fleeting hour ? What is there 
 worth beginning here below ? What cause is worthy of 
 our sacrifices ? Why should we renounce all that is 
 visible, immediate happiness, actual enjoyment, sensual 
 delights ? Let us limit our horizon, let us ask of the 
 passing hour all it is capable of giving us, let us make 
 merry, for to-morrow we die. Why speak of the higher 
 emotions, of the nobler aspirations of human nature ? 
 Those emotions, those aspirations will soon die if there 
 is no eternity for them, just as the plant withers and 
 perishes when deprived of air and sunlight. And, in 
 fact, do you not hear that eternal refrain : " Vanity of 
 
6+ FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 vanities," ringing incessantly in your ears, and does it not 
 leave in the depths of your soul an ineffaceable impres- 
 sion of discouragement ? Do you not hourly see your 
 efforts rendered fruitless, your best intentions misjudged, 
 your affections scorned ? No, if there is nothing for me 
 beyond this world, if this earth is my only fatherland 
 and my only heritage, life henceforth is meaningless for 
 me, it remains a cruel and inexplicable enigma, and I 
 can but write upon its threshold these true but mourn- 
 ful words of the apostle : " Without God, without 
 hope ! " 
 
 On the contrary, open eternity to me. Tell me that 
 life is a journey, a march onward ; tell me that I am 
 walking towards my true home. Then I am able to 
 begin and undertake everything, then the bitter feeling 
 of vanity disappears. I can labour, and labour in vain, 
 if need be, sow on an unfruitful soil, pursue even in the 
 lowest condition, the meanest and most insignificant of 
 tasks ; I know that my sacrifices, my labours, and my 
 tears are as so many seeds which will spring forth on the 
 day when the sun of the invisible world shall arise. I 
 can love, love in presence of death, although I know that 
 the gloomy angel will dim those eyes that had answered 
 mine, that he will still that heart which had throbbed 
 with the same emotions as my own, that he will chill 
 that hand whose loyal grasp had encouraged and 
 strengthened me. But in my heart dwells an immortal 
 hope which I oppose to all these crushing realities. 
 That hope may for a moment be dulled and apparently 
 quenched, but a breath from heaven will suffice to scatter 
 the ashes with which it is covered, and to produce a 
 brighter and more cheerful light than before. Yes, it is 
 because I do not wholly belong to the present life that 
 I am able to work upon earth ; that is what gives such a 
 solemn importance to my short and wretched existence. 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. 65 
 
 Let none, therefore, seek to deprive me of the invisible 
 world in the name of the present interests of humanity ; 
 all M'ithin me protests against such an attempt, and his- 
 tory, agreeing on this j^oint with my innermost experience, 
 proves to me that the present life can be understood and 
 explained only in the light of eternity. 
 
 Such would be my answer to those who disdainfully 
 treat these grand words of St. Paul : " We walk by faith 
 and not by sight." But let us overlook these attacks. 
 You ai'e Christians, these words of the apostle are your 
 motto, you acknowledge with me that they sum up 
 admirably the Divine plan of your destiny. And now, 
 I have still to show that, though we accept this motto 
 in theory, we openly deny it in reality. A few examples 
 will be sufficient to prove that, in the direction of our 
 life, we almost always endeavour to substitute sight for 
 faith, and that, in this way, we constantly labour to 
 make the purposes of God of none effect. 
 
 What, in the first place, shall we say of those who 
 will not accept religion unless it presents itself to them 
 under a brilliant form, and with the approbation of men, 
 with all that speaks to the senses and imagination ? 
 How often have we not heard Eoman Catholicism point 
 to the power, antiquity, and outward splendour of the 
 visible Church, as the most evident demonstration of 
 Christianity ! To seek truth by such signs as these, 
 is not that walking by sight ? Jesus once said to the 
 disciples who stood gazing admiringly at the beauties of 
 the Temple : " See ye not all these things ? " What then 
 would He say to those who cannot understand truth if 
 it is not accompanied by a gorgeous ceremonial or an 
 imposing hierarchy ? What would He say, in presence 
 of those believers who, when the temporal power of the 
 Church, or her earthly possessions, are threatened, are 
 more deeply stirred than when impiety attacks, not the 
 
 E 
 
66 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 walls of the temple, but the altar, not the outward 
 edifice, but the cross, not an earthly sovereign, but Christ 
 Himself ? " See ye not all these things ? " And we, 
 brethren, can we affirm that we have never been beset 
 by this temptation ? Has our faith never been shaken 
 when we have seen the Church feeble, obscure and 
 despised ? Have we never desired to see lier receiving 
 the homage of the world, the support of distinguished 
 men, the authority of numbers and of public opinion ? 
 Are we as faithful to truth when it is contemned as 
 when it enjoys the respect and consideration of men ? 
 Well, asking these outward signs is wishing to walk by 
 sight and not by faith. Ye who want such signs, what 
 would you have done in the days of Jesus Christ ? To 
 believe, you require the prestige of appearance; where 
 was it at Gethsemane, at Nazareth, in the Preetorium, on 
 Calvary ? You want the antiquity of tradition, the 
 authority of men. Where were they when the whole of 
 the Jewish priesthood looked upon Jesus as a blasphemer, 
 and appealed to the law ? You want the support of 
 numbers and of public opinion. Would you have found 
 it in the midst of that people who unanimously joined in 
 cursing Jesus, and in crying out : " Crucify, crucify ! " 
 You want the approbation of superior minds. What 
 would you have done, had you seen the Sadducees shak- 
 ing their heads and sneering at the strange spectacle of 
 a pretended king, of a worker of miracles, who, on the 
 cross, had not even the strength to master His anguish ? 
 To believe, you must see. What would you have seen 
 on the Mount of Olives, what would you have seen on 
 Golgotha ? What would that extraordinary solitude, 
 that unparalleled humiliation, that fearful agony have 
 taught you ? No, no, it is not to sight, but to faith that 
 truth is revealed ; it is to the eyes of the soul that it has 
 ever manifested itself. 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. 67 
 
 You will readily agree with me, for, since Truth has 
 appeared upon earth crucified and crowned with thorns, 
 man has understood that outward glory is no longer the 
 sign by which it is to be recognised. But we may, 
 in another way, desire to walk by sight and not by 
 faith. 
 
 There are Christians who are troubled in their soul 
 because God has ceased to grant striking and undeniable 
 signs of His intervention to the Church. They cannot 
 explain how it is that God seems to have abandoned 
 truth to the ordinary course of human things, how it is 
 that its progress is not marked by continual prodigies. 
 It would be so easy for Him to accomplish miracles ! 
 Why does He not display all His power in the support 
 of truth ? How many answers might we not give to 
 this desire for miracles, to this want of the superhuman 
 which ferments in the depths of so many souls ? We 
 could, first of all, show that miracles alone have never 
 converted the heart, of which we have evident proof in 
 the example of the Galileans who remained in their 
 unbelief in presence of the most surprising wonders, 
 whilst the hearers of St. Paul, without one miracle, are 
 converted by thousands. We could, next, answer that if 
 miracles were absolutely necessary to faith, everybody 
 must witness some ; now, this would suppose such a 
 multiplication of prodigies, that, for this very reason, 
 miracles w^ould lose their supernatural character. But, 
 let us set aside these arguments, and refer to the 
 Scriptures. There I see that the more revelation 
 advances, the less God manifests Himself to sight, and 
 the more He reveals Himself to faith. 
 
 In the beginning, I see Him conversing with men 
 through the medium of angels, I see constant signs and 
 wonders ; a pillar of cloud or of fire marks His presence ; 
 the thunder roars on Sinai. In one word, everything 
 
68 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 speaks to the siglit ; but with Jesus Christ, how every- 
 thing changes ! Jesus teaches us tliat there is a sign 
 which more clearly attests the presence of God than all 
 external miracles, and that this sign is love. Wlieu 
 John, the forerunner, the prophet of the old covenant, 
 asks of Christ : " Art Thou He that should come, or do 
 we look for another ? " Christ, doubtless, answers by 
 the enumeration of the prodigies He has accomplished : 
 " The lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are 
 raised np ; " but He ends with these sublime words : 
 " The poor have the Gospel preached to them." Yes, 
 that is the strongest of proofs, the most decisive of 
 arguments in favour of the presence of the Desire of the 
 nations. Oh, John the Baptist, thou prophet of the old 
 covenant, thou didst expect a glorious Messiah, and thou 
 hast not been able to recognise that His works of love 
 proclaim Him better than miracles or external majesty ! 
 If it be so, why should we ask for miracles ? It is by 
 faith we must walk and not by sight. No ; God will 
 not open the heavens ; no, there will be given no sign to 
 this unbelieving generation, no other sign than the sign 
 of the cross, for he whom the cross leaves insensible, he 
 who passes before it unsubdued, he who sees not in it 
 the presence and the infinite mercy of God, he would not 
 be moved though a dead man should rise from the grave 
 and stand before him. And ye who already believe, do 
 not ask God for those visible signs of His intervention, 
 for that would be as much as to say that a miracle 
 attests the presence of God more clearly than the most 
 striking proof He has ever given of His wondrous love ; 
 that would be as much as to say that, for you, there is 
 sometliing more convincing, more decisive than the 
 astonishing sacrifice of Calvary, than the abyss of love 
 over whose brink angels stoop wonderingly, because, 
 in the splendours of heaven, in the abode of infinite 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. 69 
 
 glory, tliey have never beheld anything so grand or so 
 sublime ! 
 
 Another way of walking by sight and not by faith is 
 to wait, ere we believe, until Christianity has justified 
 itself on every point in the eyes of reason. But, in that 
 case, there would be no more need for faith, its place 
 would be taken by evidence. Now God, who is unwilling 
 to, overcharge men with the evidence of miracles, is 
 unwilling also to overpower them by the evidence of 
 logical proofs ; all these proofs speak to the sight, and 
 God wishes to be laid hold of by faith. You will never 
 find a demonstration of Christianity which will exempt 
 men from that impulse of the heart and of the whole 
 being which is called faith. Miracles speak to the 
 senses, arguments speak to the intellect, but God wishes 
 to lay hold of our moral being, — that is, of what in us 
 is grandest and best. He would have us give ourselves 
 freely to Him by faith. That is why I feel no sorrow 
 at the imperfection and incompleteness of even the best 
 of theological systems. That which no human- system 
 can embrace, that which no formula will ever be able 
 to contain, is the Divine, the infinite, the mysterious. 
 But how joyfully faith soars towards it, how deeply it 
 feels its need of what governs and surpasses it, how 
 freely it breathes in that heavenly atmosphere ! What 
 then shall we think of those who would reduce religion 
 to the level of human intelligence, and deprive it of all 
 which is above our comprehension ? As well might we 
 look for a dawn without mystery, for a sky without 
 infinite depths. But a religion thus measured will re- 
 main what it is, a work of men ; it will never captivate 
 the soul, it will never inspire it with anything that 
 reaches beyond the limited horizon of worldly morality ; 
 it will never produce believers or apostles, for these were 
 men who walked by faith and not by sight. 
 
70 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 Again, we substitute sight for faith when we ask of 
 God to mark His intervention in our life by continual 
 deliverances, by immediate answers to our prayers. One 
 of the many things by which Christians are often 
 troubled is the fact that their prayers remain unan- 
 swered. If God permits this, we may rest assured that 
 He has good reasons which we cannot understand, 
 and, doubtless, one of these reasons is that He wishes 
 us to walk by faith and not by sight. Imagine a life in 
 which prayer would always be followed by immediate 
 deliverance. What would such a life be, and who 
 would not long to be a Christian at that price ? All 
 would become followers of Christ, in the first place, from 
 mere motives of interest, as the Jews who pressed 
 around the Saviour so long as He gave them bread. 
 How many would follow Him from love ? Now, it is 
 precisely this mercenary instinct which God wishes to 
 destroy in our souls, for He has an infinite ambition for 
 us. He aims at making us capable of loving Him with 
 a disinterested love. Therefore, while He assures us that 
 each of our prayers is heard, He seldom shows us how 
 He means to grant our requests. Recall to mind the 
 admirable example of the Syrophenician woman. What 
 would she have obtained had she walked by sight only ? 
 Sight would have shown her in Jesus Christ a strange 
 coldness, an unfeeling silence — let us be plain, a scornful 
 indifference ; and yet, she triumphs over appearances ; 
 her faith reaches beyond the countenance of Christ, and 
 what is more striking still, beyond His words, even to 
 His very heart. 
 
 The history of the Church likewise shows us that the 
 most glorious triumphs of faith have been won in spite of 
 all appearances ; and if we meet a Simeon who, at the 
 close of his career, is permitted to see the accomplish- 
 ment of the most ardent desire of his life, how many 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. 71 
 
 there are to whom this privilege has been denied, and 
 who have died without receiving the answer to their 
 prayers ! Did Jesus Christ Himself, ere He expired 
 upon the cross, see the fruits of the bitter travail of His 
 soul ? His dying eyes rested on a cursing multitude, 
 and it was not by sight that He saw the world conquered, 
 the Church established, and heaven opened to the re- 
 deemed. Of how many departed saints have we not 
 said, long after they have passed away, " Oh ! had they 
 but lived to see this long-desired day ! " They have 
 died without seeing it. Without seeing it ! and yet 
 they doubted not. Do you not see how grand, how 
 sublime this is, and do you not understand that God 
 is glorified thereby ? Pray, then, Christian mother, pray 
 on- for the conversion of thy son ; pray, whoever thou 
 art, for the soul which God, at this moment, presents to 
 thy love ; pray on without ceasing, pray on without 
 doubting, and should subjects of discouragement alone 
 meet thy eyes, remember that we are called to walk by 
 faith and not by sight. 
 
 These remarks, which I have applied to prayer, may 
 also be applied to Christian activity. It is a singular 
 but evident fact that those who have laboured most 
 towards the progress of the kingdom of God have been 
 men who had ceased to walk by sight. 1 have referred 
 to Jesus Christ. Once again, I ask, what did He see 
 in His ministry ? What would He have done had He 
 walked by sight ? And we, brethren, what shall we do 
 if we still desire to see, if we resemble children who, 
 when they have buried a seed in the earth, return every 
 instant to see whether it has not already sprung up ? 
 What become of the works undertaken in such a spirit, 
 of the works pursued especially with a view to success ? 
 Alas ! we have learned it but too well, from many a 
 humiliating experience ! No, no, God's blessing rests 
 
72 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 only upon those who have enough confidence in His 
 fidelity to trust Him with results, and to say with 
 Luther : " It is Thy work, not mine." We are told that 
 the immortal astronomer, whose penetrating genius dis- 
 covered the laws of the motions of planets, saw his grand 
 labours despised by his contemporaries. When lying 
 upon his deatli-bed, and reduced to a state of extreme 
 distress, he was asked by a friend if he did not suffer 
 cruelly at the thought of dying without having seen his 
 discoveries appreciated : " Friend," replied Kepler, " God 
 lias waited five thousand years till one of His creatures dis- 
 covered the admirable laws which He has given to the 
 stars, and cannot I also wait till justice be done to me?" 
 Treasure up these words, ye who worlc the works of God. 
 Act, if need be, without seeing a result, speak without 
 being heard, love without being understood, ca.st your 
 bread upon the waters, and, to win the world over to the 
 cause of truth, walk by faith and not by sight. 
 
 There is a last lesson which may be drawn i'rom these 
 words. They are wrong who attempt to describe before- 
 hand the path which the Christian is to follow. The 
 Christian life is like an immense region which thousands 
 of pilgrims have already travelled through ; each of them 
 has followed the way which God had traced out for him; 
 some have found it smooth and easy, they have walked 
 beneath a cloudless sky, and joyful hymns have been the 
 sounds which have most often escaped their lips ; others 
 have walked through a darkness illumined by no other 
 light than the sinister rays of terrible temptations ; 
 others have mournfully pursued their monotonous course 
 through a dull and barren wilderness. And yet these 
 various paths all led to the true fatherland, and no one 
 has a right to say that the road he followed is that which 
 all must tread ; for, if this road were known, if it could 
 be described, those who would enter upon it would walk 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. 73 
 
 by sight and not by faith. Let us, therefore, accept all 
 unforeseen circumstances ; let us expect that God will 
 destroy our plans and disappoint our hopes, and whether 
 He sends joy or sorrow, let us walk by faith, allowing 
 Hiui to lead us on. If He sends us happiness, let us 
 enjoy it without misgiving, for happiness is a mighty 
 power; if He sends trial, let us accept it also; but in joy 
 as well as in sorrow, let us walk by faith. Alas ! need 
 I say that we will more probably meet with trial than 
 with pleasure ? If happiness could sanctify us, God 
 would surely not refuse it ; but does it sanctify us 
 sufficiently, does it make us meet for the invisible world ? 
 Doubtless, when by a luminous break in the cloudy sky, 
 prosperity descends like a divine ray on a peaceful 
 hearth, on a united family, on beloved children, the soul 
 of the Christian, the grateful soul easily rises from tlie 
 earth which the smile of God illumes to God Himself. 
 But how often also is it not satisfied with remaining 
 here below ! How often is it satisfied with seeking God on 
 the earth which He enlightens with His smile ! How 
 often does it cast off faith to walk by sight only ! Then 
 the wind of trial rises, it sweeps away, it scatters that 
 joyous home, those cherished beings. The soul seeks 
 them upon earth where it would still see them. Alas ! 
 it finds them no more, and, earth failing it, it must needs 
 soar heavenward. Thus faith takes the place of sight, 
 the invisible world is enriched with the spoils of earth ; 
 the more desolate the latter grows, the more attractive 
 heaven becomes. 
 
 This explains to us how it is that trials often burst 
 with incredible fury against those who seemed to us 
 to be the most holy. Formerly, perhaps, God had led 
 them by sight ; He had manifested His presence to them 
 by evident proofs of His fatherly goodness. Thus their 
 piety had grown, protected as it was against all rude 
 
74 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 trials ; but that time is over. All these visible signs of 
 Divine intervention have disappeared ; all that was plea- 
 sant to sight is withdrawn. The stronger their Christian 
 life becomes, the more severe and joyless it appears. 
 
 When travellers undertake to climb the Alps, they 
 first traverse deep valleys which are sheltered by the 
 mountain from the cold blasts of the north wind ; 
 there the air is pure and loaded with fragrance, the 
 waters are of an unequalled transparency, and the trees 
 are covered with sweet and luscious fruits; in these 
 lovely spots are many peaceful and charming retreats 
 where it might be supposed that life must of necessity 
 glide on in unbroken solitude and rest. As they ascend, 
 the scenery changes ; it becomes at once grander and 
 more austere ; here are the dark pine forests in which 
 the bowlings of the wind are oft followed by the 
 distant noise of the avalanche ; there the deep passes 
 and the fearful precipices ; the sky has lost its varie- 
 gated tints, the air is keener, but the horizon widens. 
 The higher they climb, the sterner becomes nature ; 
 soon flowers, verdure, perfume, everything has dis- 
 appeared ; nothing is left but a gloomy pall of snow 
 and ice ; and, on the highest summits, all would speak 
 of death if there were not in that wonderful silence, 
 in that vast and boundless sky, something which tells 
 of infinity and eternity. I have often thought this a 
 suitable figure of human life. It is a journeying from 
 south to north, from summer to winter ; below are 
 visible blessings, the trusting heart which blossoms be- 
 neath the cheerful light of reciprocal love ; below, the 
 dreams of hardy youth ; further on, the serious conflicts 
 of maturer years ; higher on still, alas ! the heart would 
 find nought but fields of ice, unfulfilled promises, broken 
 affections, if faith opened not to our weary soul the 
 unlimited horizons of the heavenly land. 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. ' 75 
 
 It will not always be so ; God does not act in the 
 same manner towards all; He does not require of all 
 the same outward sacrifices ; He even grants to some of 
 His children, down to their very old age, an existence 
 continually enriched with renewed treasures and affec- 
 tions. But even those are subjected in some other way 
 to His stern discipline ; to them also He teaches that 
 they must walk by faith and not by siglit. 
 
 Let us, therefore, accept this education, let us bow 
 with adoration beneath that paternal discipline which 
 prepares us for eternity. Eeflect that all believers have 
 come under it, and that it has been especially reserved 
 for those whom God has made the instruments of His 
 grandest designs. As for me, I know of no more 
 beautiful spectacle than that of a life in which the 
 realities of the invisible world are continually and 
 unflinchingly opposed to the realities of the visible. 
 Here is a man, who, sustained by his faith, has under- 
 taken a special work ; he has constituted himself the 
 champion of some neglected truth ; he has resolved 
 upon boldly attacking some prevailing iniquity, and, 
 like us all, he hoped that his efforts would be attended 
 with success. But success has not come ; on the con- 
 trary, the more he advances the more hopeless his cause 
 appears ; numberless obstacles and difficulties spring up ; 
 painful humiliations follow; he is left alone, no man will 
 stand by him ; slighting words are uttered against him, 
 then cruel and bitter taunts. Here and there some who 
 would be called his friends advise him to put an end to 
 his fruitless struggles. All in vain. That man whose 
 name has been, now Isaiah, now Jeremiah, now St. Paul, 
 that man walks by faith ; he walks to the end ; he dies, 
 treated as a fool by human wisdom till the day when all 
 see what he alone had believed, and when the folly of 
 the past becomes the wisdom of the future. 
 
76 ■ FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 I will not conclude without setting forth the contrast 
 contained in my text. We are placed in presence of 
 two classes of men, some who walk by sight, others who 
 walk by faith. In the opinion of the worldling, the 
 former alone are reasonable, the former alone have 
 chosen the good part. The good part ? Is it true ? 
 Ah ! is it indeed such a happy world, that which sight 
 reveals to us ? To deem it such we must be anxious 
 not to see. But ask those who are sharp-sighted what 
 they discover daily in the world which at first had 
 dazzled them. Ask them what they would often give 
 to be permitted not to see. Alas ! they are compelled 
 to see, and the more practised is their vision, the sadder 
 are the discoveries they make every day. They see the 
 motives from which men act ; they see the means which 
 most surely lead to success. Under the imposing 
 appearances which arrest the crowd, they recognise the 
 calculating skill, the selfishness which coldly pursues 
 its aim. Under the flowing and eager words of the 
 world-wise, they discover a callousness of heart which 
 appals them ; under a brilliant and easy converse, they 
 perceive calumny at work, their eye penetrates through 
 the whited sepulclires and gazes upon the corruption 
 they conceal. Their desire has been to walk by 
 sight alone, and in all they meet they see too much 
 to be happy ; the nobler their soul is, the greater 
 need their heart has of love, the more they suffer ; and 
 even where no cruel deception wounds them, they see 
 death approaching ; death, and nothing more, for sight 
 cannot discover anything beyond — death with its cold 
 mystery, death with its eternal silence. Is that the 
 good part, and is it worth our while to seek it, and 
 sacrifice our soul to it ? 
 
 But you will object that the Christian, too, sees all 
 these things. Yes, doubtless he does see them, more 
 
FAITH AND SIGHT. yy 
 
 clearly, perhaps, than the worldly man, for his purified 
 vision is better able to discern evil, and his heart made 
 for love suffers still more from selfishness. All these 
 things he sees, but beyond the world of sight he has the 
 world of faith. There he finds and more and more fully 
 comprehends what he had vainly sought in the visible 
 world. He finds truth there, truth divested of all the 
 narrowness and party-spirit which mingled with it here 
 below. He finds holiness there, no longer in appear- 
 ance, but- in reality, unmixed with pride or pharisaism. 
 He finds justice there, full, entire, without respect of 
 persons, and he knows that it will have its day. He 
 finds love there, love for which his heart thirsted, and 
 which he had so often seen allied with misery upon 
 earth ; love — he finds it in God, pure, infinite, unalloyed, 
 he finds it in all those with whom he is united iu God ; 
 he quenches his thirst at this deep and inexhaustible 
 fountain ; the more he advances the more sensible and 
 evident these realities become, the more they appear as 
 the only realities worthy of being loved and pursued, 
 worthy of being lived for. 
 
 Will you say that he is mistaken, that he is pursuing 
 a vain dream in which his imagination wanders ? Will 
 you say that he is mistaken ? I appeal to all the 
 departed saints who have walked by faith. I appeal to 
 their dying eyes already lit up by the beams of the 
 eternal morning. I appeal to the words of firm assurance 
 and of triumph which they uttered with their latest 
 breath. Have you ever heard of a man who, on his 
 death-bed, regretted he had walked by faith ? Have you 
 ever heard of one who, in that solemn hour, declared 
 that his hope had been deceived ? Question all those 
 who have believed in God, from the righteous men of 
 the old covenant to St. Paul, from St. Paul to those who 
 left us but yesterday, and whose last words we have 
 
78 FAITH AND SIGHT. 
 
 treasured up iu our hearts ; once again I ask, which of 
 them regretted that he had pursued the invisible realities, 
 that he had lived for eternity ? Again and again have 
 we seen men who had lived only by sight bitterly re- 
 penting, in their last hour, that they had followed mere 
 phantoms which now escape their grasp. We have 
 seen men to whom the world had given all it can 
 bestow, exclaim that all is vanity. We have seen 
 a great minister, loaded with honour, when informed on 
 his death-bed that Louis XIV. was about to visit him, 
 answer w^th these fearful words : " Go and tell that man 
 to let me alone, for if I had done for God all I have 
 done for him, I would not now be afraid to face eternity." 
 Yes, in that supreme hour when illusion is an impossi- 
 bility, it has a thousand times occurred that all which 
 the world called realities has been found to be mere 
 phantoms ; it has a thousand times occurred that human 
 glory, fortune, pleasure have vanished like a fleeting cloud 
 behind which eternity has unfolded itself in its frightful 
 solemnity. But that which has never been seen, that 
 which will never be seen, is a Christian declaring on his 
 death-bed that his God has deceived him ! 
 
 Courage, then, brethren ! The future, for yon, is 
 assurance, rest, joy, love. The present is passing 
 away with its vanities, its sorrows and its tears. 
 Courage ! and let us walk on towards the future by 
 I'aith and not by sight ! 
 
( 79 ) 
 
 V. 
 
 OBEDIENCE. 
 " As obedient children." — i Peter i. 14. 
 
 In my text, the apostle lays down as a principle that it 
 is the duty of Christians to obey, and he defines this 
 obedience by a simple and happy expression, calling it 
 the obedience of children. Let us take up these two 
 thoughts, and study, in the first place, the motives of 
 Christian obedience ; secondly, its nature ; and, finally, 
 its influence upon our life. 
 
 Why must we obey ? I might answer : .First of all, 
 because obedience is the universal law, the divinely- 
 appointed law, the law which none of God's creatures 
 can escape. My reason tells me that a created and 
 dependent being must serve its creator, and my ex- 
 perience convinces me that every earthly being, without 
 one exception, is formed for obedience. Seek throughout 
 the world one being that comes not under this law. In 
 material creation you will not find a single atom which 
 is not, at every instant of its existence, governed by a 
 general law ; if it were not so, the world would be a 
 mere chaos. Likewise in human society ; if this society 
 subsists, it is owing to a marvellous concourse of particu- 
 lar obediences which all contribute to the harmony of 
 the whole. All these things : force, necessity, instinct. 
 
8o OBEDIENCE. 
 
 interest, civil law, honour, ambition, moral law, are as 
 many motives (why not say as many masters ?) to which 
 all beings obey. At the lowest step of the social ladder, 
 men obey ; need I demonstrate this assertion ? At the 
 summit, men obey still. The higher we rise, the greater 
 is the weight of responsibility which we draw upon our- 
 selves ; and what is a responsible being but a being that 
 obeys ? 
 
 This law of obedience is so thoroughly divine that 
 none can escape it. Here is a man who flatters himself 
 he will shake off the yoke. Duty weighs heavily 
 upon him ; the very thought that he stands under an 
 obligation to some one is distasteful to him ; intoxicated 
 with the idea of independence, he longs to leave the beaten 
 track, to be his own master, to do his own will. He 
 believes himself free, and he does not know that he is 
 perhaps the slave of that public opinion which he seems 
 to defy, and that he affects to oppose it only that he 
 may be brought under its notice. Let us, however, 
 suppose that he succeeds in shaking off the yoke. Let 
 us follow him, this man who declares himself freed from 
 the necessity of duty, and who proclaims his independence 
 so loudly. Alas ! no sooner has he walked a few steps 
 in his way than a passion appears and says to him : 
 " Follow me ! " and he follows it ; " degrade thyself ! " and 
 he degrades himself, and, when it has led him whither he 
 would not go, when it has crushed his energies and 
 paralysed his will, this man one day discovers that he is 
 a mere slave, and that he has only exchanged the willing 
 obedience to duty for the most servile abjection. 
 
 No, the Divine laws cannot be disregarded. Sooner 
 or later they are avenged on whoever forgets them. 
 Now, when God created us He bid us obey. To Him 
 directly should all obedience be paid, and then harmony 
 would reign everywhere. By sin, man has marred 
 
OBEDIENCE. Si 
 
 this harmony, he has denied his God, but it does not 
 necessarily follow that he escapes the necessity of 
 obedience ; he changes masters, that is all. Some, who 
 well-nigh resemble the brute, obey mere necessity or 
 instinct ; hunger and thirst bid them " Work ! " and 
 they work ; might bids them " Submit to order ! " and 
 they submit. Others, superior to the former, obey 
 public opinion ; they perform this action or that, because 
 in the judgment of men it must be performed. This 
 religion which, under its most common form, is the 
 most contemptible thing in the world, may rise to the 
 brilliant worship of honour. Above these we find the 
 slaves of duty, but duty is incomprehensible without a 
 God who commands and compels; for such, therefore, 
 duty becomes a magnificent brazen idol resting upon a 
 pedestal of clay. Finally, at the highest stage of the 
 moral world, we find the soul that obeys the impulses 
 of charity ; but what is charity if it proceeds not from 
 a loving God ? The Christian alone directly obeys Him 
 who is truth, right, and love. Such, brethren, is your 
 privilege ; you are no longer the slaves of jDassions, 
 idols, or lifeless abstractions, but the servants of God ; 
 you alone, I dare afhrm, attain the true end of existence, 
 for you alone realise the purpose which the Creator had 
 in view when He placed you here below. God wanted 
 a being superior to the rest of the material creation. 
 There were beings enough who obeyed liim fatally ; 
 He wanted one who would freely respond to His love, who 
 would freely accomplish His will. Now, what constitutes 
 the greatness of the Christian is that he realises this 
 intention of His Creator. That is why the Christian 
 soul is greater than worlds. Worlds ! God takes and 
 scatters them like dust in the immensity of the heavens ! 
 They fatally obey fatal laws ; but the Christian soul 
 freely obeys tlie God it loves. When I say that you 
 
 F 
 
82 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 are born to obey, I bring before you your vocation in 
 its grandest and most glorious character. Oh, that this 
 thought might take full possession of the soul of the 
 humblest Christian in this assembly ! Oh, that I 
 might make him understand that, in accomplishing his 
 task, however small, ungrateful, and insignificant it be, 
 but in accomplishing it for God, he understands life in 
 its truest and most elevated sense. True, brother, in 
 this vast ensonhle of creation which is like the palace of 
 the Lord, your place is, of all, the most obscure and 
 lowly, and the thought sometimes rises in your mind : 
 " How doth God know me ? " Yes, He knows you 
 better than the great and the noble who fill the earth 
 with the noise of their fame, but who in reality labour 
 for vanity, because God is not the object of their life. 
 He knows and loves you ; He approves and encourages 
 your struggles, your efforts, your sacrifices. Oh, you 
 are indeed blessed, for you obey the best of masters, 
 Him who is greater than the world, greater than the 
 lords of the earth ! 
 
 But that is not the only motive of your obedience. 
 You are a Christian, and what are Christians but the 
 redeemed of Jesus Christ? Take this word redeemed in 
 its simplest, and at the same time most solemn and 
 touching sense. God has redeemed you. You were 
 guilty, condemned, separated from God, but you believe 
 that, to snatch you from this fearful destiny, a wondrous 
 act of love and sacrifice was accomplished for you 
 eighteen centuries ago. You believe, that for you the 
 Son of the Most High was made flesh, and that for 
 you He became acquainted with all the infirmities and 
 sorrows of mankind ; yea, even with the anguish of 
 condemnation and of the Father's desertion. You believe 
 that you have been the objects of that love and of that 
 sacrifice, and that the blood of Jesus has flowed to 
 
OBEDIENCE. 83 
 
 make you clean. Well, you who are the redeemed of 
 Christ, you are no longer your own ; you have become 
 the property of God Himself, by a contract which the 
 eternal Son has signed with His blood. Let those who 
 pretend that the cursed tree tells only of pardon without 
 obedience pass on to their everlasting condemnation ; 
 for, whoever draws near to it with a troubled conscience 
 dis(30vers in it a holier, more spiritual, more perfect, 
 more ineffaceable law than that which the hand of the 
 Almighty had graven upon the marble of Sinai. Every- 
 thing in the Gospel tells of obedience. " Obey," says 
 conscience. " Obey," repeats that strange spectacle of 
 the Son of God made flesh, suffering and learning 
 obedience by the things which He suffered. " Obey," 
 exclaims the Holy Victim agonising on the cross. 
 " Obey," cries the blood which flows from His innocent 
 brow and waters the earth. " Obey," says, in its turn, 
 the patient and longsuffering mercy of a God who has 
 borne with the sinner so long. Brethren, if obedience 
 is not to be learned at the foot of the cross, why then 
 have you gone thither ? What is a faith which consists 
 merely in words ? Oh, fearful thought ! The Gospel 
 tells us, " Believe and thou shalt be saved." We may 
 believe and yet be lost ! 
 
 We must, therefore, obey. How must we obey ? This 
 is the second thought suggested by our text. 
 
 There are three, and only three, motives for obedience 
 — men obey from interest, from fear, or from love. 
 There is the obedience of the hireling, of the slave, and 
 of the child. You know which of these the apostle 
 expects of us ; nevertheless, I must not forget the two 
 others, for hirelings and slaves are to be found every- 
 where, and who knows but there may be some in this 
 very assembly ? 
 
 The obedience of the hireling, who serves God in 
 
84 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 the hope of obtaining a reward, has often been mistaken 
 for Christian obedience. And yet, what a difference 
 there is between the mercenary spirit and the spirit of 
 the Gospel ! Here is a man whose life is a subject of 
 wonder ; he has renounced everything, even the most 
 innocent pleasures, the most intimate joys ; he has 
 imposed upon himself a most miserable existence ; he 
 mortifies his body and continually adds suffering to 
 suffering. You exclaim, " What holiness ! " But as 
 I draw near I discover that in this soul there is not 
 one spark of true love, I perceive that this man has 
 reasoned after this manner : " To gain heaven I must 
 suffer and live a deserving life here below. I am 
 willing therefore to suffer in time that I may be happy 
 in eternity." Think you that such a man is meet 
 for the kingdom of heaven ? No, no ! heaven is not 
 to be bought with money or merits. Heaven is the 
 portion of loving souls. What would it avail a man 
 to perform the most extraordinary actions or the greatest 
 austerities, or even to cast his fortune to the poor, 
 to give up his body to be burned, if his heart loves 
 not ? What a wu-etched spectacle, for instance, is that 
 of a soul which has wasted its powers in worldliness, 
 which is incapable of loving God, but capable still of 
 trembling before Him, of a soul which endeavours to 
 atone by tardy sacrifices for forty or fifty years' dis- 
 obedience, heaj^ing work upon work, practising the 
 most minute acts of the most superstitious devotion, 
 marching on to meet a God whom it cannot love, 
 and trying to gain heaven while it bears its own con- 
 demnation within itself. No, let us not be afraid 
 to say it, the kingdom of heaven is not for liirelings ; 
 God rejects an obedience whose secret and supreme 
 end is interest. To obey merely in the hope of being 
 saved is the surest way of being lost, for this is 
 
OBEDIENCE. 8$ 
 
 like sheltering one's selfishness in the very bosom of 
 God. 
 
 You believe yourselves very far from a similar temp- 
 tation. Eedeemed by Christ Jesus, expecting your 
 salvation from the grace of God and not from your 
 works, the thought has never entered your mind that 
 you could pay your entrance into heaven, and your 
 astonishment would be extreme should any one tell 
 you that in your heart there are still left some traces 
 of the mercenary spirit. Alas ! I have seen others, 
 who, like yon, would have exclaimed against such a 
 thought as this ; but suddenly affliction has burst upon 
 their life, the blows of trial have followed one another 
 unremittingly. What then have we seen in those 
 hearts which had seemed to us to belong wholly to 
 God ? what have we heard from those lips which, 
 heretofore, had been so ready to sing His love ? Ah ! 
 if we have not heard cries of open rebellion, have we 
 not heard murmurs, or at least bitter confessions 
 of discouragement, weariness, and languor ? " Is that 
 how Thou rewardest us ? " Such, in reality, were the 
 words which these irritated hearts addressed to the 
 Lord. " Is that how Thou acknowledgest our love 
 and zeal ? " Well ! whence proceeded those murmurs 
 but from mistaken calculations ? These supposed 
 servants of God were willing to serve Him, but on 
 the condition that they would be happy, like the Jews 
 who followed Christ that they might be fed. And 
 now, because happiness has disappeared, they are angry, 
 they rebel, they will not forgive God. If this be 
 not the mercenary spirit, by what name will you call 
 it ? How will you style that interested hope of a 
 servant who, in the fulfilment of duty, looks, first 
 of all, for reward ? Alas ! that same spirit permeates 
 all professions of faith ; it creeps in the midst of the 
 
86 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 churches in which mercy is most faithfully preached ; 
 it glides like a serpent into the innermost recesses 
 of the heart. Let each of us, therefore, examine him- 
 self, and ask himself if he has not harboured it in his 
 own breast. 
 
 But if the Christian does not obey for the sake of 
 reward, we are not, however, to suppose that Christian 
 obedience is left unrewarded ; the Gospel j^roclaims this 
 too plainly that we should doubt it. I know that there 
 is no lack of stern spiritualists who would have the idea 
 of happiness absolutely separated from that of fidelity, so 
 that the latter miglit bear a grander and more austere 
 character. Not so thinks He who knoweth our frame ; 
 Jesus never exhorts us to sacrifice without, at the same 
 time, holding out to us a compensation, and all His 
 instructions on this point may be summed up in these 
 opening words of the Sermon on the Mount : " Blessed 
 are they that mourn." " They that mourn " — that is the 
 sacrifice ; " blessed " — that is the reward. Yes, with the 
 faithful God there are compensations for all sorrows, and 
 while waiting for the grand day of final reparation, we 
 may already here below find many joys, silent but pro- 
 found as the love of God. If you have not felt these, it 
 is because you have not sufficiently obeyed. Go and ask 
 what they are, not of those Christians whose happy 
 existence has never felt the scorching blaze of altliction, 
 but ask it of those whose life, again and again broken 
 and crushed, seems to have been the toy of a merciless 
 fatality. Those will best be able to tell you that 
 obedience always bears with it its own reward, and that, 
 according to the triumphant expression of St. Paul, we 
 may be glad with exceeding joy even in the midst of the 
 greatest suffering ! 
 
 God will not be served by hirelings, neither will He 
 be served by slaves. An obedience inspired by terror, 
 
OBEDIENCE. 87 
 
 a passive, uninspired, and loveless obedience has no value 
 in His sight. 
 
 Servile obedience ! How easy it would be for God to 
 obtain it ! For this, it were enough to open the heavens, 
 to let loose the thunders of His wrath, to crush the rebels 
 by the irresistible evidence of prodigy, to overthrow them 
 by terror. Who, then, could resist Him still ? What 
 creature would be foolish enough to enter into open war 
 with the Almighty, when one word of His mouth might 
 plunge him into everlasting woe ? God could thus have 
 bowed beneath His yoke all rebellious wills ; it has not 
 pleased Him to do so. What is revelation, but the 
 history of the repeated appeals made by God to the 
 willing obedience of His creatures ? An ancient poet, 
 in a graceful figure, said that the tempests which con- 
 vulse the depths of the ocean serve only to form those 
 precious gems which lie beneath the waters. May we 
 not, likewise, affirm that all the plans of Providence, 
 such as they appear to us in the Scriptures, that all 
 God's threatenings, all His chastisements, all the trials 
 He sends have no other aim than to produce that master- 
 piece of creation, that triumph of Divine love, — souls 
 that freely consecrate themselves to God ? What, in 
 fact, is the Gospel, that wondrous mystery of the Son of 
 God humbled, reviled, crucified, but the most solemn and 
 touching appeal to our liberty ? Do we not all read on 
 the cross the words which the founder of the Moravian 
 Church discovered there : " This is what I have done 
 for thee ; and thou, what hast thou done for me ? " Let 
 us not hesitate to affirm that in presence of the cross 
 servile obedience is a derision. 
 
 And yet, who has not heard it proclaimed in the 
 name of the Gospel ? Who does not know that the 
 ideal of obedience has often been made to consist in 
 that state of passiveness in which man allows himself to 
 
88 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 he handled like a corpse hy those under whose authority 
 he is placed ? Who does not know that the total 
 abdication of the will, of the affections, of conscience 
 even, has been recommended as the crowning point of 
 holiness ? Who does not know that mechanical piety 
 whose every stage is marked beforehand, in which the 
 Christian must act, whatever be his inward state, in 
 which, regenerated by a baptism whose vivifying virtue 
 he lias never felt, he expects his progress and life from 
 the external influence of sacraments, from the contact of 
 holy objects, or from the fulfilment of minutely observed 
 ceremonies ? What miscalculation ! What blasphemy ! 
 There are men who, in presence of the cross, dare to 
 proclaim the virtues of a consecrated medal, of recited 
 prayers, of beads told over and over again. Why then 
 did the Son of God come upon the earth if a magical 
 operation was sufficient to save souls ? Ah ! let us 
 never weary of repeating that obedience lies not in 
 those observances. What God demands is a loving 
 heart, and it is not to bring forth slaves that the blood 
 of His Son has flowed upon the cross ! 
 
 Men speak of the effects of blind obedience. They 
 tell us of the prodigies it has wrought. We certainly 
 do not intend to deny them. Passive obedience is a 
 formidable instrument of success. See what it obtains 
 in war, when, in an instant, and on the signal of one 
 man, it directs upon any given point the irresistible 
 charge of thousands of soldiers. All despots have felt 
 its power, and their loftiest ambition has been to obtain 
 it. Nevertheless, with a profound conviction I say that 
 I tremble when I see a man claiming and obtaining, 
 were it with the best of intentions or in tlie best of 
 causes, a power which God Himself will not use, for it 
 is not the God of the Gospel who commands a servile or 
 passive obedience, it is not in this that He will be glorified. 
 
OBEDIENCE. 89 
 
 Yoii tell me of the mighty power for good which results 
 from a vow of automatic aud unreserved obedience ; but 
 have you never thought that such a vow may with the 
 same energy lead to evil, and this without the slightest 
 scruple, since all the responsibility is cast by him who 
 obeys upon the person who commands ? Of those two 
 men who, in the pale light of an evening in the sixteenth 
 century, rise from the confessional with a peaceful brow, 
 a calm heart, and eyes steadily fixed upon the work 
 which awaits them, the one is about to depart, with the 
 martyr's crown already adorning his brow, to bear the 
 crucifix in Japan, and you exclaim: " What heroism ! " 
 but the other will direct his steps towards Holland, 
 tliere to assassinate William the Silent, and I, I 
 shudder with horror, for, in reality, the latter is as 
 good a man as the former, and, both martyr and 
 murderer have simply obeyed. Let us even suppose 
 that this blind and passive obedience be used only for 
 the noblest of causes, the holiness of the end will not 
 make me forget the fatal and mortal sides of the means ; 
 and when I see that fearful instrument crushing on its 
 passage every spontaneous burst of enthusiasm, every 
 voluntary impulse, all the bloom of the human soul, I 
 curse it as an instrument of death ; no, not even in the 
 service of religious truth is it allowed to break that 
 which is the spring of the soul, and to reduce man to a 
 state of passiveness. What though we often see the 
 forced obedience which rests upon monastic vows, pro- 
 ducing works which command our respect and admira- 
 tion ? the reason is plainly this : under the influence of 
 public opinion, of light, and of liberty, the only domain 
 in which it can still display its powers is that of sacrifice 
 and charity ; here it meets the vital forces of the soul, 
 and, in all noble hearts, it transforms itself into volun- 
 tary obedience. But at all times and in all places, 
 
90 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 whenever and wherever it has escaped this control, it has 
 become a fatal power which, in its burning zeal to bring 
 the soul beneath the yoke of God, has produced nought but 
 the calm of the wilderness and the peace of the grave. 
 
 With the same ardour as we have condemned 
 interested obedience, we now, therefore, reject that which 
 acts under the impulse of terror or of a gloomy passive- 
 ness. God, as we have already said, will be served neither 
 by hirelings nor by slaves. Who then, will serve Him ? 
 The apostle answers : Children. 
 
 Children ! How simple yet full of deep meaning is 
 this expression ! It sums up most admirably all that is 
 contained in the subject before us : absolute dependence 
 upon God, holy respect and tender love. It reminds us 
 of all the motives we have for submission, and removes 
 whatever of servility or interest might mingle with our 
 obedience. Children of God ! This glorious title, this 
 title of nobility, we have once lost it ! If we have again 
 entered into possession of it, it is by grace ; none but 
 Jesus Christ could have restored it to us, nought but 
 His sacrifice could have made us accept it ; consequently 
 this word reminds us of all which is most serious and 
 thrilling in the Gospel. I will not essay to picture what 
 there is of unparalleled holiness and tenderness in this 
 relation between father and child ; I long to tell you of 
 the duties it implies ; I long to tell you : Oh, ye who call 
 the Lord your father, ye who have cast far away from 
 you the calculations of the hireling and the fears of the 
 slave, ye children of God, iiow do you obey ? 
 
 Obey ! but before I go any further, I question whether 
 we have understood the full significance of this word. 
 Obedience almost always implies action. Now, to act is 
 only a part of obedience ; to suffer is the other, and, for 
 many of our fellow-men, it is the largest ; for all it is 
 the most difficult. 
 
OBEDIENCE. 91 
 
 It is easy enough to believe that we are serving God 
 when we are actively employed ; to walk, to speak, to 
 work, all these are means of obedience. But when we 
 are called to wait, to remain inactive and to suffer, do we 
 not often feel as though our life were being wasted ? 
 This is a gross error of our carnal mind which appreciates 
 only that which can be seen and weighed. Has not the 
 inward labour which is being pursued in our soul a far 
 greater value than the quantity of matter which our 
 hands might have moulded, than the distance which 
 our feet might have trod, than the number of words 
 which our lips might have uttered ? 
 
 We obey God in suffering as well as in action ; the 
 Church has need of its sick as well as of its missionaries; 
 its will is as positive when it bids us be silent as when 
 it bids us speak; when it lays us upon a bed of pain as 
 when it orders us to battle. 
 
 The Christian's life is often compared in the Scriptures 
 to a holy war. Now, in a pitched battle, all the troops 
 have not the same part to act. If some are sent to the 
 attack of the foe, and are thus enabled to display their 
 valour in the thickest of the fight, there are entire regi- 
 ments which, for many a long hour, are forced to remain 
 exposed to the deadly fire of the artillery. Motionless, 
 sword in hand, they see the enemy's bullets tracing 
 bloody furrows in their ranks, and at eventide, well-nigh 
 destroyed by this murderous fire, without having struck 
 one blow, if the battle be won, no glorious trophies will 
 they bear away from the field of slaughter, nor will their 
 names be heard amid the enthusiastic acclamations of 
 the multitude. Nevertheless, who would dare to say 
 that their part was an easy one ? On the contrary, it 
 was so difficult that the best disciplined and most un- 
 daunted troops are always those which are chosen for 
 those inglorious posts. Young men may be expected to 
 
92 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 display the enthusiastic ardour and the impetuous daring 
 ^vhich are required to charge the foe, but veterans alone 
 possess that calm and firm intrepidity which can coldly 
 and unflinchingly brave an unhoiioured death. Thus it 
 is in the battle of life. If God places some in the van- 
 guard, if He calls some to conflicts whose fame is spread 
 far and wide, there are others whom He orders to wait 
 and to suffer in silence and in seeming inactivity ; but they 
 all contribute to the victory, all alike serve the purposes 
 of the Lord. Well, you whom God surely calls to one 
 or other of these tasks, how do you obey ? 
 
 Here I will be plain. Obedience is the virtue which 
 Christians practise least in the present day. I do not 
 like those vague generalities by which men pretend to 
 lieap upon our age all possible failings and vices. 
 Nevertheless, I will say that, if there be a sense which 
 is daily growing weaker, it is that of obligation. Servility 
 is common enough, we meet it at every turn ; it has 
 become so prevalent that we feel iitterly disgusted with 
 it. But free obedience to duty, obedience to the Divine 
 will, that is what we lack. How could it be otherwise 
 in an age when superior and would-be serious minds 
 have dared to affirm that the notion of God has, till 
 now, been the worst obstacle to the full and free deve- 
 lopment of mankind ? 
 
 Such is the current of the times ; now, bring into it 
 some of those souls for which revolt has a mysterious 
 and fascinating attraction, then judge of their temptation! 
 There are in life terrible hours in which the independence 
 of pride awakens in us with an extraordinary power. 
 At such times, everything in our soul conspires to resist 
 God. Imagination wanders away at random, it pursues 
 its audacious dreams far beyond the limits of reason ; 
 passion springs up like a brute which starts out of its 
 sleep and claims its prey ; the intellect assumes absolute 
 
OBEDIENCE. 93 
 
 authority in the solution of all problems, and will aims 
 at being completely sell-dependent. Oh ! these hours of 
 fearful struggle, who has not known them ? Then, from 
 the depths of our pride, against God rise such murmurs 
 as our lips dare not utter. Willingly would we say 
 to Him : " Why hast Thou made of me a Christian ? 
 Why hast Thou given me that importunate conscience 
 which leaves me not one moment's rest or peace ? Why 
 hast Thou raised in my path that Cross of Calvary upon 
 which my eyes continually fall in the course of my 
 wanderings ? Why, when others are carelessly and 
 joyfully walking according to the desires of their heart, 
 the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, why hast Thou 
 given me such a full knowledge of the emptiness of all 
 those joys that I can no longer share in them without 
 remorse, and that, even in their very enjoyment, I am 
 beset by the sentiment of their vanity ? Oh ! the 
 fearful blasphemy of such thoughts ! For is it not as 
 though we said to the Almighty, in the anger of our 
 hearts : " Thou cruel God, why hast Thou saved me ? " 
 
 Oh, ye who have bent over those abysses of pride 
 and have then felt I know not what fearful delight akin 
 to the spell of dizziness ; ye who in the innermost 
 depths of your soul have heard that voice of rebellion 
 which the very idea of submission terrifies ; come, yes, 
 come, and let us all together go to the God of the Gospel, 
 and ask Him the reasons of that obedience which He 
 requires of us. 
 
 Come ! But where shall we find Him ? At Nazareth, 
 obeying as a servant ; in Gethsemane, exclaiming, " Not 
 my will, but Thine ; " on Golgotha, draining to the very 
 dregs, and for us alone, the bitter cup of anguish. Sinners, 
 go to Him and plead your cause, if you dare. Complain 
 at having to obey, in presence of a humbled Saviour ; 
 complain at having to bear your cross when He is nailed 
 
94 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 upon His ; complain at having to suffer, when He, 
 obedient even unto deatli, is compelled to exclaim, as 
 His sole reward: "My God, my God, why hast Thou 
 forsaken me ? " 
 
 But the number of those who are led into open 
 rebellion is comparatively small. Yew men dare thus to 
 brave God face to face; most often we find other means 
 of escaping Him, We apparently accept His yoke, we 
 profess to serve Him, but we reserve to ourselves the 
 right of obeying in our own way. The Church is full of 
 Christians who are willing to serve God, but after their 
 own manner, and who sacrifice their nearest duties to 
 imaginary obligations ; of Christians who, under cover of 
 the Divine will, accomplish their own designs ; we see 
 them often pursuing with a mild but unyielding obstinacy 
 a plan which they have fully determined in their mind ; 
 we see them setting aside the observations of their 
 brethren, the indications of events as well as the most 
 evident signs by which God aids our weakness ; then we 
 hear them justifying their conduct by alleging the will of 
 QqcI; — the will of God! a convenient expression indeed, but 
 so often invoked in justification of all manner of caprices 
 and follies, that it brings a scornful smile to the lips of 
 the worldly. Ah! let us beware lest we profane such 
 words, or use them too freely ; let us beware lest we take 
 the counsels of our imagination or the suggestions of our 
 crafty hearts for Divine inspirations ; for when we delude 
 ourselves, we give up sacred things to the sneers of the 
 scoffer. What a derisive spectacle is that of a Christian 
 who wears the livery of obedience, and who, in reality, 
 neglects the clearest, most evident, and most natural 
 duties of his vocation ! In order to dull his conscience, 
 he redoubles his outward zeal, he pours forth his ardour 
 in loud affirmations, and the name of the Lord comes all 
 the oftener to his lips that His will is the more totally 
 
OBEDIENCE. 95 
 
 absent from his heart. Ah ! when I see how frequent is 
 this fact, I feel a fearful heart-sinking, for there is some- 
 thing profoundly sad in this manner of deceiving God and 
 of imposing upon Him. Is that the policy of love ? Does 
 the heart that truly loves take pleasure in falsehood, and 
 think you that God will be deceived by appearances of 
 fidelity ? No ; your conscience is the voice of God, and, 
 in such cases, I cannot suppose it will be silent, it 
 must be heard. If you do not hear it, then speak to me 
 no more of obedience, and beware lest you resemble the 
 son in the parable who had said to his father : " I go 
 work in thy vineyard," but whom the father found not 
 there ; beware lest the publicans and sinners go into the 
 kingdom of God before you. 
 
 There is one more temptation which I would point out 
 to you, and which I believe to be all the more dangerous 
 that it proceeds neither from our pride nor from our 
 natural cunning, and that it seems to beset the most 
 upright and sincere natures in preference to all others. 
 When speaking of servile submission, we have said that 
 obedience must, above all, be spontaneous and inward ; 
 that every action which does not proceed from a free 
 impulse of love is worthless in the sight of God. But 
 here is the conclusion we draw from this : When God 
 calls us to obey we wait until an inward impulse moves 
 us, and if it does not come, then we refuse to obey. Let 
 us take examples. God commands us to pray — our 
 heart is cold, we say ; my prayer will be useless and 
 formal ; and we do not pray. God commands us to 
 read His Word — our heart is dejected, the Bible would 
 tell us nothing, and we do not read, God commands us 
 to bear witness to our faith — our heart no longer feels 
 the Divine realities, our words would not be the true 
 expression of our present impressions, and we do not 
 speak. God commands us to visit the poor and the sick 
 
96 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 — our heart is withered, we would bring them nought 
 but fruitless and trivial consolations, and we do not visit 
 them. Such is our temptation, such is tlie danger to 
 which we are exposed, we who know so well tliat servile 
 obedience has no value whatever in the eyes of God. I 
 dare affirm that many a Christian life, which appeared to 
 us full of strength and promise, has been shattered upon 
 this reef. 
 
 Ah ! doubtless our heart should always be prepared to 
 do the Divine will lovingly and joyfully; but you know 
 full well that this is not always the case. What is to be 
 done in those painful hours ? Are we to remain inactive ? 
 God forbid ! At such times we must obey — obey with 
 humility, obey without passion, without enthusiasm, with- 
 out zeal, alas ! but still we must obey ! What ! some may 
 object, is not this passive obedience at once useless and 
 derisive ? IsTo ; if it be sincere it shall still be accepted ; 
 that will, spiritless though it be, is none the less a proof 
 of the truth that our life is directed towards God. There 
 are on the ocean days w^hen not a breath of wind comes 
 to swell the sails, or so much as produce one ripple on 
 the surface of the waters; ships are compelled to re- 
 main motionless, and yet, from the direction in which 
 their prow is turned, you may see whether they were 
 returning to their native shores or whether they were 
 bound for distant and unknown lands. Likewise, on the 
 ocean of the Christian life, there are days when not a 
 breath from heaven is felt in our souls ; nevertheless 
 they must continually be turned towards God, towards 
 obedience, in order that, as soon as the wind will arise, 
 it may speed us in that direction. It is Ibolish to take 
 the impulses of the heart as the rule of life ; our rule is 
 duty, and duty always lies before us. Do you know 
 what are the consequences of this fatal tendency ? Our 
 Christian life comes under the inliuence of all transitory 
 
OBEDIENCE. 97 
 
 influences, be tliey good or evil ; discipline being absent 
 from it, it lacks both strength and consistency also ; in 
 every sphere of our activity we are subject to the fluctua- 
 tions of ardour and discouragement ; to-day all is zeal, 
 our churches are full to overflowing, our works grow 
 interesting, our gifts are multiplied, our poor are loved 
 and cared for ; to-morrow the glad tidings of the Gospel 
 will be proclaimed in deserted sanctuaries, our works 
 will be left to suffer, our poor will be neglected. Let us 
 not be mistaken. Nothing can be done without rule. 
 It is with Christian life as with a gushing stream — 
 enclose it in a deep and narrow bed, and it will bear life 
 and fecundity far and wide, it will set the most powerful 
 machinery in motion. Allow it, on the contrary, to 
 wander in the sands ; it will soon disappear or be trans- 
 formed into a fetid marsh. 
 
 We are, therefore, to obey at all times ; in the day of 
 trial as well as in the day of blessing, with tears if we 
 cannot do so with joy, with a failing heart if ardour and 
 enthusiasm are wanting. And who can tell but this 
 obedience, passive and joyless in the first instance, will 
 not soon be transformed into a cheerful accomplishment 
 of His will ? If love is the source of obedience, may we 
 not also say that obedience is the source of love, and that 
 we become attached to God by reason of the sacrifices we 
 have made for Him ? Experience attests this. How often 
 have we begun painfully and with secret repugnance a 
 sacrifice which we have achieved with tears of gratitude ! 
 How often have we fallen upon our knees, repeating 
 words which called forth no sincere amen from our 
 hearts ; these hearts were harder than the rock, and yet, 
 as under the blows of the prophet's rod, the waters 
 have gushed forth, and we have risen comforted ! How 
 often have we bent our steps slowly, with a divided 
 heart, towards the dwelling of the poor and the sick, 
 
 G 
 
98 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 looking perhaps for the first obstacle which might turn 
 us away from our path, and yet we have been given 
 strength enough to raise his drooping heart and to show 
 him a proof of the sympathy which he sadly needed ! 
 How often, ye preachers of the Gospel, have you entered 
 your pulpits, wondering whence you would bring forth 
 light, you who were then passing under a dark cloud ; 
 whence you would draw forth love when your own heart 
 was so cold, and, behold ! light and grace have descended, 
 and you have been able to bless God that your words had 
 stirred souls and had not returned unto Him void. How 
 often, my brother, when assailed by a sudden temptation 
 which found you, not only disarmed, but disposed to go 
 over to the enemy, have you fled, but with a bowed 
 head, bearing with you the shame and remorse of a crime, 
 the consummation of which hung merely upon a moment 
 of hesitation and weakness ; and yet, ere you had gone far, 
 you have felt that your feet were firm upon the rock, and 
 you have been enabled to look with disgust upon that sin 
 which but a moment ago had seemed so full of attraction. 
 ■ — Such are the fruits of obedience, the fruits which it 
 brings forth under the blessing of God ! 
 
 One word more — one word to those who do not possess 
 truth, but are still seeking it. If they ask me what are 
 the means of obtaining faith, or of strengthening it when 
 once possessed, I will not hesitate to answer. Obey ! 
 Obey the call of duty, and its voice, cold and stern at 
 first, will speak to you in accents ever more tender and 
 persuasive ; it will become truly living, and you will re- 
 cognise in it the voice of God. An eloquent writer, the 
 unhappy child of an unbelieving age, and who knew from 
 a painful experience the inlluence of actions upon faith, 
 Eousseau, wrote these beautiful words, " If thou wouldst 
 believe in God, live in such a way that thou mayest ever 
 need His existence." These words, so profoundly true. 
 
OBEDIENCE. 99 
 
 were but the echo of this dedaration of Christ, " If any 
 man M'ill do the will of God, he will know that My doc- 
 trine is divine." You, therefore, who still doubt and 
 hesitate, obey and you will believe ; obey, first of all, 
 the moral teaching of Christ, the holiness of which your 
 conscience affirms, and you will believe in Christ. Obey 
 truth, and truth will enlighten you. Until then you 
 will discuss in vain, ever seeking but finding never, 
 causing the needle of the balance in which you are 
 weighing your objections to oscillate according to your 
 fleeting impressions, and ignoring that this balance will 
 incline on the side of a positive faith only on the day 
 when you will have cast in the full weight of your 
 obedience. Live in such a way that you may always 
 need to believe that justice, holiness, and the love of 
 God are realities, and you will always believe in them; 
 the greater the sacrifices you will make for truth, the 
 dearer will truth be to you. Give up for it the factitious 
 splendour of lying vanities, and your eyes being opened, 
 they will see it shine with a pure and serene light which 
 will enchant them more and more. Give up for it all the 
 coarse pleasures of the flesh, the evil joys of pride, the 
 delightful illusions of self-love, and you will find in it 
 compensations which you have never dreamed of. 
 Divine truth ! thou hidest thyself from the proud reason 
 which seeks in Thee mere food for its curiosity — for it 
 Thou wilt ever remain an impenetrable mystery — but to 
 those who will hear Thy voice only that they may follow 
 it, to those who call Thee only that they may obey Thee, 
 to those Thou revealest Thyself ever grander, more sublime, 
 more adorable, and all the sacrifices which Thou requirest 
 of them are nothing in comparison with the pure, profound, 
 and infinite joy with which Thou fiUest their heart ! 
 
( loo ) 
 
 VI. 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 
 
 " Ye shall leave me alone : and yet I am not alone, because the 
 Father is with me." — John xvi. 32. 
 
 There are two kinds of solitude : the outward and the 
 inward. When no one sees, touches, or hears us, we say 
 that we are alone ; but this is not always true loneliness. 
 He does not feel alone, the fisherman who spends night 
 after night upon the waters of the vast ocean ; if he 
 hears no sound save the monotonous roar of the winds 
 and waves, if no human voice strikes his ear, he thinks 
 of his family comfortably sheltered, of his children sleep- 
 ing peacefully ; it is for them he toils, love for them fills 
 his heart ; he is not lonely. He does not feel alone, the 
 soldier who watches, ready armed, during the silent hours 
 of night, in some remote outpost ; for he feels that upon 
 him rest the honour of his standard and the safety of his 
 comrades. She does not feel alone, the needlewoman, 
 who, in her attic, by the light of her small lamp, plies 
 her untiring needle with a feverish hand, for the work 
 she hopes to linish before the dawn will procure to- 
 morrow's bread for tiiose she loves. No, they who love 
 and feel themselves loved are never alone. 
 
 On the other hand, one may be surrounded by the 
 noisiest and busiest multitude, and yet in the midst of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. loi 
 
 the throng feel more solitary than in a wilderness. There 
 are beings whose contact awakens no chord of sympathy 
 in our soul; their hand presses ours, but that indifferent 
 grasp touches no secret spring in our heart ; we meet 
 their looks, but though they may be animated by a smile 
 of politeness, no sincere or profound affection shines in 
 them. We have all felt at certain times this inward 
 loneliness in the midst of the crowd; there have been 
 days when, returning from the quiet churchyard where 
 we have buried a part of our heart and life, the noise and 
 bustle of the world have seemed to us empty, glacial, 
 and derisive. We may be sure that all have experienced 
 this shudder of the heart which feels itself alone ; it some- 
 times passes over the most worldly and most dissipated 
 souls, over those which are wholly given to vanity ; and 
 if we could look into the intimate life of one of those 
 apparently frivolous beings who seem to be utterly 
 absorbed by passing events, we would often discover 
 there a coldness of heart, a moral solitude which would 
 appal us. 
 
 Of these two solitudes, the one visible, the other 
 invisible, I need not say which is the hardest to bear. 
 The solitude of the heart is the most terrible of all 
 solitudes. To feel lost in this vast universe, knowing 
 full well that we have none to love us, none to take the 
 least interest in our welfare, can you conceive of a more 
 wretched condition than this ? We must admit, how- 
 ever, that there is a class of people who would submit 
 with a very good grace indeed to this state of things. 
 To be alone is not a misfortune for the selfish. On the 
 contrary, a solitary greatness is singularly attractive for 
 them. To have nothing in common with others, to climb 
 a summit which is inaccessible to men, to sit there in 
 their pride, is a most enticing destiny. Doubtless, sucli 
 men will get on more rapidly in the world than their 
 
I02 THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 
 
 fellows, no ties of affection will retard their progress. 
 They will resolutely pursue their end, be it wealth or 
 fame, crushing under their feet both rivals and friends, 
 setting aside gratitude as well as hate, — in a word, what- 
 ever impedes their course, whatever threatens to delay 
 them for one moment. Like the surgeon who performs 
 the most horrible operations without a shudder, they will 
 at any cost and by all possible means make their way 
 here below, and if they succeed the world will say of 
 them, " What great men ! " Great, indeed ? Ah ! this 
 greatness is truly the greatness of egotism, the greatness 
 of Satan ! 
 
 But the Gospel brings before us, in Jesus Christ, a 
 greatness of another order. His is a greatness which 
 does not trample sympathy under foot ; on the contrary, 
 it claims it, it needs it. Behold the scene of Gethsemane ; 
 see the Son of Man returning thrice to His disciples and 
 requesting them to watch with Him. Ah ! how mean is 
 the solitary pride of the egotist in comparison with that 
 greatness ! Well, it is precisely because Jesus was Love 
 itself that His words have a more profound and a more 
 sorrowful significance : " Ye shall leave Me alone." We 
 shall, in the first place, seek the causes of Christ's loneli- 
 ness ; secondly, we shall consider what are the consola- 
 tions He finds in it, and which He sums up in the words, 
 " I am not alone ; the Father is with Me." 
 
 When a man aims at serving truth or justice here 
 below, he must expect to be left alone, sooner or later. 
 He will, perhaps, meet with sympathy on certain days, 
 but it will not be in the hottest of the fight nor in his 
 greatest need. Truth has always been despised at its 
 origin ; it has ever been a subject of shame and suffering 
 for its first apostles. This fact, which is confirmed by 
 universal experience, has been especially realised as regards 
 religious truth. Eeligious truth, by the very fact that it 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 103 
 
 is lioly, clashes with all our instincts, unveils all our 
 miseries, brings to light whatever is most hideous and 
 guilty in our hearts ; it humbles and wounds our pride, 
 and it may therefore expect to see all the human pas- 
 sions allied against it to the end of time. There are 
 hours when its triumph seems certain, but, as the heart 
 of man is always the same, amongst the apparent wor- 
 shippers who surround it, we are soon made aware of 
 the fact that the same hostile inclinations, the same 
 repugnance, the same hatred of its authority, still exist 
 towards it. No wonder, then, that when I read the his- 
 tory of all those who have been the witnesses of eternal 
 justice upon earth, I see them all, at certain times, 
 solitary, misunderstood, and despised. He was alone, 
 Moses, when in Egypt; during forty years he mourned 
 in the midst of his enslaved brethren ; he was alone 
 when he led them through the wilderness towards their 
 glorious destinies. He was alone, Elijah, in the days 
 of Ahab and Jezebel, when in his sorrow he exclaimed, 
 " The children of Israel have forsaken Tliy covenant ; 
 they have slain Thy prophets; and I, even I only, am 
 left, and they seek my life." He was alone, Isaiah, when, 
 in the bitterness of his heart, he said, " Who hath be- 
 lieved our report ? " He was alone, John the Baptist, in 
 his dungeon ; alone when, in the darkness of a fatal night, 
 an executioner cut off his head for the amusement of the 
 king's revels. He was alone, St. Paul, when, in his prison 
 at Rome, he wrote these heartrending words on his last 
 page, " All have forsaken me ! " Yes, in after time, no 
 doubt, men have raised magnificent tombs to the memory 
 of those great prophets of truth, they have surrounded 
 their names with a halo of glory, they have boastingly 
 affirmed that they accepted their heritage; but in the 
 day of trial these heroes had been left alone. 
 
 Now, picture to yourselves, no longer sinful men such 
 
104 THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 
 
 as Moses, Elijah, or Paul ; picture to yourselves the Holy 
 One and the Just, He whose name is Truth, and before- 
 hand you may be sure that He will be solitary in the 
 midst of men. He is alone when He seeks the glory of 
 God in the midst of the nation that forget Him, when He 
 proclaims His spiritual law in the midst of a pharisaical 
 nation, when He denounces iniquity and hypocrisy in 
 the midst of a multitude whom the priests and scribes 
 hold under subjection. He is alone in the midst of His 
 enemies — alone, alas! in the midst of His disciples 
 themselves, for they cannot comprehend His Divine 
 mission, they never fully understand His instructions, 
 their dreams are all of their Master's earthly glory, and 
 their wholly human sympathy would turn Him from the 
 painful path and the bloody sacrifice for which He has 
 come. He is alone ; He who needs so much love is 
 reduced to ask, and to ask in vain, for a little sympathy 
 on the part of His apostles ; in the supreme hour, in the 
 hour when His human nature falters, in the hour of His 
 bloody sweat, not a word of encouragement does He hear, 
 and His dying looks fall upon His disciples fleeing in the 
 midst of a crowd whose fearful cries of irony and maledic- 
 tion rise to His very cross ! 
 
 Such was the loneliness of Christ. Now, what happens 
 to the Chief must of necessity happen to His disciples. 
 He is the head, we are the body. If we are truly His, if 
 we follow in His footsteps, if we live His life, if like Him 
 we seek the glory of God, we may expect to be treated as 
 He was. Christians, do not be surprised if this painful 
 trial comes to you ; do not be surprised if you often feel 
 alone upon earth. 
 
 Here, however, I must warn you of a danger ; I must 
 point out to you a wrong path in which too many souls 
 have wandered. 
 
 There is a solitude in which we mny find ourselves 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 105 
 
 confined, but of which we alone liave been the authors. 
 We may shut ourselves up in our own ideas, in a narrow 
 intellectual horizon, in an eccentric character ; we may 
 surround ourselves with indifference, pride, or selfish- 
 ness, raise between ourselves and our fellows a wall of 
 separation, and then bewail our solitude. Excessive grief 
 may lead to this temptation. Under the plea that we 
 suffer woes which none can understand, we may take 
 refuge in a selfish sorrow, think only of our distress, and 
 forget that we have brethren. Does this loneliness re- 
 semble that of Jesus Christ ? God forbid that we should 
 entertain such a thought ! The loneliness of Christ was 
 due to the fact that He sought the glory of God ; that 
 which I condemn is due, on the contrary, to the fact that 
 we seek our own satisfaction ; between the two there is 
 consequently a great gulf. Let us beware lest we con- 
 found them ; let us especially beware lest, in the name of 
 the Gospel, we justify an isolation which may simply be 
 the result of the faults of our character, of our asperity, 
 of our odd temper, or of our pride. 
 
 It is none the less true, however, that the most loving, 
 the most gentle, the most charitable Christian must ex- 
 pect, if he would be like his Master, to share the loneli- 
 ness of Jesus. On the day when he has taken the firm 
 determination of following the Lord, a separation of 
 thoughts and affections has taken place between the 
 world and himself, and he has been left alone. How 
 can the Christian seek the glory of God and not feel 
 isolated in the midst of a world in which this glory is 
 despised ? How can he live for eternity and not feel 
 isolated in the midst of a world whose preoccupations all 
 bear upon the things which are visible, earthly, and 
 transitory ? How can he love that which is holy and 
 not feel isolated in the midst of so many hearts which 
 sin carries away and satisfies ? How can he labour 
 
io6 THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 
 
 towards the progress of the reign of God and not feel 
 isolated in the midst of the multitude who seek nought 
 but their own advancement, their own glory, or their own 
 fortune ? This inward loneliness is, therefore, promised 
 us, and we find it even in the very bosom of the Church, 
 for even there we are not always sure of meeting with 
 sympathy ; there also we encounter worldliness, coldness 
 of heart, narrow-mindedness, or indifference. Alas ! the 
 scene of Gethsemane has its counterpart in every age ; 
 the faithful Christian who suffers to the end for his 
 Master often turns in vain towards his sleeping brethren, 
 and finding none who understand him, he is forced to 
 re-echo these words of Jesus, " Could ye not watch with 
 Me one hour ? " 
 
 This inevitable loneliness brings with it many tempta- 
 tions to which I would draw your attention. First of 
 all, a temptation to doubt. To be alone to believe in a 
 truth, to be alone to proclaim it, is a fearful trial for our 
 weakness. Need I say that this trial is peculiar to the 
 Christian in this age, in the midst of the present genera- 
 tion ? There are times and countries in which the Chris- 
 tian truths form part, as it were, of the general beliefs, 
 in which whoever accepts them is sure of universal 
 approval ; such is not our condition. God calls us to 
 maintain with courage and resolution truths which are 
 ignored and misconstrued by the majority of those who 
 surround us. No wonder then if, when we feel ourselves 
 alone in the midst of that multitude which eagerly 
 presses around us, there are moments when a secret 
 voice whispers in our ear, " Art thou sure that thou hast 
 truth on thy side ? " To this intellectual temptation is 
 added a temptation to coldness of heart. The heart lives 
 on sympathy. Nothing is more pleasant to it than the 
 affections which others share. Its powers of love, its life, 
 are multiplied thereby. But to be alone to love an 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 107 
 
 iinseen God, to appeal to a sympathy which yields no 
 response, what a subject of sorrow ! At such times the 
 heart is in danger of retiring within itself and of wearing 
 itself out in melancholy. And, in truth, this twofold 
 trial of the intellect and of the heart cannot fail to 
 exercise a fatal influence upon our life. That we may 
 act we must be understood. The thought that we have 
 spectators and witnesses redoubles our natural energy. 
 The most inconceivable labours have been accomplished 
 by men who had united their efforts. This marvellous 
 influence of sympathy which is so visible in our race, is 
 felt in our assemblies where it increases tenfold the force 
 of the preacher's words ; it is felt in all our works. It 
 is this power which has often awakened genius, or at 
 least stimulated faculties which in solitude would have 
 wasted away. Nothing, therefore, is better calculated to 
 paralyse our powers than to feel alone, than to pursue an 
 end which no one else aims at attaining with us. 
 
 Such are some of the features of the loneliness which 
 the Christian must expect to experience, by the very 
 reason that he follows his Master, and that, with Him, 
 he seeks the glory and the reign of God. What then 
 will this solitude be if to this general trial be added par- 
 ticular trials, if sickness and death desolate our hearth 
 and render our loneliness still more complete ? What 
 will it be if to it be added that painful discordance of 
 temper, that cruel shattering of all our affections of which 
 we are so often the innocent victims ? Alas ! some of 
 my hearers perhaps recognise in this their own history, 
 and however happy we may be, the future is always so 
 uncertain that none can tell whether we will not all one 
 day find it to be ours. That is why we have need of 
 consolation, and I am eager to enter upon the second 
 part of my subject, " I am not alone, my Father is with 
 Me." That was Christ's consolation ; it must also be ours. 
 
io8 THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 
 
 "1 am not alone, My Father is with Me." In this lies 
 the strength of Jesus. What are all the desertions of 
 earth compared to communion with God ? His Father 
 is with Him ; henceforth He may be left alone by men, 
 He enjoys the society of God. He may be rejected by 
 men, He has God for His refuge. He may be misjudged 
 by men, He has the Divine approbation. He may be 
 hated of men, but these delightful words continually ring 
 in His ears, " Thou art My well-beloved Son ; in Thee I 
 am well pleased." The Father is with Him. Ah ! He 
 should always have felt this precious communion, for He 
 has sought. He has loved, He has accomplished nought 
 but the Father's will ; but can we forget that there has 
 been in His career an awful and mysterious day in 
 which the Father Himself has failed Him ? can we for- 
 get that upon the cross the Son, rejected and cursed by 
 earth, has felt heaven close upon Him ? can we forget 
 that, forsaken by all those He had loved here below, He 
 was forced to turn towards heaven a look of anguish, and 
 to utter these heartrending words, " My God, My God, 
 why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " Forget this ! But it 
 were forgetting at what price we have been redeemed, it 
 were passing Math closed eyes beside that abyss of in- 
 finite mercy on whose brink the Church with the angels 
 bend, seeking in vain to search its depths ! 
 
 But if Jesus has known this terrible desertion, it was 
 that we might never know it. When by faith we are 
 united with Him, when we accept His redeeming work, 
 we obtain the right of returning to God and of calling 
 Him by the name of Father ; then we are permitted in 
 our turn to repeat these words, " I am no longer alone, 
 the Father is with me." In this lies the strength and 
 consolation of the Christian. Then also all the tempta- 
 tions which are inseparable from solitude disappear in 
 presence of that supreme consolation. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 109 
 
 You are alone, and you doubt, perhaps ; for, as we have 
 said, to be the solitary witness of a despised truth is a 
 terrible trial for our weakness. Who are you that you 
 should oppose your thought to the thoughts of the multi- 
 tude, that you should believe what others deny ? Well ! 
 in this painful anxiety I see but one refuge, and it is this 
 thought, " The Father is with me." Yes, always rely 
 upon the word of God, and you shall stand firm, and you 
 shall speak without weakness. Ah ! true, if you were 
 called to defend your own thoughts, the waves of doubt 
 would soon sweep them away ; but when you have God 
 on your side, nothing should silence you, nothing should 
 stop you. Do you not see that in this consisted the 
 power of God's prophets in every age ? (for God has ever 
 had His prophets). When they were called to protest 
 against some prevailing evil, what would they have done 
 if they had had no other refuge, no other support, than 
 what unbelief is pleased to call their natural genius ? 
 Think you that they would have found strength enough 
 in themselves to resist the whole world and to be alone 
 of their opinion ? They felt that God was with 
 them, and therefore they spoke. Neitlier Moses, nor 
 Elijah, nor Paul drew from their own character that 
 superhuman energy which made of them giants in the 
 moral order ; they tell us so themselves. It is God who 
 calls them, God who sends them, God who says to them, 
 " I will speak with thy mouth." And now these lips 
 will never close again ; to the taunts and maledictions of 
 men they will answer, " God is with us." See also how 
 this thought preserved them from bitterness, and how tliey 
 ■were enabled to wait patiently until the Almighty should 
 vindicate His right. Men speak to-day of a new virtue 
 which they call supreme contempt, this contempt which 
 one of our modern thinkers thus defines : " A keen and 
 rapturous delight which man relishes for himself alone 
 
no THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 
 
 and which is self-sufficient." It is in this contempt, 
 they say, that the wise must seek their refuge when the 
 truths they defend are despised liere below. Ah ! those 
 who know the God of the Gospel will not accept this 
 refuo-e. If the world rejects them they will seek a shelter, 
 not in supreme contempt, but in the boundless love of 
 the Father ; and instead of serving the cause of truth with 
 the mean passions of criticism, they will endeavour to 
 love and enlighten those who reject and misjudge them. 
 Let us bless God that He whose name is Truth did not, 
 in the hour of His death, retire within tlie contempt of 
 our so-called sages, and that on the cross He pronounced 
 this sublime prayer for the very multitude who cursed 
 and reviled Him, " Father, forgive them ! " Like Him 
 let us seek a refuge in communion with the Father, and 
 if the world rejects us, we shall find sufficient strength 
 there to serve the cause of truth without weakness and 
 without bitterness, even to the end. 
 
 Let us now consider the temptations to which the 
 heart is exposed. There is the coldness, the alarming 
 lano-uor which is produced by loneliness. But here again 
 the believer may look for the most sublime compensations. 
 If the love of man fails him, do you think that the love 
 of God is not sufficiently unlimited to fill his heart ? Is 
 not God the very source of love ? Do you think that 
 the spring is in danger of being dried up ? Do you 
 think that God will allow a heart which the world 
 abandons to remain empty, withered, and dry ? Is it 
 not written that whoever will have forsaken all things 
 for His name's sake, shall receive already here below an 
 hundredfold, and in the world to come, everlasting life ? 
 Do you think that those lives which are the most deso- 
 late, but in which God manifests His presence, do not 
 possess a richer treasure of love than those which the 
 world adorns with its factitious splendours? Are the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. in 
 
 affections of the world, so lavish of high-sounding j-et 
 often deceitful effusions, to be compared with the infinite 
 love with which God fills the heart which gives itself 
 fully to Him ? Is it being alone to have God in one's 
 soul and to feel this soul, till then possessed by guilty 
 passions or unworthy frivolities, becoming the sanctuary 
 of Him who is love itself ? I have seen lives growing- 
 more and more desolate on the side of earth, but 
 at the same time growing richer and richer on the 
 side of heaven; the more the world forsook them, the 
 more did love gush forth in their loneliness. They 
 seemed to say to all the delusions of life, to all its joys, 
 to all its promises, as they vanished in the distance, 
 " You will leave me alone, but I am not alone, for the 
 Father is with me." 
 
 Finally, against discouragement, that greatest temp- 
 tation of solitude, nothing is more powerful than the 
 thought that the Father is with us. That fearful sense 
 of nothingness which paralyses all our efforts when we 
 labour in solitude, the Christian knows nothing of, for 
 he has always an invisible witness of his life, and he is 
 able to say with the prophet, "My judgment is with the 
 Lord, and my work with my God." Yes, his work, how- 
 ever insignificant, hidden and obscure it may be, were it 
 but a prayer, a sigh, or a tear which seems lost. What 
 deep encouragement lies in such a thought. To feel that 
 everything in life has its special destination and value, 
 to feel that whether we succeed or whether we fail we 
 have none the less served the true Master, is not this 
 what explains the indomitable perseverance of all who 
 have entered upon this path ? " The Father is with me;" 
 consequently, what I do for Him is not one of those short- 
 lived works that hang upon the thousand chances on 
 which the success of all human things depends. If I 
 am alone, this work will not perish with me, I have 
 
112 THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 
 
 added my stone to an eternal edifice wliicli is to be con- 
 tinued throughout all ages ; nought that I have done has 
 been useless, nought has been lost, for it is the work of 
 God. Therefore, though I should be called like the Fore- 
 runner to end my career in a dungeon in whicli my last 
 thoughts, my last words, would appear to be for ever 
 buried, though death should reach me there without 
 allowing me to leave a supreme farewell to the world, 
 still would I say, " I am not alone, the Father is with 
 me." Tliough I should be called to pine away through 
 many a long year upon a bed of pain, with nothing living 
 save my heart, unable to act save by prayer, though for- 
 getful and wearied-out friendship should cease to open 
 my door, and though none would be near to witness my 
 dying agonies, still would I say, " No, neither my prayers 
 nor my sufferings have been lost ; I am not alone, the 
 Fatlier is with me." Such is the Christian's consolation. 
 These are not mere hypotheses, mere pictures drawn from 
 imagination ; I relate simply what has been seen, what 
 is seen wherever the Christian faith has fully possessed 
 the heart. 
 
 If there be any here who know not this consolation of 
 the Christian, and who do not wish to know it, to them 
 I will say. You are afraid of becoming Christians, be- 
 cause when you become such, you feel that you will be 
 alone and solitary, even in the midst of the world to 
 which you are attached by so many ties. Do you think 
 you will be less lonely for having refused to quit this 
 world when God called you to do so ? "What then is life 
 if not a sacrifice which goes on increasing day by day ? 
 How many alilictions in the past and in the future, how 
 many separations still in reserve ? "Where are those on 
 whom your heart relied but yesterday ; where will they 
 be to-morrow, those on whom your heart relies to-day ? 
 Death comes, reaping here and reaping there unremit- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 113 
 
 tingly ; and those only who have never loved are spared 
 the sorrow of seemg their solitude increase year by year. 
 Moreover, apart from the desolation caused by death, do 
 you not sometimes feel terrified by the sight of the soli- 
 tude within which selfishness and indifference have con- 
 fined themselves, even in the midst of the din of the 
 world ? and is not this isolation far more awful than that 
 produced by death ? 
 
 Sooner or later, then, you will be alone to live, alone 
 to drag on your weary existence, which will have become 
 a burden to you, because those who will surround you 
 will have no more need of you. Do you not see, as 
 Bossuet said, those successors who spring into life, who 
 advance, who push you aside, so to speak, and who seem 
 to say, " Draw back ; now is our turn ? " A day will 
 come, and it has perhaps already dawned, when you shall 
 be alone to live. That is not all ; you shall be alone to 
 die. What, in that supreme hour, will all the praise, 
 approbation, or most sincere affection of men avail you ? 
 Arrived at this narrow passage, you will have to cross it 
 alone. Have you thought of this ? have you prepared 
 for that moment ? And if death were all ! But death 
 is a way that leads to the just Judge. Your conscience 
 warns you, and the Divine Word assures you of this. 
 You will be alone to appear before the tribunal of God, 
 Alone ! and all the delusions of men, all their flatteries, 
 all their false counsels, will vanish like a fleeting cloud. 
 Alone ! without an advocate, without a friend to plead 
 your cause. Alone with your past life, with your re- 
 bellions, your ingratitudes, your secret miseries, and your 
 hidden crimes, which will all appear in the formidable 
 light of the eternal day. Alone ! And why ? God had 
 offered you His pardon and His love, but you have 
 scorned and despised them. Ah ! if your soul is pre- 
 cious to you, in the name of your eternal future, in the 
 
 H 
 
114 THE CHRISTIAN'S SOLITUDE. 
 
 name of your salvation, in the name of the Gospel I 
 preach unto you, in the name of the blood of Christ shed 
 for you, accept to-day the love which God offers you, for 
 it is a fearful thing indeed to fall into the hands of the 
 livintT God. 
 
 Do you now understand wliat it is to have God on 
 one's side, to possess that love from which nothing — no, 
 not even death — can separate us ? That portion of the 
 Christian is ours ; it is yours also if you will accept it. 
 On the mysterious threshold of eternity we may say, " I 
 am not alone, the Father is with Me." We may say it 
 in loneliness, in sorrow, in the most miserable situation ; 
 with these words we may welcome the King of Terrors. 
 Why should you not say so too ? Then my feeble words 
 would not have been uttered in vain, and though you had 
 entered this sanctuary with an empty and forlorn heart, 
 you will bear away with you that beautiful promise, " I 
 will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be ]My sons and 
 daughters, saith the Lord Almigliiy." 
 
( 115 ) 
 
 YIL 
 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 " Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ? and one of tliem shall not 
 fall on tlie gronnd ■\vithont your Father. But the very hairs of 
 your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of 
 more value than many sparrows." — MATT. x. 29-31, 
 
 On the day when these simple and touching words were 
 uttered, faith in Providence entered the work! ; till then 
 it had been utterly unknown to men. The heathen 
 nations admitted, it is true, certain gods who were the 
 supposed protectors of the country and of the family ; 
 but above these, above Jupiter himself, they placed the 
 cold, stern, and impassible figure of Destiny. It never 
 entered the mind of any of the ancient philosophers that 
 this world might, in reality, be led by a beneficent will 
 towards a certain though mysterious destination ; never 
 were the ideas, now so widely spread, of general progress, 
 of Divine education, of a providential purpose, expressed 
 during the whole of the time in which the world walked 
 in its own ways ; nowhere will you find a page or even a 
 line M-hich contains them, Never did a pagan hear the 
 pulsations of the heart of the universal Father in creation 
 or in his own personal history ; never did it enter his 
 thoughts to seek in this God his strength in times of 
 tiial ; and when he succumbed beneath the weight of 
 
ii6 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 affliction, his best consolation was to persuade himself 
 that, after all, he was simply yielding to the common 
 destiny, and that it was impossible for him to alter its 
 laws. 
 
 But why speak of the heathen world ? Do we see 
 nothing like this in the present day ? Ah ! let us not 
 be deluded ! Let us acknowledge that, notwithstanding 
 the influence of Christianity, the belief in fatality, which 
 has been the supreme religion of all the heathen nations, 
 is still to-day that of a vast multitude of our fellowmen. 
 Is it not, in reality, that which rules over all the suffering 
 classes ? Do we not hear its sorrowful or passionate 
 expression in their most sincere effusions ? But what 
 especially strikes me, is the fact that this belief is plainly 
 avowed by thinkers and writers whom public opinion 
 places in the foremost rank ; they openly declare that 
 they acknowledge no other action than that of the natural 
 laws in the history of humanity, or in their own personal 
 existence ; they reject the intervention of Providence as a 
 dream of mankind's infancy. When these ideas are pro- 
 claimed with so much boldness, we may infer that they 
 have long since found their way into the human soul, and 
 we must not set them aside lightly. Let none tell me 
 that it is improper to combat them from this pulpit ; 
 there is not one of us, however firm be his faith, but has 
 known the obsessions of fatality ; not one of us but has 
 doubted that his life was indeed governed by a loving 
 will, and that all his prayers were answered. This temp- 
 tation is all the more terrible that, instead of presenting 
 itself to us under a jorecise form, it glides and insinuates 
 itself into the heart to chill all its impulses of love and 
 childlike trust. Well, it is this awful phantom which 
 haunts us continually that I would now fight hand to 
 hand. Let us bring to this conflict all our attention, all 
 our moral energy, all the vital powers of our soul, and 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 117 
 
 with the aid of God we shall conquer. What a triumph, 
 brethren, if in the place of that invisible and gloomy enemy 
 that constantly besets us, we see the beaming face of the 
 God whose name is Love appear and rest upon our life ! 
 The first cause which leads us to forget Providence 
 and to believe in fatality, is the inflexibility of the laws 
 of nature under whose subjection we are necessarily 
 placed. If we could see nature sympathise, as it were, 
 with our personal impressions, mourn over our sorrows, 
 or smile on our joys, we would easily recognise in it the 
 manifestation of a Father's love. So children think in 
 their simplicity. For them the roaring thunder is the 
 menacing voice of Divine justice ; the earth with its 
 bright flowers is the garden of the Lord; a fine day is a 
 festival which the Almighty gives them to make their 
 hearts glad ; everything proves to them the presence and 
 action of God. But modern science tends more and more 
 to substitute for Divine action the action of the great 
 natural laws which govern the world. Now the peculiar 
 characteristic of these laws is that they are fatal and 
 inflexible, that they are and remain always and everywhere 
 the same. In the skies, for instance, far from considering 
 the marvellous harmony of worlds as a sublime hymn 
 raised to the honour and praise of the Creator, science 
 sees and studies in it simply what it calls the heavenly 
 mechanism, and I have read in one of its most widely- 
 circulated books this impious phrase, " The heavens no 
 longer declare the glory of God ; they declare the glory of 
 Newton and Laplace." Even those who believe in God 
 often make of Him simply the Great First Cause who put 
 everything in motion, and who from that moment left 
 the natural laws to follow their own course. God gave 
 the first impulse, or, as Pascal ironically said, the first 
 toss, and the immense machinery was set agoing. Every- 
 thing acts in the prescribed order; the worlds pursue 
 
ii8 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 their eternal and silent marcli througli infinite space, and 
 our globe, lost in the universe as if it were a speck of 
 dust, is only an imperceptible atom in tliis immensity ! 
 On this very globe the same laws, laws of death and 
 laws of life, act without one moment's interruption. 
 There is a law which requires that a certain number of 
 beings should die and disappear for tlie preservation of 
 the others ; that every second, for instance, one man 
 should die and one be born. All this is, all this must 
 be ; and as all this is fatal, of what avail, says the 
 infidel, of what avail are our complaints, our prayers, and 
 our simple faith ? How, especially, can we suppose that 
 God interferes in each existence, and that there can be a 
 plan, a particular will, a providential purpose in those 
 necessary, periodical, and inevitable sorrows and bereave- 
 ments ! 
 
 Ah ! let us not be mistaken ; others than the learned 
 have asked themselves these questions. Yes, they come 
 to the most ignorant, and often chill his heart. They 
 come to him particularly in times of affliction, when pain 
 or death have brutally — traitorously, shall I say ? — struck 
 those he loved best ; children, perhaps, or grandchildren. 
 They come to him when he sees nature continuing its 
 serene and peaceful march while his own heart is sorrow- 
 ful as death ; they come to him when he sees the same 
 sun which had so cheerily shone upon the path in which 
 he had walked resting on a fondly cherished being, shine 
 more joyously still upon his grave. . . . Oh ! truly there 
 is in natuie an awful silence ; truly nature is a book 
 which in all its pages often teaches a terrible lesson of 
 fatality. 
 
 Such is the temptation, and certainly it is a fearful 
 one ; but the Christian has a refuge against it ; he believes 
 in God, the Master of nature, in God the Creator. Crea- 
 tion, that first word of the Bible, that first article of the 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 119 
 
 Creed, how necessary it is to-day, and how full of light 
 for our souls ! I open that book in which so many 
 millions before me have found peace and assurance. 
 From the very first line I see that God created. Con- 
 sequently, above the laws which govern the world, there 
 is a lawgiver greater still than all the laws which He 
 has made, and which He can destroy at pleasure ; con- 
 sequently, by faith in God I escape from the circle of 
 fatality, I come out of it to take refuge in the sovereign 
 will from which all things have proceeded. 
 
 That is why we so energetically maintain the belief 
 in miracles, and in the first of all miracles ; namely, 
 creation. AVe do not do so for the mere satisfaction of 
 that gross and vulgar need of the marvellous which is the 
 principal attraction of all inferior minds. Christ once 
 refused to satisfy this undue curiosity ; nay, He even 
 condemned it ; but that is not the point in question. 
 The point in question is to ascertain whether nature is 
 supreme or subject to a master, to choose between fatality 
 and the will of a living God. Now, let men show us 
 another method of solving this problem than miracles — 
 miracles which, by breaking the chain of natural causes, 
 attest the intervention of the Creator ! Miracles are 
 therefore eminently religious. Deny miracles • At the 
 same stroke, you weaken faith in the personal God, and 
 your only master henceforth is necessity ! Call this 
 necessity God, if you will, but to that God you will 
 never be able to offer either prayer or worship, you will 
 have nothing to expect from Him. Miracles are there- 
 fore necessary in order that we may escape fatality. I 
 will give but one example in support of this assertion : 
 We Christians believe that eighteen centuries ago a 
 certain grave opened, and that a dead man came out of it 
 alive. Is this fact without importance ? Is this simply 
 one of those 2>rodigies destined to strike the multitude 
 
I20 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 with amazement ? No ; for ever since this grave opened 
 the world has believed in eternal life ; the fatality of 
 death has been broken, and nothing short of this was 
 required to bring man to believe in immortality. 
 
 The Christian, then, believes in a God who is Master of 
 the laws He has made, and by this very belief he escapes 
 the grasp of fatality. True, we no longer witness miracles ; 
 true, the natural laws govern us uninterruptedly, they are 
 even inflexible and unchangeable, and, should we oppose 
 them, they would crush us beneath their fatal j)ower. And 
 why should it be otherwise ? God loves order. It has been 
 enough for Him to attest that He was the Lord of nature ; 
 but can He alter the order of His works and the admirable 
 chain of natural causes upon which everything rests, to 
 satisfy our least desires, which soon, in that case, would 
 become mere fancies ? He could do so, doubtless ; He 
 could hear each prayer, interfere in each event to bless 
 or chasten. But what would be the consequence of this ? 
 All would serve Him from interest or from fear, since 
 their actions would be immediately followed by punish- 
 ment or reward. "Who would obey from love ? Now, 
 God will be served neither by slaves nor by mercenaries ; 
 He will be followed by faith and not by sight. There- 
 fore He hides himself from sight that He may reveal 
 Himself to faith. Sight reveals to us those general laws 
 in virtue of which His sun rises alike upon the just and 
 upon the unjust, in virtue of which nature pursues its 
 unalterable course. But faith reveals to us, in the midst 
 of the general succession of causes and effects, the delicate 
 action of His providence by which He interferes in each 
 existence, so that He knows every one of us, and that not 
 one of our thoughts, not one of our sighs, is lost to Him. 
 If we judge only by sight, everything is fatal ; the same 
 accidents, the same sorrows come to all men ; but if we 
 judge by faith, we discover in every existence a plan in 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 12 r 
 
 virtue of which all that appears to be accidental and 
 fortuitous realises a Divinely determined purpose. In 
 consequence, the man whose sight would be sufficiently 
 penetrating, would recognise that all the forces of nature, 
 however fatal they may seem, definitively serve, in their 
 relation with humanity, an end which is superior to nature 
 itself' — that is, the realisation of a moral, spiritual, and 
 Divine order. 
 
 Unbelief will perhaps grant that there is in nature a 
 vast and sublime harmony — for he were blind indeed who 
 would fail to perceive it — but it will deny that the object 
 of this harmony is man. It will seek to crush us beneath 
 the sense of our littleness and of our insignificance. It 
 will reproach us with yielding to the illusions of pride 
 when we affirm that man is the object of the tender cares 
 of Providence. It will, no doubt, tell us that our opinion 
 was possible when, with the Bible, men believed that the 
 earth was the centre of the universe ; but now that it is 
 known by all to be lost with its sun amidst millions and 
 millions of worlds which fill infinite space like clouds of 
 dust, how can we still suppose that humanity acts the 
 part which the Bible ascribes to it, how can we still 
 imagine that man has so great an importance in the 
 designs of God ? We hear this objection expressed in 
 familiar language under another form : Well, after all, 
 men are willing to believe in a God who governs the 
 world by regular laws, and to hear His name associated 
 with the great events of history. But let one of the 
 poorest and humblest of human beings in his turn use 
 the name of the Lord, and see the intervention of the 
 Almighty no longer in the great events of the world, but 
 in the humble accidents of his lowly existence ; let him 
 believe himself the object of the love and tender care of 
 Jehovah, you may be sure that such a man will excite 
 both the surprise and the scorn of his fellows. The most 
 
122 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 kindly disposed will bear with his childlike trust, seeing 
 that for him it is a source of consolation ; the greater 
 number will laugh at what will seem to them a veritable 
 delusion. " What ! " they will say, " is it not most singular 
 to supjiose that the Almighty interferes in events of such 
 slight importance ? Is it not degrading His name to mix 
 it with the familiar details of life ? Show us His inter- 
 vention in the grand laws of nature or history, join His 
 name, if you will, to the noble actions of life or to the 
 solemnities of worship, but do not profane it by associat- 
 ing it with your projects, with your habitual preoccupa- 
 tions, with your fleetings joys or your private sorrows, to 
 which He is absolutely indifferent." 
 
 So the world reasons. This language is not that of 
 atheists, but of a multitude of honest and would-be 
 Christian people who are proud of the name they bear. 
 I feel sure that, under some form or other, you have all 
 heard it. 
 
 Who has not been troubled by such thoughts as these ? 
 Who has not often questioned whether the attention of 
 the Supreme Being could really be directed upon him ? 
 Ah ! as for me, how often have I repeated these words of 
 the Psalmist, "What is man that Tliou shouldst be mind- 
 ful of him ? " How often has the spectacle of the world 
 inspired me with a vague feeling of terror by the crush- 
 ing contrast between His infinite grandeur and my own 
 nothingness. " Is it true," I asked, " that in the immen- 
 sity of creation in which our globe is but as a speck of 
 dust — is it true that, in the imperceptible ant-hill we call 
 humanity, those thousands of beings of whom each minute 
 sees some die and some come into life, have each their 
 mission, their part to act, their account to render, and 
 their judgment to expect ? Is it true that their destiny 
 lias the importance which they ascribe to it, and that 
 God can be acquainted with the numberless accidents of 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 123 
 
 wliicli their sliort-lived existence is composed ? And, as 
 regards myself, is it true that the eyes of the Most High 
 distinguish me from the rest of my fellowmen ? Is my 
 prayer heard, and is my way known to the Lord ? " 
 
 Here, again, allow me to oppose to the doubts of our 
 hearts the rej^ly of Eevelation. True, the Scriptures tell 
 us of the majesty of God and of our own littleness with 
 ujiequalled energy ; but never do they draw from this 
 comparison a consequence favourable to fatality. Hear, 
 for instance, the words spoken by a prophet more than 
 twenty centuries ago. It is a passage the beautiful 
 sublimity of which should strike with admiration even 
 the most unpoetical imagination : " Who," says Isaiah, 
 " hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and 
 meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the 
 dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the moun- 
 tains in scales, and the hills in a balance ? Who hath 
 directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counsellor 
 hath taught Him ? Behold, the nations are as a drop 
 of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the 
 balance. To whom then will ye liken God ? or what 
 likeness will ye compare unto Him ? Lift up your eyes 
 on high ! Who hath created these thinrfs ? He that 
 bringeth out their host by number, who calleth them all 
 by names, and not one faileth." 
 
 That is the expression of the feelings by which we 
 were oppressed a moment ago. That is the most strik- 
 ing picture of our littleness compared with the greatness 
 of God. But what is the consequence which Isaiah 
 draws from it ? Hear him again : " Why sayest thou, 
 Jacob, and speakest, Israel, j\Iy way is hid from the 
 Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God ? 
 Hast thou not known ? hast thou not heard, that the 
 everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the 
 earth, fainteth not, neither is weary ? He shall feed 
 
124 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 His flock like a shepherd : He shall gather the lambs with 
 His arm, and carry them in His bosom." You have heard 
 the prophet, and you have seen from his language, that the 
 Divine Word reasons not after the manner of men. The 
 Lord is great, and therefore He forgets us, such is the 
 argument of men. The Lord is great, He preserveth the 
 simple, such is the argument of God. 
 
 Which of these two modes of reasoning is the most 
 rational ? Judge for yourselves. The question is to 
 know whether God is lowered when we affirm that He 
 watches over the humblest of His creatures. Now, when 
 have men made tlie discovery that true greatness is 
 incapable of caring for what seems to us insignificant ? 
 Would you call him great, the poet who, wholly pre- 
 occupied with the plan of his epic, would judge that 
 harmony, rhythm, and a proper choice of words are details 
 unworthy of his attention ? Would you call him great, 
 the statesman or the general who, in his plans of adminis- 
 tration or war, would overlook little things ? Who, on 
 the contrary, does not see that one of the most evident 
 signs of true greatness is that it directs everything at the 
 same time, that it embraces, in one vast and precise 
 glance, the whole with each of the details, that it per- 
 ceives at once the two extremities of the chain, without 
 forgetting one single link ? That which most excites 
 our admiration in men of genius is not only their gigantic 
 plans, but especially that powerful grasp by which they 
 lay hold, with the plan itself, of all the details of its 
 execution ; it is that kind of intellectual omnipresence 
 which makes of Michael Angelo at once the most sublime 
 artist and the most exact mathematician ; which enables 
 Napoleon, at the very moment when he is tracing the 
 plan of a distant campaign, to calculate without one 
 error the allowances of his soldiers and the minutest 
 details of their encampment ; or which, in a very different 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 125 
 
 sphere, enables a great writer to find, in tlie very midst 
 of the burning flame of inspiration, the most correct 
 and suitable words in which to give expression to his 
 thoughts. Now, raise this marvellous gift of genius to 
 its highest power, take it in its source, in God Himself, 
 and you will find, together with the most imposing great- 
 ness, the most attentive Providence ; you will find the 
 Supreme Being whom nothing can limit and whom 
 nothing can escape, not even the sparrow that has 
 dropped during the night on the frozen ground, not even 
 the silent tears which you have perhaps shed this morn- 
 ino- in secret. . . . Let none, therefore, seek to crush us 
 beneath the sense of Divine greatness, for it is in that 
 very greatness that we find our refuge against fatality ! 
 
 Thus, by faith in the living God, the Christian is 
 enabled to triumph over the sentiment of fatality in 
 the sphere of nature. 
 
 But, if faith in Providence vaciUates and dies away in 
 so many souls, this is owing, in most cases, to another 
 cause than that which I have brought before you. That 
 which hides, that which may even blot out the interven- 
 tion of God from the eyes of the great majority, is the 
 spectacle of life and of the world such as sin has made 
 them. 
 
 For example, how difficult it is to discover a provi- 
 dential plan in history ! How can we trace out a way 
 through the dismal confusion of events ? How can we 
 find the key to all the moral problems which they raise ? 
 What is the meaning of so many painful abortions, what 
 was the destination of so many lost civilisations, what 
 will be the result of so many sorrows, wars, heartrend- 
 ings, and tears ? Men tell us that blood is a fruitful 
 seed. Alas ! how oft has it flowed in torrents upon the 
 earth only to leave after it the aridity of the desert ! 
 Men tell us that there can be no birth without suffering. 
 
126 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 Alas ! how many sufferings which bring forth nothing ! 
 Men tell us that crime is necessarily sterile ; but how 
 many successful crimes do I see which leave after them 
 a long and fearful posterity ! Doubtless, it is easy for 
 the man who is blessed with a sanguine temperament to 
 explain all these things in a superficial manner, to write 
 in a few chapters a philosophy of history, and to declare 
 that he sees his way clear through the night which 
 appals me ; but all are not so easily comforted, all can- 
 not hail as a true light the ignis fatuus of the imagination. 
 For them, the history of humanity, with its monstrous 
 crimes, with its endless sufferings, history embracing the 
 millions of millions of beings who, outside of our ideas 
 and beliefs, pursue their own mysterious destinies, history 
 remains a problem which troubles them and often makes 
 their heart bleed. 
 
 These are, some will perhaps say, the temptations of 
 cultivated minds. No, they are nut ; in another form 
 they also beset the most ignorant and the most untaught. 
 Is not each individual existence an abridged reproduc- 
 tion, so to speak, of the painful problems which agitate 
 the nations ? The injustice that triumphs, the perfidious 
 skill that attains its end, the suffering without cause, the 
 unexpected blows of death, are not these the questions 
 which have oppressed us all in the solemn hour of visita- 
 tion ? From the patriot who, seeing the cause of justice 
 fall with his standard, dies in denying God, to the work- 
 ingman who has often answered us M'ith these bitter 
 vords, " If there be a God, He is the God of the rich," 
 what is the situation in which men are not sometimes 
 tempted to doubt the action of God on the world and on 
 their life ? Alas ! as we have already said, if fatality was 
 tlie supreme god of the ancient world, it is still that in 
 M'hom the men of the present day most willingly believe. 
 Some worship it stupidly, others rebel against it and 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 127 
 
 curse it, but over all it exercises a fatal influence. The 
 Christian himself, under the stroke of extreme atilictions, 
 or under the impression of iniquity, is apt to bow the 
 knee before it and foolishly to repeat the words of Asaph, 
 " How doth God know, and is there knowledge in the 
 Most High ? " 
 
 To all these momentous questions I will not answer 
 lightly ; I will not, therefore, tell you that faith com- 
 pletely illumines this darkness, or that, for the Christian, 
 all terrible mysteries disappear from the spectacle of the 
 world. Yes, in history, the apparent influence of fatality 
 is immense ; there is, for instance, in the hereditary trans- 
 mission of disease and suffering, in the action of matter 
 over mind, in the innate dispositions of characters and 
 races, many problems which baffle all our wisdom ; there 
 are, in the history of men, thousands of pages whose 
 meaning is still unknown to us ; truly the ways of the 
 Lord are enveloped in shadows which our eyes vainly 
 seek to jDenetrate. 
 
 Nevertheless, through this darkness I advance, for my 
 eyes are steadily fixed upon these words, in which I 
 explicitly believe, " God is love." He is love, that is 
 my most intimate conviction ; I oppose it without weak- 
 ness to all I see, to all I hear, nay, to all the thoughts 
 of my intellect, to all the agitations of my heart. He is 
 love ; therefore, everything in His works concurs to a 
 supreme harmony ; therefore, the history of humanity is 
 no longer a fruitless conflict between contrary passions, 
 instincts, and chances. Above all these, in the midst 
 of all these agitations, of all these discordant wills, of 
 all these seeming accidents, a Divine plan, which leaves 
 nothing to fatality, is being pursued. True, this plan is 
 hidden from me, but I know it exists, and this thought* 
 is a firm support, a sure refuge for my faith. Besides, if 
 this plan does escajie me, if, when I would explain it, I 
 
128 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 am compelled to avow my ignorance, this ignorance, after 
 all, is very natural in a shortsighted and fallible being 
 who, during his rapid passage upon earth, can take but a 
 very imperfect and one-sided view of the designs of the 
 Lord. How can a shortlived being such as I am com- 
 prehend the purposes of the eternal God ? Duplessis- 
 Mornay, in the sixteenth century, said to an infidel who 
 denied Providence, " Wilt thou judge of a drama from 
 one scene which thou wilt have heard only in passing ? 
 And because, in that scene, the innocent succumbs, wilt 
 thou accuse the poet of having forgotten justice ? Stay 
 a little longer and hear the following note. When in his 
 turn the criminal will have fallen, then thou wilt own 
 that the discord is turned into harmony. . . . Now, seest 
 thou not that we are children who would judge of the 
 drama of all eternity from one particular note ? " Mornay 
 spoke true. God acts a drama of which all the scenes 
 are ages. He in whose sight a thousand years are as a 
 day, He who is patient, being eternal ! Or, to take 
 another illustration, will you ask of the soldier who is 
 fighting in the hottest of the battle to expose to you his 
 general's plan ? How could he do so ? If he has done 
 his duty, if he has rushed in the midst of the fray, he has 
 seen nought but the confusion of the charge, nouoht but 
 the glitter of arms, nought but the clouds of dust and 
 smoke, he has heard nought but cries mingling with the 
 deafening noise of the firing and of the artillery. For 
 him all was disorder and chaos, but from the neighbour- 
 ing heights there was one eye that followed the progress 
 of the battle, one hand that directed the slightest move- 
 ments of the troops. Now, brethren, there is a combat 
 that is being pursued throughout all ages. It is the 
 conflict of trutli, love, and justice against error, selfishness, 
 and iniquity. It does not pertain to us, obscure soldiers 
 cast in the hottest of the fray, to direct its course ; we 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 129 
 
 must be satisfied to know that God governs ; it is our 
 duty to remain in the post which He has assigned to us, 
 and to fight bravely to the end. 
 
 When I ponder over this Divine phan which is being 
 pursued amid the confusion of history, there is an Old 
 Testament scene which often presents itself to my mind. 
 When Solomon built the Temple of the Lord upon Mount 
 Zion, we are told in the Scriptures that all the materials 
 which entered into the construction of this vast edifice were 
 prepared out of Jerusalem, that the noise of the instru- 
 ments of labour might not be heard within the holy city ; 
 so, for many long months, workmen were employed 
 throughout the valleys of Judea or over the hills of 
 Lebanon in felling cedars or hewing stones ; none knew 
 the plan of the great architect, but each had received 
 orders to complete his task ; and the day came when, at 
 length, the Temple rose in its majestic beauty. 1 have 
 often thought this a striking image of the destinies of 
 humanity. God, who is the Supreme Architect, is erect- 
 ing throughout all ages an immense edifice whose plan 
 escapes us, but which is to become the sanctuary in 
 which we shall adore Him. It is far from heaven, far 
 from the Holy Zion, far from the abode of peace and 
 glory ; it is here below, in this land of exile, that the 
 materials are being prepared, for the sounds of suffering 
 and toil are not to reach the heavenly city ; each of us 
 must, therefore, accomplish at his post the work which 
 has been committed to him, even though he understands 
 not the place it is destined to occupy in the universal 
 harmony. How could we, workers of a day, how could 
 we penetrate the designs of the God of eternity ? It 
 is enough for us to know that our M'ork, however humble 
 it be, is known of the Universal Master, that it has 
 been appointed by Him, and that He will accept it. It 
 is enough for us to believe that the day will come when 
 
 I 
 
I30 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 all these materials, which seem to be dispersed in a fatal 
 confusion, will be united in an order that will charm our 
 intellect. Then all human sorrows, sacrifices, and afflic- 
 tions will no longer appear to us useless; then we shall see 
 all the heroic actions, all the hidden virtues of which 
 God alone had been the witness, start from oblivion ; 
 tlien all that seemed to be fortuitous or fatal in the 
 history of humanity and in our own existence will be 
 explained ; then chance will be no more, and the edifice 
 which Divine Wisdom had slowly prepared by secular 
 labour will rise in its sovereign beauty as the eternal 
 sanctuary of infinite love. 
 
 That is my belief. I know not if it be yours also, but 
 you will at least confess that, with such a belief, one can be 
 strong in the conflicts of life and against the most terrible 
 of temptations — against the fearful attacks of fatality. 
 
 And yet, shall I say. . . . This is not enough for me. 
 Yes, doubtless it is an incomparable consolation to know 
 that all things concur to the realisation of the universal 
 plan of God, and that nothing is useless, that nothing is 
 lost in our lives. But who can tell if this be not, after 
 all, a magnificent theory ? Who can tell if love be 
 truly the centre and end of all the Divine dispensations ? 
 How can 1 believe this when so many clouds dim my 
 sight ? What I want is to hear the heart of God throb 
 for one moment in His works. Willingly would I 
 say with Jacob, " Tell me thy name." Willingly would I 
 exclaim with Job, " Oh, that I knew where I might find 
 Him ! " and with Isaiah, " Oh, that Thou wouldst rend 
 the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down ! " Yes, 
 between myself and the hidden God the distance is too 
 great ; that I may believe in His love, I must first see 
 and contemplate Him. 
 
 Well, the God of the Gospel has responded to this 
 desire of the human soul. Incarnation ! that is the most 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 131 
 
 convincing proof of providence. I see a holy love appear- 
 ing and shining upon our earth, a love .such as mankind 
 has never beheld, a love which is the very substance of 
 Christ's nature, the principle of all His actions and of 
 His whole life ; and Jesus, who manifests it to the 
 world, declares in the most positive manner that He is 
 the Incarnation of God — that when men see Him they 
 see the Father. Then souls go to Him attracted by an 
 irresistible charm. ... If you should ask them why 
 the words of Jesus have so mighty a power over them, 
 why His Cross, which is the supreme manifestation of His 
 love, spreads so brilliant a light on their personal history 
 and on that of the world, many would, doubtless, be 
 unable to answer ; but they feel most deeply that it is 
 because on that Cross God has written His name and 
 revealed to the world His ways. . . . Hear what that 
 God tells us by the Cross : " Thou didst ask to know My 
 name ? My name is Justice, Holiness, and Love ! Oh, 
 human conscience ! thou didst seek Me, though thou knewest 
 Me not, each time that thou didst love what is true, 
 just, and good. I am Holiness and Justice, and I might 
 have reigned amid terror, crushing whatever resisted ]\Ie ; 
 for Mine is power, Mine is sovereign dominion for ever 
 and ever. But I am Love, and I will not reign thus ; I 
 desire to draw the hearts of men unto Myself by a free 
 attachment, and to ask of them a voluntary obedience. 
 That is why My Son has come upon earth in humility 
 and abasement ; but by that Cross upon which men have 
 nailed Him I draw, and still will draw, all men unto Me. 
 Thus My reign will come ; not the reign of terror and 
 might, for, as I taught My prophet Elijah in the wilder- 
 ness of Horeb, I dwell neither in the storm which over- 
 throws, nor in the fire which consumes, nor in the 
 earthquake which destroys. No; My voice is heard speak- 
 ing in soft and persuasive accents ; to all I say, ' Come 
 
132 PROVIDEXCE AXD FATALITY. 
 
 unto Me ! ' I break not the bruised reed, I quencli not the 
 smoking flax. ... I call all men unto Myself; to this 
 tend all the plans of Mt providence ; that is the secret of 
 history — that is the explanation of all My purposes." 
 
 Is not that what the Cross tells us ? Is not that what it 
 teaches to the world ? Ah ! I know that the world does 
 not understand this sublime instruction — that very often 
 it rejects it. But, in spite of itself, a ray of that Divine 
 light pierces through its gloom and illumines it. This 
 fact is obTious. Men have believed in progress only 
 since the establishment of Christianity, and in the midst 
 of the Christian nations alone. Xow, what is progress 
 in its most elevated sense (for I do not refer to the re- 
 finement of luxury, enjoyment, and ease, which attests the 
 decline of a nation as forcibly as its civilisation), what is 
 progi'ess but the realisation in history of a Divine plan ? 
 Striking fact ! men have begun to believe in progress 
 only when they have seen the Cross. They have begun 
 to believe in a Divine -plan only on the day when God 
 revealed to us His name by tracing it in bloody letters 
 on Golgotha, Whilst all the heathen or ]\Iohammedan 
 nations are at a stand-still or even recede, the Christian 
 nations alone are marching on towards a glorious futm-e, 
 and pretend to win the rest of the universe over to theu' 
 faith ; is not this the result of that general belief in 
 progress wliich is one of the fruits of the Gospel ? The 
 belief in providence entered the world only on the day of 
 the Incarnation. Till then the religion of mankind had 
 been fatalism, and, even amongst the Jews, faith in the 
 intervention of God was maintamed only by repeated 
 miracles.- But, from the day when himianity felt the 
 heart of God throb in the heart of the Son of i\Ian, from 
 the hour when it beheld Him who is the revelation of 
 the Father, it was enabled to believe that God loved it, 
 and would never more leave it to its fate. See, in fact. 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 133 
 
 how everything changes from tlie moment when this 
 glorious event of the Incarnation ilkmiines the darkness 
 of our night ! 
 
 As I thought of our earth lost in this vast universe, I 
 said, " Can the eyes of the Most High distinguish it ? " 
 But now, I know that, amongst so many millions of 
 worlds, it has been the object of the predilection of the 
 Most High ; I know that it has become the abode of His 
 Son, the scene of the revelation of His love. Henceforth 
 can millions of worlds have the same value in His sight 
 as this small earth on which the tears and the blood of 
 His Son have flowed ? Willingly would I say with the 
 prophet addressing Bethlehem : " Thou earth, though thou 
 be little among the thousands of stars, though thou be 
 lost in the immensity of the universe, yet the most 
 glorious of worlds art thou, for out of thee has come forth 
 the Saviour, the Son of the Most High. Yes, in their 
 flight through infinite space the angels hail thee, for in 
 the whole universe they see not one spot as brilliant as 
 thou. Though they wander among those thousands and 
 thousands of suns whose splendours declare the glory of 
 God, though they soar to the very limits of His dominions, 
 though they behold the magnificence of the works of His 
 hands, yet will they never discover anything so truly grand 
 as Divine love offering itself in sacrifice, and the brilliant 
 light of all these suns will pale beside the ray which 
 flashes from the Cross. Oh, earth ! be thou blessed, for 
 out of thee has come forth the Saviour ! " 
 
 Again I said : " What is the secret of the Divine will, 
 what is the meaning of those extraordinary dispensations 
 which blind and bewilder me ? " But now God has 
 answered me. I have seen the Cross triumphant. I 
 know that, through all that surprises and troubles me, 
 the reioii of God is advancinc^, and that the earth will be 
 brought under its subjection. 
 
134 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 But the Cross does more than ilhimme the destinies of 
 humanity at large ; it enlightens also our own individual 
 history. The Cross teaches me what is the value of my 
 soul in the sight of God by showing me at what price it 
 has been redeemed. And if I have believed in that love, 
 if I have understood what is the value of my soul, how 
 can I still deny Providence ? Here we may call up St. 
 Paul's argument : " He that spared not His own Son, how 
 shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ? " 
 After this , great and striking proof of His love, why 
 should I not expect the most devoted care which a 
 Father's tenderness can bestow ? Why should I doubt 
 the merciful intention that presides over all the Divine 
 dispensations, even over those which baffle my reason and 
 break my heart ? Is there an affliction whose darkness 
 cannot be dispelled, or wdiose bitterness cannot be allayed 
 by the Cross ? 
 
 So the Christian reasons. Now, observe that what I 
 have said of nations may be as strongly, though perhaps 
 less clearly, applied to individuals. Man's firm belief 
 in Providence depends on his acceptance of the Cross. 
 Apart from faith in Jesus Christ you may meet with 
 impulses of sincere piety, with a touching submission to 
 the will of God, with a degree of confidence in His love ; 
 but when you see a man who firmly believes in the con- 
 tinual intervention of God in his existence, a man who 
 affirms that all his sorrows enter into the Divine plan for 
 his spiritual education, a man who is able to give thanks 
 in the midst of affliction, you will not Ije mistaken if you 
 say tliat this man is a Christian. 
 
 But it is precisely at this point that the doul)t which 
 we combat arms itself against us with new weapons. 
 Men tell us that it is a senseless delusion to believe 
 tliat the Churcli is the centre of all the Divine plans, and 
 that liumanity has been the object of a miracle of love 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 135 
 
 such as the Incarnation. They accuse of a singular 
 pride the Christians who imagine that the heavens have 
 been shaken for their salvation, and that all things concur 
 to the realisation of their hopes, that is, to the glory of 
 their God. 
 
 You accuse them of pride, and wherefore ? "What 
 pride is there in believing that God, when He placed us 
 on earth, had evidently a purpose, and that this purpose 
 was His service ? What pride is there in believing that 
 the free obedience of a loving heart is more agreeable to 
 God than the forced submission of all the creatures that 
 serve Him fatally ? What pride is there in believing 
 that, in order to obtain this obedience. His love has 
 shrunk from no sacrifice — no, not even from an unutter- 
 able abasement, not even from the immolation of the 
 Cross ? Proud, are we ? when our desire is to refer all 
 our life to Him from whom we have received all things, 
 to listen to the voice of conscience and to take a serious 
 view of Divine holiness ! Proud, when we believe that 
 nothing in our life is indifferent to God, and that our 
 pride, our selfishness, and our sins grieve and offend Him ! 
 Proud, when we believe that His mercy surpasses even 
 His justice, and when we suppose it sufficiently great to 
 have led Him to the very sacrifice of Himself ! Proud, 
 when we believe that His fatherly tenderness is vast 
 enough to embrace all His creatures, to know and count 
 all their sorrows and miseries ! Proud, in fine, when we 
 live in the child-like confidence that in His purposes 
 towards us nothing is chance, but all is charity ! 
 
 But you who charge us with pride, have you sought 
 to take into consideration all that lies concealed beneath 
 your pretended humility ? You are too insignificant, 
 you say, to occupy the attention of God ! But search 
 the depths of your heart, and you will discover there the 
 true reason of your meekness. Is it not that you wish 
 
136 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 to escape this God who annoys you, and that the better 
 to forget Him you find it necessary that He shoukl forget 
 you ? Is it not that you wish to hide from His sight in 
 order to live all the more freely for yourselves and do 
 your own will ? Oh, convenient humility ! No wonder 
 that it has become so popular a virtue. But shall I tell 
 you the true name of this humility ? It is pride ! To 
 steal away from God under pretence of one's insigni- 
 ficance, and then to find one's independence anew, to live 
 for self and for tlie world, what is this in reality but the 
 old rel^ellion of pride despoiled of grandeur but clothed 
 in hypocrisy ? Brethren, one thmg is sure, and it is 
 this : in the great day when all the veils which hide our 
 secret intentions will be rent, tliey will be found in the 
 ranks of the ungrateful and tlie rebellious, those would-be 
 humble beings wdio escaped God under the plea that 
 they were too insignificant for Him ! 
 
 Ah ! be humble, but be not so in appearance only. 
 Say that you are, not too insigniiicant, but too great 
 sinners to be brought under the notice of the Holy God ; 
 cast a terrified glance into that al;)yss which your sins 
 have opened between Himself and you ; repeat in trem- 
 bling the words of the prophet : " What is man that Thou 
 shouldst be mindful of him ? " Then you will know 
 what is humility ; but, far from being led by it to escape 
 God and to delight in your own proud independence, 
 you will rather cast yourselves into His merciful arms, 
 and you will find that nothing short of the blood of the 
 Cross could have been sufficient to eSace the iniquity 
 whose depth you will thus have measured. 
 
 I have endeavoured to combat the thoughts which 
 lead us to deny providence and to believe in fatality ; 
 nevertheless, my task is not yet complete. I have still 
 to speak of the supreme temptation which gives to all 
 the doubts I have mentioned the most intense and the 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 137 
 
 most terrible force. This temptation is suffering. Alas ! 
 here I am sure of being understood. Here I am sure of 
 recounting the past or future history, or, it may be, the 
 present history of each of you. 
 
 You were full of faith, my brother, and your Christian 
 life was gliding happily and easily by under the approv- 
 ing eye of God. But behold ! the day assigned to every 
 human soul is at length dawning on your horizon, the 
 gloomy day of trial ! 
 
 You were strong, and behold ! your health has 
 vanished and your energy has fled ; on your path are 
 insurmountable obstacles which you are vainly endea- 
 vouring to overcome. You were rich, or at least in easy 
 circumstances, but behold! your resources are dwindling 
 away and poverty is advancing with its dismal train of 
 humiliations and painful deceptions; your friends are 
 falling off one by one, and their heart is growing cold. 
 Alas ! behold death striking right and left around you, 
 and taking from you those whom God had given you in 
 days of gladness, and without whose society life seemed 
 to you impossible ; ... or again, behold ! here is a 
 sorrow greater than death, one of those secret sorrows 
 which we must hide from the world because shame and 
 dishonour are attached to them ! 
 
 You struggle at first, fixing your eyes upon Him who 
 is invisible. The great days of visitation have something 
 Divine. In the first blow that strikes us we easily re- 
 cognise the hand of the Lord ; but when the morrow 
 dawns gloomy and dull, when we must resume our march 
 through the desert, when day succeeds day, and the trial 
 of affliction is followed by the more terrible trial of 
 patience, when deliverance or consolation, which for one 
 moment had lighted up our path, dies away like a fleeting 
 ray which leaves us in deeper gloom than before, alas ! 
 the stern yet mild figure of the Heavenly Comforter dis- 
 
138 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 appears. You grieve bitterly, you whose piety had been 
 so tirm and so serene, you who had always been so ready 
 to impart to others those consolations which are now lost 
 to you. 
 
 And do you know what adds to your bitterness ? It 
 is the sight of those whom God spares and prospers, 
 wdiilst He crushes you. His child. Yes, those blessings 
 of fortune which you would have employed so generously, 
 another will possess them and will waste them away in 
 guilty or frivolous pleasures. That strength which you 
 would have consecrated to God, another will enjoy it and 
 spend it in that which is but vanity. Those affections 
 which would have been so needful to you and for which 
 your heart thirsted, he will enjoy them, that being who 
 cannot so much as appreciate them. Beaming faces will 
 surround his hearth while yours will be desolate. Yes, 
 that man who lives for himself alone will have every- 
 thing, health, joy, love, and strength ; and you, whose aim 
 was to serve the noblest of causes here below, you will 
 be reduced to maintain your existence by the most fruit- 
 less, ungrateful, and discouraging toil ; you will perhaps 
 be chained down to a bed of suffering, incapable of action, 
 and the unbeliever, as he passes by, will open your door 
 to thrust this withering thought indirectly into your mind : 
 " Where is thy God ? " 
 
 That is not all. While passing through this dark 
 valley of tribulation, you may be called, by a strange 
 dispensation, to endure inward anguish which will add its 
 pangs to your outward sorrows. Your soul will be dry 
 without being athirst ; the Word of God will cease to be 
 as a spring of living water ; its promises will vacillate 
 before your troubled eyes. Doubts till then unknown 
 will assail your intellect ; prayer will become a painfid 
 duty ; it will rise to God but brhig down no response. 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 139 
 
 Oh, brother ! less than this was required to lead you to 
 believe in fatality ! 
 
 Ah ! no doubt you will not pronounce this awful word 
 which terrifies you. What matters, if you believe in the 
 thing ? Fatality ! Men may believe in it and yet call 
 themselves Christians. After twenty or thirty years of a 
 life in which God has multiplied the most evident signs 
 of His, goodness and tender care, men may allow them- 
 selves to be so completely blinded by ingratitude as to 
 give utterance to these words, for which God upbraided 
 His ancient people : " My way is hid from the Lord, 
 and my judgment is passed over from my God ! " 
 
 Hid from your God ! and wherefore ? You suffer, but 
 is there anything in this to surprise you ? Is not this 
 what your Saviour has foretold ? When He called you 
 to His service, did He promise you enjoyment or a cross 
 to bear, success or struggle, pleasure or tears ? Search 
 the Word of God. What have those who have preceded 
 you in the narrow path experienced ? What do all the 
 cries of sorrow and anguish which rise from the pages 
 traced by Da\'id, Isaiah, or St. Paul say to your heart ? 
 You suffer ! But may not this be precisely the sign of 
 your election ? Is it not written that through much 
 tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of heaven ? 
 Was less than this required to teach you your nothing- 
 ness, to crush in you the pride of life, to reveal to you 
 all the lukewarmness, weakness, and cowardly fear of 
 your natural heart ? 
 
 You suffer and the enemies of God triumph ! The 
 enemies of God ! Ah ! who will tell what awaits them ? 
 Is the end of the broad way in which they eagerly press 
 so strangely alluring ? Is perdition so attractive ? Is 
 the fate of a heart full of blindness and rendered utterly 
 insensible by ease and comfort, of a heart which, proud 
 and rebellious, goes forward to meet the judgments of 
 
I40 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 God, — is the fate of such a heart, I ask, one which can he 
 looked upon without terror ? 
 
 You suffer, and heaven is closed, and your prayers re- 
 main unanswered ! But who can tell if the end of these 
 inward trials is not to separate, in your faith, the pure 
 gold from the dross which still mingles with it, the wheat 
 from the chaff which is to be burned ? Who can tell if 
 this silence of God is not meant to render your faith firmer 
 and more triumphant ? . . . Besides, is it yours to de- 
 termine the time of deliverance, and to measure, according 
 to your own feeble wisdom, the ways of the Lord which 
 are not your ways ? 
 
 All this I might tell you, and in support of each of 
 these thoughts the Word of God would lend me multi- 
 plied declarations ; because for you, for feeble souls like 
 yours, it has been written by the God who knoweth our 
 frame. But time fails me, and I prefer inviting you to 
 behold with me a spectacle which will tell you more than 
 all my words. 
 
 Come, I will say to you, come, you who in your 
 bitterness have said again and again : " My way is hid 
 from the Lord," — come and behold in the garden of Geth- 
 semane that innocent Being who bows down in the dust, 
 overpowered by an inexpressible anguish. You suffer, 
 but you have been guilty. . . . He suffers, and He is 
 innocent, and sin has never touched His soul. He suffers, 
 nevertheless, and how great must be His grief, that He 
 who had said to all human sorrows, " Come unto Me and 
 I will give you rest," should succumb crushed and broken- 
 hearted ! 
 
 You suffer and the enemies of God prosper ! He is 
 about to be led as a lamb before Herod, and the vilest 
 beings will triumph as they load Him with insults ! 
 
 You suffer, and none understand you, and affection 
 fails you ! He who wanted love, being Love itself, turns 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 141 
 
 towards His sleeping disciples and utters these words of 
 sorrowful reproach : " Could ye not w^atch with Me one 
 hour ? " 
 
 You suffer, and heaven is closed to your prayers ! lie 
 casts towards a heaven of brass a supreme look, a look of 
 agony. He cries to earth, " I thirst ! " and earth replies 
 by taunts and curses ; He turns towards the Eatlier, who 
 hides His face from Him, and He must utter this cry of 
 fearful anguish : " My God, My God, why hast Thou 
 forsaken Me ? " 
 
 You believe all this, ... in that Man of Sorrows you 
 recognise your brother and you worship your God, . . . 
 then you think that He ignores your state, and that your 
 sorrows are unknown to Him ? Why then has He come 
 to suffer, why has He loved you unto death, even unto 
 the death of the Cross ? Why has He revealed to 
 you a charity so astonishing and so subhme ? Why is 
 it written that Christ, having completed His work, inter- 
 cedes for us with the Father ? or rather, why shouldst 
 thou still doubt, my brother ! the reality of that vast 
 and profound sympathy which fills His heart ? 
 
 No ; none of thy anxieties, none of thy conflicts, none 
 of thy prayers are unknown to Him. ISTo ; thy obscure 
 acts of devotion, thy silent sacrifices, are not buried in 
 the bottomless abyss of oblivion. Ye tears of the sinner, 
 ye sorrows of the poor, ye groans of broken hearts, ye 
 unseen sufferings, the world misunderstands or stifles you ; 
 but the angels see and hear you, and, above the noise and 
 roar of what men call their great events, ye rise to the 
 throne, nay, to the very heart of God ! Bear this thought 
 away with thee, afflicted one, and when sorrow oppresses 
 thy heart, go to thy God ; go, though thou understand not ; 
 go and weep in His bosom, and remember these words 
 which Christ addressed to Peter : " What I do thou know- 
 est not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter ! " • 
 
142 PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 
 
 One word more and I conclude. You to whom God 
 has revealed the secret of your history and of His provi- 
 dence, endeavour to enlighten those who travel through 
 the way of life with you. Alas ! how many unfortunate 
 beings there are who suffer and who believe only in 
 fatality ! How many there are who, when they see 
 iniquity successful and triumphant, persuade themselves 
 that if there were a God things would not take this 
 fatal course ! Well, live amongst them in such a manner 
 that they may be brought to say that if there were no 
 God your life and love would be inexplicable. To soothe 
 tlieu' sorrows or dispel the temptation to revolt by which 
 they are beset, what is required ? A very little thing, 
 perhaps — a smile, a friendly j)ressure of the hand, a look 
 of affection ; something, in a word, which will make them 
 feel that, after all, everything does not conspire against 
 them since there are hearts that love them still. 
 
 But beware especially lest you profane the consolations 
 of the Gospel by uttering them with your lips while 
 your heart is indifferent and cold. Do not, from the 
 midst of your ease and comfort, lightly say to the wretch 
 who suffers that all things work together for his greatest 
 good ; do not imprudently cast at him such words as 
 these, for they would sear his embittered heart as \dtriol 
 l)urns a bleeding wound. Eemember that, to prove us 
 His love, the Son of God has not merely spoken to us 
 from the midst of His felicity ; no. He has given us His 
 life, and that is why He alone can truly comfort. When 
 that love, which shrinks not from sacrifice, will have pene- 
 trated your heart, then indeed will you be strong to meet 
 suffering, and to proclaim to the world that God is love. 
 
 Let us redouble our efforts iu the fulfilment of our 
 Divine mission. In presence of all the voices which rise 
 from the earth to proclaim fatalism, let us unweariedly 
 repeat that the destinies of the world are in the hands of 
 
PROVIDENCE AND FATALITY. 143 
 
 a Father. Let us hasten by our labours, sacrifices, and 
 prayers tlie ach^ent of tliat glad day when the dismal 
 darkness which has so long covered our miserable eartli 
 shall disappear, when chance shall be no more, when 
 fatality shall vanish as a vain dream, and when the 
 glorious morning of eternal love shall dawn ! 
 
( 144 ) 
 
 YIII. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF FOR 
 HIS BRETHREN. 
 
 "And for their sakcs I sanctify Myself." — John xvii. 19. 
 
 Confess it, brethren ; the words I have just read surprise 
 you ; you cannot conceive how it is possible that Jesus 
 Christ should sanctify Himself. With the whole of the 
 Christian Church, you believe in the perfect purity of His 
 character ; you believe that sin, of which we all bear the 
 fearful marks, has never sullied His life, and that He has 
 manifested the holiness of God in all its fulness. He de- 
 clares this Himself : " The prince of this world has nothing 
 in Me." " Which of you convinceth Me of sin ? " He 
 says elsewhere. Extraordinary words these, which, if 
 they ditl not express a real fact, would attest the most 
 monstrous delusion on the part of Him who uttered them. 
 But Jesus is so fully convinced of the perfection of His 
 life, that He presents it as a complete manifestation of 
 God. "He that hath seen Me," says He, " has seen the 
 Father." In no human language wdll a stronger expresr 
 sion be found by which to assert one's holiness. How, 
 then, can He who affirms so absolutely His possession of 
 Divine holiness speak of sanctifying Himself ? 
 
 In order to understand these words, we must, first of 
 all, recall to mind the sense which the word sanctitication 
 
THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF. 145 
 
 has in the Scriptures. It always signifies the setting 
 apart of a being or of a thing for the service of God. 
 When this word is applied to men, that is, to sinful 
 beings, it necessarily implies the idea of contlict w^ith sin, 
 of a victory to l)e won over the flesh and the rebellious 
 will, of a continued purification, of a laborious progress 
 towards the right. Now, I understand that, in this sense, 
 we .hesitate to apply this word to Jesus. But it is not in 
 this sense that Jesus employs it. Jesus has never ceased 
 to belong wholly to God ; everything in Him has been 
 consecrated to the glory of the Father, not only His 
 actions, but His thoughts and His most intimate feel- 
 ings ; the will of the Father has always been His own. 
 But if, in order to consecrate Himself to God, Jesus has 
 never had to combat sin in itself, let us not believe that 
 this fact has rendered His struggle less tragical and less 
 painful. For Jesus does not suffer for Himself alone ; 
 He has constituted Himself our representative before God, 
 the new Adam of a new humanity, of a lost humanity 
 which He has come to save. Well, that He may accom- 
 plish His mission, that He may offer to God, in the name 
 of guilty man, the complete reparation which His holy 
 law required, Jesus must suffer ; He must, according to 
 the words of the apostle, be consecrated to God b}^ suffer- 
 ing. And what suffering ! It consists not only in His 
 continual contact with human selfishness and ingratitude, 
 not only in an apparently unfruitful ministry, in the 
 cruel opposition with which He is welcomed in Galilee 
 as well as in Jerusalem ; it consists not only in the 
 cowardly desertion of His apostles, in the denial of Peter 
 or the traitorous kiss of Judas ; not only in the crown of 
 thorns and the fearful agony of crucifixion. No ; it consists 
 in something more terril^le than all tliis : the only-begotten 
 and well-beloved Son of the Father must know the separa- 
 tion, the sorrow, the anguish, which were reserved for the 
 
 K 
 
146 THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF 
 
 rebels alone ; He must feel Himself rejected of God. That 
 is what awaits Jesus Christ ; that is what He must 
 endure ere His mission be fully achieved ; that is the 
 bloody consecration by which alone He may become the 
 Saviour of mankind. Is it necessary to say that He 
 needed it not for Himself, and that, without Gethsemane 
 and Golgotha, His holiness would have shone forth in 
 immaculate splendour ? But because He is love. He 
 accepts this mission ; He is willing to receive tliis baptism 
 of blood, and thus He sanctifies Himself, thus He conse- 
 crates Himself to God. Such is the meaning of these 
 words, and if at first they have appeared to you mysterious, 
 the only mystery they contain is that of love. 
 
 Jesus, therefore, prepares Himself for the terrible con- 
 summation of His ministry. He sees the awful vision of 
 the unutterable woe that awaits Him pass before His eyes ; 
 and, as He is the Son of Man, as His flesh falters in 
 presence of suffering and His heart in presence of that 
 unparalleled loneliness, He needs strength and encourage- 
 ment. Ere He descends into the valley of anguish. He 
 climbs for the last time the summits of prayer, and thence, 
 as the Sovereign Shepherd of humanity. He casts a pro- 
 phetic look upon all those for whom He is about to die. 
 He sees, first of all, the disciples whom He has so deeply 
 loved, and who, up to this time, have not so much as under- 
 stood His work ; He sees them converted by His death, 
 and making of His Cross the instrument of their triumphs. 
 He sees His blood watering the earth, and changing the 
 aridity of the desert into a magnificent harvest of faith, 
 devotion, and love. He sees throughout endless ages 
 souls changed by His Word and vivified by His death ; 
 in the mysterious depths of the future He perceives that 
 multitude of every people and tribe and tongue of whom 
 His Cross has made but one family ; and you also, brethren. 
 He sees you — you the redeemed of the nineteenth century, 
 
FOR HIS BRETHREN. 147 
 
 uniting, in your turn, with the believers who have pre- 
 ceded you. And when His eye has embraced this sublime 
 spectacle, when He has seen all those for whom He is 
 about to sacrifice Himself for ever united in His redeeming 
 love, Jesus is ready ; His soul is armed for the final con- 
 liict ; He is prepared to descend to Gethsemane and to 
 mount to Calvary. 
 
 We now understand all that is implied by these words, 
 " I sanctify Myself for their sakes ; " and how solemn they 
 are when uttered by the lips of Jesus, who is about to 
 immolate Himself for the Church ! Nevertheless, I believe 
 that each of us can and must repeat them in his turn ; I 
 believe that each Christian must sanctify himself for his 
 brethren. That is what I shall essay to demonstrate ; and 
 as the truth in question is one which principally touches 
 our hearts, may God Himself render them adequate to the 
 mission which He expects of us ! 
 
 Let us, in the first place, set aside the errors which 
 might impede our march. 
 
 When I say that we are to sanctify ourselves for our 
 brethren, I do not mean that we are to begin anew the 
 work of Jesus Christ. That work is unique — it is His 
 own ; tlie solemn words which He pronounced upon the 
 cross, " It is finished," remain true in all ages and to 
 the end of time ; and thus the author of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews understands it when lie writes tliese re- 
 markable words : " For by one offering He hath perfected 
 for ever them that are sanctified." All our virtues, all 
 our sorrows, all our sacrifices can never be substituted for 
 tlie sacrifice of Christ ; He alone is the Saviour, the Laml) 
 of God that taketli away the sins of the world ; to Him 
 alone will be offered the praises of the redeemed in every 
 age ; and even those wdio, following His example, have died 
 for their brethren, far from ascribing to their death and 
 sufferings the least redeeming virtue, have always referred 
 
148 THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF 
 
 their salvation to Him alone. True, the Bible tells us of 
 many other sorrows than those of Christ ; it brings before 
 us many lives consecrated to God ; it tells us the names 
 of a multitude of martyrs who have sacrificed themselves 
 for justice ; but never does it insinuate that their devotion 
 or their sacrifice has had an atoning power, never does it 
 associate their names with any idea of redemption, "What 
 would St. Stephen or St. Paul have said had their suffer- 
 ings and death been joined to the sacrifice of Calvary, had 
 an expiatory virtue been ascribed to their blood ? Do 
 you not hear them revendicate the glory of the Eedeemer, 
 and tremble lest their work be confounded or associated 
 with His ? They know that Christ's w^ork is complete, 
 that nothing can be added to His sacrifice, that it is 
 sufficient for time and for eternity. 
 
 Secondly, when I say that we are to sanctify ourselves 
 for our brethren, I do not mean that we are to sanctify 
 ourselves in their stead. Christ, you will perhaps say, 
 did sanctify Himself in our stead. Granted. But if Christ 
 suffered, it w^as not that He might exempt us from the 
 necessity of being holy ; it was, on the contrary, that we 
 might become such ; for it is written that without sancti- 
 fication no man shall see the Lord ; and Jesus thus 
 completes the words of my text : " For their sakes I 
 sanctify Myself, that they also may he sanctified." To 
 sanctify oneself in the stead of others ! At first sight 
 this idea appears very singular, and yet it is one of the 
 most common of tlie errors with which we have to con- 
 tend. It rests, above all, upon the view which Eoman 
 Catholicism takes of hohness. What, on this point, does 
 Romanism teach ? It teaches that there are two kinds 
 of duties — obligatory virtues and virtues of perfection. 
 The man who practises the latter alone attains holiness. 
 To make a good use of one's fortune is an obligatory 
 virtue ; to distribute one's fortune to the poor is a ^'irtue 
 
FOR HIS BRETHREN. 149 
 
 of perfection. To live purely in married life is an obliga- 
 tory virtue ; to remain unmarried is a virtue of perfection. 
 To fulfil one's duties in the world is an obligatory virtue ; 
 to renounce the world and retire into a convent is a 
 virtue of perfection. In this way the whole system of 
 morals is divided into two classes of duties — some of which 
 are imposed to all, others which are the privilege and 
 glory of superior souls. The great majority being unable 
 to attain the virtues of perfection, fulfil the ordinary 
 duties ; but there are, it tells us, nobler and more elevated 
 souls, that sanctify themselves for the rest of mankind, 
 God takes into account their exceptional virtues, their 
 works of supererogation (for thus Eomanism calls them) ; 
 they have done more than was required of them ; their 
 virtues are therefore imputed to their brethren ; their 
 holiness covers the sin of others. 
 
 None will accuse me of having cast an unfavourable 
 light upon this doctrine. Now, you know full well that 
 this idea is one of the most widely spread, and that we 
 very often hear it expressed in popular language. Well, 
 is that idea true ? Is it in that sense that we are to 
 sanctify ourselves for our brethren ? 
 
 I energetically deny it. I deny it in the name of the 
 Scriptures, first of all, in which I find not one line which 
 admits of a similar interpretation. In the Scriptures 
 there are not two systems of morals, that of the perfect 
 and that of the great mass of mankind ; there are not 
 two weights in the balance of the Holy God. When the 
 object of a life is the glory of God, that life is holy, were 
 it that of the poorest of working men ; when this glory 
 is not its aim, it is reprehensible, were it that of the most 
 lirilliant of preachers or of the most glorious of martyrs. 
 Holiness lies not in outward circumstances ; it must 
 dwell first of all in the soul. Not only to a few 
 superior minds, but to all men did Jesus say, " Be 
 
ISO THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF 
 
 ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is 
 perfect." 
 
 Next observe how low is the idea which this doctrine 
 i^ives us of holiness. Men tell us that the exceptional 
 virtues of some compensate for the indifference or levity 
 of others, or, in other words, they introduce arithmetical 
 calculations within this sacred domain of the soul. 
 " God," they tell us, " demands of humanity a certain sum 
 of virtue. He cares little who settles the account, so long- 
 as the sum is paid in full. If it pleases some generous 
 debtors to pay for the others, God will, nevertheless, he 
 satisfied." Satisfied, you say ; but what calculation is 
 this, and wlio authorises you to ascribe to the God of the 
 Gospel so foolish a process of reasoning ? Is God a hire- 
 ling who can be bought over ? Is it a certain sum of 
 virtue that He requires ? No ; He claims hearts that 
 love Him — hearts converted and sanctified. And if, 
 surrounded by thousands of souls who serve Him faith- 
 fully, I alone should persist in my rebellion, think you 
 that the fidelity of others would exempt me from the 
 necessity of being converted and sanctified ? Think you 
 that I would be permitted to enter heaven with my 
 impenitent and rebellious spirit ? Does not your con- 
 science protest against such a thought ? and do you not 
 clearly understand that holiness is not small change, that 
 can be handed from one to the other, and that, as some 
 one justly said, none can be saved by proxy ? 
 
 Men boast the fruits of this doctrine. They tell us 
 of the enthusiasm which must inevitably seize upon a 
 soul when it sanctifies itself to atone for the sins of 
 others. I admit that devotion is one of the noblest and 
 most powerful incentives to holiness ; for we also, though 
 in another sense, believe that a man may pray, struggle, 
 suffer, and die for the salvation of his brethren. But in 
 the idea which I now combat, how suspicious this devo- 
 
FOR HIS BRETHREN. 151 
 
 tion appears to me ! What ! here is a man who believes 
 that he has sufficient hoHness to dispense his brother 
 with being holy ! Here is a man who believes that he 
 can perform, not only his duty, but more than his duty ; 
 that he can fulfil, not only the law, but more than the 
 law ! Oh, how blind must he be who imagines that he 
 has done all that was required of him ! Do you think 
 that truly holy souls can ever be caught in these coarse 
 toils of pride ? Do you not think, on the contrary, that 
 the more sanctified they become, the more plainly does 
 their penetrating eye measure the distance which separ- 
 ates them from the end ? Is it not from the purest lips 
 that the most touching and heart-felt confessions of 
 misery and sin are heard ? Is it not St. Paul who exclaims, 
 " Oh, wretched man that I am ! " What then would he 
 have thought had some one spoken to him of the overplus 
 of his holiness or of his supererogatory virtues ? Me- 
 thinks I hear him thundering with his powerful voice 
 against this new pliarisaism, overthrowing this fantastical 
 scaffolding, and, upon the ruins of our pride, proclaiming 
 anew the greatness and mercy of God. 
 
 Let us, however, if you will, admit these exceptional 
 virtues. Let us suppose that some noble souls, without 
 pride, and in order to save their brethren, impose upon 
 themselves mortifications and sacrifices which were not 
 required of them; in a word, an extraordinary holiness, if 
 holiness ever could be extraordinary. That is one of the 
 sides of the picture, but there is a reverse to the medal. 
 See wdiat happens in countries where Eoman Catholicism 
 prevails. Behold that vast multitude of vulgar souls, 
 charmed at being permitted to cast upon some of their 
 fellows the burden of an impossible holiness, delighted 
 to think that their salvation may thus he achieved by the 
 action of others, and yielding willingly, in view of so 
 .i>Tand a result, to the acts of outward adhesion and 
 
152 THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF 
 
 passive submission whicli they are instructed to perform. 
 Thus, on the one hand, you have a chosen few on whom 
 men instinctively cast all that relates to the religious and 
 superior life ; for these, complete consecration to God, the 
 life of faith, the search of the invisible reahties, the 
 sanctification which is the result of ascetism. On the 
 other hand, you have the great majority of the nation, who 
 pay off their debt towards religion with vain and empty 
 ceremonies, but who live entirely outside of its influence ; 
 for these, lay existence, visible realities, ordinary morality. 
 Now it is obvious that a wall of separation will gradually 
 rise between these two societies. The clergy, represent- 
 ing the higher life, will keep itself aloof and retire more 
 and more within its own ideas, within its ridiculous 
 pretensions, within its joyless ascetism, instinctively 
 cursing the movement of modern thought and activity, 
 or looking upon it with mistrust. The mass of the 
 people, casting off all nobler preoccupations, will become 
 more and more fully absorbed in materialism ; they will 
 be satisfied with a low-toned morality wliose roots will 
 no longer plunge into the soil of the soul ; their joys 
 will be unholy ; religion will become more and more 
 unfamiliar to them ; the most superficial unbelief will 
 call forth their most scandalous applause ; and this will 
 be the just punishment of that deplorable doctrine by 
 which the masses believe themselves relieved from the 
 obligation of a personal faith, of a personal holiness, of 
 a personal responsibility ! Is all this true ? Is this 
 separation imaginary ? Is it not visible in the science, 
 politics, and literature of those countries, and even in the 
 i'aniily circle, where husband and wife, brother and sister, 
 no longer agree, when God, faith, prayer, and the very 
 principles of the soul's life are in question ? If you ask, 
 on the contrary, why in Protestant lands there reigns a 
 lar closer and more real unity, notwithstanding a^iparent 
 
FOR HIS BRETHREN. 153 
 
 diversities, I will answer : Because in these countries 
 there are not two religions, the religion of tlie clergy 
 and the religion of the people ; because there are 
 not two moralities, the morality of tlie perfect and the 
 morality of the masses ; because there are not two lives, 
 the ascetic life of some and the ordinary life of the 
 generality. But also because to all, to great and small, 
 to people and pastors, to learned and ignorant, Christianity 
 is presented as the all-pervading, all-sanctifying, all-ele- 
 vating principle. 
 
 Therefore, with a profound conviction, I afhrm tliat none 
 can sanctify himself in tlie stead of otliers, and it is not in 
 this sense that the words of my text are to be taken. 
 
 There remains a final error which I must now refute. 
 When I say that we are to sanctify ourselves for our 
 .brethren, I do not mean that we are to do so in order to 
 be seen of them. Whoever could have thouglit of such a 
 thing ? you exclaim. Oh ! I know quite well tliat you are 
 no pharisees. You do not wish your lives to be holy in 
 appearance only ; you do not wish them to be like whited 
 sepulchres, beautiful outward, but within full of all un- 
 cleanness. Hypocrisy horrifies you, but it is not of 
 hypocrisy I accuse you. This is your temptation. The 
 Gospel tells you that you are to be the witnesses of truth. 
 The desire of bearing testimony to one's faith, of bringing 
 others to share in one's convictions, is one of those which 
 have been most fully developed in our churches. We 
 are, therefore, involuntarily preoccupied by the thought 
 of the influence which we may exercise upon our fellows. 
 What effect produces my life ? That is a very natural 
 question. But what is to be feared is that this preoccupa- 
 tion will absorb us too completely, and that reality will 
 give way to appearance. Question your conscience on 
 this point. Have you never done what was right merely 
 for the sake of setting your brethren an example ? Have 
 
154 THE CHRISTIAN SAXCTIFYING HIMSELF 
 
 you never avoided sin, or even crime, not so much be- 
 cause crime was hateful to you, as from fear of the scandal 
 which would have followed its perpetration ? "When you 
 analyse your good works, blot out all the motives, such 
 as the fear of being accused of lukewarmness, the necessity 
 of stimulating others, the desire of proving to the world 
 that the Gospel is powerful, or of raising your own par- 
 ticular Church in the opinion of the world ; blot out all 
 these, and then tell us what you have done simply for 
 God. Does this calculation terrify you? Oh! phari- 
 saism is not only at Jerusalem, beneath the long robes and 
 phylacteries of the priests. It is here, in our hearts ; 
 there we must pursue and destroy it. Alas ! we may 
 sanctify ourselves, not because God is holy, but because 
 there are Christians and worldlings who study us. Thus 
 we may visit the poor, not because we love them, but 
 that men may not accuse us of cold-heartedness. Now, 
 let us not be afraid to say it, the holiness which aims at 
 appearing is not true holiness. God rejects it, for He 
 knows that it is not meant for Him ; and men them- 
 selves will not be taken in by these appearances, for they 
 instinctively feel that all holiness should be referred to 
 God. 
 
 So far we have considered the wrong views which may 
 be taken of the words of our text ; let us now see what is 
 its true signification, and how we may sanctify ourselves 
 for our brethren. We may do so in this sense, that who- 
 ever sanctifies himself exercises on his fellow-men an in- 
 fluence of incalculable importance. 
 
 This may, at first, seem strange to you. "VVe easily 
 understand that a man who accomplishes some act of 
 sacrifice and love thereby acts upon his brethren ; but 
 sanctification seems to us an entirely inward fact, which 
 calls forth no echo whatever from the outward world. 
 Now this is a serious error. Nothing is more utterly 
 
FOR HIS BRETHREN. 155 
 
 false than to believe that we act upon others only when 
 we wish to do so either by our words or by visible actions. 
 Besides this voluntary influence there is another which is 
 far more powerful and which is exercised by our every- 
 day life. This influence is silent, I own ; but it is none 
 the less important. It has been observed that, in the 
 domain of nature, the most mighty agents are those which 
 act most mildly and imperceptibly. A storm may, at 
 first sight, be taken for the grandest manifestation of the 
 power of the elements. When the clouds are swept 
 away by an infernal force, when the sea rages in its fury, 
 when the lightning rends the sky and dazzles us, we feel 
 bewildered and crushed. And yet, what is the power of 
 the storm in comparison with that of light, which rises 
 pure and peaceful raorn after morn upon our earth ? So 
 gentle is its approach that it does not even disturb our 
 slumbers ; and yet, beneath the silent influence of its 
 rays, everything is revived, beautified, warmed, and re- 
 newed ; the world is, as it were, created anew by its 
 power ; and should the sun forget to rise to-morrow, our 
 hemisphere would become a vast and icy waste, where 
 death alone would reign in the midst of an eternal winter. 
 So it is in our moral life ; beside the wilful and often 
 stormy action of our words, there is the involuntary 
 action of our life. I affirm that of the two the latter is 
 the more powerful, because it is simple and sincere. Of 
 our words, alas ! we are the masters ; we arrange them at 
 pleasure ; by our words we may express faith, tenderness, 
 solicitude, charity .... But, notwithstanding these 
 passing sounds, our life also renders its silent, true, and 
 sincere testimony ; it is the faithful expression of our 
 moral being, and all our art would fail to turn it from its 
 true signification ; it follows us everywhere, whatever we 
 may say to the contrary. I add, that this influence is 
 all the more powerful that it is involuntary. In fact, 
 
156 THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF 
 
 when men feel that our aim is to act npon them by our 
 books, by our discourses, by our arguments, they instinc- 
 tively endeavour to guard against our efforts. But, in 
 presence of the silent teaching of our life, their prejudices 
 disappear, their mistrust ceases, and their heart becomes 
 accessible to its influence. 
 
 We must not, therefore, suppose that when we 
 sanctify ourselves in secret, in silence, or alone with 
 God, we do not act upon our brethren. Wliatever we 
 do, our life is a book which cannot fail one day to be 
 opened, and to impart its lessons to the world. I once 
 saw a madman running at his utmost speed in order to 
 get rid of his shadow ; more foolish still is he who 
 thinks he can separate his life from the influence it 
 exercises. Tlius the prodigal who loses his soul in un- 
 worthy pleasures excuses himself by saying that he 
 injures no man, as if the example of his levity, of his 
 lost and dissipated life, did not exert a terrible power ; as 
 if all the good he might have done and has left undone 
 was not to be cast into the balance on the judgment-day. 
 Thus also the egotist excuses himself, and imagines that 
 because he asks nothing of any one, because he has sur- 
 rounded himself with independence, none have the right 
 to require anything of him ; as if selfishness was not a 
 cowardly desertion of charity, and did not bear with it a 
 withering influence. Whatever we do, our conduct tells 
 on others. I have read of a martyr whom the execu- 
 tioners treated with the most revolting cruelty ; they 
 first of all cut off his tongue, because it proclaimed the 
 love and mercy of the Lord ; then his hands, because they 
 pointed heavenwards ; then they put out his eyes, because 
 they also spoke of joy and hoi)e ; and when, bleeding and 
 mutilated, they left him, the inimitable expression of Ids 
 countenance still testified to the firm confidence which 
 filled his heart. Thus, though we neither speak nor act, 
 
FOR HIS BRETHREN. 157 
 
 we always sliow to tlie world what is within us, and 
 even our silence may be eloquent. We can never tell 
 how far extends this involuntary influence. Human lives 
 are so completely intermingled, they are joined by so 
 many impei'ceptible fibres, they are linked together by so 
 ^lany invisible bonds, that whatever touches them may 
 have an unlimited importance. Just as a powerful 
 commotion may be produced throughout the whole of 
 the human system by the prick of a very fine needle on 
 an almost invisible nerve, so a hidden and insignificant 
 action may produce the most momentous results. This 
 fact is clearly visible in the history of men. A judge 
 falters in an important cause, or simply yields to his 
 apathy at the very moment when all his moral energy 
 was required, and innocent victims are condemned to 
 long years of suffering. . . . Years ago, in the United 
 States of America, an assembly hesitates to settle by an 
 energetic decision the question of slavery, and torrents of 
 blood have not yet effaced the evils which one effort on 
 its part would have stifled in their germ. Each of us 
 has his shai'e of that influence of which those who 
 occupy elevated positions in so'jiety appear to possess so 
 great a measure ; we can never tell what will be the 
 consequences of a trifling word, of a gesture, of an insig- 
 nificant action. More than this ; though we bury our 
 conduct in silence, though we put forth all our efforts 
 to conceal it from the view of men, we never can tell 
 the influence it may exert in the future. Just as the 
 writer who, yielding to a shameful motive, has coldly 
 consecrated his genius to the production of an impious 
 or immoral book, if later he repent, will have the bitter 
 sorrow of being unable to efface his thoughts (for, like 
 poison, they will have become inoculated in the blood of 
 his generation), so we are incapable of retracting the 
 past; its voice is still heard, its power is still felt. Yes, 
 
158 THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF 
 
 there may at this very hour be some human being who 
 comphains and suffers because, in the past, you have 
 neglected a duty or been guilty of a mean action which 
 you have buried in the depths of silence. This is an 
 application of the mysterious and terrible law of human 
 solidarity, by M'hich whatever we do affects our fellow- 
 men. 
 
 I have called this law a terrible law ; but, thanks be 
 to God, I may also call it a blessed law. For it has its 
 bright side, that which Jesus Christ brings before us. 
 When we sanctify ourselves, we act upon our brethren. 
 For instance, you have made a sacrifice for God ; no one 
 knows of it ; no one will ever know what efforts, what 
 sufferings, what tears it has cost you. God alone has 
 seen them. Nevertheless, when the struggle is over, you 
 come to me ; few words will be spoken, perhaps, but the 
 peace and the serenity of your appeased conscience will 
 be as an unclouded light which will reach to the depths 
 of my soul. A virtue will come out of you. Is this an 
 imaginary picture ? Can you deny the unequalled power 
 of holiness ? Let us make a better use of it in the 
 future. Long had I thought that to convert the world 
 there was but one thing to be done ; to organise vast 
 systems, to create powerful societies, to collect funds. 
 Alas ! I had forgotten that, to attain this end all the 
 more surely and rapidly, the first and most important 
 thing M'as to sanctify myself by reforming my life, by 
 liumbling my heart, by struggling against the spirit of 
 criticism, bitterness, and injustice, by pitilessly snapping 
 the bonds of sin, by living in such a manner that my life 
 may be examined in the full light of day. What though 
 these struggles are unknown to the world ? Wliat 
 though none have witnessed them ? Think you they 
 will remain fruitless ? Think you that out of this 
 renewed life will not spring forth an influence far more 
 
FOR HIS BRETHREN. 159 
 
 powerful and persuasive than from the feverish activity 
 of an unsanctified mind ? 
 
 I find in this thought a deep source of encouragement. 
 Truly the work of sanctification seems to us far more 
 difficult to accomplish than the works of charity. Lay 
 before us a career in which devotion and sacrifice will he 
 necessary, in which we shall be enabled to exert a direct 
 influence upon our fellows ; this mission allures us. But 
 to sanctify ourselves, to struggle against our natural 
 inclinations, to crucify the flesh with its lusts, to conquer 
 our evil habits, to repress our selfish independence, how 
 ungrateful is this task, and how unimpassioned are our 
 efforts to attain this end ! What strength, therefore, 
 shall we not find in the thought that, by sanctifying 
 ourselves, we act upon others, indirectly it may be, but 
 in the most powerful manner, to raise, comfort, and 
 edify them ! Ye fathers and mothers ! sanctify your- 
 selves for the sake of your children ; think that all your 
 words and all your instructions will never have the 
 same peaceful authority as that which one hour's inti- 
 mate communion with God will stamp upon your brow ; 
 reflect that nothing will touch them or fill them with 
 respect as the thought that you are yourselves taught of 
 God. Ye Christians ! sanctify yourselves for the Church, 
 Think that all the plans you form for its extension and life, 
 that all your agitation, all your words and actions, will do 
 less for the advancement of the reign of God than the 
 sight of Christianity transforming your heart, and causing 
 those floods of living water of which Jesus tells us in 
 the Gospel to gush out of that barren soil. 
 
 Oh ! how grand is holiness when viewed in this light ! 
 Do you not see the distance which separates this sancti- 
 fication from the servile terror of the slave who sanctifies 
 himself in fear that he may work out his own salvation, 
 or from the calculations of the hireling who imposes upon 
 
i6o THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF 
 
 himself sacrifice after sacrifice, work after work, and 
 who wovild pay off his debt to God with his sufferings ? 
 How grand and beautiful, on the contrary, does holiness 
 appear when its motive and messenger is love ! It is 
 because I love my brethren that for their sakes I would 
 sanctify myself. I know that in so doing I labour for 
 their good, that I edify them as well as if I spoke to 
 them or gave them palpable proofs of my aflection. 
 
 Therefore, bretliren, your inward stiuggles, your lowly 
 and repeated sacrifices, your joyfully accepted sufl'erings, 
 your humiliations patiently endured, are not lost in 
 nothingness. Borne upon the wings of love, all these 
 hidden virtues spread over the M'orld like precious seeds 
 which the wind scatters far and wide. 
 
 Thus disappears the feeling of bitterness and vexation 
 which takes possession of you, especially when outward 
 and visible activity is forbidden you. Of what avail are 
 my sufferings ? says the sick man who for years has 
 been a prisoner in his lonely chamber. Of what use are 
 my tears ? Of what use is my life ? says the poor cripple 
 who feels herself ustdess and a burden to others. To all 
 these I answer, that they have no right to say that tlieir 
 life is useless so long as God leaves them at their post ; 
 that they have a Divine education to undergo, and that 
 they have never been more useful to the Church than since 
 they have been sanctified by sorrow. How, you ask, can 
 they serve CJod and prepare His reign ? I could tell you 
 that they have a special mission, that of glorifying God 
 in suffering, and that this mission is most necessary, for 
 nothing more forcibly attests the power of the God of the 
 Gospel than the happiness with which He fills the most joy- 
 less life. I might also say that, in their ibrced inaction, they 
 may commune with God, and that intercession for their bre- 
 thren, and ibr the Christian Church at large, is the task 
 which God assigns to them. But I believe there is more 
 
FOR HIS BRETHREN. i6i 
 
 even than this ; I believe that, in virtue of a real, though 
 mysterious, law, if they have sanctified themselves by 
 suffering, they will act powerfully upon the Church, and 
 that all their brethren will be brouglit under their infiu- 
 ence. Ask me not how this influence will be produced. 
 I cannot tell ; but I know that it will be produced. I 
 know that holiness, however silent, ignored, and hidden 
 from sight it be, has an all-pervading fragrance which 
 men cannot fail at some time or other to inhale. What 
 can be more mysterious and more certain than solidarity ? 
 Who can tell where it begins or where it ends ? Who 
 can appoint its limits to the influence of a soul that 
 sanctifies itself ? The Scriptures call the Church the 
 body of Christ. Who would dare to affirm that this is 
 merely a figure ? Now, is it not most evident that the 
 state of one of the parts of the body necessarily tells upon 
 the whole ? Christians, you who are the members of the 
 body of Christ, when you sanctify yourselves, you act 
 upon the Church, and you labour towards the salvation 
 of your brethren, towards the renewal of humanity. 
 
 Let me remind you, before I conclude, of the Divine 
 harmony, in virtue of which nothing in creation can be 
 lost. If men of science have stated that, in physical 
 nature, not one atom is destroyed, but that the same ele- 
 ments are undergoing constant transformations from age 
 to age, how blessed is the thought that, in the world 
 of souls, nothing will ever be lost, and that the most 
 obscure sacrifice ever serves for the edification of the 
 whole. When Job bitterly mourned at the door of his 
 ruined dwelling, forsaken by his friends, a prey to the 
 most horrible disease, an object of general disgust and 
 terror, did he know that his complaints and prayers, 
 transmitted to posterity, would comfort thousands of souls 
 on every point of the globe ? When Mary Magdalene 
 brought her broken heart at the feet of Christ, and there, 
 
 L 
 
i62 THE CHRISTIAN SANCTIFYING HIMSELF. 
 
 with her tears, left the shame and dishonour of her past 
 life, did she know how many lost souls, such as hers, 
 would everywhere follow her example ? 
 
 Let us, therefore, strengthen ourselves for the obscure 
 conflict of holiness, for the cruel humiliations, for the 
 bitter pains, for the sufferings of the body and of the 
 soul. Like our Lord, let us often climb the heights of 
 prayer ; from these summits let us behold all those for 
 whom we are called to suffer, and then we shall return 
 amidst the world, more firmly resolved to bear our 
 cross. 
 
( i63 ) 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." 
 — Makk ii. 27. 
 
 Pharisaism never dies. Nevertheless, it must be ad- 
 mitted that it no longer presents itself under the same 
 aspect as it did in the days of Jesus Christ. Nothing 
 around us recalls the superstitious regard for the day of 
 rest Mdiich characterised that epoch. When we read in 
 the Gospel that Jesus or His disciples were blamed by 
 the scribes for having cured a sick man or plucked ears of 
 corn on that day, we look upon this as an impossibility 
 and an absurdity. When we recollect the many and 
 minute ceremonies which the Pharisees practised in con- 
 nection with the Sabbath, and their strange maxims 
 concerning the most insignificant actions performed on 
 that day, we are tempted to smile. Not only are these 
 superstitions foreign to us, but on this point we have 
 rejected the formalism which prevails in certain Protes- 
 tant countries ; we dread the legal and judicial sj)irit in 
 which the day of rest is observed in their midst. Let us 
 frankly confess it : no one believes, to use the words of 
 our Lord, that man was made for the Sabbath ; it is not 
 into this excess that we are in danger of falling. But 
 are you sure that you as clearly understand the first part 
 of our text: "The Sabbath was made for man ?" 
 
1 64 THE SABBATH. 
 
 I do not hesitate to affirm that, on this matter, there 
 is in our Christianity an indifference to Avhose fatal 
 effects we are but too blind. That is why I am anxious 
 to draw your attention to this subject. You will judge 
 for yourselves if I exaggerate its importance. You will 
 see if this is merely a secondary question, or if, on the 
 contrary, it does not bear upon one of the essential con- 
 ditions of the Christian life, of the worship of the Church, 
 and of the progress of truth. We shall, first of all, 
 inquire of the Holy Scriptures which, for us, are the only 
 source of all religious instruction ; secondly, we shall 
 appeal to the experience of the world and of the Church, 
 and I believe that this investigation, however rapid it 
 needs must be, will nevertheless suffice to bring into 
 evidence the vital importance of the subject before us. 
 
 When we consider the ideas which prevail in the Church 
 on this point, we distinguish two currents of thought 
 which are totally opposed one to the other. Some, plac- 
 ing themselves vmder the Sinaitic law, and founding their 
 opinion on the eternal value of the Decalogue, woukl 
 impose upon us the fourth commandment. Others, pro- 
 testing in the name of Christian liberty, and affirming, 
 with reason, that we are no longer under the law, but 
 under grace, come to the conclusion that the observance 
 of the Sabbath has ceased to be obligatory, and that we 
 are to look upon this day simply as an institution of the 
 Church, most useful and excellent in truth, but in nowise 
 resting upon Divine authority. 
 
 It cannot be denied that this last opinion is that which 
 predominates in our midst, and I am not surprised at 
 this. It is certain that most of those who have exerted 
 themselves to plead the cause of tlie sanctification of the 
 Lord's Day have almost always done so without distin- 
 guishing between the Old and the New Covenant, and 
 have thus brought us back under the yoke of legal obedi- 
 
THE SABBATH. 165 
 
 eiice and formalism. But the reaction has taken place 
 in the direction of Christian liberty, and, as it most often 
 happens, it has led us too far. It were time, to-day, to 
 ascertain whether the cause in question cannot be de- 
 livered from the false arguments which have so fatally 
 injured it, and whether it will not again rise triumphant 
 from the unpopularity into which it has fallen. 
 - We are no longer under the Jewish law, and I am in 
 no danger of bringing you back to it ; in fact, this were 
 needless, for the institution of a day of rest is anterior to 
 the law of Sinai. I open the book of Genesis ; I read 
 the first pages of that simple and sublime record which 
 modern unbelief is pleased to regard as a mere essay of 
 Hebrew cosmogony ; from one or two of its lines I see 
 brightly gushing forth a light which had been unknown 
 to the ancient world, and which illumines the profound 
 darkness of man's destiny. There I learn that God is 
 one, that He is a spirit, that He is free ; I learn that 
 creation is the result of His own free and unconstrained 
 will, and not a fatal evolution of eternal substance. 
 There I see that evil is not inherent to matter, and that 
 liberty was the initial condition of man here below. 
 After these grand doctrines, I find the double fact of the 
 unity of the human species and of the institution of 
 marriage — these granitic foundations of all Christian socie- 
 ties. Now, in the very midst of this narrative, of which 
 every particular feature has its special value, we read 
 that when God had completed the work of creation. He 
 rested on the seventh day : " God blessed the seventh 
 day, and sanctified it ; because that in it He had rested 
 from all His work which God created and made." 
 
 I cannot, within the limits of this discourse, discuss 
 the various questions raised by this division of the six 
 days' work, and by this rest of God. I shall merely say 
 that I am not in the least perplexed by this language 
 
i66 THE SABBATH. 
 
 which is so thoroughly Divine in its simplicity, for the 
 gradation of the six days' work cannot fail to strike all 
 serious minds, from the many and remarkable analogies 
 which it presents with the most incontestable results of 
 science ; and, as regards the rest ascribed to God, I know 
 what is the import of such an expression when employed 
 by a writer who pictures the world as called forth out of 
 nothingness by the mere effort of the Divine word, by a 
 writer who has uttered these incomparable words : " Let 
 there be light : and there was light ! " I believe, there- 
 fore, that Moses has no need whatever to learn of modern 
 scepticism that God is above rest just as well as He is 
 above fatigue. Let us set aside these commonplace 
 objections and keep in mind that, immediately after the 
 creation of man, God himself set apart a certain time for 
 rest and meditation. Now, as it is obvious that God 
 requires no rest, it follows that the object of this institu- 
 tion was necessarily man, or, in other words, that the 
 Sabbath was made for man, as Jesus Christ declares. 
 Such is the primordial fact of the institution of the day 
 of rest. Let those who see in Genesis nothing more 
 than the scientific essay of an ignorant genius say that 
 Moses has introduced into heaven his own conception of 
 the week, and that he has made it Divine in order to 
 render it more respectable, this is easy to rmderstand ; 
 but that a Christian, who takes this narrative as the real 
 and authentic history of the origins of humanity, should 
 deny that this verse consecrates the institution of a day 
 of rest for man, is what appears to me most strange and 
 inadmissible. 
 
 Some, however, dispute this conclusion. They tell us 
 that we have no right to take this repose ascribed to God 
 by the sacred historian as a proof of the institution of a 
 day of rest for humanity. To this objection we answer 
 that the passage is formal, and that, if the institution : o 
 
THE SABBATH. 167 
 
 clearly denoted by the words : " God blessed the seventh 
 day and sanctified it," does not concern humanity, it has 
 neither sense nor value ; besides, the best interpreter of 
 this passage is the very nation by whom it has been pre- 
 served. JSTow, in the Sinaitic law, the rest of the Sabbath 
 is closely allied with the rest of God, and with the sancti- 
 fication of the seventh day mentioned in Genesis. It is 
 b.ecause, from the very beginning, this day had been set 
 apart and sanctified by Jehovah Himself that it is legally 
 consecrated on Sinai. 
 
 We are then in presence of a Divine institution ; the 
 Sabbath has been made for man, at all times and in all 
 places of the earth. I add : for man before the Fall. 
 Now, if man in his state of innocence required such a 
 day as this, how much more necessary will it not be for 
 him in his fallen condition, now that he has become the 
 slave of the flesh, of the visible world, of the hard law 
 of labour, now that sin continually effaces from his heart 
 the image of his God and the remembrance of his true 
 vocation ? 
 
 In the short narratives of the lives of the patriarchs, 
 the Sabbath is not spoken of, but mention is made of 
 the division of time into weeks, and this custom appears 
 to me to be allied, by direct filiation, to the Divine week 
 of the Creation, Hear on this point the testimony of a 
 scholar whose judgment was wholly unbiassed by his 
 religious faith, since he boasted that God, for him, was 
 a mere hypothesis : — " The week," says the illustrious 
 Laplace, " from the most remote antiquity in which its 
 origin is lost, exists uninterruptedly throughout all ages, 
 and finds its place in the successive calendars of the 
 various nations. It is worthy of remark that it is found 
 identically the same on all points of the earth. It is 
 perhaps the most ancient and incontestable monument 
 of human science, and seems to point to one common 
 
i6S THE SABBATH. 
 
 source from which all knowledge has spread over the 
 world," ^ Weigh the value of this testimony: the week 
 is a universal and everywhere identical fact, a fact which 
 is to be traced back to an antiquity so remote that its 
 origin cannot be positively determined ; a fact, in a word, 
 which indicates a common source of all human know- 
 ledge. Well, this source of which Laplace had but a 
 vague notion, we Christians know it, and we call it 
 Eevelation. When, therefore, in the lives of the patri- 
 archs or elsewhere, we meet with allusions to the week, 
 we do not hesitate to believe that this institution has 
 been preserved unimpaired from the very origin of 
 humanity. Now it is evident that the patriarchs have 
 handed it down to posterity under its primitive form, 
 that is, with the day of rest as its crowning point. 
 
 The first mention which is made of the Sabbath in 
 the book of Exodus is likewise anterior to the Jewish 
 law ; and the manner in which Moses recalls this insti- 
 tution to the Israelites, in connection with the manna 
 which they were to gather on the eve of that day, 
 denotes that he is not giving them a new commandment, 
 but rather restoring an ancient custom which had 
 perhaps sunk into oblivion, and which the independence 
 of the people in the wilderness allowed of establishing 
 once more in its full force. Finally, the very terms 
 in which this fourth commandment is expressed are 
 singularly suggestive : — " Eemember the Sabbath day to 
 keep it holy." Men cannot be told to remember things 
 which they do not already know. How then is it 
 possible to trace back to the Jewish law an institution 
 which this law itself acknowledges to have been estab- 
 lished twenty-five centuries before, and which it borrows 
 from the first traditions of humanity ? It is evident 
 that long Ijcfore the promulgation of the Sinaitic law, the 
 
 ^ Systimc du Monde, book i. ch. iii. 
 
THE SABBATH. 169 
 
 observance of a day of rest was known and practised, and 
 that, even outside of the Jewish nation, it appears to us, 
 in the views of the Creator, as a universal and perma- 
 nent institution. Though age has succeeded age, this law 
 has never been abrogated ; it is still as necessary, as 
 sacred for us in our busy life and boisterous civilisation 
 as it was for the first believers who carried with them, 
 beneath the desert tent, their faith in God, the primitive 
 traditions of the world and the future of humanity. 
 
 Then comes the Jewish law, the law of Sinai, which is 
 no longer binding upon us, because the G-ospel has sup- 
 pressed by transforming it. It gives to the Sabbath a 
 political and juridical character, appropriated to the 
 whole of the Hebrev/ theocracy. It enforces its observ- 
 ance by strict ordinances, by rigorous penalties, and 
 death is the punishment which attends the violation of 
 this sacred day. Let us congratulate ourselves on being 
 Ireed from this yoke, but let this very severity teach us 
 how necessary in the sight of God was this institution 
 for the religious education of the nation whom He had 
 chosen to be His own special people. If Paul has 
 taught us that we are no longer the slaves of the law, 
 it does not follow that we are to treat it lightly. How 
 should we not be struck, for instance, with the fact that 
 the institution of the Sabbath has found its place in the 
 Decalogue instead of being lost amid the multiplied and 
 minute prescriptions of the Mosaic code ? I am not of 
 those who think that the Decalogue, under its legal form, 
 lias an eternal value ; I am no friend of those arbitrary 
 distinctions by which some presume to sejjarate it from 
 the rest of the law, and to impose it upon mankind for 
 ever. But, on the other hand, I cannot avoid being 
 struck with the fact that the Decalogue is a most admir- 
 able summary of the whole of the moral law, and that 
 each of the ordinances which it contains bears directly 
 
I70 THE SABBATH. 
 
 upon the religious life of all who in every age have 
 aimed at serving God upon earth. Well, when I see 
 the commandment of the day of rest occupying so im- 
 portant a place in it, when I see it enjoined in so formal 
 a manner, I draw from this the conclusion that it affects 
 the very conditions of religious life, and that it must 
 have an eternal value. 
 
 But the enactment itself, however strict it appears to 
 us, failed to satisfy the sanctimonious spirit of the Jews ; 
 the Pharisees added to it their minute prescriptions ; they 
 determined exactly what actions might be performed on 
 that day, they calculated the number of steps men might 
 be permitted to make, and they decided that, rather than 
 take care of the sick during its sacred hours, it were 
 better to leave them to die, that God might be glorified 
 by a complete inactivity. 
 
 We all know that Jesus Christ has freed us from the 
 bondage of Pharisaism. Likewise, as St. Paul declares, 
 He has abolished the law of precepts and ordinances. 
 We who are redeemed by grace are no longer under the 
 law, we no longer obey the ceremonial prescriptions of 
 Moses ; no one has the right to lay them upon us, and to 
 all attempts of this kind we would oppose the words of 
 the Apostle, " Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ 
 has made us free." But if Christ has divested the 
 Sabbath of its legal, outward, and formal character, does 
 it necessarily follow that He has condemned the institu- 
 tion in itself? On the contrary. He restores it to its 
 universal and permanent character by these memorable 
 words, " The Sabbath was made for man." In this way 
 He brings us back to its original institution ; on various 
 occasions He shows in what spirit this day is to be 
 observed ; when He allows His disciples to pluck ears 
 of corn to satisfy their hunger. He authorises all labour 
 which is necessary to life ; when He cures, He orders 
 
THE SABBATH. 171 
 
 works of mercy; M'hen He bids one bear his burden, He 
 shows that He is the Lord of the Sabbath, and that 
 when His service is in question, we may be called, even 
 on that day, to perform the most painful and the most 
 unpleasant duties. 
 
 The Primitive Church inherited the spirit of her 
 Master: she renounced the purely external Sabbath of 
 the Jews and obeyed the injunctions of the Apostle 
 who said to all whose conscience was likely to be dis- 
 quieted by so much boldness : " Be not troubled in 
 respect of the Sabbath days ! " And, as if to indicate 
 that she is no longer under the law, but that she has 
 regained her spiritual liberty, the Church changes the 
 day of rest. The day which hitherto had been conse- 
 crated to the Father is now unhesitatingly consecrated to 
 the Son ; the first day of the week is fixed upon and 
 celebrated in memory of the resurrection of Jesus by 
 whom all things are made new. In the Acts of the 
 Apostles we see most clearly that this day was set apart 
 for worship, and we may infer that this custom was 
 immediately adopted in the Churches founded by St. 
 Paul, from the fact that during his sojourn at Troas, the 
 Apostle, though anxious to resume his travels, delays his 
 departure until the following week in order to assemble 
 the Church on the first day of the week. In the 
 epistles we find numerous injunctions relative to works 
 of charity which are likewise connected w^th that day. 
 Finally, in the last book of the Scriptures, in the Apoca- 
 lypse, we read that it was on a Sabbath day that John, 
 then an exile in the island of Patmos, beheld the vision 
 which he relates, and he calls this day by the name 
 which henceforth it will never lose, the Lord's Day. 
 
 Such is the teaching of Scripture on the subject 
 of the Sabbath. It points it out to us preserved from 
 age to age in the midst of God's chosen people ; and if. 
 
172 THE SABBATH. 
 
 during the Mosaic dispensation, it bears a legal and 
 juridical character, it nevertheless survdves this judaical 
 form and reappears in the New Testament as a Divine, 
 universal, and permanent institution. Henceforth, if we 
 had time to follow it throughout the early years of the 
 Church, we would see with what profound respect it was 
 at once regarded, and we might quote more than one 
 testimony of the astonishment which the heathen nations 
 experienced when they saw this day set apart amongst 
 the Primitive Christians as a day in which all manner of 
 labour was to cease, as a day which was to be completely 
 consecrated to God. 
 
 This will be sufficient to convince us that the obser- 
 vance of the Lord's Day is not only a privilege, as many 
 Christians imagine, but a duty based on a Divine order, 
 and that, when we willingly break tliis command, we not 
 only neglect a precious prerogative, but we violate a 
 Divine institution. May this thought penetrate our con- 
 science and be a serious warning for us ! 
 
 Let us now add the testimony of experience to the 
 declarations of Scripture. It will show us that God 
 knew our frame when He gave us the Sabbath. 
 
 We all know that the human body requires frequent 
 rest; but what is less generally admitted is the necessity 
 of a regular return of this time of repose. To depend 
 for rest on seasons when work will be scarce, and in the 
 meantime to pursue unremittingly an exhausting labour, 
 tliat is what takes place in France, and I do not hesitate 
 to affirm that is a fearful mistake. See what is tlie con- 
 dition of the manufacturing populations in that country ; 
 they are enfeebled and unnerved by these excesses of 
 labour, which, as a natural consequence, are often 
 followed by excesses of dissipation and the enjoyment 
 of gross pleasures. We are often surprised when we 
 compare the physical degeneracy of the workmen in the 
 
THE SABBATH. 173 
 
 Frencli centres of industry with the vigour of the English 
 operatives. Do you not think that the observance of the 
 Lord's Day may be one of the causes of this difference ? 
 Have you never heard how the brutal slaveowners in 
 America, who knew so well how to extort the greatest 
 possible amount of labour from their unhappy victims, 
 strictly enjoined the observance of the Sabbath by their 
 slaves, not surely that they cared for their souls, for, in 
 most cases, they did not believe that a soul could beat 
 in a black man's breast, but because they had observed 
 that labour without intermission enervated, enfeebled, 
 and finally exhausted them. 
 
 Do you know what is bodily fatigue ? And if you 
 have but rarely felt it, can you picture, to yourselves 
 what its weight must be on a feeble constitution, when 
 day after day brings its additional burden of weariness 
 and exhaustion ? Do you know that in Paris there are 
 thousands of needlewomen wlio deem themselves happy 
 when they can toil for fourteen or fifteen hours in the day, 
 because lor them that is the only way in which they can 
 escape want? Do you know what it would say to them, 
 that word rest which for you is so meaningless, because, 
 alas ! you know only the tediousness of too much leisure 
 or the annoyance of having to find out means for kill- 
 ing time ? Now, in busy seasons, in presence of the 
 heaps of work which they are only too happy to receive, 
 because it will enable them to lay something by for the 
 evil day, in those times when at least eighteen out of 
 the twenty-four hours are consecrated to labour, who 
 thinks of procuring for those unhapj^y women the rest 
 they so sadly need ? The whole of the Sabbath is given 
 to work, save perhaps one or two hours in which the 
 unfortunate beings, bewildered by excess of fatigue, seek 
 a stimulus in the excesses of pleasure. Oh ! give them 
 the Sabbath, the whole of the Sabbath, with its pure and 
 
174 THE SABBATH. 
 
 smiling morn, with its peaceful awakening undisturbed 
 by the ghastly phantom of forced labour, and in saving 
 their body who can tell if you will not also save thei^' 
 soul ? 
 
 But bodily repose is not the only benefit which the 
 Lord's Day procures for man ; above the physical nature 
 there is the heart and the intellect, which must be de- 
 veloped at any cost, if we love our brethren, and if we 
 are anxious to prevent the lower instincts from mining 
 the very foundations of society. I boldly affirm that 
 such a development is impossible in the present day 
 without the Sabbath. There is a fact which can no 
 longer be denied, the fact that labour is becoming more 
 and more absorbing. Society tends more and more to 
 l)ecome like a vast mechanism in whose wheels the 
 individual is completely entangled and despoiled of his 
 liberty ; in every career a high position must be at- 
 tained, not a moment is to be lost, woe to him who is 
 behind time ! In the higher professions, the young man 
 sees himself, from his childhood, surrounded by numerous 
 competitors ; he must go on acquiring and acquiring 
 knowledge, loading his memory with the accumulated 
 results of the labour of all the preceding generations. In 
 humbler spheres, in manual vocations, it had seemed at 
 first that when the brute forces of nature would have been 
 brought under the subjection of man, he himself would 
 have won a greater liberty ; but behold, he has become, if 
 I may so speak, the motive agent of the machines which 
 lie guides, and this matter, of which he had thought to make 
 his slave, has become his master ! Enter one of our large 
 factories ; amidst that bewildering noise, see those hun- 
 dreds of men rising and bending at every second to follow 
 the movements of the loom or of the roller which turns 
 and turns from morning to night ; think that day after 
 day, hour after hour, that is their life, and picture to your- 
 
THE SABBATH. 175 
 
 self what would become of their souls should this labour 
 never cease ! Now, if it be but irregularly interrupted 
 from excess of fatigue, those hours of leisure will bring 
 with them no true repose, no salutary relaxation. But 
 let the Sabbath come, let those sounds cease, let silence 
 reign, and those men will breathe freely ; for a day they 
 will remember that they are not mere living tools or 
 machines, but that they are men ; for a day they will 
 remember that they have a soul. You will object, per- 
 haps, that they will profane this rest. This will doubtless 
 happen in many cases, for they will be free, free to make 
 a wrong use of the most precious privilege ; nevertheless 
 I dare affirm that, after all, the full liberty left them on 
 the Lord's Day will be their best safeguard against all 
 gross pleasures. The Sabbaths of which the first half is 
 consecrated to worldly gain, are those which most often 
 close in dissipation and sin. If, on the contrary, from the 
 first hours of the Sabbath morn, the workman or the man 
 of business may peacefully remain with his family, if he 
 may freely give his time to those he loves, think you not 
 that he will draw from these purifying impressions his 
 greatest strength against coarse temptations ? Think you 
 not that the ties between the mother and her children 
 will grow stronger, and that the noble life of the heart 
 and of all lawful affections will regain the place it is, 
 alas ! losing more and more ? Destroy the Lord's Day, 
 and at the same stroke you destroy home-life, you shake 
 the very foundation-stone of all society. 
 
 But if the Sabbath is the day of the family, it is, for 
 the same reason, the day of those who have no family, of 
 the poor, of the sick, of the destitute. Here I do not 
 speak of the fact that, on that day, the whole family of 
 God upon earth assembles, and that in the midst of the 
 Church no one who believes and prays can feel a com- 
 plete stranger. What I mean to say is that on this day, 
 
1/6 THE SABBATH. 
 
 "wlieu M'e have set aside our absorbing toil or the cares of 
 business, our heart is better able to remember those who 
 suffer. For instance, visit our hospitals and see with 
 what eager impatience their inmates await the return of 
 the Lord's Day. And why is it so ? Is it not because 
 they know that their friends will have time to visit them 
 then ; because they will feel the beneficial influence of 
 sympathy ; because to their sufferings will not be added 
 the bitter feeling of their loneliness. And what takes 
 place there likewise takes place wherever we meet with 
 bodily or spiritual suffering. Yes, if the Sabbath has 
 been made for man, it has been made especially for the 
 poor and the sick ; and were it but for this reason, we 
 should bless the Lord who has given it to humanity. 
 
 But it is especially when we study this question from 
 the religious point of view that we understand the full 
 value of the Lord's Day. You are Christians ! This is 
 as much as to say that you wish to serve the God who 
 has saved you, to proclaim Him upon earth, to win 
 souls for Him, to prepare His reign. Well ! is it neces- 
 sary to demonstrate that, without Sabbath, there can be no 
 efficacious preaching, no fruitful evangelisation, no Church 
 life ? When you are indifferent to the observance of the 
 Lord's Day, you injure each of these causes. 
 
 "How shall they believe," says the Apostle, "if they 
 have not heard ? " And willingly I add : " How shall 
 they believe if they can never hear the appeals of truth ? " 
 Now this is what occurs in the present day. Our work- 
 ing classes show an increasing and most sympathetic 
 interest for the preaching of the Gospel. Our least 
 efforts in that vast field have borne their fruits. God 
 seems to call us to the accomplishment of a mission 
 which may be immense. But, between these souls and 
 ourselves, there is Sunday labour, and for the poor this 
 labour is in many cases a bondage from which they 
 
THE SABBATH. 177 
 
 cannot free tliemselves. I will give but one example of 
 this. Each year brings to our public schools thousands 
 of children belonging to the lower classes ; we often 
 detect in those youthful souls the best dispositions, a 
 moral delicacy, religious sentiments, which cheer us and 
 give us hope for the future. But each year also, the 
 fatal age marked out for apprenticeship removes them 
 from our care and solicitude. At that age when tempta- 
 tions assail them, when the passions awaken, at that age 
 when the rest of the Sabbath would be more than ever 
 required, it is almost always pitilessly denied them. It 
 is the apprentice who, on that day, comes out of the 
 shop or of the work-room the last. That is how all his 
 Sabbaths are spent, and when the best part of the day 
 has thus been taken from him, you ask what becomes of 
 his soul. What do you think it can become ? Thus 
 we sow, and the seed is rapidly borne away ; thus upon 
 these young souls weighs an oppression which should 
 wring from our own hearts a cry of agony and opposi- 
 tion. Thus, under the influence of materialism and the 
 selfish unconcern of those who should oppose it, the 
 greatest of liberties, that of serving God, is withdrawn 
 from thousands of our fellow-creatures ; and when the 
 world has stamped its fatal impress upon those childlike 
 souls, they go on separating themselves more and more 
 from the God whom they have scarce known, until the 
 evil days come of which Scripture tells, the days when 
 man, absorbed by the cares of life, says, in speaking of the 
 religion of his childhood : " I have no pleasure in it." 
 
 How, in such circumstances, is it possible to evange- 
 lize successfully ? Xot only is the progress of truth 
 rendered impossible, but religious life is necessarily en- 
 dangered. Oh ! I know that for the Christian all days 
 are equally holy ; I know that God is a spirit, and that 
 man may serve Him everywhere and at any time ; I 
 
 M 
 
178 THE SABBATH. 
 
 Icnow that in every spot the faithful soul may find a 
 sanctuary and a few moments to consecrate to Him, 
 Eut if the whole of the Christian's life must be a prayer, 
 does it follow that he must renounce his regular hours 
 for devotion ? If his life as a whole must be reflective, 
 does it follow that he needs no special moments for 
 meditation ? The inner and spiritual life also requires 
 a day of rest ; without it piety will soon shrink into a 
 false spirituality ; we want a day of rest in which, the 
 din of earth having ceased around us, we may hear the 
 voice of God. As Luther said : " Thou must cease thy 
 work if thou wouldst have God continue His own in 
 thee." No one will accuse us of inclinino; towards 
 formalism. A miserable thing in our sight is a form 
 without life ; but there is something more dangerous 
 still. It is the complete absence of life as well as form ; 
 for an empty form is the witness of an absent thing, 
 it is a silent protest, a warning. Now, I fear that 
 through contempt of form we often lose the most 
 precious blessings which the Sabbath was destined to 
 bring us. 
 
 Cannot what I say of the individual soul be applied 
 with still greater force to the life of the Church, to 
 worship in common ? Why in our holy assemblies is 
 there so little zeal and sympathy ? Why those late 
 arrivals, which betray such a want of eagerness and 
 respect for the worship itself? Why that attention so 
 easily diverted during prayer and the reading of the 
 Word of God ? It is because our piety is without 
 discipline and without rule ; because it is too much 
 influenced by the fancies and irregularities of our tastes 
 and transitory dispositions ; because, to return to our 
 subject, considering as we too often do the Sabbath as 
 an ordinary day, we allow ourselves to be borne away 
 by the usual current of our thoughts and favourite 
 
THE SABBATH. 179 
 
 vanities, and then all we have left for God is a heart 
 and mind utterly filled up, utterly absorbed, by the 
 world. 
 
 We have consulted the world and the Church together ; 
 with Scripture, their experience has confirmed the truth 
 of this saying of Jesus Christ : " The Sabbath was 
 made for man." We have seen what it costs to trample 
 under foot a Divine institution, and what numberless 
 blessings are thus dried up at their very source. It is 
 time to examine ourselves and to see what practical con- 
 clusions we may draw from the principles we have 
 stated. 
 
 As we have already said, two things are here implied : 
 repose and consecration, liberty as regards labour and the 
 sanctification of the soul. Now, on both these points, 
 judge for yourselves if there is nothing to be reformed in 
 your lives. 
 
 First of all, as regards rest. It is the necessary con- 
 dition of sanctification. The tide of labour which over- 
 flows our soul must necessarily be arrested ; the deafen- 
 inff sounds of life must be hushed. I do not insist on 
 this point, for I believe none of my hearers could pursue 
 on that day their usual course of. business and labour 
 without beinfr troubled in their conscience, and it is to 
 this inward monitor that I now refer them. But ob- 
 serve, in vain would our body rest if our soul continued 
 to be engrossed by our habitual occupations. If our 
 thoughts remain with our books, studies, affairs, and 
 speculations, in the eyes of God we desecrate the holy 
 day of rest. 
 
 Further, this repose which you claim for yourselves 
 must be assured to your brethren, especially to those 
 who, in this respect, are the slaves of their fellows, and 
 you know how many they are. 
 
 You will perhaps tell me that this would call for a 
 
i8o THE SABBATH. 
 
 general reform in the state of society, and that the task 
 is immense and impossible ; I could, first of all, answer 
 that there is no impossibility for the Christian, and that 
 this argument cannot be accepted. I believe that when 
 a cause is just, it imposes itself in the long run to public 
 opinion. Now, the question is to insure the first and 
 most sacred of all liberties, moral liberty, to thousands 
 of defenceless beings, to thousands of children ; by an 
 inevitable consequence, it is their eternal future which is 
 here at stake. Well, such a cause as this, taken up with en- 
 thusiasm, pleaded with perseverance, would awaken in the 
 public conscience more sympathy than we suppose ; even 
 those who would not accept it from these higher motives 
 would nevertheless lend it their support by reason of its 
 marvellous utility. From the day when the poor will 
 understand that their most precious interests are here at 
 stake, the cause of the Sabbath will be victorious. I 
 know that though you may obtain for them the rest of 
 the Sabbath, you w^ill not thereby have obtained its 
 sanctification. I know that, even then, this day will be 
 for thousands the day of the most riotous pleasure and 
 dissipation. Alas ! they will be free, free to lose their 
 souls on that day ; but upon them will rest that 
 solemn responsibility. As for you, you will at least 
 have the satisfaction of knowing that in God's sight 
 you have done your utmost to leave them on that day 
 a chance of salvation. 
 
 But without losing sight of this grand aim, let each 
 of us set to work from this day forth in his own sphere ; 
 let each of us leave, as far as possible, the rest of the 
 Sabbath to those whom' God has placed under our 
 influence, and who depend upon us for their daily bread. 
 The Christian woman who deprives the poor dressmaker 
 of her Sunday rest for the sake of coming to church 
 better dressed, is responsible before God for that soul 
 
THE SABBATH. i8i 
 
 which had been entrusted to her care. What then will 
 it be if, to shine in the world on that day, you rob 
 your inferiors of the repose God meant them to enjoy ? 
 Here no self- exculpation ; beware especially of saying 
 that, even without this fancy of yours, their Sunday 
 would have been taken up by labour ; for then we would 
 unhesitatingly answer you that the faults of others do 
 not palliate your own, and that every man will bear his 
 own burden. 
 
 So much for the repose of the Lord's Day, Now, as 
 regards its sanctification. If we desire this day to be 
 free from toil, it is in order that it may the more fully 
 be consecrated to the Lord. You do not expect me to 
 enter into the detail of the various occupations which 
 are allowed or prohibited on that day. Moreover, it 
 were impossible to establish this distinction. Let us 
 leave this exact and minute casuistry to the Pharisees ; 
 I believe that, on this point, the only judge is conscience, 
 and that each of us is to be taught of God. Christians, 
 when you are supplied with the necessaries of life, 
 remember, above all, that Sunday is the Lord's Day, 
 the Lord's Day with its joys, which God forbid I 
 should disparage ! joys of home and cordial intimacy, in 
 which the bonds which the solitude of individual labour 
 had loosened during the week, are now cemented anew. 
 Let the Word of God open this day, and sanctify its first 
 hours in the midst of your family. Let public worship 
 be for you a season of holy exercise ; and instead of 
 listening passively to the words of a man, bring your 
 whole soul and spirit in your prayers and hymns, and 
 remember that a fervent and serious assembly is the most 
 solemn preaching that can be heard. 
 
 Then remember those who have need of you, those 
 whom sickness leaves in solitude, those who are afflicted ; 
 the absent, to whom a letter would procure so much joy; 
 
1 82 THE SABBATH. 
 
 remember the feeble and the lowly ; this day is theirs 
 also, for the poor, the sick, the sorrowing, are the repre- 
 sentatives of the Lord here below. Try such a Sabbath, 
 and you will see if time will hang heavily upon your hands ; 
 you will see if in your life it will not be what to the 
 traveller in the sands of Africa is the oasis in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 When we have obtained for all the repose to which 
 they are entitled, then we shall have to make of the 
 Sabbath a day of progress and conquest for all good 
 works, for all that ennobles the soul, for all that softens 
 and comforts it. Henceforth may each Sabbath find us 
 at work, vindicating for the service of God the day of 
 which the world robs Him, and thus raising with a firm 
 and steady hand the rampart without which the rising 
 tide of materialism threatens to invade and overflow the 
 world ! 
 
( >83 ) 
 
 X. 
 
 TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 
 
 " Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the tlesh ; yea, though 
 ■\ve have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know 
 we Him no more." — 2 Cor. v. 16. 
 
 I HAVE cliosen as the subject of our meditation a saying 
 of St. Paul which perhaps astonishes you as it astonished 
 myself until I had caught its true meaning. I confess 
 that formerly these words affected me painfully ; they 
 seemed to me, shall I say ? as the expression of a wild 
 spiritualism. What ! here is an apostle who will no 
 longer know Christ after the flesh ! But is not this 
 forgetting the Saviour's humanity ? Is it not slighting 
 the deep and tender sympathy which the Son of Man 
 inspires ? Are we, then, to forget His incarnation, His 
 feeble nature, His sufferings, — all, in a word, that attracts 
 us, all that speaks to our heart, all that comforts us ? 
 Are we henceforth to have only a glorified Christ as the 
 object of our contemplation ? Are we to seek Him only 
 with the Father, in that perfection, in that celestial 
 splendour which dazzles rather than allures ? . . . Such 
 were my sorrowful reflections, and unable as I was to 
 follow the apostle in his lofty flight, I joyfully returned 
 to the Friend of Martha and Mary, to Him who wept 
 upon the grave of Lazarus, to the Man of Sorrows, who, 
 in the da}'S of His flesh, bore our griefs and all the woes 
 of our wretched humanity. 
 
i84 TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 
 
 ]jut light has dawned upon this mystery ; I have 
 understood that St. Paul's intention was not to take any- 
 thing from the Saviour's humanity, and that these words 
 which seemed to me so overpowering are, on the con- 
 trary, full of instruction and consolation. That is what 
 you also will acknowledge as you more fully take in 
 their true significance. 
 
 To comprehend them we must refer to the admiral)le 
 chapter from which they are drawn. Among all St. 
 Paul's epistles, none so strikingly set forth all the depth 
 and riches of his heart as those he addressed to the 
 Corinthians ; and the chapter in question shows us whence 
 flows that love which has produced the most devoted life, 
 the most powerful apostlesliip which the Church has 
 ever seen. If Paul loves thus, it is because the love of 
 Christ constraineth him ; that is why he, a stranger, has 
 come to those Corinthians, that is why he has given them 
 his time, his heart, his life. Paul therefore declares 
 that he loves them, and that there mingles with this 
 affection no carnal or interested motive ; consequently, in 
 his relations with the world, he pays no regard to aught 
 that is earthly and transient ; little cares he if men be 
 poor or rich, learned or ignorant, Jews or Gentiles ; in 
 those to whom he speaks he sees souls to be saved and 
 nothing more. He might boast, as do the false teachers 
 who trouble liis ministry, of having known the Christ in 
 Judaea, of being His brother according to the flesh, . . . 
 but to tliis he attaches but slight importance; he will 
 know Christ only after the Spirit, that is, as his Saviour, 
 and the Saviour of the Corinthians ; that, for him, is the 
 essential point, the true manner in which Jesus would be 
 known. 
 
 Let us draw from this thought a lesson of primary 
 importance. 
 
 Who aniong us has not envied the Jews the privilege 
 
TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 185 
 
 of liaving had Christ with them in the days of His flesh, 
 or His disciples the liappiness of having heard Him, or 
 Mary and Lazarus the prerogative of having received 
 Him under their roof ? It seems to us that had we but 
 heard Him our hearts would have been more deeply 
 stirred ; that a mere look of His would have pacified 
 our soul ; that the very sound of His voice would have 
 produced upon ns an ineffaceable impression ; that, had we 
 but once been the witnesses of His miracles, we would 
 nevermore have suffered doubt to enter our mind ; and 
 that at sight of His Cross our moved and subdued hearts 
 would have been wholly given up to Him. 
 
 Alas ! who can tell if all this would have been realised ? 
 Who can tell if, after having seen Jesus, our faith would 
 have been stronger ? Hear our Lord Himself. A woman 
 cries out in His presence, " Blessed is the womb that bare 
 Thee ; " He answers, " Yea, rather, blessed are they that 
 hear the Word of God and keep it." A man, breaking 
 through the crowd, brings Him this message, " Tliy mother 
 and Thy brethren stand without desiring to see Thee ; " 
 He replies, " J\Iy motlier and My brethren are those who 
 hear the Word of God and do it." His apostles in the 
 upper room would retain Him ; Jesus utters these words, 
 " It is expedient for you that I go away." The disciples 
 on the way to Euimaus, having recognised Him, exclaim, 
 " Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is 
 far spent ; " Jesus disappears from their sight. Mary 
 Magdalene in the garden would lay hold on Him ; Jesus 
 says unto her, " Touch Me not ! for I am not yet ascended 
 to My Father." What do all these words signify, if not 
 that it is above all by the soul, by faith, that Jesus would 
 be known and possessed ? Now, if this be the case, are 
 we not immediately led to the consoling conclusion that 
 neither time nor distance can prevent us from knowing 
 Christ and feeling His presence, and that, in the nine- 
 
i86 TO KNO]V AFTER THE SPIRIT. 
 
 teentli century, we may hear Him, possess Him, rejoice 
 in His light, as really as did those who beheld Him with 
 their bodily eyes, who witnessed His miracles, and heard 
 His voice ? And is not all this most strikingly obvious ? 
 Is it not certain that the Church, so long as she has had 
 Jesus in her midst, has been feeble, timid, undecided, and 
 fearful, and that not till Christ left her did she receive 
 the baptism from on high, out of which she came forth 
 radiant with youth, faith, and triumphant hope ? Men 
 said of St. Paul, " His letters are weighty and powerful ; 
 but his bodily presence is weak and his speech con- 
 temptible." May not these words be applied in a certain 
 measure to Jesus Christ ? Did His discourses, at the 
 time when He uttered them, produce the incomparable 
 effect which they have had since he returned to the 
 Father ? Did Jesus in the days of His Hesh ever con- 
 vert the thousandth part of the souls which the preaching 
 of His apostles have brought captive to the foot of His 
 Cross ? Is it not certain that Jesus Christ absent, separ- 
 ated from us by eighteen centuries, lives in the world far 
 more than He did when men saw Him with their eye?, 
 touched Him with their hands, or heard Him with their 
 ears ? Is it not certain that now He enlightens more 
 minds, subdues more hearts, awakens more consciences in 
 a single day than He did during the whole of His three 
 years' ministry ? 
 
 You ask to see Him, you envy the privilege of the 
 disciples, you say : " Blessed is the apostle who leaned 
 his head upon His bosom ; blessed is the Samaritan 
 woman who was permitted to give Him drink ; blessed is 
 the man of Cyrene who was compelled to bear His cross ! " ^ 
 I understand you, for the same thoughts have come to 
 me also ; but are you sure that if you had beheld Him 
 you would have believed ? Are you sure that His 
 humiliation, His poverty, His abasement, would not have 
 
TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 187 
 
 caused you to shrink from Him ? Are you sure that, 
 seeing the Sadducees, the scribes and the sceptics of that 
 time, rail at His appearance, you would not have felt 
 ashamed at being well-nigh alone to confess Him, and 
 at being obliged to side with Galileans, publicans and 
 sinners ? Are you sure that, hearing the Pharisees ex- 
 claim against His blasphemous pretensions, and invoke 
 against Him the traditions of fifteen centuries and the 
 venerated authority of Moses, you would not have been 
 troubled by your scruples ? Are you sure that, at sight 
 of Jesus without a place to rest His head, exposed to 
 ignominy and insult, abandoned of God, groaning in the 
 dust of Gethsemane, turning towards heaven a look of 
 bitter anguish and complaining of His Father's desertion ; 
 are you sure, in fine, that at sight of the pallor of death 
 stealing over His features, you would not have doubted ? 
 Ah ! you are not better than the disciples, you have not 
 more zeal than Peter, more courage than John. What 
 would you have done had you known Christ after the 
 fiesli ? Who knows but you too would have fled ? Who 
 knows but j^ou too would have denied Him, you who, 
 enlightened by eighteen centuries of Christianity, and 
 having seen His victorious Cross triumph over the 
 world and over your own heart, have perhaps denied 
 Him, or, to say the least, have doubted of Him ! 
 
 Granted, however, that you had remained faithful to 
 Him, would you have understood the work for which 
 He had come ? Would you not liave been attached to 
 His earthly person rather than to His divine mission ? 
 Would you have loved Him after the Spirit, as He wishes 
 to be loved ? Would not your love for Him have 
 been that purely human affection which He so strongly 
 rebuked in Peter when this apostle endeavoured to turn 
 Him from the painful path in which the Cross awaited 
 Him ; or which He condemned in Martha when it pre- 
 
i88 TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 
 
 vented her from choosing the good part and listening to 
 His words ? Xo ; believe Jesus Christ, who said to His 
 disciples : " It is expedient for you that I go away." It 
 was expedient that He should go in order that His 
 disciples' love should become what it was expected to be ; 
 in order that, instead of being chained down to earth, it 
 should take wings and recognise the Son of God in the 
 Son of Man. It was expedient that He should go, in order 
 that those carnally-minded disciples should learn to believe 
 in the eternal and invisible realities, in order that they 
 should seek their Master's reign no longer at Jerusalem, 
 no longer in the earthly glory or in the visible triumphs of 
 a crowned Messiah, but in that royalty of souls which 
 the Cross was to render possible. It was necessary that 
 they should be deprived of His sight, of His looks, of His 
 words, in order that their faith might be strengthened and 
 eventually victorious ; thus is the child deprived of its 
 mother's milk that it may grow in strength and stature. 
 
 Now, brethren, we understand what St. Paul means 
 when he declares that he no longer knows Christ after 
 the flesh. It is not that he renounces His humanity, 
 His abasement. His Cross, he who wishes to know 
 nought but Christ crucified; but he means that the very 
 humanity of Jesus must be viewed with the eyes of the 
 Spirit, that it must be contemplated with the eyes of 
 faith ; that without this, it is indeed a touching but 
 fruitless spectacle. 
 
 How many needful lessons might we not draw from 
 this thought. What might we not say to those who 
 still to-day are' unwilling to know Jesus Christ otherwise 
 than after the flesh ? To give way to a purely human 
 emotion at the remembrance of Jesus, to weep over the 
 fate of that victim of human fanaticism, to look at the 
 transitory side of His ministry, to honour His relics and 
 His memory, to allow one's senses and imagination alone 
 
TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 189 
 
 to be stirred in presence of His Cross, is not that know- 
 ing Him after the flesh ? Ah ! not thus is He honoured 
 when He is known after the Spirit. At the foot of the 
 Cross, it is not upon Him men weep, but upon them- 
 selves. In His death it is not only His material suffer- 
 ings they behold, but, above all, His prodigious abasement, 
 His ineffiible sacrifice. In the Son of Man it is the im- 
 molated Son of God they adore ; and when they love 
 Him after this manner, they prove it by giving Him 
 their hearts, by consecrating to Him their lives. They 
 do not seek Him eighteen centuries back, on the roll of 
 the historical martyrs ; they do not erect a magnificent 
 sepulchre to the dead Christ and then refuse the living 
 Christ a place in their hearts ; they call upon Him, they 
 invoke Him as the Saviour who reigneth for ever and 
 ever ; they associate in His work, tliey rejoice at His 
 triumph, they prepare His advent ; then, and then only, 
 can they say that they truly know Christ. 
 
 I find a second and more general lesson in my text. 
 St. Paul tells us that it is not only Jesus Christ but 
 all men that he wishes henceforth to know after the 
 Spirit, and not after the flesh. This thought is one 
 which I am anxious to impress upon your minds to-day. 
 
 But in order to this, let us once again recall to mind 
 its true significance, for on this point we must prevent a 
 serious and fatal mistake. This saying has sometimes 
 been interpreted in a manner which has called forth the 
 legitimate disapprobation of many. We have seen 
 Christians who, under pretence of an imaginary j)erfec- 
 tion, have ruthlessly snapped all the ties of flesh and 
 blood, renounced family life, and scorned the natural 
 affections as though they were mere human failinfTs. 
 For instance, we have seen sons and daughters, whose 
 duty it had been to support an aged father or mother, 
 leave them, and after having raised between them the 
 
I90 TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 
 
 impassable wall of monastic vows, say to them, — " I 
 know you no more I " Spiritual heroism ! some exclaim, 
 magnificent triumph of the Spirit over the flesh ! . . . . 
 Is that what the gospel teaches ? Is that what St. 
 Paul wishes to insinuate ? ^ 
 
 In the days of Jesus Christ similar facts occurred. 
 There were sons and daughters then who, to make them- 
 selves agreeable to God, offered to Him what they should 
 have consecrated to their father and mother. This gift 
 they called coo-dan,, and St. Mark tells us that none had 
 the right to lay claim to it. What was Christ's opinion 
 of this ? He says of such a line of conduct that it is 
 making void the law of God. And in the same spirit 
 St. Paul declares that the Christian who neglects either 
 father or mother is worse than an infidel. Now, 
 brethren, to neglect them is not merely to deny them 
 bread, but it is especially to deny them one's heart. 
 That is the teaching of the gospel. If, then, under 
 pretence of renouncing the flesh, men violate or forget 
 the natural laws, they have against them not only the 
 voice of nature, but the voice of God Himself. Let 
 none, therefore, come forward in the name of the gospel 
 to justify these monstrous exaggerations of a chimerical 
 perfection. St. Paul has already condemned them, and 
 it is mere mockery to make them rest on his authority. 
 
 Many, doubtless, will here bring forward those nume- 
 rous passages in which Jesus Christ so unsparingly con- 
 demns all who, before they resolve on following Him, 
 consult flesh and blood; they will remind me of these 
 inexorable words : " Let the dead bury their dead," or of 
 these, which are stranger still : " If any one come to Me, 
 and hate not his father, his mother, his wife, his chil- 
 
 ^ My intention, in this passage, is not to condemn monastic life in a 
 summary manner and under all its forms. I merely wish to show how 
 fantastical and irreligious is the contempt of natural affections. 
 
TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. jgi 
 
 dren, liis brothers, his sisters, and even liis own life, he 
 cannot be my disciple." But what is the point in ques- 
 tion in these last precepts ? The point in question is to 
 choose between duty and the delights of the heart, 
 between the law of God and the sweet affections of 
 home. Now, for the believer the choice cannot be 
 doubtful ; when God speaks he must obey ; no affection, 
 were it the closest and most sacred, should come between 
 God and our souls. Here I venture to affirm that our 
 conscience yields a full assent to the teaching of Christ. 
 But how completely at variance is this instruction with 
 the system which condemns the life of the heart and the 
 joys of existence as evil in themselves, and which incites 
 the Christian to a hard and unfeeling spirituality. No, 
 let us- say it boldly, the life of the heart, the natural 
 affections, the body itself, all these things have in them 
 nothing impure ; all that is human can be sanctified and 
 consecrated to God. 
 
 What then are we to understand by these words 
 of the apostle, " Henceforth know we no man after the 
 flesh " ? Methinks their meaning is very plain. In 
 every man there are two natures, the outward and the 
 inward : the man according to the flesh is the outward 
 being ; the man according to the spirit is the immortal 
 soul. In the eyes of the flesh you are poor or rich, 
 writers or magistrates, merchants, artisans, or servants ; 
 in the eyes of the spirit you are children of God. Well, 
 St. Paul declares that henceforth what he would see, 
 what he would know in every man, is the spiritual and 
 immortal being. Do you not see how new, how grand, 
 how sublime is this thought ? and do not these words 
 of the apostle fill you with emotion ? 
 
 To see in every man an immortal soul, that is what 
 Christianity alone could teach us. Before Jesus Christ, 
 what were the poor, the slaves, the publicans ? Now, iu 
 
192 TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 
 
 the eyes of Jesus, the soul of the vilest of harlots weighs 
 as much in the balance as that of a Cpesar. In the eves 
 of Jesus, earthly grandeur is nothing ; not so much as a 
 word does He condescend to give to it ; but let Mary 
 pour her box of perfume upon His feet, in token of her 
 repentance, and He declares that this deed will never be 
 Jbrgotten, even to the end of time. In the eyes of Jesus, 
 what are the artificial distinctions of this world ? What 
 He sees everywhere is sinners to be saved, to all He 
 speaks the same language, to all He grants the same 
 love, none appears to Him unworthy of His attention ; 
 and in many cases, it is upon the humblest and lowliest 
 that He lavishes His most sublime instructions. 
 
 It is at Christ's school, therefore, that Paul has learned 
 to know men no longer according to appearance ; there 
 he has learned to see in such as Festus or Agrippa 
 nought but lost souls, to whom, unmindful of crown or 
 sceptre, he will preach the truth that saves. There he 
 has learned to evangelise such as Aquila or Lydia with 
 the same love as if the souls of the proconsul Sergius or 
 the governor Publius were at stake ; there he has learned 
 that henceforth there is neither Clreek nor barbarian, 
 neither bond nor free, but that all are alike before God. 
 
 Thus it is we must know men, thus it is we must love 
 them. The world has its distinctions of rank, learning, 
 and fortune, which I, certainly, would not destroy ; they 
 are necessary ; overthrow them to-day, and to-morrow 
 they reappear, for they form part of the very conditions 
 upon which modern society rests. Let us respect them, 
 and beware lest, under pretence of Christianity, we im- 
 pose upon superiorities of rank or fortune a level which 
 each of us would unquestionably lower to meet his own 
 individual condition. But pray, let us also learn to 
 ]<now men by their grand and immortal sides, to know 
 ihem according to the spirit and not according to 
 
TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 193 
 
 the flesh. As for me, I kuow of nothing more wretched 
 than the manner in which a certain class of people 
 judge of humanity. According to their idea, men are 
 mere labels, representing this or that rank, title, or 
 fortune. Between them is established a sort of conven- 
 tional language which never reaches beyond the out- 
 ward and superficial being. Apart from social life, apart 
 from the relations between superior and inferior, master 
 and servant, buyer and seller, they see nothing ; all is 
 artificial, substance as well as form, religion as well as 
 morals ; all is empty, delusive, and false. It would never 
 enter the thoughts of most world-wise men to discover a 
 soul beneath that social polish ; their words will never 
 reach the soul of those they meet, never will they call 
 forth one of those sincere emotions which spring from the 
 depths of the human being. Such is the life of thousands . 
 of our fellow-men. Ah ! how I love to get out of that 
 factitious and vitiated atmosphere, to breatlie the vivify- 
 ing air of the gospel ; there what I see in my fellow- 
 creature is, above all, a man ; nay, more, a sister-soul. 
 Give me the most ignorant and depraved being, one of 
 those wretches to whom the world would never condescend 
 to grant even one moment's affection and sympathy ; if, as 
 I look upon him, I think of Jesus Christ, I am reminded 
 that he is my brother by what in him is most profound 
 and imperishable, by his soul; and how then could I refuse 
 to respect him ? 
 
 Oh, how grand would life be if we could see humanity 
 as Jesus Christ saw it, if we could judge of men, not from 
 the outward being, but from the inward ! What discoveries 
 would we not often make in natures which seem to us most 
 ungrateful and uncommunicative ! That is what Jesus 
 did. He brought out the immortal soul. He discerned it in 
 the depths of the lowest and most depraved life ; and the 
 soul responded to His call, for His voice had in it the 
 
 N 
 
194 TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 
 
 mysterious attraction of love. What would an ordinary 
 observer, or even a profound philosopher, have seen in that 
 remote corner of Galilee where Jesus exercised His minis- 
 try ? An honest and ignorant population, and nothing 
 more. He would have judged only according to the flesh. 
 But Jesus has brought out from its midst some of the 
 finest and grandest characters which the world has ever 
 known, such men and women as St. Peter, Mary, and St. 
 John. And wliy ? Because He discovered these souls and 
 loved them. Let us follow His example ; let us say with 
 the apostle, that from this time forth we will know our 
 brethren by their soul, that is by their eternal nature. 
 
 You are a mother, for instance. How do you know 
 your children ? Alas ! yovi may hitherto have seen in 
 them mere idols, to which you have wholly given up your 
 heart. Know them henceforth after the spirit, see in 
 them souls with which God has entrusted you ; you will 
 love them all the more for this, and you will not incur the 
 fearful responsibility of losing them, it may be, for the 
 higher and eternal life. 
 
 Let the same thought permeate all your affections, 
 and, as far as possible, all your relations with your 
 fellow-men. You are Christians ; oh ! love no man 
 without loving his soul ; give not your heart to that 
 which cannot be eternal ; above tlie world of appearance 
 see the world of reality, the only world which is acknow- 
 ledged of God. Train your minds to discern in every 
 man what God Himself discovers in him ; then you will 
 never be gviilty either of cowardly complaisance for those 
 who are above you, or of a contempt which is more 
 cowardly still for those who are your inferiors ; then, 
 according to the expression of St. Peter, you will honour 
 all men, because in each of them you will perceive a 
 soul, that is, a sanctuary of the living God, a ruined or 
 restored sanctuary, perhajis, but nevertheless a sanctuary. 
 
TO KNOW AFTER THE SPIRIT. 195 
 
 wliicli it will be impossible to approach without a feeling 
 of respect. 
 
 Brethren, all things are passing away and escaping 
 our gras23 ; all that is but flesh is destined to decay and 
 vanish. Everything warns us of the danger of giving 
 our hearts to that which is mere appearance. Appear- 
 ance, great God ! will that save us ? Ah ! what, in the 
 last day, will all the splendours of the flesh avail us ? 
 Of what service, I ask, will all the praise, approbation, 
 and incense of men be to us then ? God will judge us 
 only according to the spirit. To how many of those 
 who had been surrounded with earthly honours will He 
 say : " Depart from Me, I know you not " ? To how 
 many of those who were despised upon earth will He 
 address these blessed words : " Enter into My joy " ? 
 Since, therefore, this supreme judgment is to be the end 
 of all, let ns Christians henceforward estimate everything 
 by the holy and fearful light of that great and awful 
 day. 
 
( 196 ) 
 
 XL 
 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 " Lo, I am with you alway, even iinto the end of the world." 
 — Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
 If I did not believe in the divinity of Christ, I acknow- 
 ledge that these words would fill me with astonishment. 
 In fact, imagine a man, the greatest and holiest of men, 
 imagine an angel or an archangel, terminating, as Jesus 
 now does, the mission which he had received to evange- 
 lize the earth ; what would be, what should be his clos- 
 ing words ? The holier his character, the higher his 
 rank in the scale of beings, the loftier also would be his 
 idea of the greatness of God, the more would he fear to 
 lessen it by usurping a portion whatever of the adoration 
 and love which are due' to God alone ; eager to direct to- 
 wards God the thoughts which hitherto had rested on 
 His messenger, he would hasten to efface the traces of 
 his own name and to lead his disciples to the feet of 
 the Almighty, saying, with John the Baptist : " He must 
 increase, but I must decrease." 
 
 "What, on the contrary, does Jesus Christ say ? "I am 
 with you unto the end of the world." Have you reflected 
 upon all which these words imply ? The Chief Shepherd 
 ■wishes to exj^ress in a last farewell all that is best fitted 
 to comfort and strengthen the soul of His disciples; He 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 197 
 
 wishes to prepare them, powerless though they be, for the 
 conquest of the world, and in order to make them meet 
 for this work He directs them, not only to the Father, 
 but also to Himself ; He sets Himself before them as the 
 object of their faith, as the centre of their thoughts, as 
 the perpetual source of their hopes, of their strength, and 
 of their consolation. " Go, for I am with you ; with you 
 every day, with you unto the end." Therefore, suppose 
 a man, a being whatever, thus daring to usurp such a part, 
 and to set himself, unto the end of time, in the place of 
 the living God ! If these words are not spoken by the 
 lips of a God, let us have the courage to say it. He who 
 utters them is a usurper. Henceforth we must not speak 
 of His humility, we must not hold Him up to the admir- 
 ation of men, for He has yielded to the seduction of an 
 unpardonable pride. 
 
 As for us who accept this promise as that of the Master 
 we adore, let us endeavour to comprehend its depth and 
 its import; and as we meditate upon the presence of the 
 Lord in the midst of His people, God grant we may feel 
 its powerful reality in our hearts ! That will be, let us 
 not doubt it, the best demonstration of our text. 
 
 " I am with you alway." Would you see the immediate 
 accomplishment of these words ? Consider the very men 
 to whom the Lord addressed them on the Mount of Olives. 
 I venture to affirm, though this thought may appear strange 
 to you, that the apostles were never so conscious of the 
 presence of Christ as after the day in which He left 
 them. 
 
 Before that, it is true, their eyes saw Him ; they wit- 
 nessed His miracles and were subdued by them. They 
 had seen Him with a gesture calming the angry sea, or 
 recalling Lazarus to the land of the living ; they had seen 
 the loaves multiplying in His hands and satisfying the 
 hungry multitude. And yet, did they believe ? Alas ! 
 
198 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 their faith was so feeble that the humiliation of their 
 Master and the momentary triumph of His enemies sufficed 
 to disperse them like cowards, to cause them to flee or to 
 deny Jesus before a simple servant. 
 
 How is it, then, that, after Pentecost, these men, who 
 hitherto had been so timid and fearful, boldly take their 
 stand in the market-place, that these fishermen of Galilee 
 are not afraid to contend with the ablest sophists of Jer- 
 usalem, that they confound them, that they cause such 
 men as Festus and Agrippa to tremble upon the judgment- 
 seat, that, threatened with torture, they brave it and 
 openly rejoice in shame and suffering ? Whence comes this 
 strength ? From the fact that they are no longer alone, 
 for Jesus revealed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is with them. 
 When they saw Him with their eyes and touched Him 
 with their hands, Jesus was less present with them than 
 when they beheld Him only in spirit and with the eyes 
 of the soul. 
 
 Before that, it is true, when they followed Him upon 
 earth, their ears heard Him. Oh, incomparable privilege ! 
 What conversations were theirs, and how profound must 
 have been the impression they produced upon their souls! 
 How clear and luminous must Divine realities have 
 appeared to them when viewed in the light of the simple 
 parables which the Master Himself explained to them ! 
 How completely they must have been subdued by the 
 supreme authority of those words which fell, so to speak, 
 from the heights of heaven itself upon their consciences, 
 imprinting there the seal of their Divine origin ! And 
 yet, see how they question the Master after His sublime 
 instructions ! What slowness to believe ! What pre- 
 judices ! What gross and carnal reasonings ! How im- 
 perfectly do they understand the teachings of Jesus, and 
 how quickly do they forget them ! 
 
 How is it that later on everything becomes clear to 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 199 
 
 them, and that, instead of disciples slow to believe, we 
 see masters at whose feet Saul of Tarsus and Apollos are 
 seated as docile children ? How is it that the words of 
 Jesus appear to them striking with evidence, and that, 
 understanding them now for the first time, they in their 
 turn astonish the multitudes and keep them hanging 
 upon their lips ? How is it that those Galileans, 
 whose narrow and vulgar prejudices make us smile, are 
 able to translate the thoughts of their Master in 
 their discourses and letters with such depth of intelli- 
 gence and unction that the Church of to-day, after the 
 lapse of eighteen centuries, may still bend and drink at 
 the inexhaustible fountain of life and holiness which 
 they have caused to gush forth in the world ? What is 
 the reason of all this ? Ah ! it is that they are no 
 longer alone. . . . Jesus is with them. The strange 
 words which He had addressed to them in His last con- 
 versations are now realised. " It is expedient for you 
 that I go away," He had said. On that departure de- 
 pended the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Day of 
 Pentecost has now come, and that great and all-explain- 
 ing miracle has been wrought, that miracle without which 
 Christianity is an incomprehensible fact. By the out- 
 pouring of the Holy Spirit those men have been so 
 thoroughly transformed that we no longer recognise them, 
 Jesus has revealed Himself to them with a grandeur 
 which they had not even dreamed of. Yes, when they 
 heard Him in the Temple or on the shores of the Lake of 
 Tiberias, Jesus spoke less to their soul ; His thoughts, 
 His sentiments, His love were more strange to them. 
 Now, for the first time, they know Him, they hear Him, 
 they understand Him. Thus is the promise accomplished: 
 " liO, I am with you alway ! " 
 
 I will give you of this a proof still more convincing, 
 for it affects us more nearly and impresses us as a fact. 
 
200 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Do you know any being who is more continually present 
 Avitli mankind than Jesus Christ ? Eighteen centuries 
 separate us from Him, and yet to-day, in all parts of the 
 globe, there are thousands of men in whose hearts He 
 holds the deepest and most sacred place. There are 
 thousands of men for whom fellowship with Christ is so 
 inexhaustible a source of strength, peace, and joy, that so 
 long as they will possess Jesus, were they in the most 
 complete destitution, they will be happy ; while, should 
 Jesus fail them, their existence, otherwise unclouded, 
 would be for them without hope. There are men who 
 this very morning, while listening to the voice of preachers 
 and missionaries, have received Jesus Christ, loved Jesus 
 Christ, and adored Jesus Christ, and who would tell you 
 that, of all the inward events which have marked their 
 life, none has been more solemn or more stirring than 
 the entry of the Prince of Peace into their heart and life ; 
 so that I can affirm that Jesus in the days of His flesh, 
 surrounded by multitudes, was less present in the midst of 
 men than He is to-day ; that Jesus Christ absent, separated 
 from us by eighteen centuries, enlightens more minds, 
 converts more hearts, awakens more consciences, and gains 
 more disciples to His cause than He did when He 
 astonished the world by His miracles and when the 
 crowds hailed Him with cries of " Hosannah ! " What 
 an admirable realisation of these words : " Lo, I am with 
 you alway ! " Observe, brethren, that this is a ^^eculiar 
 and distinguishing feature of Christianity. The other 
 religions have never laid claim to anything like this. 
 They have instituted rites and ceremonies ; they have 
 said : " Observe them and you will be saved," they have 
 had prophets who have pretended to be the interpreters 
 of the Divine will, they have had their Buddhas and 
 their Mahomets. But Christ alone has dared to lay claim 
 to this moral prodigy of being present in the most 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 2or 
 
 intimate and most sacred liome of the soul, and He alone 
 has succeeded. This feature is so strange that it struck 
 the greatest military genius of the age, and that, in his 
 exile at St. Helena, Napoleon, comparing his reign with 
 that of Christ, one day uttered the following words : " I 
 have inspired with passion thousands who have laid down 
 their lives for me ; but for this my presence, the electric 
 influence of my eye, my accent, a word from my lips, 
 was always needed, then I kindled the sacred flame in 
 their breasts . . . Christ alone has succeeded in raising 
 the hearts of men to the invisible, even to the sacrifice of 
 time and space. He alone from age to age demands that 
 which is most difficult to obtain, that which many a sage 
 vainly demands of his friends, many a father of his 
 children, many a wife of her husband, many a brother of 
 his brother ; in a word, the heart. That is what He seeks 
 for Himself. He claims it most absolutely, and He suc- 
 ceeds at once. What a miracle ! Throughout time and 
 space, the human soul with all its faculties becomes an 
 appendice of the existence of Christ. All who sincerely 
 believe in Him feel this admirable and supernatural love, 
 this inexplicable phenomenon which is beyond the powers 
 of mortal man, this sacred fire whose intensity cannot be 
 lessened and whose duration cannot be limited by the 
 great destroyer Time. That is what I, Napoleon, most 
 admire, for I have often reflected upon it. And that is 
 for me the most incontestable proof of the divinity of 
 Christ." 
 
 We must, therefore, acknowledge that Jesus is true to 
 His promise, that He is present in the midst of His 
 people. Let us now endeavour to determine the nature 
 of that eternal presence. 
 
 In the first place, that presence is spiritual. Some 
 deny this, and tell us that they only can feel the presence 
 of Christ who find it in the consecrated host, in the holy 
 
202 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 victim descending upon the altar at the word of the 
 jDriest. 
 
 You all know the bewitching charms by which this 
 opinion is surrounded. Here is a cathedral open for a 
 solemn communion. The crowds gather into it and press 
 even to the very altar ; the service begins ; the Liturgy 
 slowly unfolds the successive acts of the religious drama. 
 Incense fills the air, the majestic notes of the organ peal 
 forth beneath the arched roof, and the imagination becomes 
 insensibly softened by this grand spectacle. All at once 
 there is a dead silence, the priest utters a creative word, 
 and the host is transformed into the adorable God. 
 Immediately the choir strikes up the solemn chants of 
 Ave vcrum corpus or Salutaris hostia. The Christ has 
 descended, and the soul, overpowered by these inward 
 emotions and sensible impressions, loses itself in a re- 
 ligious fervour, 
 
 A short distance off, in an upper chamber, a few be- 
 lievers are gathered together. Here nothing speaks to 
 the senses or inflames the imagination ; such, no doubt, 
 in its primitive simplicity, did the worship of the Church 
 at its birth appear to the heathen world. In this 
 assembly there are men who have placed their hope in 
 Jesus Christ, and who, trusting in His promises, have 
 come to call upon His name. His Word resounds in its 
 sublime simplicity such as the publicans of Galilee heard 
 it eighteen centuries ago. It seeks the unpardoned 
 sinner in the refuge where he has sheltered his miser}^ 
 His conscience is seized, and no outward impression is 
 there to dispel or alter the emotion he feels. In this 
 place, let souls thus stirred repent and address to the 
 Saviour a cry of firm confidence, they will soon hear His 
 pardoning voice, and, celebrating their deliverance, they 
 will exclaim : " The Lord indeed was with us." 
 
 Well, of these two emotions, which was the true ? 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 203 
 
 Where was the Lord, upon the altar or in the upper 
 chamber ? He was wherever sincere believers invoked 
 His name, and doubtless many souls that ardently 
 called upon Him have found Him at the altar while 
 communicating there ; but will you deny that the 
 believers in the upper chamber, who have been en- 
 lightened, sanctified, comforted by His Word, and who 
 have tasted His grace, will you deny that they also have 
 felt His presence ? Now, if they have felt it, it is 
 because that presence is spiritual ; it is because, at the 
 altar, as well as in the upper room, it depends neither 
 upon a material rite nor upon a magical word ; it is 
 because it manifests itself wherever souls are found that 
 liungjer and thirst after righteousness and truth. 
 
 But if we affirm that the presence of Jesus Christ is 
 spiritual, that it manifests itself to the soul and not to 
 the senses, you must not think, however, that we look 
 upon it as a vague and imaginary thing. The Christ 
 whose presence w^e claim is not an ideal being, the off- 
 spring of our transitory emotions, a sort of humanitarian 
 Messiah, whom each successive generation has remoulded 
 in its own image, and to whom it has ascribed the 
 language of its own particular aspirations. The Christ 
 upon whose name we call is the Christ of the Gospels 
 and of the Epistles, the Christ of St. Peter, of St. Paul, 
 and St. John ; such as they beheld Him, we behold 
 Him now ; the words which fell from His lips now 
 reach our ears ; He is ever the same, in Him there is no 
 shadow of change. His disciples of the nineteenth 
 century hear and understand Him just as well as those 
 of the first. St. Paul claimed this fundamental equality 
 for all when, renouncing the advantages which his 
 Jewish origin and his relationship with Jesus according 
 to the fiesh might have given him over his proselytes, 
 he says : " Though we have known Christ after the 
 
204 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 llesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." In 
 fact, it is by His Word that Jesus communicates Him- 
 self to all ; it is by His Word that men may lay hold 
 upon Him, see Him, and hear Him without fear of ever 
 being deceived. 
 
 Is that all ? Is it only by His Word that Jesus 
 reveals to us His presence ? No ; for in that case He 
 would share this characteristic with every man of genius 
 who leaves behind him the luminous traces of his 
 thoughts. In fact, we may safely say of Plato or 
 Cffisar, of Mahomet or Voltaire, that, though long since 
 dead, they still speak ; though separated from our period 
 by the distance of centuries, they still act more power- 
 fully upon the world than the great majority of the 
 living. 
 
 Now there is infinitely more than this in the presence 
 of Christ. Beneath the written Word there is the living 
 Word ; there is the invisible Saviour, who manifests 
 Himself to the heart in such a manner that when I say 
 He is present, I employ this expression in its most 
 simple and literal meaning, as a child would do. It is 
 in this sense that we may speak of the real presence of 
 Christ, and it is indeed that presence which He has 
 promised to the Church. Here the thought which I 
 had expressed at the beginning of this discourse comes 
 back to me with new force. Suppose a Christ who will 
 be a mere creature, and, however great you may picture 
 Him, His presence will be but a figure, a vain meta- 
 phor, for on no account will you be able to ascribe to 
 Him the Omnipresence which belongs to God alone. 
 He will be present in your midst by His memory, by 
 His example, by the words which He will have left you, 
 that is all ; as to calling upon Him or believing that He 
 draws near to you, and interferes in your destinies, this 
 will be out of the question. On the contrary, accept 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 205 
 
 the Christ of the gospel, God the Saviour, and you will 
 believe in His presence in the true sense of the word. 
 Henceforth how everything changes in the Church and 
 in your own life. The place in which you have called 
 upon Him becomes a sanctuary for you, although it may 
 have neither priest nor altar ; the holy communion is 
 no longer a vain and formal memorial, but the rendez- 
 vous where you meet the Saviour of your souls ; all that 
 the Scriptures reveal to you of the Father's love, and of 
 the kindness of the Good Shepherd who seeks His wan- 
 dering sheep, and guards His faithful flock, ceases to be 
 an allegory, and becomes a reality which is accomplished 
 in your life. He is present in your existence, present 
 in happiness as well as in affliction, present in your 
 solitary chamber as well as in the sanctuary, present in 
 your busy hours as well as in the inactivity of sickness, 
 yes, present, though invisible, until the day when you 
 shall see Him " face to face," and when you shall find 
 in His presence fulness of joy and pleasures for ever- 
 more. 
 
 Such is the teaching of the gospel concerning the 
 presence of Jesus in the midst of His people. That 
 presence, in the words before us, is particularly promised 
 to the Church : " Go, instruct all nations ; a7id lo, I am 
 with you alway." But I will not be unfaithful to my 
 text if I affirm that the same promise is addressed to 
 each Christian soul. Let us devote a few moments to 
 the study of these words in their twofold application. 
 
 Jesus is present in the Church ; " I am with you 
 alway." The Church, ah ! that is indeed the skiff which 
 is in constant danger of being swallowed up by the angry 
 sea, but which always weathers the storm, for she bears 
 Jesus Christ. See her in the first years of her life. 
 What a formidable coalition ! What dangers, what 
 hatred, what threats ! All the powers of earth are 
 
2o6 TUE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 leagued against her — science, priesthood, royalty, wealth, 
 and, above all, corruption. The Church is about to dis- 
 appear. No, on the contrary, it is then that she conquers 
 the most souls, it is then that she sends her missionaries 
 far and wide, it is then that she rises out of each of 
 these baptisms of blood decked with fresh youth, strength, 
 and immortality. Jesus is with her. But later she will 
 aim at becoming a temporal power, she will cover her- 
 self with the royal purple ; pompous and magnificent she 
 will wear the triple crown, and it will seem as though 
 she had denied her crucified King. What, then, do I 
 see ? What becomes of that Church ? It is in the 
 very hour when her triumph seems sure that her strength 
 forsakes her. It is then that all the cities in which Paul 
 had preached, in wdiicli the first prayers and hymns had 
 been heard, are brought under the yoke of the infidels ; 
 it is then that the Cross, uprooted in Asia and Africa, 
 seems on the point of disappearing from Europe itself. 
 Nothing short of this formidable trial was required to 
 teach the Church that her strength is derived from no 
 earthly support, but that it lies entirely in the invisible 
 presence of her Divine Head. 
 
 " I am with you alway." He has raised her, that 
 Church, each time that, fainting and overpowered, she 
 has called upon Him. And He will always raise her. 
 I see other storms threatening her to-day. I see a proud 
 and scornful unbelief like a freezing wind sweeping down 
 upon her from the heights of science ; I see it uniting 
 with materialism, which rises from the low grounds. 
 The storm is approaching, it falls upon the vessel of the 
 Church, it rends her sails and shivers her masts. I hear 
 faithless disciples exclaiming, "Master, Master, we perish!" 
 We perish, brethren, and why ? Is He not there, He 
 who has promised His presence ? Do you think that He 
 who triumphed over the old world is unable to conquer 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 207 
 
 the new ? Do you think that He who from the Cross 
 confounded the wisdom of Greece and the materialism 
 of Eome, will be incapable of confounding the sophists 
 and scoffers of modern times ? He is with us. Do you 
 think that unbelief is powerful enough to blot out that 
 grand, figure ? Do you think it will ever succeed in 
 ridding itself of Jesus Christ ? As for me, I am tranquil; 
 I wait until I see all the human explanations and systems 
 break against the person of Christ as the waves of the 
 sea dash powerlessly against the granite rocks of our 
 coasts. I know that they will probably shake our 
 reasonings, trouble our theology, break up all the human 
 props by which we, men of little faith, had thought to 
 sustain Him who sustains all things. But I am tranquil, 
 for the Christ is with us. Yes, the storm is terrific, and 
 sometimes we are utterly overpowered by it. . . . Yes, 
 we are feeble, feeble in science, in faith, in holiness ; yes, 
 in our ranks there are defections which distress us, and 
 betrayals which make our hearts bleed. . . . Oh, my 
 God ! on the side of the earth everything fails us, but 
 Thou art with us, and that is enough. . . . Thou hast 
 conquered by means which confound us. Thou hast con- 
 quered under the shame of Nazareth, of Gethsemane, 
 of Golgotha. Divine Head of the Church, Thou hast 
 ^iven us the humiliation, wilt Thou not also oive us the 
 victory ? 
 
 " I am with you alway." But methinks I hear an 
 objection which rises in the minds of many who hear 
 me. They admit that Jesus Christ may be present in a 
 humbled and persecuted Church, for He has foretold that 
 humiliations and attacks would be its lot upon earth ; 
 but that which causes them to doubt the reality of His 
 presence is the sight of the inward condition of the 
 Church itself. They see the Christian family divided ; 
 they see the different communions separated by an ever- 
 
2o8 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 widening gulf, iu presence of the world which rejoices at 
 this state of things. They see, in the very Churches to 
 which we belong, the most deplorable dissensions. Or, 
 what is sadder still, they see religious indifference spread- 
 ing over souls like a dull and icy mist ; prayer, zeal, and 
 faith are gradually dying away in the approaching night ; 
 nothing is heard save the monotonous sounds of a formal 
 worship. Here and there, on the gloomy background of 
 the general darkness, a few devoted lives stand out soli- 
 tarily and cast forth a light which, alas ! is soon quenched. 
 Oh ! how is it possible then to believe in the presence of 
 Christ ? 
 
 Yet we must believe in it, and our belief must be 
 all the stronger that nothing seems to proclaim it. We 
 must believe in it, because when Jesus promised His 
 presence to the Church, He knew tliat it would be made 
 lip of men such as we are, and He foresaw its faintings, 
 its languor, and its falls. 
 
 Some of you, perhaps, have of the Church a magnifi- 
 cent ideal. You picture it to yourselves freed from the 
 bondage of the world, conquering by faith and love. I 
 rejoice at this if that hope fills you with a holy ambition, 
 if you endeavour to realise that dream of your soul ; but, 
 on the contrary, I grieve, if, feeding your mind upon the 
 picture of that imaginary Church, you cease to believe 
 that the Lord is in the real Church to which you belong, 
 and whose wounds and sufferings you deplore with so 
 much reason. Ilemember what was the Church at its 
 origin, when it was composed only of disciples directly 
 chosen by Jesus Himself. What do I see in the upper 
 room ? . . . Disciples who will soon desert their Master, 
 a Peter who will deny and a Judas who will betray Him. 
 Is it for nought that the Word of God has placed that 
 spectacle under our eyes ? Remember those apostolical 
 churches to which the Epistles were addressed. What 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 209 
 
 agitations, what dissensions, what falls, what scandals ! 
 And yet the Lord was there. . . . Yes, those pangs of 
 anguisli which the state of the Church causes you have 
 been felt at other epochs. At the close of the Middle 
 Ages, in that fifteenth century when such thick darkness 
 enveloped the world, when, from the pontifical throne to 
 the lowest monastery, the most frightful scandals dis- 
 honoured the Gospel, it seemed for a moment as though 
 all beliefs were about to be swallowed up in universal 
 doubt. Then many a pious soul, shut up within the 
 convent cell, wept and groaned. " Christ ! " they cried, 
 " where art Thou ? Has Thy glory disappeared for 
 ever ? Eeturn and visit Thy Church once more." 
 Many books of that period bear traces of those bitter 
 tears. And yet Christ was there, and the hour was 
 drawing near when His Gospel, translated by the hand 
 of a monk, would enlighten the world. . , . And who 
 can tell, men of little faith ! that we are not on the 
 eve of one of those solemn epochs in which the all- 
 producing Spirit will renew the earth ? Those secular 
 structures which are crumbling into dust, that religious 
 agitation which seizes upon so many minds, those new 
 empires which open to the Gospel, and especially that 
 universal yearning after a revival, those increasing aspira- 
 tions of the Christian world which seems anew to believe 
 in the efficacy of prayer, — are not those so many proofs of 
 the presence of the invisible Head of the Church ? are not 
 those so many voices by which He tells us, " Lo, I am 
 with you alway " ? 
 
 He is ever with us ; He is here. He descends wher- 
 ever two or three hearts call upon Him. Consequently, 
 when I enter a Christian pulpit, I who would gladly sit 
 in the lowest place among the least ; when, from the 
 midst of my weakness, I give testimony to the truth, 
 and when, at the thought of the many human, petty, and 
 
 
 
2IO THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 miserable feelings which mingle with this solemn mission, 
 I would fain close my lips, then this wondrous promise 
 raises my courage : " The Lord is here." He is here, 
 and that is the source of all our strength and hope. He 
 is here, He who calls Himself the Way, the Truth, and 
 the Life. He is here. He the supreme Preacher. He is 
 here. He the Master of hearts and consciences. He is 
 here, and we may direct our souls to Him ; and when 
 our feehle and powerless voice becomes obedient to His, 
 when our Avisdom becomes His wisdom, our testimony 
 His testimony, our word His word, then whatever we 
 bind upon earth is bound in heaven ; then to those to 
 whom we remit sins, their sins will be remitted ; then 
 our authority becomes the grandest and most solemn 
 thing in the world; for, above the man, above the 
 preacher who will soon disappear, there is the Christ, 
 who reigns for ever and ever. " Lo, I am with you 
 alway." 
 
 This promise, therefore, is made to the Church, but it 
 is also made to each individual soul ; it is to each of us 
 that Christ has promised His presence, and His presence 
 unto the end. Alas ! how small is the number of those 
 who realise this most consoling of all promises ; and if 
 I could read in your hearts, how many doubts would 
 be raised by this one question : " Is the Lord with 
 you?" 
 
 How can He be with us, many who hear me will 
 perhaps say, since He leaves us exposed to so many 
 afflictions, since trials are allowed to fall continually upon 
 us ? Where are those cares of His providence which 
 attest His presence ? Where are those unexpected de- 
 liverances, those prayers answered, those signs by which 
 men recognise that He is with them ? Behold, we had 
 placed in Him all our confidence, and, in many cases, 
 everything has failed us. Misfortune has followed us 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 211 
 
 unremittingly, and we have been distinguished from tlie 
 rest of our fellow-men only by the blows which have 
 struck us again and again. 
 
 Wlien we hear words like these, when we see how 
 many souls are led to doubt through trial, when we 
 perceive how murmuring — that forerunner of unbelief — 
 easily comes to our lips, can we still deny that there is 
 in our heart a mercenary instinct which seeks its own 
 interest even in love ? And when, I answer, have you 
 seen in the Gospel that, in calling us to His service, 
 Jesus Christ has promised us the blessings of earth, the 
 favour of men, whatever our heart desires ? Hear Him, 
 rather, declaring that through much affliction heaven is 
 entered, and that through sorrow He will make us par- 
 takers of His holiness. You find in the blows that strike 
 you the proof that God forgets you ; and I, on the con- 
 trary, resting upon the Scriptures, find in them the proof 
 that He loves you, and wishes to save you. This is so 
 true that if you could point out to me a man whom no 
 affliction has ever reached, a man whose entire existence 
 has been one tissue of unbroken prosperity, I would 
 tremble at the thought of such a man's future, for it 
 would seem to me as if God had abandoned him. Trial 
 is the Divine educator. " Blessed are they that mourn," 
 saith the Lord. Yes, as Isaiah says, their name is written 
 on the palm of His hand, when that hand strikes as well 
 as when it blesses. You desired to settle upon the earth, 
 to sit down in cool and shady places, to drink peacefully 
 at the spring which gushed forth at your feet. " March 
 on ! " says the Divine Voice, and the shadow is dispelled 
 by the burning rays of the sun, and the stream is dried 
 up. Onward through the wilderness ! Onward thou, 
 the redeemed of the Lord ! Stranger and traveller ! take 
 up the pilgrim's staff once more ; follow that mysterious 
 voice; it calls thee ; it is the voice of the Lord. He calls 
 
212 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 thee whither He Himself has preceded thee. He is with 
 thee ahvay. 
 
 Yes, you will answer, yes, affliction may be a proof of 
 the presence of the Lord. We understand this, for it 
 often sanctifies. But is it so with that mysterious state 
 through which I am now passing ? Can I believe that 
 the Lord is there when my soul is dried up, and when 
 nothing can restore life to it, when my faith cannot take 
 its flight, when the realities of heaven float before my 
 eyes like dim phantoms, and when the promises of God 
 no longer awake the slightest joy in my soul ? Ah ! the 
 presence of the Lord ! I have felt it once, and then how 
 easy was everything to me ! Then faith gave me wings, 
 prayer rose ardent irom my heart ; but to-day, even those 
 words which you are explaining are meaningless to my 
 soul. 
 
 Meaningless ! Are you sure of this ? What then is 
 that sadness which fills your soul when you utter these 
 words ? Meaningless ! disciples of Emmaus, you think 
 that the Lord has left you for ever, and you are uncon- 
 scious of the truth that He is journeying by your side 
 till the blessed moment when He will reveal to you His 
 presence. Meaningless ! you who think you have lost 
 your God, and who grope for Him, as it were, do you not 
 hear what He says to you by the mouth of Pascal : " Thou 
 wouldst not seek Me thus if thou hadst not already 
 found Me ? " But this presence leaves you in darkness ! 
 Listen ! 
 
 In the gloomy days of winter, no tree waves its ver- 
 dant top in our fields, no floM'er gives its perfume to the 
 winds ; everything in nature seems to be dead. Yet will 
 you say that the sun has not risen ? No ; althougli it has 
 disappeared behind a curtain of clouds, its powerful action 
 is felt everywhere, and without this sun which you do 
 not see, nought would remain but an icy shroud, and the 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 213 
 
 frightful obscurity of an endless niglit. Bretliren, tlie 
 soul also has its winters, in which the Sun of Pdghteous- 
 ness sheds upon it only a pale and feeble glimmer, in 
 which heaven is veiled, in which obedience brings no 
 joy, in which the biting wind of discouragement pierces 
 and freezes us through and through. I know that 
 these seasons are often forgotten in tliose theories of the 
 Christian life framed after a system, and according to 
 which everything for the believer should be joy, peace, 
 and light. But question those who have pictured the 
 heart of man such as the Spirit of God has revealed it to 
 them. Question David and Isaiah. None were ever so 
 completely honoured with the presence of God as they ; 
 and yet, do you know of any book in which the languor, 
 the misery, the anguish, the terror of the soul that feels 
 itself forsaken of God is more vividly portrayed than 
 in those written by their hands ? What language is 
 better fitted than theirs to express the struggles and 
 griefs of your hours of sadness ? Well, those are the 
 men whom the Spirit of God has chosen to be His inter- 
 preters. You who suffer like them, what right have you 
 to say that God is forsaking you ? 
 
 Here we are on the brink of an abyss. I have en- 
 deavoured to reassure your souls ; in order to dispel 
 them, I have brought before you the causes which pre- 
 vent you from feeling the presence of the Lord. Have I 
 said all ? have I said that which it was particularly neces- 
 sary I should say ? No, I have not named the true, the 
 great cause which hides Jesus Christ from our sight. 
 You who complain that heaven vaguely floats before your 
 troubled gaze, and that the figure of Christ is growing dim 
 and disappears, seek to ascertain whence come the clouds 
 which conceal it from you. Whence rise they if not 
 from the impure fountain of sin ? That secret but 
 ardent worship of your own glory, that feverish pursuit 
 
214 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 of fortune or of an exalted position, that current of affairs 
 by which your soul is carried away, that hate and bit- 
 terness in which your lieart shamefully delights, that 
 cowardly compliance with the opinion of others, that 
 love of dissipation, of dress and of worldly frivolity, those 
 tolerated and fondly cherished passions, those guilty bonds 
 which you are unwilling to break, these are the clouds 
 which blind you and which prevent you from realising the 
 presence of the Lord. 
 
 Do you recollect, on the contrary, those calm and 
 blessed hours in which, like the apostles on Mount 
 Tabor, you have beheld the Saviour face to face ? How 
 lovely did His Divine countenance then appear to you, 
 and with what rapture did your eyes rest upon it ! But 
 those hours had not appeared in your life like an unex- 
 pected flash of lightning; prayer had prepared them, fidelity 
 had produced them. Then indeed you felt the truth of 
 these words, " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
 see God." Sanctification, this then is the narrow path 
 which leads to the summits where Christ manifests Him- 
 self to the soul. No, it is not, as some have believed, to 
 imaginations lost in ecstasy that this vision of God, the 
 sweetness of which saints liave sung, has been jDromised ; 
 it is to sanctified souls. You who complain at having 
 lost the Saviour, do you not see that He is there, waiting 
 for you in the spot where you well know must be com- 
 pleted the sacrifice which you have hitherto refused to 
 make ? He is waiting for you, not in the midst of your 
 comforts and joys, but in the stern solitude of abnega- 
 tion. He is waiting for you in the narrow way which 
 you have left, and in which you had met Him once ; 
 waiting at the bedside of the poor whom you have for- 
 saken. Be faithful and you will see that He is faithful 
 too, and that He is true to His promise : " I am with 
 you alway." 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 215 
 
 I cannot set aside these sublime words without point- 
 ing out to you the consolations and the duties which flow 
 from them. 
 
 " I am with you," says the Lord, " with you alway, 
 with you unto the end." 
 
 Is there upon earth anything more beautiful than 
 faithful love ? When an attachment which has sprung 
 from two hearts with the sap of youth has outlived all 
 the hopes, all the enchantments of life in its spring-time ; 
 when, strengthened by joys, and still more by common afflic- 
 tions and tears, it has gone on increasing ; when neither the 
 changes of taste and fortune, nor the vexations of every- 
 day life, nor the deceptions of experience, have been able 
 to weaken it ; and when, at the age when everything 
 seems to decay, affection still casts a bright and joyous 
 light, is there not in this spectacle something which raises 
 and honours our wretched humanity ? 
 
 But, great God ! how rare is that spectacle ! How 
 many of our affections have found an early grave ! One 
 has left us with the intoxication of youth ; another has fled 
 before poverty or some other sorrow of life. The more 
 we advance on our way, the fewer they become. And 
 those we loved the best and on whom we relied for the 
 future, where are they ? How many bereavements in 
 the past, and in the future how many separations still ! 
 Oh, if we could but possess a love upon which our heart 
 might rest as on a rock ; if always, at every hour, we 
 could feel its powerful reality, what strength and what 
 consolation would this bring to our life ! " Behold, I am 
 with you alway," is Jesus Christ's reply. Yes, always ; 
 for in Him there is no shadow of variation. Such as He 
 appeared to us for the first time on our path, He still is 
 to-day. We have, perhaps, followed to their last resting- 
 place the beings we loved, and upon their tombs we have 
 frraven these words : " There is no lastin" affection here 
 
2i6 THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 below ; " but when we were leaving the graveyard to 
 return to the city of the living, the invisible Friend bent 
 down and whispered in our ear : " Behold, I am with 
 you alway," Nothing has kept Him away ; poverty 
 has not banished Him, like so many others ; sickness, 
 bereavement, anguish, which so soon weary earthly friend- 
 ships, have brought Him to our side with greater eager- 
 ness. Nor will death itself alienate Him, for He lias 
 said : " I am with you unto the end." Yes, wlien I shall 
 walk through the valley of darkness, through the valley 
 of the shadow of death ; when earth will have no more 
 consolation or hope for me, He will be there, even there. 
 Then take thy flight, my soul ! and since all earthly 
 things grow dim and change, attach thyself for ever to 
 Him from whom nothing will be able to separate thee. 
 And you, my brother, my sister, who are journeying 
 alone in the unheeding crowd ; you who, in the midst of 
 an agitated life, so keenly feel the inward void which 
 nought that is earthly can fill, let this promise gladden 
 your hearts : " Behold, I am with you alway." 
 
 Those are the consolations ; here are the duties. 
 Brethren, if Jesus were here to-day, where would He 
 lead you ? Into that worldly and frivolous society 
 which is perhaps waiting for you ? Beside those whose 
 lives grieve Him ? Could you, in His presence, still share 
 in their guilty pleasures ? Could you find any joy in 
 the company of men who would regard Him with in- 
 difference ? Could you meanly crave their approbation ? 
 Could you run in the way of temptation, seek that which 
 flatters your vanity or your passions, read that book 
 which will taint your soul ? In a word, could you 
 persevere a single day longer in a life which God con- 
 demns ? Let your conscience answer ! 
 
 If Jesus were here to-day, where would He lead you ? 
 Where did He go when He was upon earth ? "Where 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 217 
 
 'would He conduct you now ? To humble and obscure 
 duties. Not to the broad way of pride, but to the narrow 
 way of obedience ; not to enjoyment, but to sacriiice ; 
 not to glory, but to humility ; not to an earthly crown, 
 but to the Cross. He would lead you to the poor, to the 
 sick, wlio are, it may be, waiting for you ; to that broken 
 heart that has need of you ; to all those sorrows which 
 He would have you understand and comfort. Go, 
 brethren, wherever He calls you. To-day in humilia- 
 tion, to-morrow in glory ; but in humiliation as well as 
 in glorv, with Him, ever with Him ! 
 
( 2l8 ) 
 
 XII. 
 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 "For Herod had laid hold on John, and hound him, and put him in 
 prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's Avife ; for John 
 said unto him. It is not lawful for thee to have her." — ]Matt. 
 xiv. 3, 4. 
 
 At the very threshold of the Gospel we meet the stern 
 and grand figure of the forerunner of Jesus Christ. 
 John the Baptist is the man of the desert. Until the 
 day when he commences his mission, he has dwelt in 
 solitude in the wilderness ; far from the artificial society 
 of men, far from the cold, empty, and formal religion 
 which reigned in Jerusalem, he has developed himself ; 
 in the unbroken silence of the boundless waste, in the 
 presence of Jehovah alone, his soul has grown strong. 
 No wonder then that, when he appears, when his voice is 
 heard for the first time, men recognise in him a being 
 on whom the world has no power, and who can all the 
 more efficiently act upon it that he is so thoroughly 
 detached from it. 
 
 Do you see him, with his gaunt and emaciated frame, 
 the result of frequent and protracted fasts, bronzed by the 
 Eastern sun, and clothed like the poorest of the poor ? 
 Do you hear his burning, terrible, and implacable words 
 falling like a sharp axe upon all the iniquities which 
 come under his notice ? Nothing stops him. He speaks 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 219 
 
 the truth to all : to great and lowly, to rich and poor, to 
 priests and publicans. At one blow he shivers all that is 
 mere appearance, hypocrisy, or vain ostentation, and un- 
 veils the corruption that lies in the depth of the human 
 heart. To all he proclaims the holy and terrible God, 
 the Judge whom none can escape ; he points to the 
 horizon where the coming day of vengeance already 
 dawns ; he crushes the souls that resist, and promises 
 pardon only to the sinner who, terror-stricken, humbly 
 craves the baptism of rej^entance. 
 
 Truly that mission was grand and formidable. Think 
 of all the hatred which was silently gathering against 
 him. But here is a danger for the prophet which 
 is far more real still — it is the peril of success. His 
 instructions are listened to everywhere and seem to be 
 gladly received ; his name produces a magical sensation 
 throughout the country. All are shaken by his voice ; 
 the desert is covered "with long trains of pilgrims, "who 
 come from Galilee, from Judea, and especially from 
 Jerusalem. The priests at first murmur and rage; the 
 stronger minds, the Sadducees, simply sneer ; but the 
 movement increases and becomes irresistible. Priests and 
 Sadducees must needs join in it and come to the Jordan 
 in their turn. Herod himself is stirred ; he, the ac- 
 complislied sceptic and libertine, is astonished at the 
 appearance of this strange preacher ; he is anxious to hear 
 him. He calls him, says the historian Josephus, to his 
 pahace of Machserus, and there he surrounds him with 
 marks of esteem and distinction. 
 
 Now, it is easy enough to attack the world so long as 
 one is a complete stranger to it ; it is easy to humble the 
 great of the earth so long as one is wholly independent 
 of them ; it is easy to point out the miseries and vices 
 of a class of individuals from wdiom one expects nothing. 
 Lut inquire of history ; in each of its pages it will tell 
 
220 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 you how fearful is the snare of success, of popularity, of 
 jjublic favour and Hattery, and how many brave and 
 noble souls have foundered upon this reef. What then 
 are the future destinies of that prophet, who, at thirty 
 years of age, has seen, in the space of a few weeks, a 
 whole nation humble itself at his word, and a king him- 
 self load him with favours ? That is the picture which 
 I would place before your eyes to-day. I would show 
 you in John the Baptist a court preacher such as the 
 world had never seen before ; with you I would learn 
 from his example what it is to be a witness of the truth 
 in the world. 
 
 In the court of Herod the prophet had witnessed the 
 most shameful disorder. The king lived in open adultery 
 with his brother's wife. This brother, named Philip, had 
 formerly been disgraced and deprived of all command. 
 Herodias, his wife, had been unwilling to share his de- 
 gradation ; as ambitious as she was depraved, she had 
 deserted him to attach herself to Herod. She had soon 
 been raised to the rank of queen, and now exhibited 
 upon the throne all the scandal of her misconduct. 
 
 This Herod (surnamed Antipas) was not the monster 
 of iniquity which popular imagination has made of him ; 
 he was a weak and sensual man, given up to his passions, 
 but susceptible of nobler feelings. When he had taken 
 an interest in John, he had not acted a part; the words 
 of the prophet had stirred his soul. Mark tells us that 
 they had troubled him.^ " He heard him gladly," he 
 adds, but without reforming his conduct. His conscience 
 spoke, doubtless, reproaching him with his shameful life, 
 and with the demoralising example he gave his people. 
 But he reassured himself with the thought that he was 
 
 ^ See Mark vi. 20: "Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just 
 man, and a holy, and protected him ; and when he heard him, he was 
 often troubled, and heard him gladly." Here I have followed the text 
 adopted by M. A. Rilliet (i77r6/3ei, instead of iiroki.). 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 221 
 
 protecting a man of God, a holy prophet, and that, at any 
 hour, he could ask counsel of him. 
 
 Men who are completely hardened are rare ; the 
 greater part, while enjoying the delights of sin, hope to 
 give it up sooner or later. There are times when the 
 shame of evil seizes them, when they are weary of their 
 life, when they are supremely disgusted with themselves, 
 when they are terrified, it may be. Nothing, then, re- 
 assures them more fully than the feeling that they have 
 within their reach a means of salvation, a refuge. You 
 do not know all that passes in the heart of man, all that 
 lies concealed beneath the veil of frivolity, all that con- 
 science speaks in the hours when dissipation is impossible. 
 Herod, the debauchee, is glad to have John the Baptist 
 near him. Ah ! is he not aware that he is entering upon 
 a perilous path ? Does he not know that the warnings of 
 God are not to be trifled with, and that if they touch 
 not the heart they harden it ? Does he not know that if 
 the Divine light does not enlighten, it blinds ; that we 
 must either love it or hate it more and more, and that 
 in this terrible game of chance we are risking our eternal 
 future ? In short, does he not see that, when he offers 
 the prophet a refuge, it is a prison he is preparing for 
 him, until, at last, he will give him an executioner ? 
 
 What will John the Baptist do ? What would he 
 have done had he taken counsel only of human prudence ? 
 And we, what should we have done in his place ? Only 
 think ; he is in favour with Herod. What greater mis- 
 take could he make than openly to oppose the monarch 
 who protects him ? It is best, many a wise counsellor 
 would doubtless have said, it is best to use caution, and 
 to take into consideration characters and circumstances. 
 Eecollect how Herod had been brought up, and what 
 demoralising influences had surrounded him. Eemember 
 the pollution which his father's court had presented to 
 
222 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 his youtli. Eetiect upon the force of habit, upon the 
 intoxication of royalty. Besides, a great result has 
 already been obtained. Herod has given you his confi- 
 dence. Shoukl you not acknowledge the hand of God 
 Himself in your sudden and unexpected exaltation ? 
 Does not God call you thereby to exercise the widest 
 and best influence, to act the part of intercessor for your 
 oppressed people, to render the yoke of the stranger more 
 easy to bear ? Ah ! who can tell if He does not mean 
 you to assure an efficient protection for His worship ? 
 Who can tell if you are not destined to be the instrument 
 He will use to raise His altars, and prepare the approach- 
 incr reign of the Messiah ? In order to obtain such grand 
 results, can you not put up with much ? Will you, by 
 a hasty or impatient word, overthrow the designs of 
 God? 
 
 Yes, such has been the reasoning of court preachers at 
 almost every epoch. Thus they spoke in the court of Con- 
 stantine, and that was why they fell so low as to deify tliis 
 murderer of his own son. Thus they spoke, alas ! in the 
 sixteenth century at the court of Henry VIIL, whilst 
 that monarch sullied the English Eeformation with his in- 
 famies. Thus they spoke at the court of Philip of Hesse, 
 and thus was Luther led, in an hour of weakness, to pal- 
 liate, in a most cowardly manner, the vices of that prince. 
 Thus they spoke in the court of Louis XIV., where Bos- 
 suet, who on this point had been so severe against Luther 
 himself, found scarce a courageous word to iitter in pre- 
 sence of scandals far more crying still. Thus Massillon 
 quieted his conscience at the Eegent's court. . . . Thus, 
 on the free soil of America, in presence of negro slavery, 
 and of all the infamy which accompanied it, thousands of 
 ministers of the Gospel long remained silent or spoke 
 only of peace, endurance, modei'ation, until at length a 
 fearful thunder-clap roused their sleeping consciences. 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 223 
 
 ... Oh ! deplorable seduction of the world's favour ! 
 That is why dishonoured religion has had Te Deums in 
 honour of all the happy strokes of skilful policy, absolu- 
 tions for all manner of scandals ; that is why it is still 
 so miserably compromised in all the complications of 
 human politics, when alone, and without any other sup- 
 port than its intriusic truth, it would, perhaps, have won 
 the world over to Jesus Christ. 
 
 Ah ! not thus did they act, those men of the ancient 
 dispensation whom God called to be His witnesses. ISTot 
 that royal favour was refused to them, for oft would a 
 high price have willingly been paid by kings and princes 
 to obtain their silence. . . . Moses was brought up in 
 Pharaoh's court, but it was to say to that monarch, " Let 
 the Lord's people go." Nathan came to the court of 
 David, but it was to denounce his adultery and his murder 
 in these bold words : " Thou art the man." Elijah was 
 introduced into the court of Ahab, but it was to say to 
 him, " It is thou that troublest Israel." Micah was sent 
 to the same prince, but it was to warn him of his approach- 
 ing fall. Jehu came to the court of Jehoram, but it was 
 with this question: "What peace is there with the wicked?" 
 Daniel and Nehemiah lived at the court of the greatest of 
 Eastern monarchs, but it was to be the witnesses of justice, 
 and to mourn over the fate of the people of God. 
 
 Well, thou heir of all these prophets, John the 
 Baptist ! what wilt thou say to that Herod who loads 
 thee with his favours ? Hear the narrative of Scripture. 
 " John said to the king. It is not lawful for thee to 
 have thy brother's wife." What simple yet firm words ! 
 There is no hesitancy, no ambiguity. The prophet 
 might have alleged the honour of the prince, the scandal 
 caused by his conduct, the interest of the throne, all 
 those reasons of utility which, in many cases, prove so 
 effective. But that is not what preoccupies him. " It 
 
224 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 is not lawful for thee." John looks directly to God ; it 
 is His glory which forces him to speak. He might have 
 fulfilled his mission in another way, and have saved his 
 life. He might have quitted the palace with display, 
 denounced in presence of all the scandals of Herodias, 
 and excited against her the anger of the multitude. 
 Then a wonderful popularity would have been the reward 
 of the brave denunciator. Thus doubtless would have 
 acted many a tribune of the people, and this kind of 
 courage is not rare. At all times the vices of the great 
 have been the principal cause of the discontent of the 
 masses ; at all times those who have aimed at ingra- 
 tiating themselves with the people have attained their 
 end by simply touching that chord. But seek the true 
 motive of this virtuous indignation, what will you often 
 find it to be ? The mere selfish desire of self-advance- 
 ment. Such men are vigorous in their attacks, expecting 
 thereby to prove their independence towards the great, 
 but they more often prove their servility by the very 
 manner in which they make themselves the echoes of 
 popular passion. But John the Baptist in presence of 
 the people has been silent concerning the corruption 
 whicli has distressed his heart. His attitude is unstudied, 
 he is utterly unmindful of the effect he will produce ; 
 alone, before Herod, frankly and loyally he tells him, " It 
 is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." 
 
 Note one more feature in his fidelity : there are many 
 harsh and pitiless characters who have no difficulty 
 whatever in casting at their fellows the most bitter 
 truths. Some would perhaps be inclined to place John 
 the Baptist in this category. This were indeed a great 
 mistake. Notwithstanding his authority, John possessed 
 extreme delicacy of sentiment, and I know not if religious 
 history contains any more touching words than those 
 which he uttered when his disciples left him to follow 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 225 
 
 Jesiis Christ, " He that hath the bride is the bridegroom, 
 but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and 
 heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's 
 voice : this my joy therefore is fulfilled ; He must in- 
 crease, but I must decrease." Oh, when I think of that 
 sublime humility, how deeply struck am I with these 
 noble words, " It is not lawful for thee to have thy 
 brother's wife " ! He knows that this speech will change 
 the king's favour into hate. It matters not. " It is 
 not lawful" He knows that henceforth his life is im- 
 perilled. He knows that Herodias thirsts for his blood. 
 Again, it matters not. " It is not lawful." You who 
 have experienced how much of cowardly fear lurks in 
 the human heart, tell us if you know of a nobler 
 heroism than this, and learn of John the Baptist what it 
 is to bear testimony to the truth. 
 
 That, brethren, is the lesson which this narrative is 
 meant to teach us. The examples which the Scriptures 
 set before us are not vain pictures, destined simply to 
 stir our imagination ; they are appeals and warnings 
 addressed to all Christians. To all, 1 say, and I insist 
 upon that word. When men are called to bear testi- 
 mony to the truth, they are not slow in saying or think- 
 ing that this is the business of preachers. They most 
 willingly lay this duty upon them. Alas ! how few 
 there are who discharge it faithfully, with a view, not to 
 please, but to warn consciences ; not to succeed, but to 
 alarm souls unto salvation ! And yet we must acknow- 
 ledge that in our day this mission is not very perilous. 
 All the world knows that he who ascends the pulpit must 
 not do so simply to flatter and deceive souls. If he boldly 
 denounces evil, everybody will readily admit that he has 
 strictly performed his duty. People will forgive him ; 
 nay, more, they expect this of him. They willingly en- 
 courage him, and the most worldly-minded v/ill listen 
 
 P 
 
226 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 with interest to words which no one would have the right 
 to utter elsewhere ; they will even find in them a keen 
 delight, an actual interest, which will contrast with the 
 ordinary and monotonous tone of the traditional sermon. 
 Noble courage, forsooth, is that which consists in saying 
 from the pulpit what all the world expects of us ! This 
 costs but little effort, brethren ; but may not that be the 
 very reason why our words produce so little efiiect ? We 
 mourn over the apparent inutility of preaching. When 
 we reflect that, Sabbath after Sabbath, in hundreds of 
 churches, the Holy Word is heard, we are confounded at 
 the inanity of the results obtained by so great a display 
 of efforts and energy. What may be the cause of this 
 sorrowful fact, but that preaching being for most men a 
 mere matter of habit and conventionalism, it astonishes 
 and alarms no one ? It is understood that one day in 
 the week a man is empowered for the space of one 
 hour to attack the morals of his time, and to tell his 
 hearers that they are bringing u2:)on themselves the wrath 
 of God. This language is considered as most natural in 
 his mouth. Should anybody else venture to use it, men 
 would take offence, but it is universally admitted that all 
 license is granted to the pulpit. This is a state of things 
 which we cannot accept. We want something more tlian 
 mere preaching. We want, apart from the pulpit, firm, 
 frank, courageous men, who will not be afraid openly to 
 speak the truth. Is it in a discourse, and by means of 
 vague and general figures, that John the Baptist pictures 
 the scandals of Herod's court ? Had it been so, he might 
 perhaps have been forgiven. The courtiers would have 
 said, " He has spoken as a prophet should ; he has done 
 his duty ; " and, doubtless, they would have thought no 
 more of it. But that which troubles and disquiets and 
 irritates, that which is unpardonable, is that an intruder 
 should directly, face to face, without the slightest orato- 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 227 
 
 rical preparation, say to Herod, as of old Nathan said to 
 David, " Thou art the man." That, brethren, is what I 
 call being a witness of the trnth. Well, it is your 
 business as well as mine to bear that testimony. Who- 
 ever believes in the truth receives from it a Divine inves- 
 titure, a true consecration ; he immediately becomes its 
 witness in the sphere where God has placed him — in 
 public life if God calls him there, in his profession, in 
 the circle of society to which he belongs, or at least in 
 his family. In presence of evil silence is forbidden him. 
 Men must know what is his idea of it ; and if his age, his 
 character, or his position enjoin reserve on his part, even 
 then everything in him should proclaim the truth so 
 forcibly that all who are brought into contact with him 
 will be compelled to hear it. 
 
 That is the preaching which our age requires, which 
 all classes of society have need of; and I add at once, 
 because my text leads me to it, that is the preaching 
 which the higher classes of society must hear. We have 
 seen by what temptations Herod was surrounded, and 
 how well-nigh impossible it was for a word of warn- 
 ing and salvation to reach his ear. Let us not be mis- 
 taken. That is the danger of all elevated positions, of 
 all superiorities of rank, fortune, or intellect. . . . Men 
 speak much to-day of raising the masses, of evangelising 
 the masses, of moralising the masses. . . . Ah ! let them 
 beware lest they lose themselves while pretending to save 
 others ! 
 
 You are all unanimous in condemning sin when it 
 manifests itself under a gross and cynical form ; but 
 there is in the higher spheres of the world I know not 
 what almost unconscious art of veiling evil under graceful 
 appearances and of divesting it of its repulsive character. 
 The very language spoken there helps to render this dis- 
 guise perfect ; the expressions are so delicately moulded 
 
228 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 that they can insinuate everything without ever becom- 
 ing offensive, and sportingly, as it were, pour poison into 
 the trouLled heart. In these circles men breathe a volup- 
 tuous atmosphere of flattery and seduction which dulls and 
 deceives conscience ; the firmest, the purest, cannot avoid 
 it. Vainly do they hope to escape its demoralising in- 
 fluence ; vainly do they pretend to remain firm, to judge 
 of things with impartiality, to discover what those praises, 
 those smiles, that conventional language, what all this art 
 of putting a gloss upon reality is worth. However skil- 
 ful and clear-sighted they may believe themselves, they 
 are caught in the snare, sooner or later. Eeligion itself, 
 which should enlighten conscience, is perverted and dis- 
 figured by the worldly spirit ; in its turn it becomes a 
 matter of fashion and infatuation. Those who are its 
 official representatives and who have charge of souls 
 are often particularly anxious to avoid pointing out the 
 danger. They are happy when they see persons who 
 occupy a high position in society come to them, accept 
 their authority, and bend beneath the yoke of the Church, 
 and they fear to repel them by too much severity. Con- 
 sequently, provided they obtain from them certain acts 
 of outward submission, provided that, at certain epochs, 
 they perform what the world is pleased to call religious 
 duties, provided that, at such times, their fervour mani- 
 fests itself by liberal alms, these leaders of souls willingly 
 declare themselves satisfied, and gladly preach an easy 
 devotion which adapts itself marvellously well to the 
 most decided worldliness. . . . How can conscience escape 
 becoming corrupted under such fatal influences ? Is 
 it a matter for wonder that the upper classes often place 
 before us the spectacle of the greatest moral depravity 
 joined to the deepest religious fervour, to the enthusi- 
 astic effusions of the most superstitious zeal ? . . . Tlie 
 masses, guided by their vulgar common-sense, see in this 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 229 
 
 mere hypocrisy ; and yet it is but seldom that these 
 outward manifestations are the result of premeditated 
 deception. . . . Alas ! the evil lies in the fact that men 
 believe they are sincere ; they are carried away by their 
 very emotions ; they pray, they weep, they repent on 
 certain days ; they take as a return to God the sensual 
 excitement produced by some special sermon, by some 
 imposing ceremony, by some heart-stirring strains of 
 church music, and thus, deluding themselves, they be- 
 come more and more incapable of conversion, repentance, 
 and holiness. ... If you think I exaggerate, allow me to 
 refer you to your own personal experience, and let your 
 conscience itself answer. 
 
 You have just met with evil under its grossest and most 
 repulsive form ; before you has passed one of those beings 
 whom intemperance has branded with shame ; your eyes 
 have rested upon that countenance on which vice has 
 imprinted its degrading seal ; you have shuddered at this 
 sight ; your heart has been divided between disgust and 
 pity, and your thoughts have wandered sorrowfully to 
 those low grounds of society upon which no ray of pure 
 light ever shines. 
 
 But on the eve of the same day you have joined in 
 a brilliant worldly entertainment. Here all is light, 
 smiles, and beauty. Eyes grow bright; conversation flows, 
 merry and sparkling. . . . But do you not very soon 
 become conscious of being carried away by a strange 
 excitement ? What speaks the voice of conscience amid 
 this bewitching society, where whatever is calculated to 
 stir up the passions of eye and heart, to charm and 
 excite the senses, is gathered together ? Again, what 
 does that voice speak when at the theatre you hear the 
 thunder of applause which hails one of those plays in 
 which guilty passion is portrayed with all its attractions, 
 in which it expresses itself with so much spirit, emotion, 
 
230 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 and delicacy that it succeeds in captivating every heart ? 
 . . . Christian soul ! what now hast thou become ? 
 Ah ! in that heavy and unwholesome atmosphere thou 
 hast faltered. Moral intoxication has seized thee. . . . 
 Now, in the sight of God, tell me which is the most 
 guilty, that wretch upon whom thou hast cast a look of 
 disgust, and who, it may be, has never received either 
 light, or instruction, or vivifying inspiration, or thou who 
 hast been warned in so many ways, thou who hast been 
 enlightened by the Gospel, thou on whom the Lord seems 
 to have lavished all His mercies ? 
 
 Another example : Here is an unfortunate man who is 
 being led into prison. . . . The crowd looks on. It is 
 a thief ! Honest folk are anxious to see the expression 
 of a thief. ... A most curious sight for them is that of 
 one of the representatives of those lost classes with whom 
 
 all social relations will henceforth be impossible 
 
 See the surprise, the contempt, the anger depicted on so 
 many countenances ! Among them all how few there 
 are that express the slightest pity ! 
 
 But here, at the other extremity of the social scale, 
 is an immense fortune springing up as by enchantment. 
 True, strange rumours are afloat concerning its origin. 
 True, in its production means have been employed which 
 every honest conscience condemns. Much skill and clear- 
 sightedness alone have kept those proceedings from falling 
 under the stroke of the law, but bad faith and deceit 
 have been manifest. . . . Yet what will people say ? 
 Will any one venture to protest energetically against such 
 an iniquity ? No, and that is what alarms me most. 
 People will speak much, for a time they will cry out 
 loudly against the scandal, then all will be hushed as by 
 magic, and you will see the crowds bowing before fortune 
 and hastening to share in its sumptuous entertainments. 
 .... And if from those richly loaded tables a few 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 231 
 
 crumbs should fall for works of piety, you will see 
 religious men keep silence and counsel you to do the 
 same ! But tell me, before God, which has been the 
 most guilty, — the unhappy man to whom everything, light, 
 instruction, moral and religious influence have been 
 denied, and who, urged by misery, has, in an evil hour, 
 yielded to temptation, ... or the man who had been 
 given everything, good examples, education, comfortable 
 circumstances, abundance even, and who escapes public 
 dishonour only by dint of dexterity ? 
 
 Am I wrong, therefore, when I affirm that there are 
 positions which stun and intoxicate and in which men 
 become inaccessible to the truth ? . . . The world cries 
 out loudly against the pharisaism of believers, but what 
 can be more pharisaical than its judgments ? ... It 
 crushes vice wdien it presents itself under its coarse and 
 vulgar aspects. ... It forgives everything to the skill 
 which knows how to save appearances. ... It kneels to 
 success and popularity ! 
 
 Why should I recall these things ? For the melan- 
 choly pleasure of pointing out evil and provoking 
 scandal? God forbid ! Moreover, this were unneces- 
 sary. All I have said has been spoken before, and far 
 more boklly, by the world itself. Think you that the 
 worldly do not judge one another ? Think you that they 
 are not skilled in rending in secret that which they 
 flatter in public ? Think you that they ignore all that 
 lies concealed beneath these apparent virtues ? Think 
 you that calumny spares anything, and that it will not 
 invent evil rather tlran remain inactive ? Evil ! Ah ! 
 the world will proclaim it loudly with joy and delight. 
 . . . But what you will never hear in the world is that 
 firm, faithful, and courageous voice wliich goes straight 
 to the sinner, like John the Baptist to Herod, and tells 
 him plainly, " It is not lawful for thee to do that." 
 
232 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 Now that is precisely what God requires of us. Not 
 loud indignation, not terrific denunciations, hut that 
 humble and firm testimony. . . . That is what God re- 
 quires of you in the sphere in which He has placed you, 
 each time that you are brought into contact with evil, 
 each time that your conscience warns you, each time that 
 your silence would be a cowardly shrinking from duty. 
 
 Look around you. . . . Here, among those who are 
 dear to you, is a soul walking lightly and unconcernedly 
 in the way of temptation ; it seems to sport with danger. 
 What does it need ? A serious word. And w^ho can 
 speak that word with more effect than you who see its 
 peril clearly, you whose voice would surely be heard ? 
 Here is a brother, a friend, whose troubled conscience 
 wavers and is on the point of yielding. That man knows 
 your character. If you do not speak, he will allege your 
 silence in justification of his fall. Fathers and mothers 
 who hear me, those I speak of are perhaps your children. 
 Those souls which are rushing onward to perdition will 
 be required of you. What answer will you then give to 
 ttie Supreme Judge ? 
 
 But we shall suffer for our frankness, you will doubt- 
 less object. I know it well ; but who has discovered the 
 secret of loving truly without suffering ? Love, such as it 
 is understood in the present day, is in many cases nothing 
 more than a soft tenderness. Ah ! come and learn of 
 John the Baptist how you are to love. Learn of him 
 that you nmst be willing to forget yourselves, to speak 
 that which is displeasing, that which wounds, that which 
 irritates, but also that which saves. By this is true love 
 to be recognised. False love ever seeks its own satisfac- 
 tion ; it will never consent to alienate a heart in order 
 to save it. True love, which seeks the happiness of 
 others and not its own interest, is willing to be misunder- 
 stood, slighted, forgotten. Teach us then, ye Christian 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 233 
 
 mothers, all the suffering you must have undergone ere 
 you have brought into true life those whom God had 
 given you. . , . Tell us all that your unwavering fidelity 
 has cost you in the day when it has seemed to estrange 
 from you those hearts whose affection had been your 
 only reward and your only joy. Tell us, Monica, 
 all the submission and patience, all the secret prayers and 
 hidden tears, which have given to the Church its St. Augus- 
 tine. Teach us, St. Paul, what it is to love without 
 seeking one's interest, thou who hast written these beauti- 
 ful words : " Though the more abundantly I love you, the 
 less I be loved," and who wert willing to be accursed pro- 
 vided Israel were saved. Or rather, tell it us. Thou who 
 wert charity incarnate. Thou who camest upon earth to 
 give peace, liberty, happiness, and salvation to men, and 
 who didst obtain as Thy sole reward the most monstrous 
 ingratitude. Ah ! Thou knewest what it is to love when 
 with slow steps Thou didst advance on the sorrowful 
 path at the end of which the cross awaited Thee. Thou 
 knewest it in the day when Thou didst utter these sublime 
 words : " Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered 
 thy children together, and ye would not ! " Thou knewest 
 it when, in the gloomy night of Thy agony, those whom 
 Thou didst love the best were unable to watch one hour 
 with Thee. Thou knewest it when from Thy cross, where 
 love had nailed Thee, Thou didst meet nought but angry 
 looks. Thou didst hear nought but words of blasphemy 
 and malediction. Alas ! it is by the intensity of the 
 hatred which the world bore Thee that Thy love must be 
 measured. 
 
 We have seen the fidelity of the Forerunner. Let us 
 now consider his reward. 
 
 I will not attempt to portray the closing scene of his 
 life. Everything in it bears the stainp of horror. That 
 iniquitous revel, that impure woman presiding at the 
 
234 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 banquet, that graceful dance and the applause of the 
 guests, then suddenly that reeking head brought upon a 
 charger and delivered by an executioner into the hands 
 of a maiden who gives it to her mother. That hellish 
 blending of hate and joy, of dance and murder, of blood 
 and voluptuousness, all this brings a shudder to the soul 
 and fills it with terror. 
 
 Shall I say it, brethren ? Oft when I have read the 
 Scriptures, and especially the lives of those who were the 
 noblest witnesses of God upon earth, I have been tempted 
 to accuse God of an inexplicable severity. What ! for 
 us so easy and comfortable an existence, so many bless- 
 ings, consolations, alleviations to our sorrows, and for 
 them who were so resolute, so faithful, a life so terrible, 
 and often, yes, often a death so fearful ! See how they 
 die : Isaiah sawed by Manasseh, Zachariah slaughtered 
 beside the altar, Stephen stoned, James beheaded, Peter 
 crucified, Paul reduced to exclaim, " All have forsaken 
 me." These are a few of them. Count all the others, 
 if you can, in that innumerable army of martyrs. What 
 then are Thy ways, great God, that Thou shouldest 
 have reserved such a reward for them ? And yet, of all 
 these deaths, the most awful in my eyes is that of the 
 Baptist. . . . Picture to yourselves that man in his 
 dungeon, beneath a palace where all is light and merri- 
 ment. Hark ! In the stillness of night the heav}:" 
 tread of a brutal soldier is heard descending. The door 
 swings on its hinges. There is the dull sound of a falling- 
 sword, and all is over. Was he surprised in his sleep ? 
 Was he engaged in prayer ? Was he permitted to utter 
 a parting word ? We cannot tell. A dead silence and 
 nothing more. Thus perished he whom Jesus called the 
 greatest of the proi^hets. 
 
 Ah ! in presence of a death like this, if we had no 
 hope save in this visible world, we might well exclaim, 
 
A COURT PREACHER. 235 
 
 " Vanity ! vanity ! that is what this obscure deatli, this life- 
 course ended at thirty years of age, this useless sacrifice, 
 this fruitless fidelity tell of. A stroke of the sword has 
 finished all. Herod triumphs and the prophet is dead." 
 
 Dead ! Are you quite sure of this ? ... Ask the 
 authors of this crime. If John the Baptist imjDrisoned 
 troubled their impure festival with his invisible presence; 
 if from the depths of his dungeon his voice sounded in 
 their ears as a perpetual reproof, John the Baptist, once 
 dead, will appear to them more formidable still. Hear 
 what Herod says ! In vain has he seen him beheaded. 
 A few months have passed away, a new prophet appears. 
 " It is Elijah ! " say some. " It is Jesus of Nazareth ! " 
 say others. " No," replies Herod ; " it is John ! " He 
 sees him again standing before him, and haunting him 
 everywhere with his avenging presence. . . . He sees his 
 eyes following him. He hears his voice saying, " It is 
 not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." Though 
 dead, John speaks to his guilty conscience still, and that 
 terrible voice no Herodias can silence now. 
 
 Dead ! Men do not die when they have served God. 
 To-day John speaks to us still ; to-day his example has 
 stirred our hearts ; to-day one of us, perhaps, having 
 beheld his martyrdom anew, will save some perishing 
 soul, and, despising the seductions of the world, will 
 become the unfaltering witness of truth. 
 
 Dead ! No, in the cause which he has served nothing 
 is useless, and if the most obscure sacrifice loses not its 
 reward, what then will be the recompense of a martyr- 
 dom such as his ? If the Church has lived and grown, 
 it has been owing to such sacrifices as these. When, 
 glittering in the sunlight, we see the tall spire of some 
 gigantic cathedral which remains standing as the silent 
 witness of the faith of past generations, do we think of 
 the enormous blocks buried within its depths ? No 
 
2 36 A COURT PREACHER. 
 
 mortal eye sees them, but without those hidden founda- 
 tions the edifice woukl crumble at the first blast of the 
 storm. . . . Well, if to-day there is in the world a 
 Christian Church, if there is a refuge accessible to all 
 the sorrows of earth, an asylum in which the soul 
 can for ever escape the oppressions of earth, a spiritual 
 home where faith, hope, and love for ever abide. If we 
 ourselves have found a place there, it is because at its 
 foundation there are acts of devotion without number, 
 obscure deaths, unknown sufferings, silent sacrifices which 
 none can ever count. 
 
 Yes, it is by deaths like those that the reign of truth 
 advances, and in the battle which we are waging with 
 error and sin, they are of more importance than thou- 
 sands of frivolous, vain, and fruitless lives. . . . When 
 an army marches on to the attack of a fortress, the 
 soldiers in the foremost ranks, alas ! must fall by hun- 
 dreds in the ditches that surround it ; . . . but over those 
 heaps of slain the rest will pass on to victory. Brethren, 
 if to-day faith in the future, in the triumph of truth, is 
 possible to us, it is because those heroes of olden times, 
 those noble martyrs of the Divine cause, have suffered 
 and died. 
 
 Dead ! . . . But is it death to rejoin all those who 
 were the witnesses of God upon earth ? Is it death to 
 enter eternal glory, and to unite with the company of 
 the purest, noblest, and holiest souls that have lived here 
 below ? Is it death to meet one's God, and to exchange 
 the sufferings of the present time for the ineffable glory 
 of the world to come ? Is it death to feel tliat we are 
 the objects of a boundless love, and to live the true life 
 for all eternity ? . . . Ah ! if that be death, then shall 
 we say with Scripture, " Let me die the death of the 
 righteous, and let my last end be like his ! " 
 
( 237 ) 
 
 XIII. 
 
 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 "Wliy stand ye here all the day idle ?" — Matt. xx. 6. 
 
 Have you never reflected with profound sorrow upon the 
 vast number of useless existences there are upon earth ? 
 Have you never thought of those thousands of beings 
 who allow all their powers, thoughts, affections, energy, to 
 be scattered by frivolity and lost in nothingness, just as 
 the rain of heaven is absorbed by the sands of the desert ? 
 Those beings live on without so much as asking them- 
 selves whither they go or why they have been placed 
 here below. Whilst St. Paul sees in the human life the 
 grandest and most solemn thing in the world; whilst 
 for him days, and even hours, are of the weightiest 
 moment; whilst he saves, whilst he "redeems" time, whilst 
 in order to accomplish his task he creates it, so to speak, 
 by his marvellous employment of every instant, they 
 allow their life to be frittered away without ever under- 
 standing its value. When we see them instinctively 
 submitting to their destiny, when we see that not a 
 thought, not an action in those lives has eternity as its 
 object, we are inclined to smile at all the beautiful things 
 that have been said on the greatness of the human soul, 
 on its noble and unbounded aspirations. We look upon 
 all this as hyperbolical and declamatory ; , we are even 
 
238 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 tempted to qiTestion whether these beings have a soul at 
 all ; and when, having lived their little day on earth, 
 they become the prey of death, willingly would we apply 
 to them the words of our text : " Why have ye stood there 
 all the day idle ? " 
 
 Let us be just, however. Many of them miglit answer 
 as did the labourers of the parable, " Because no man 
 hath hired us." No one has pointed out to them the 
 true end of life. No one has told them why they were 
 here below. 
 
 None of those who hear me to-day will be able to 
 offer this excuse. Not one of you will be able to allege 
 his ignorance in justification of his wasted life. At 
 whatever hour of life we may have been called, we all 
 know that God claims us for His service. Let us then 
 for a few short moments forget others and think only of 
 ourselves. Let us see if we are not of those who waste in 
 idleness the time which has been given them, and whilst 
 we speak of the days and hours which are continually 
 being frittered away, grant, God, that this hour at least 
 may not be lost ! 
 
 I take as my starting-point a principle which is at the 
 foundation of all the teaching of the Gospel. It is this : 
 Every life which does not willingly make of the service 
 of God its principal object is a useless life. I say will- 
 inglij, for, in a general sense, every life has the service of 
 God as its object, since God in His admirable wisdom 
 often causes good to come out of evil, and makes even 
 the blasphemies of His foes and the crimes of the most 
 depraved beings subservient to His ends. Of this He 
 has given us a striking example in saving humanity by 
 the death of Christ, that is, by the most odious of 
 crimes. None, however, will suppose that Pilate or 
 Judas served God. The service in question is, therefore, 
 a voluntary service, and in this sense I affirm that every 
 
WASTED LIVES. 239 
 
 life of wliicli the principal aim is not the service of God 
 is a useless life. Besides, I acknowledge that among 
 those who serve Him there are many stages. Some know 
 Him in the fulness of His love and holiness, such as Jesus 
 Christ has revealed Him ; others still grope for Him, as it 
 were, and though they know Him but imperfectly, endea- 
 vour notwithstanding to serve Him. They serve Him in 
 tlie person of their brethren " whom they see," as St. John 
 says, until they obtain a full knowledge of the invisible 
 God ; they remind us of those heathen of whom St. Paul 
 speaks, who, having no law, yet seek to accomplish the 
 works of the law. God, who knoweth the heart, will 
 judge such men according to His righteousness. He alone 
 knows what will be their eternal future ; but, however 
 imperfect their knowledge may be, if from the midst of 
 their darkness they have aimed at serving God, we have 
 no right to say that their life has been lost and that they 
 have remained idle here below. 
 
 But when, taking the Gospel as our guide, we affirm 
 that a life which is in no degree whatever referred to 
 God is a wasted life, I know what objections such an 
 affirmation raises on the part of the world. Men point 
 us to lives of wdiich God is certainly not the object, but 
 which, nevertheless, are active, fruitful in services ren- 
 dered to humanity, to lives wdiich leave after them a long 
 trail of light and glory, and they ask us if we still dare 
 to call these useless lives. 
 
 I understand this objection, but it does not shake the 
 principle I have laid down. It is most natural that men 
 should consider as useful those existences which out- 
 wardly have been well employed, for man can only judge 
 from appearance. But God looks to the heart. He 
 judges of a life from the principle which has governed it, 
 and therefore His judgment differs from ours. I shall 
 explain my thought by one or two examples. 
 
240 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 Here is a man whose passage has traced a deep farrow 
 upon the earth ; his is an intellect which has made grand 
 discoveries, an energetic will which has obtained the 
 noblest results. We who enjoy the fruits of his labours, 
 we exalt his name, we bless his memory. But let me 
 suppose that the only motive of his labours has been 
 personal interest, the seliish seeking of his own glory. . . . 
 In the eyes of God that life is wasted. According to 
 the stern saying of Christ, it has already its reward upon 
 earth, but it is lost for heaven. 
 
 I go further and take an extreme example ; God grant 
 it may never be realised ! Here is an apostle of the 
 Gospel, a preacher of the truth, who, having received at 
 the hands of God intelligence to understand the Divine 
 truths, the power of speech to translate them, and 
 warmth of feeling to communicate them, exerts upon his 
 contemporaries that mighty influence which produces a 
 religious revival. Who would dare to call such a life 
 useless ? We religiously preserve its memory in our 
 hearts — w^e bless it. But let me suppose that this man, 
 while seeming to serve God, has served only his own 
 glory ; that, while defending the interests of Jesus Christ, 
 he has sought only his own interest. In the eyes of God 
 his life has been wasted as far as he himself is concerned. 
 In saving others he has lost himself. He must be num- 
 bered among those who at the last day will say, " Lord, 
 Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy 
 name cast out devils ?" and to whom it will be answered, 
 " Depart from me ; I never knew you." 
 
 Now let us choose an opposite example. Here is a 
 poor labourer, whose life has been absorbed by a crushing 
 
 labour But no ! That example would not be 
 
 sufficiently telling. . . . Here is a lame man, condemned 
 to pine away year after year upon a bed of pain. What 
 can he do here below ? Nothing, nothing whatever. 
 
WASTED LIVES. 2^t 
 
 Everything fails him, energy, strength, wealth. Thus will 
 his monotonous life glide away ; thus, for him, will day 
 succeed day, until the hour when, without a friend to 
 accompany his mortal remains, he will rejoin in the 
 common grave so many other beings as soon forgotten 
 as himself. . . . What will remain of this life ? Not 
 one apparent work, not one visible service rendered to 
 humanity. That is what men call an abortive existence, 
 a lost and wasted life. . . . Well, if in that man's 
 soul the love of God has been the inspiring sentiment, 
 if he has obeyed God in suffering, if his heart, the only 
 organ of his shattered frame in which life was not wholly 
 extinct, has been filled with love and faith, that life will 
 weigh more in the balance of the righteous Judge than 
 all those that have made most noise in the world, but of 
 which selfishness has been the ruling principle. 
 
 That is how we are to estimate hmnan life, not accord- 
 ing to its outward acts only, but according to the principle 
 by which it is governed. Now this principle, God alone 
 knows it ; far from us, therefore, be the thought of judg- 
 ing others ! Once again, let us look only to ourselves. 
 
 But is not this view of the true aim of our life at the 
 same time a revelation of its greatness ? How grand is 
 that life of which God Himself is the object ! how grand 
 it is even for the poorest, for the most wretched, for the 
 most destitute I All ! let worldlings fritter it away in 
 unworthy frivolity ; let them, according to their own 
 criminal expression, kill the time which God, in His 
 goodness, has given them. You, my brother, cannot do 
 so ; you know what is human life ; you know that its end 
 is the service of God ; for you it has a most solemn im- 
 portance ; in the Scriptures you have learned that it is a 
 time of trial, the time for scattering the seed, the harvest 
 of which we shall reap in the eternal day. ... To this 
 sublime instruction your conscience has responded, and 
 
 Q 
 
242 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 anything inferior to it would fail to satisfy you. . . . 
 And it is not yovir conscience alone that tells you what 
 is the value of life. You know what it is worth since 
 the Son of God has honoured it by taking it upon Him- 
 self, since, by showing what it can be. He has imparted 
 to it a Divine greatness. . . . You know what it is 
 worth since, by dying for you upon the cross. He has 
 taught you what, in His sight, is the value of your soul. 
 . . . You know what it is worth, and the very name 
 you bear, you who call yourselves the redeemed of God, 
 reminds you of it with incomparable force. You know 
 what it is w^orth, for you have understood that you are 
 called — sublime destiny ! — to become co-workers with 
 God. Well, that life which the Gospel has made so noble 
 and so beautiful, what use do you make of it ? Such 
 is the question which God asks of each of you to-day. 
 
 Alas ! at this very moment a painful and ironical con- 
 trast strikes my mind. I have recalled the beauty and 
 greatness of life such as the Gospel has made it, and 
 involuntarily I compare it with that of many of those 
 who now hear me. Answer, where is the beauty of those 
 lives which frivolity fills up from morn to night, and 
 what signifies the value of time for those who waste the 
 precious hours in that which is but vanity ? 
 
 I know what answer you will make. You will tell 
 me that it is impossible to have continually in view the 
 serious object of life ; that the soul must have its hours 
 of relaxation and repose ; that, moreover, we dwell in the 
 midst of a world with which we cannot break, and which 
 lays upon us its obligations, whether we will or no. Yes, 
 you are always ready to speak of the obligations you 
 owe to the world, but you seem to forget that your first 
 obligations are towards God. The relaxation you require 
 consists, you say, in the most innocent recreations. Ee- 
 creations ! Ah ! is it not most sure, on the contrary, 
 
WASTED LIVES. 243 
 
 that worldliiiess invades everything so completely that at 
 length no place is left for God in your life ! Recreations I 
 Ah ! who does not see that worldly life is like the abysses 
 of which the Book of Proverbs tells, which constantly 
 cry out, " More, more ! " until they have devoured all ? 
 Think of the many hours it claims, not only of those 
 spent at your entertainments, but of those which precede 
 them — of those hours devoted to the selection of a fitting 
 costume, for instance. . . - Think of those hours which 
 follow them, of that stupor which leaves the soul so weary, 
 of those dreams which trouble and bewilder it. Thus your 
 days are consumed, . . . thus your time glides away with 
 the most frightful rapidity, and with terror you some- 
 tunes question what share will be left for God. But no ; 
 there are works of piety. Works of piety ! Is that the 
 name you give them ? Yes, I see many works the aim 
 of which is the alleviation of the sufferings of the poor, 
 the instruction of the ignorant, the salvation of souls ; I 
 see that you are not slow in performing them ; I see that 
 they are the fashion ; but vainly do I seek in them the 
 share of God. Where is it, for instance, in those bazaars 
 on behalf of the poor which are sometunes transformed 
 into veritable shows, where all the petty passions of the 
 world seem to have assembled ? Where is it in those 
 days, commenced at so late an hour, and from which the 
 sweet and pure influences of early prayer are absent — 
 in those days without serious reading or meditation ? 
 Where is it in those profaned Sabbaths ? Where is it, 
 alas ! even in this hour of worship, to which you bring 
 but a divided attention, and during which your eyes often 
 close with weariness, because the dawn had found you 
 still in the ball-room ? 
 
 Those, some will say, are extreme examples. Let us 
 admit it, if you will, and comfort ourselves with the 
 thought that, wholly mistaken as regards those who hear 
 
244 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 me, I have traced out mere imaginary pictures. "Will 
 this be sufficient to reassure us ? No ; it is possible to 
 condemn wild dissipation and excessive worldly agitation 
 more strongly even than I have done, and nevertheless 
 consume one's life in frivolity. In fact, there is a frivolity 
 which I will call serious, for want of a better name, and 
 which often reigns in circles where too shocking a dissipa- 
 tion is very loudly condemned. 
 
 You belong to a society the general tone of which is 
 serious ; no scandal ever disturbs its habitual aspect ; all 
 its pleasures are correct, decorous, moderate. And yet, if 
 any one should ask you how your days are spent, you 
 would be at a loss what to answer. Think of all those 
 honourable but superficial relations, of all those visits paid 
 and received, of all those conversations in which not a 
 word is exchanged that speaks to the soul, of those books 
 read without aim or method, and which leave not one 
 spark of light for the mind, nor one fruitful emotion for 
 the soul. A society such as this, you think, is most 
 innocent. You are not losing your soul in it, I admit, 
 but can you say that you are living the true life ? Do 
 you not see that insensibly, and for want of a higher in- 
 spiration which would stimulate you to love and sacrifice, 
 were it at the risk of suffering, you are allowing your 
 soul to become thoroughly engrossed by trivial occupa- 
 tions, by insignificant habits, by soulless pleasures, by 
 relations of pure etiquette which weaken and consume 
 it gradually Ijut I'atally ? Can you conceive of anything 
 more tyrannical than this laborious idleness ? Is there 
 in the wide world a vocation which takes up so many 
 liours and ])roduces so little result ? And is it surpris- 
 ing tliat so many wandering but ardent souls, wishing to 
 live at any cost, should shake off the yoke of that heavy 
 and dismal servitude ? 
 
 Here we must make a reflection. The great majority 
 
WASTED LIVES. 245 
 
 of our fellow-men are condemned to the most irksome and 
 wearing manual toil. A very limited number have re- 
 ceived of God fortune, and with fortune leisure. To this 
 minority belong most of those who are here to-day. 
 Well, think you that this very leisure does not impose 
 the most serious obligations upon you ? Think you that 
 you are permitted to waste it in idleness ? Are you not 
 called, as it were, to think for those who, below you, have 
 no time for reflection; to look after the higher interests 
 of their souls, to which they can scarcely give a few 
 moments' attention themselves ? When we speak of the 
 working classes and of their sufferings, I often hear theii- 
 improvidence, their prejudices, their hatred of the upper 
 classes thundered against. People bewail their condition, 
 wish them more instruction, a higher degree of morality, 
 more religion especially ; they tell them of the blessed- 
 ness of home life, of the happiness of a peaceful fireside, 
 of the innocent joys of reciprocated love. I will not 
 examine whether these accusations and these lessons 
 might not well be reversed and cast back with gloomy 
 and bitter wrath at those who lavish them so proi\isely, 
 and who often belie them by the most scandalous life. 
 . . . No, I accept these facts, and I ask myself how this 
 reform of the working classes is to be accomplished. 
 Will you leave the care of it to those who are worn out 
 by manual toil ? Will you call to this work those 
 agitators, those ambitious individuals who lay bare the 
 wounds and sufferings of the masses only to make a show 
 of philanthropy and in order to obtain popularity ? . . . 
 This work is yours, brethren. The leisure which God has 
 given you lays upon you the most sacred duties towards 
 those who have no spare hours. You are therefore en- 
 listed by Di\'ine command in all the grand, noble, and 
 generous causes. Well, how do you answer this call ? 
 I do not know your life, but I have only to cast a 
 
246 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 glance round me to state sorrowfully that it is precisely 
 those who have most leisure who most complain of 
 the want of time. Why is this ? Because when the 
 soul is no longer stimulated by pressing and urgent needs, 
 it gives itself up to its favourite pursuits, and thus sur- 
 rounds itself with tyrannical occupations and habits, which 
 little by little entangle it in an inextricable network. 
 
 Follow him, this man of leisure. You will see him 
 dreaming for a whole day, of what ? Of those noble 
 works I have told you of ? . . . Oh, no ! Of a picture, of 
 a curious piece of furniture, of a rare object which is 
 wanting in his collections, of the embellishment of his 
 dwelling, of a fancy which he has long been wishing to 
 gratify ! Those are his noble thoughts ! To realise them, 
 you will see him wandering about from place to place, 
 taking no end of proceedings, leading a busy life, — so 
 busy, alas ! that we shall scarcely be able to obtain a few 
 moments' conversation with him to tell him of some 
 work which needs aid or of some wretched man who is 
 dying for want of bread. . . . Thus his days and years 
 glide by, and because this existence is outwardly irre- 
 proachable, you will not allow me to call it a wasted 
 life, a life which is useless to God and to humanity ! 
 
 You, my brother, cannot take your share of this re- 
 proach, of course ; you cast a glance of pity upon those 
 miserable victims of idleness. No one can accuse you of 
 frittering your life away ; labour fills it from morn to 
 night. No recreation ever draws you for a moment away 
 from it. . . . Day after day finds you at it. Fixing your 
 eye steadfastly upon the aim to be reached, upon the 
 wealth to be acquired, upon the important part to be 
 acted, you pursue it with an ardour which nothing can 
 abate and which goes on increasing with years. All 
 other preoccupations vanish before this all-absorbing 
 thought. So much perseverance and skill have not 
 
WASTED LIVES. 247 
 
 been fruitless. You have been encouraged by success. 
 Who can tell the secret joy which fills your heart at 
 times when you see your affairs prosper and your wealth 
 increase ? . . . Yours is a useful life. . . . Who would 
 dare to tell you that it has been wasted ? . . , Brother, 
 God Himself will tell you so at the last day if in that 
 life you continue to refuse Him the first place which is 
 His. . . . God Himself will tell you what the lord of the 
 parable said to the labourers : " Why hast thou stood here 
 all the day idle ? " And, in truth, you have done nothing 
 so long as you have thought only of yourself, so long as 
 you have not served God. 
 
 But how is it possible to serve God, you answer, in 
 an absorbing profession which has no religious character 
 whatever, and of which every part has earth as its 
 object ? Brethren, I have said God looks to the heart, 
 to the intention ; and if you consecrate your life to Him, 
 truly it will never be lost, even though nothing in your 
 activity would be visibly referred to His service. What 
 God asks of you is not to abandon your calling, but to 
 perform each of the duties it lays upon you faithfully. 
 True, there are certain professions which no Christian 
 should ever accept, because in them conscience is forced 
 to yield to intrigue and falsehood ; there are certain 
 associations to which no Christian should ever submit. 
 But should such be the case, this man's soul must be 
 saved at any cost ; he must shake off that yoke at any 
 sacrifice, yea, even at the sacrifice of what is most pre- 
 cious to him upon earth. But this is the exception. 
 There are very few callings in which God cannot be 
 served. Be, therefore, what you are — statesmen, magis- 
 trates, merchants, artists, workmen, servants — and in each 
 of these vocations be Christians ; in each of them you 
 may by your integrity, uprightness, and love of justice 
 show what is the all-governing principle of your life. 
 
248 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 What though, on account of the multiplicity of the duties 
 they involve, these callings should absorb you completely 
 and leave you no time for directly religious works ? You 
 might still arrive at the close of your career sure that 
 your life has not been wasted. . . . But is not this sup- 
 posing an impossibility ? 
 
 Is it true that you can never labour directly for God ? 
 Is it true that your active life is so completely absorbing 
 as to leave you not one moment that you may devote to 
 the interests of the reign of God, to the consolation of 
 those who suffer, to that vast work of restoration and 
 salvation wdiich is intrusted to the Church ? If truly 
 you love God, will you not be all the more anxious to 
 find Him again that your everyday occupations forcibly 
 draw your thoughts away from Him ? Ah ! let us beware 
 of false excuses. Let us beware of saying that time fails 
 us, when we know so well how to find hours for pleasure, 
 and perhaps for sin. Time, it has been said, is not com- 
 posed of hours and minutes only, but of love and will. 
 He that loves much finds means to do much. 
 
 I now come to those of my hearers whose life is out- 
 wardly engaged in the service of God. They cannot 
 recognise themselves in any of the situations which I 
 have depicted. The excessive dissipation of worldliness 
 appears to them criminal ; the frivolity of a superficial 
 existence is repugnant to their feelings, and for a long 
 time their awakened conscience has told them that they 
 must serve God above all else. In truth, you see them 
 enlisted under the banner of Christian works. But the 
 lact that they are thus enlisted does not necessarily 
 imply that they are actively engaged. Idleness and 
 languor may exist under pious appearances, and a seem- 
 ingly religious life may glide away without leaving any 
 traces behind it. Shall I surprise you when I affirm 
 tliat of all masters God is the one whom men serve with 
 
WASTED LIVES. 249 
 
 most indolence and irresolution ? I question whether 
 any worldly undertaking would, I do not say prosper, 
 but simply subsist, if it were led with the inconsistency 
 and want of method which we bring to the service of 
 God. Have you ever remarked with what facility we 
 coraj)lain at the slightest vexations, at the most trifling 
 sacrifices which our vocation of Christians involves ? 
 Have you ever counted all the moments which we waste 
 in speaking of our busy life, all the hours which are 
 taken up by incurably frivolous conversation, in ^vhich 
 we slip here and there, and for conscience' sake, a few 
 sanctimonious phrases ? At the close of many an appa- 
 rently well-employed day, have we not been seized with 
 the feeling that our strength had been consumed in vain 
 words and that " no virtue had come out of us " ? Have 
 we not been terrified when we have seen how skilfully, 
 nay, how craftily, we lull our conscience to sleep by vain 
 resolutions of future activity ? " To-morrow," we say, 
 " to-morrow ! " And the morrow finds us more feeble, 
 more undecided than ever. Ah ! when I behold the Son 
 of Man in that marvellous career of three years' duration, 
 from which has sprung the regeneration of the world, I 
 am struck with the solemn importance which He who oft 
 embraces centuries at one glance attaches to the days and 
 hours which are assigned to Him for action here below. 
 See how, as He advances towards the end, He remembers 
 that time is short, that the day is declining, that the night 
 Cometh in which no man can work. Thus His life appeared 
 to Him, and that is why each of the hours of which it was 
 composed has weighed more than thousands of existences 
 in the history of humanity. 
 
 But though I lay before you the value of life and the 
 necessity for action as points of the most vital importance, 
 think not, however, that I would urge you, above all 
 things, to a merely outward and visible activity. Nothing 
 
250 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 is farther from my thoughts than this. N"o, life cannot 
 be measured by a certain amount of works accomplished 
 in a given space of time ; no, the most spiritual of all 
 religions has not been given to the world to submit it to 
 the yoke of a low utilitarianism. The important, the 
 essential point is that the soul act; and if it be idle, 
 then all outward works may be useless. Nay, more. 
 There are times when external activity may be a snare 
 and a delusion. In such cases, what are we to do ? We 
 must retire in solitude ; we must reflect ; we must, leav- 
 ing the crowd and His disciples themselves, follow Jesus 
 upon the mountain, and there pour out our soul in prayer. 
 Do not be mistaken ; thus to give up regular activity for 
 a time is to act more really than ever. Therefore, judge 
 them riot, I pray you, those Christians who refuse, it may 
 be, to unite their external efforts with yours, and who do not 
 labour in the same manner as you. Who can tell if this 
 is not their appointed hour for solitude and meditation ? 
 Who can tell if, far from you, they will not do more good 
 than with you ? What matters how they act, so long as 
 they are with the Lord ? 
 
 Ah ! worldly activity, multiplied meetings, numerous 
 associations, works supported, have we not often placed 
 too much confidence in them all ? And, after having 
 exhausted our powers in those collective works, have we 
 not often heard the voice of the Lord saying, " Why have 
 ye stood here all the day idle ? " Why ? Alas ! because 
 no one acted in reality ; because no one made of these 
 works his work ; because no one l)rought to their per- 
 formance an undivided heart. We thought we had 
 strengthened, ourselves by uniting ten or twenty individual 
 wills for the attainment of some particular end, and we 
 had merely associated our failings, our moral infidelities. 
 Not in contact with one another will they transform 
 themselves into vital forces, love, or holy energy. 
 
WASTED LIVES. 251 
 
 Let us then beware lest we allow ourselves to be 
 deceived by an empty appearance of life, and let us re- 
 member the son in the parable who said to his father, 
 " I go work to-day in thy Adneyard," but whom the father 
 found not there. 
 
 I have told you how we waste the time which God 
 gives us ; I have still to show what are the consequences 
 of this inactivity. 
 
 The first and most direct is the decline of faith. There 
 is a fact which must have struck you in the Gospel ; it is 
 that God never demonstrates religious truths by proofs of 
 an intellectual order. Never will reasoning alone lead to 
 faith. Something else is required for this — action on the 
 part of the soul. " Do the will of God and ye shall 
 know of my doctrine whether it be of God," said Jesus 
 Christ. This is so evident, that if we say, rightly, that 
 action is the result of faith, we may, with still greater 
 reason, add that faith is the result of action. . . . Yes, 
 serve God in humility, in holiness and love ; serve Him, 
 and I affirm that you will feel your faith in Him 
 strengthened. . . . What have been the epochs of strong 
 faith ? Those in which the Church has been active, and 
 especially those in which it has suffered. . . . When 
 has unbelief invaded it ? In the days of its prosperity, 
 when it had complacently settled upon earth, when it had 
 neglected its sublime mission. That which is true of the 
 Church is also true of individuals. . . . Let indolence 
 seize upon you in the midst of ease and worldly life ; 
 one day your faith will disappear, and in darkness you 
 will seek it with terror, but in vain ! 
 
 To this first consequence is added another : the less 
 we act, the less capable of action we become. Our soul 
 is, as it were, pendent between two rival forces, each of 
 which aspires at absorbing and ruhng it — selfishness and 
 charity ; it must yield to one or other of these ; there is 
 
252 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 no middle course. But in the path of charity there is 
 activity and climbing, while the path of selfishness is an 
 easy descent ; whence it follows that when it ceases to act, 
 our soul takes rapid strides downwards towards selfish- 
 ness. This explains why tlie Christian's inactivity is 
 not only guilty, but corrupting and fatal to his ow^n soul, 
 and wliy the first punishment of whoever does not serve 
 God is the continually increasing inability to serve Him ; 
 for, just as in the physical world, the swiftness of a 
 falling body grows greater as it nears the earth, so the 
 soul follows the same fearful progression as it descends 
 towards selfishness. 
 
 In consequence, obedience becomes ever more difficult, 
 sacrifice ever more impossible ; it costs the soul an effort 
 to give up the most insignificant of its interests. " Each of 
 its comforts," says Vinet, " each of its habits, henceforth 
 becomes a sacred thing ; " the will of God alone loses its 
 holy character. . . , Thus, as a tree which the frost has 
 injured, many a life which seemed full of promise withers 
 and decays. Then, finally, age comes — age that gives the 
 last icy touch to the heart whicli the love of God no 
 longer warms witli its flame, and before us is the dis- 
 tressing spectacle of a selfish old age and of a hardened 
 soul. 
 
 You will not fall so low as this, brethren. Such a 
 future terrifies you ; God will spare it you. Nevertheless, 
 reflect seriously upon this : even supposing you might, 
 by your future activity, make up for your past inaction, 
 you will always feel its effects. Let us remember that 
 each hour of our life has its special duties, which are not 
 those of that which precedes or of that which follows it. 
 You will always feel what it is to have neglected the 
 first. Just as, when the years which should have been 
 devoted to study have been frittered away, a man may 
 endeavour by the most intense application to make up 
 
WASTED LIVES. 253 
 
 for lost time, there however always remain some essential 
 pomts on which he feels himself weak — points of which 
 the foundation is wanting, and which it will henceforth 
 be impossible for him to acquire ; so, in the Christian life, 
 the most unwearied activity in the present cannot com- 
 pensate for inaction in the past. In the days of your 
 youth you refused to bend beneath the yoke of God ; 
 later you will know what it costs to break with inveterate 
 habits. You have refused to govern your passions or 
 your pride when that submission would have been easy ; 
 you will learn by hard struggles and shameful defeats all 
 there is of vitality in those enemies which you have spared 
 too long. You have been unwilling, when still it was 
 time, to renounce the approbation of the world and the 
 rapturous delight of flattered self-love. Well, in the day 
 when you will be called, in presence of men, to bear 
 testimony to the truth and to proclaim a noble indepen- 
 dence, you will be feeble, nndecided, and you will perhaps 
 have recourse to some cowardly compromise. You have, 
 when a favourable opportunity has been afforded you, 
 neglected to strengthen your faith by that constant com- 
 munion with the Divine Word, by that careful study 
 which alone reveals to us its intimate truths ; will you 
 be able to do so when attacked by hostile criticism, when 
 engaged in the all-consuming activity of life ? Who feels 
 this terrible consequence more strongly than the pastor 
 whom God has intrusted with the care of enlightening and 
 establishing souls ! . . . Suppose that for many years he 
 has neglected to work — to work in carefully studying the 
 truths he preached, in weighing the objections of his ad- 
 versaries, in strengthening the souls wliich God had con- 
 fided to him ; ... to work, especially, in interceding for 
 them. Suddenly his conscience is roused. Unbelief has 
 invaded his flock. Here it comes, bold, learned, proud. 
 In terror he mourns. He is anxious to work. He acts, 
 
234 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 alas ! but then it is he understands that a new ministry 
 cannot be produced without preparation, that one cannot 
 acquire in a day that which the slow and patient toil of 
 years alone could have given. Then it is he sees that 
 the most pressing appeals and the most feverish activity 
 are not to be compared with an unwavering fidelity. 
 Then it is that, feeling himself incapable of defending 
 clearly and powerfully those truths he loves, and for 
 which he would give his life, he exclaims with sorrow, 
 " Wliy have I stood here all the day idle ? " 
 
 Idle ! Ah ! brethren, if the Christian's inactivity be so 
 hurtful to his own soul, how guilty must it appear to us 
 when we reflect upon the state of the world in the midst 
 of which he is placed ! Were we surrounded with angels, 
 still should we act in order to prove our gratitude to God. 
 But where are we ? In a world where God is forgotten 
 and despised ; in a world wliere men suffer ; in a world 
 where men are rushing on to perdition. These two ad- 
 verse powers, selfishness and charity, are at war in the 
 world as well as in our own heart. Whoever sides not 
 with right, by this very reason sides with evil. . . . The 
 weakness of the good does more harm in the world than 
 the perversity of the wicked. Men who coldly and reso- 
 lutely choose evil are rare, but that which gives them the 
 appearance of strength, and soon, alas ! its reality, is the 
 connivance of cowards, the seeming assent of those who 
 dread the struggle. As those stones which, rolling down 
 from the summits of the Alps, drag whole rocks along 
 with them and soon produce the formidable avalanche 
 which nothing can resist, so evil, though often feel)le at 
 the outset, is increased and strengthened by our inactivity 
 and our cowardly indolence. . . . Who can tell how far 
 our responsibility reaches ? See that soul going astray 
 under your eyes ; what has failed it ? A word which, on 
 a certain day, you should have spoken. And that other 
 
WASTED LIVES. 255 
 
 soul yonder, what lias irritated and scandalised it ? Our 
 moral apathy, our want of zeal ; in a word, our indolence. 
 Calculate all those consequences, if you can. . . . You 
 cannot fail being appalled at them. Alas ! those sorrows, 
 those iniquities, those crimes which sadden you, may, in 
 a certain measure, be laid at your door. You should 
 liave acted, and you liave remained idle ; you should 
 have resisted, and you have had neither a firm word nor 
 a resolute attitude, .... and you have wasted your 
 strength and your soul in unworthy frivolities. . . . Ah ! 
 when I see our torpor and our dull indifference in pre- 
 sence of the evil which surrounds us on all sides, I am 
 reminded of the Apostles asleep in Gethsemane, and the 
 sorrowful words of the Man of Sorrows come back to my 
 memory : " Could ye not watch with Me one hour ? " 
 
 And here again, do not delude yourselves with the 
 thought that your present activity will atone for all. 
 Ah ! doubtless, warned by remorse, you will now think 
 of those who are suffering and losing themselves before 
 your eyes. You will set to work, and the occasions for 
 sacrifice will astonish you by their number. But what- 
 ever you may do to-day will not blot out your past 
 inactivity. It is beautiful to struggle against present 
 injustice, but your courage will not efface one iniquity 
 which you will formerly have allowed to subsist. It 
 is sweet to minister to the wants of the needy, but the 
 bread you now give will not satisfy the miserable beings 
 beside whom you have so often passed unconcerned. Ah ! 
 painful thought ! To be willing to work and to be able 
 no longer to do so ! To stretch out our hands towards 
 that past which escapes us, and on which we have lost 
 our power ! To remember those souls whom we have 
 caused to go astray, those afflicted ones whom w^e have 
 sent away sorrowing, despairing perhaps ; those sufferings 
 which have vainly knocked at the door of our hearts ! 
 
-56 WASTED LIVES. 
 
 . . . Aud what then will it be when death itself will 
 separate ns from those to whom w^e have refused our 
 love ? Ah ! the dead are inexorable ! Yes, the masses 
 are right, the dead come back to earth. They come back 
 to those who have neglected them ; they come back, and 
 their menacing voice accuses our cowardice. They come 
 back and tell us, " Why were you idle in the day when 
 you might have warned us ? Why did your lips remain 
 silent ? Why have we claimed your love in vain ? " Oh, 
 ye dear but terrible images, ye images of those whom we 
 have neglected ! alarm us unto salvation, and teach us 
 what use we are to make of the time which God still 
 gives us here below. 
 
 It is time to conclude, but it is also time to turn our 
 looks towards Him who alone can forgive and atone for 
 all. If we have lamented over our useless lives, it is 
 time to persuade ourselves that the God of the Gospel is 
 a merciful God, who raises, converts, and regenerates. The 
 time of mourning is over ; now is the time to hope. And 
 why should I not tell you the thought that comes to me 
 as I contemplate this assembly ? Who are we here ? 
 A few hundreds of souls. Now, do you know all there 
 may be amongst us of hitherto wasted powers, intellect, 
 moral energy, love, devotion ? Do you know what those 
 precious seeds might become, and what a magnificent 
 harvest they might bring forth ? Yes, if this call could 
 but be heard, if these souls could but be stirred ! 
 
 Who can tell the grand future which God might lay 
 in store for you if your life, so miserably consumed in 
 unmeaning preoccupations and selfish pleasures, could at 
 length take its flight towards a sublime end ! Who can 
 tell, my young sister ! all the treasures of tenderness 
 and sympathy, of hope and consolation, that would spring 
 from your heart which the breath of the world threatens 
 to dry up more and more ? Who can tell, my brother ! 
 
WASTED LIVES. 257 
 
 tbe good it migiit be given you to do, if, firm and faith- 
 ful in the humble position which is yours, you concen- 
 trated upon some work of justice or charity those powers 
 of your soul which are being consumed in nothingness ! 
 Ah, though you were a labourer of the eleventh hour, 
 who till now had remained idle, still would it be time, 
 and in your well-nigh withered soul everything still 
 might come to life again under the eye of God. 
 
 In a word, who can tell all that might come forth out 
 of this assembly ? "Who will tell us all that the breath 
 of spring causes to germinate and grow on the most 
 ungrateful and sterile soil ? Who can foresee all the 
 blessings, all the powers of life and salvation which ycu 
 might produce ? And why should it not be so ? Why, 
 when God is willing to act, should we remain idle ? Let 
 us be up and doing, brethren, it is time ! . . . And 
 Thou, whose breath causes the wilderness to blossom as 
 the rose. Thou who hast called Thyself the resurrection 
 and the life, pour upon us the renewing Spirit, and may 
 we all submit to Thy Divine influence ! Ameu. 
 
( 25S ) 
 
 XIV. • 
 FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 
 
 " For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness ; 
 but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God" (i COR. 
 i. iS). 
 
 Foolishness ! Power ! Those are the two names which 
 St. Paul gives to the preaching of the Cross. My 
 purpose is to study these two ideas successively, and 
 then to point out to you the close and deep connection 
 which exists between them. 
 
 The preaching of the Cross is foolishness. Note that 
 it is not an enemy of the Gospel, but an apostle, who 
 tells us so. Christianity has not waited to hear this 
 reproach from the lips of the world ; it has not left this 
 satisfaction to its foes. It has laid hold of this insult 
 and claimed it the first as its lawful property. And let 
 none tell us that this is a figure of speech, a hasty 
 expression which escapes the apostle. The Gospel is 
 sparing of those high-flown epithets, of those rhetorical 
 figures ; and, moreover, the same thought lies at the 
 foundation of all Jesus Christ's instructions. Jesus has 
 presented His doctrine as a thing which tlie world would 
 denounce as senseless ; He has spoken plainly of the 
 incompatibility which existed between the ideas of men 
 and the lessons He taught ; He has foretold that His 
 disciples would meet with opposition, hatred, and scorn. 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 259 
 
 This is, let us say it in passing, a strange way of try- 
 ing to win men to one's cause ; it is so strange that it 
 would be foolish if it did not betoken a Divine inspira- 
 tion. Generally when a man wishes to succeed, he 
 promises himself and his disciples success. Every 
 general knows full well that in order to conquer he 
 must predict victory to his soldiers ; in the intellectual 
 order it is the same : the philosopher, the head of a 
 school, endeavours to prove that his system answers all 
 the needs of the age, and will satisfy all its aspirations ; 
 he points to the minds that are ready to accept it, and to 
 the proselytes who will rally round his standard. And 
 we ourselves, how often, yielding to this universal enthu- 
 siasm, have we not proclaimed the approaching triumph 
 of our beliefs. Jesus Christ alone tells His disciples : 
 " Ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake," and 
 it is this thought that Paul takes up when he speaks 
 with so much assurance of the folly of the Cross. 
 
 To the Cross, in particular, it appertained to receive 
 this distinction and this reproach, for in it the whole of 
 Christianity is summed up. It is its central point; in 
 it especially appears all that in the Gospel is strange 
 and contrary to human wisdom. The preaching of the 
 Cross was to be foolishness ; it has been such, and St. 
 Paul's lan<j;uaGfe is not exaggerated. 
 
 In the first place, considering it only from an external 
 point of view, the death of Christ, such as it has been 
 recorded in the Gospels, that ignominious and troubled 
 death, must have seemed a strange means of assurinrr 
 success to His cause. . . . To-day, I know, the Cross 
 has become the most glorious of symbols ; it waves 
 above all the Christian nations, and just as the loftiest 
 and most magnificent monuments raise it high in the air, 
 so, in the moral order, it has become the highest expres- 
 sion of love and sacrifice. So radiant a halo surrounds 
 
26o FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 
 
 it, so wondrous a splendour radiates from it, that our 
 dazzled eyes can conceive of nothing more sublimely 
 grand. But let not this deceive us ; the Cross, in the 
 days of Christ, was a mere instrument of torture, no 
 other glory surrounded it than that which to-day is 
 attached to the gallows or the scaffold. It was not even 
 employed for free-born criminals ; a particular infamy 
 was associated with this accursed tree upon which slaves 
 only were crucified ; I ask, therefore, to aim at triumph- 
 ing by means of a simihar symbol, was not this simply 
 raising against Christianity a storm of opposition and 
 antipathy ? What must the Jews have thought of it, 
 they who had always indulged in their fond dreams of a 
 glorious Messiah ; or the Greeks, accustomed to worship 
 the stern majesty and the calm beauty of their deities ; 
 or the Eomans, who bowed only before triumphant 
 might ? It is easy to understand that the crucified 
 Christ should have become the object of all their scorn ; 
 and it was, in fact, against the Cross that all the great 
 scoffers of heathendom directed their keenest darts. 
 
 Some will perhaps tell us that after all it was natural 
 that the Cross should triumph, because there is in martyr- 
 dom . a secret power which attracts and captivates the 
 souL But those who reason in this way forget that it 
 is precisely since Christianity and at the shadow of the 
 Cross that men have learnt to distinguish, to elevate, to 
 honour all the victims of oppression. Before it, the 
 conquered were always in the wrong, and this was most 
 natural, since fatalism was the true and supreme divinity 
 of the ancient world. Further, I would understand the 
 effect which a calm, serene, and triumphant martyrdom 
 might produce. But why, then, if the evangelists and 
 apostles wished to succeed, do they seem to delight in 
 pointing out, in their narratives of Christ's death, all the 
 signs of agitation and anguish which are peculiar to it? 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 261 
 
 Why bring before us again and again the dismal scene 
 of Gethsemane, the sweat of blood, the hand that trembles 
 at the touch of the mysterious cup, the terror and the bitter 
 sorrow of Jesus ? Why picture that agonising look which, 
 from His Cross, He turns towards heaven which is closed 
 upon Him ? why remind us of that despairing cry He 
 utters, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " 
 Is it then a sight so well calculated to inspire souls with 
 confidence and peace ? Is it by such pictures that men 
 are to be attracted and subdued ? This is so contrary to 
 all our instincts that it has ever been a stumbling-block 
 for human reason. The last century furnishes us with a 
 very striking proof of this. A philosopher, who in the 
 midst of much vice and folly had preserved his faith in 
 God and a lively admiration for the Gospel, J, J. Kousseau, 
 wrote on Jesus Christ a page which has been a thousand 
 times quoted, that famous page in which he compares 
 Socrates with Jesus, and in which we read these words : 
 " Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a 
 sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God ; " 
 and portraying this death from his own imagination 
 rather than from the narratives of the Gospel, Eousseau 
 depicts it calm, divine, triumphant. Well, when Voltaire 
 read this famous page, he wrote in the margin : " You 
 forget His bloody sweat ! " This note of Voltaire's was 
 prompted by hate ; but in this case hate had been clear- 
 sighted, and Voltaire was not wrong ; the death of Christ 
 has been a troubled death ; the Gospel has dared to say 
 it, and it has presented this troubled death to the human 
 conscience as its great peace-restorer. Well, to aim at 
 success by such means, in the eyes of reason, was it not 
 foolishness ? 
 
 That is not all. So far we have beheld only the 
 external features of the death on the Cross. But need I 
 say that St. Paul saw in it more than this ? He saw in 
 
262 FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 
 
 it the pledge of man's reconciliation Avith God; he saw 
 in it an act of reparation, a sacrifice offered to Divine 
 justice by the new Adam of a new humanity, For him 
 tlie death on the Cross was not a mere martyrdom, it was 
 a wondrous drama, the very centre of Divine revelation, 
 the object of the admiration of the elect and the angels 
 to all eternity. Now, of all the teachings of the apostles, 
 this is perhaps the point which most shocks and scanda- 
 lises the reason of a generation upon whom the rights of 
 Divine holiness seem to have lost all their power. 
 
 To-day the Cross, considered merely from the external 
 point of view, has become the most glorious of symbols, 
 the crown of thorns is surrounded by an incomparable 
 majesty. Nobility of soul, imagination, nay, mere poetic 
 sentiment, must be strangely absent from the being who 
 would not understand this charm. But when, faithful 
 to the teaching of the apostles, we affirm that in the 
 death of Christ there has been a sacrifice offered to God 
 Himself, when we say that it is in His character of 
 representative of humanity that He allowed Himself to 
 be nailed upon the Cross, when we explain His unutter- 
 able sufferings by the inexpressible anguish which our 
 sins caused Him, then we see surprise and the scornful 
 smile reappear, then the word foolishness, under a milder 
 form perhaps, rises to the lips of the wise. . . . The 
 world, you say, has become Christian. Oh ! how could 
 I ignore this ? Yes, the world has taken the mantle of 
 Christianity, it has adopted its language, but its spirit is 
 so utterly foreign to it, that true Christianity always 
 astonishes and scandalises it. If you doubt this, suppose 
 for an instant that St. Paul has returned to the world. 
 Suppose him preaching in the large towns of Europe — in 
 I'aris, for instance, that modern Athens — the Son of God 
 crucified. Do you not think that, for the greater number, 
 liis God would still be the unknown God ? How would 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 263 
 
 he be received by our thinkers, our writers, and our critics, 
 I mean by those who boast that they are the true inter- 
 j)reters of the age and the guides of modern thought ? 
 How would they judge the holy rudeness and the aston- 
 ishing doctrine of a man who would refuse to know any- 
 thing beyond Christ and Him crucified ? Ah ! if we 
 who are not men like St. Paul, if we who have neither 
 the courage nor the fidelity of the great apostle, if we 
 who know how to sweeten by our wisdom and our com- 
 binations the bitter savour of the Cross, if we escape not 
 reproach, polite ridicule, the scorn of modern wisdom, 
 how would the apostle be treated, he who, to save souls, 
 took not counsel of flesh and blood, he who disdained the 
 approbation and smiles of men, he who brought them 
 the truth without reticence and without weakness ? We 
 cannot doubt it; St. Paul would say to the present 
 generation what he said to the Corinthians in his Epistle ; 
 the preaching of the Cross would, in his lips, be foolish- 
 ness now just as well as it was then. 
 
 But this foolishness is a power, and the mightiest 
 power which the world has ever seen at work. Paul 
 knew this from experience. It was the Cross that had 
 conquered him, and no mean conquest, in truth, was that 
 by which the proud, intrepid, fiery soul of the Pharisee, Saul 
 of Tarsus, had been subdued. Not only had this Cross 
 subdued him, but it had been his surest instrument of 
 triumph ; and in his Epistle to the Colossians, he pic- 
 tures, in sublimest language, all the powers of this world 
 brought into captivity at the foot of the Cross. 
 
 Will any one say that St. Paul ascribed too much 
 power to the Cross ? Well, suppose the apostles march- 
 ing on to the conquest of the world without it. Suppose 
 them teaching the most reasonable of doctrines, preaching 
 and practising the purest of morals ; do more — suppose 
 them accomplishing the most marvellous works, curing 
 
264 FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 
 
 the sick, feeding the multitudes, raising the dead — think 
 you they would have succeeded ? Assuredly no. And 
 this I affirm with the utmost confidence, for that suppo- 
 sition has been realised. A man who was not an apostle 
 hut the Master of the Apostles, had preached to the 
 world the most perfect of doctrines, the purest of morals ; 
 He had realised His teaching by revealing in His Person 
 a holiness before which we bow in adoration. . . . He 
 had performed works such as the world had never seen 
 before, and this Man, at the close of His three years 
 and a half's ministry, scarce could number a handful of 
 irresolute and fearful disciples. What then was required 
 that He might convert the world ? Death : " Except a 
 corn of wheat die, it cannot hrinr/ forth fruit." Death, 
 and the death of the Cross : " And I, if I be lifted up 
 from the earth, will draw all men unto Lie." If without 
 the Cross Jesus Christ Himself had spoken for nought, 
 what without it would the disciples have done ? It has 
 truly been the power which has transformed the world. 
 Men tell us that the morality of the Gospel would have 
 been sufficient to save the world. Morality ! And 
 who does not know that in heathendom itself, in the 
 days of the primitive Church, it had cast its brightest 
 lustre ? Morality ! Never had it been more honoured 
 and exalted than by such philosophers as Epictetus, 
 Seneca, Marcus Aurelius ; but also, never had it been 
 more powerless to convert even those who preached it 
 with so much eloquence. But whilst in their schools 
 they disserted upon duty, without, however, changing 
 one heart, the Cross had risen bright and blessed . . . . ; 
 it had lighted up the most gloomy darkness and the 
 lowest depths of ancient society, and there, from amongst 
 the poor, the lowly, the slaves, it had called forth 
 thousands of souls Mdio were willing to die for the sake 
 of truth and justice, and who, in the circus and amidst 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 265 
 
 the most cruel torments, proclaimed pardon, hope, and 
 life eternal. That is what the Cross then did, and what 
 it alone could do. Count all its triumphs since then ! 
 Tell us how many sinners it has snatched from pollution, 
 how many troubled hearts it has saved from despair, and 
 this from age to age ; for all the clouds which the un- 
 belief of men has raised round it may have dimmed its 
 brightness for a moment, but they have not quenched its 
 light. . . . Ask of our missionaries what they would do 
 without the Cross ? and what discourses, wliat arguments, 
 what morals would produce the same results as the 
 simple narrative of the death of Jesus Christ ? But what ! 
 without the Cross would there be any missionaries at 
 all ? Do men leave their native shores and peril their 
 lives simply to preach morality ? Has deism ever 
 essayed to evangelise the world ? But why go such 
 lengths ? Let us examine ourselves, for if we are truly 
 Christians, it is through the Cross that we have become 
 such. Till we had beheld it, we had perhaps felt many 
 pure and sweet religious emotions, we had perhaps felt 
 the attraction of truth ; but to make of us new creatures, to 
 inspire us with new thoughts, new affections, new hopes, 
 the Cross, and nothing short of the Cross, was required. 
 
 To judge of its power, we must see it struggling with 
 the human soul in the hours of sorest trial. For instance, 
 here is one of those sorrows against which all manner of 
 consolations dash as the waves against a rock — one of 
 those sorrows which express themselves in revolt and blas- 
 phemy. Armed with the Cross, I fear not to encounter 
 it ; for there is upon this Cross a sorrow greater, deeper, 
 more distressing still, but in which we feel the tender 
 sympathy of a God. ... Or give me a criminal consci- 
 ence — a conscience tortured by remorse, and trembling 
 before the approaching judgment of God — with the Cross 
 I can meet it, Ibr from it flows a pardon in M'hich love 
 
266 FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 
 
 unites with holiness. Since the first sinner converted by 
 the Cross — since the repentant malefactor — count all the 
 souls it has saved, all the broken hearts it has comforted, 
 all the sufferings it has appeased, all the agonies it has 
 helped to endure ! Truly the Cross is the greatest power 
 in the world, the only power which has remained stand- 
 ing in the midst of the heaped-up ruins of eighteen cen- 
 turies, the only power which conquers still. Where is 
 the Christian who does not hail, in hope, the day when 
 it will have subdued the world ? and who does not 
 believe in its final triumph ? This, for us, is a mere 
 question of time. 
 
 Therefore, now as in the day when it was first uttered, 
 this saying of St. Paul's remains true, and the Cross is 
 at once foolishness and power. How shall we conciliate 
 these two ideas ? If the Cross be foolishness for the 
 world, how is it the only power by which the world can 
 be conquered ? That is what we have still to show. 
 
 Pascal has explained this in one of his incomparable 
 pages. " There are three orders of power," he says, " and 
 there are only three : material power, intellectual power, 
 and moral power," To bring man under subjection, one 
 of these three powers must be employed. Supposing God 
 wishes to bring back the human soul to Himself, let us 
 see which of these means will be the most worthy of Him. 
 
 In tlie first place, there is material power. It has this 
 peculiar character, that it is irresistible and fatah God 
 might have subdued men by that power. That is what 
 they seem to demand of Him, all who express surprise 
 at His toleration of revolt, injustice, and sin in the world, 
 when it were so easy for Him to destroy them by a word 
 of His mouth. God might annihilate them ; for this He 
 would have only to open heaven, to crush our pride, to 
 sweep us away as by a second deluge. The voice which 
 said : " Let there be light ! " and there was light, would 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 267 
 
 have merely to Lid life die away on this imperceptible 
 globe where our j^ride so complacently displays itself. 
 Now, the God of the Gospel desires another triumph than 
 this ; He will not reign over slaves. 
 
 But, above material power, there is intellectual power. 
 This, too, is irresistible. It bears with it an inflexible 
 evidence. Lay down an axiom of logic or geometry, and, 
 if I can understand it, I am forced to admit it. Grod 
 might have subdued man by this power. He might, by 
 irrefutable reasonings, have demonstrated religious truth, 
 the way that leads to Him. This is what the wise ask 
 of Him. He has not done so, and why ? First of all, 
 because the reasonings of the mind neither change nor 
 touch the heart, and because God will be known only 
 that He may be loved ; again, because if God had revealed 
 Himself to the mind, the intelligent alone would have 
 been saved. What a revelation, or rather, what a mon- 
 strous injustice ! In this way, the great majority of our 
 fellow-men, fatally condemned to ignorance, would at the 
 same time have been condemned never to know God. 
 God seeks another triumph than this, and we have to 
 bless Him for it. 
 
 There remains a third order of power, moral power. 
 By this I mean the power that acts upon the heart and 
 conscience. Here we enter the domain of liberty. Whilst 
 material or logical power forced themselves upon us fatally, 
 here, in the moral order, we are free to admit or deny, 
 to accept or refuse truth; but observe at the same time 
 that here only we are fully responsible. I cannot be 
 blamed if I yield to material constraint, and if physical 
 strength fails me for resistance ; neither can I be blamed 
 if my intellect is too feeble to understand the value of 
 this or that argument ; but I am bound to obey moral 
 truth, and I am responsible for the condition of my heart 
 and conscience. Well ! if all this be true, I understand 
 
268 FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 
 
 the power of tlie Cross ; for the Cross, brethren, is the 
 grandest moral power in the world. It is the power of 
 God, for more clearly than any doctrine it reveals the 
 love and holiness of God ; yes, but on condition that we 
 see in it what the apostle did. 
 
 You have been told of the love of God, and you have 
 tried to believe in it, but have you found this easy ? 
 You have been told of God as the God of nature ; the 
 admirable wisdom and the touching kindness which all 
 His works manifest lias been pointed out to you. Ah ! 
 I will not deny the emotions which then have seized 
 upon your mind, and which have drawn your heart 
 towards Him. And how, in truth, could we, in a spring 
 day such as this, see nature decked out in joy and 
 beauty without feeling a hymn of gratitude rise from our 
 hearts towards the Author of all things ? How, then, 
 could we refuse to believe that all nature sings of the 
 love of God ? Yes, but when, in a day like this, you 
 will be called to follow, with a slow and heavy step, a 
 bier containing the mortal remains of the being you 
 loved best ; wdien, oh ye lathers who now hear me, you 
 wall be forced to hear the damp earth falling on the 
 grave of your child while all will be joy and gladness in 
 nature, while its thousand voices will sing of life and 
 hope, while the sun will fill the earth with floods of 
 pure and radiant light ; answer, will nature then reveal 
 to you the love of God ? Will it reveal God to so many 
 beings who suffer, to those sick and hungry ones ; and 
 do you not feel how cruel and derisive is this mere 
 supposition ? 
 
 You have been told of the love of God, and the 
 admirable ways of His paternal Providence have been 
 pointed out to you in your own life as well as in history. 
 God forbid that I should refuse to acknowledge them ! 
 How often have they not been made manifest in the 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 269 
 
 magnificent triumph of some just cause, in the prosperity 
 of a united family, in the peaceful happiness, the reward 
 of a noble existence ? Yes, but what does it say to your, 
 heart, this doctrine of Providence, when trial sweeps 
 over you again and again, when misfortune seems to call 
 unto misfortune, when your prayers remain unanswered, 
 when your fireside grows desolate, when your health 
 declines, and when, beside you, a faithless, loveless 
 being, who lives for self alone, sees his desires gratified, 
 and his cup of jDrosjoerity overflow ? What does it 
 say to you when, touched by some cruel and undeserved 
 iniquity, you see your right ruthlessly trampled under 
 foot ? Is it easy then to believe in the love of God ? 
 
 But if, through the darkness by which I am enveloped, 
 I might but reach God Himself, if I might but hear the 
 pulsations of His heart, if I might but feel that in Him 
 dwells an unfathomable love and sympathy of which 
 each of His creatures may be the object, that not one is 
 forgotten, that not a sparrow falleth to the ground with- 
 out His permission, that all my tears and sighs are 
 numbered, what strength, what consolation, would I not 
 derive from such a thought. But who is there that can 
 know God ? He is the mighty and invisible God ; no 
 eye hath seen Him, nor can any ever behold Him, . . . 
 No ; we had never known Him had not the only Son, 
 in the bosom of the Father, revealed Him unto us. But 
 here is a new revelation, beside which all other lights 
 pale and vanish. Here upon earth is a Being who 
 affirms that when they see Him men see the Father, and 
 that He is the visible manifestation of the hidden God. 
 Here in Him is a love such as the world had never 
 beheld, a love which enlightens, raises, comforts, and 
 which spreads in the midst of humanity a lustre so 
 bright that henceforth the world shall dwell in its light. 
 , . . Behold that love condescending to sacrifice, to the 
 
270 FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 
 
 most mysterious sacrifice, to unutterable sorrows ; behold 
 it exposed to the world's gaze on the Cross of Calvary ! 
 , . . You had asked to see God ; well, where will He be 
 if not here, and what revelation of His love can He 
 give you if this does not suffice ? What works, what 
 miracles, what prodigies, will enable you to comprehend 
 His essence more fully than the sight of the Cross ? 
 And though you might witness the sight of His most 
 ineffable perfections, of His eternity, of His Omnipotence, 
 and live ; though you might survey all His works, in 
 those thousands of worlds which His hand has scattered 
 in space, would you discover anything grander than the 
 ' love He has revealed to us in His Son ? 
 
 To choose such a method for bringing man back to 
 Himself is, if I may so speak, the chef d'ceuvrc of love. 
 I have told you that God will subdue men neither by 
 force of constraint nor by force of evidence ; that He 
 wishes to resjDect our liberty, and that He requires of us 
 a voluntary obedience. Now, is not that precisely what 
 the Cross has produced, and what it is producing every 
 day ? Does it not appeal to all that is best, noblest, and 
 grandest in man ? When you yield to the attraction of 
 the Cross, are you prompted by the interested instinct of 
 the mercenary, or by the servile fear of the slave ? Are 
 you not rather won by the purest of motives, by grati- 
 tude, and are you not thus led to give yourselves 
 unreservedly to God ? Could God have chosen a more 
 powerful means of bringing His wandering creature back 
 to Himself? By what prodigy could He more success- 
 fully have called forth that willing people He sought ? 
 
 Yes, St. Paul is right ; the Cross is the power of God, 
 because upon it appeared the most striking and sublime 
 manifestation of love, and that is why men have 
 believed in the love of God only since they have 
 beheld it on the Cross of Calvary; that is why it is 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 271 
 
 unknown wherever the Cross has not been preached ; 
 that is why, without the Cross, the apostles would never 
 have set forth to preach that love; why without the 
 Cross there would be no missionaries, and why those 
 who, while speaking of the love of God, overthrow the 
 Cross, are like the savages who fell a tree that they may 
 gather its fruits. And that is also what constitutes 
 the eternal power of the Cross. . . . Think you that 
 man, having once seen God in the manifestation of that 
 wondrous love, will ever deny Him ? Think you that he 
 will ever exchange that centre of warmth and life for the 
 icy abstractions of a religion of the mind ? No, no, I 
 am tranquil ; notwithstanding all the efforts of those 
 who shake it, the Cross will remain standing, for it is 
 planted in the heart of humanity to such depths that 
 none will ever be able to uproot it. 
 
 But is this all ? Does the Cross speak to our heart 
 only ? Does it not speak also to our conscience ? Does 
 it reveal only the love of God ? Does it not also reveal 
 His holiness ? Yes, and that again is what makes it the 
 power of God. 
 
 I have supposed the apostles setting forth to conquer 
 the world without the Cross. Well, suppose them 
 preaching Divine mercy without it. Think you men 
 would have listened ? Think you their message would 
 have been accepted ? But, some will object, men have 
 believed in pardon without knowing the Cross. Has not 
 David sung of the blessedness and peace of a pardoned 
 soul ? Oh ! I will not deny this. Yes, doubtless God, 
 at all times, by a direct and personal intervention, may 
 have revealed His mercy to the repentant sinner ; but 
 do not forget that this same God required at the same 
 time that the whole nation and David himself should 
 every year assemble in His temple for the feast of 
 expiations. Now, who would dare to say that this was 
 
272 FOOLISHNESS AND POWER, 
 
 a vain show ? and by what right should any one sej)arate, 
 in the Old Testament, what God Himself has joined ? 
 Ah ! I admit that all truly pure souls knew full well 
 that the blood of bulls and goats could not purify, and 
 David himself sets over against those sacrifices that of 
 the contrite heart. Nevertheless, this betokens a fact 
 which is generally acknowledged, namely, that the holi- 
 ness of God demands a reparation ; that only after the 
 accomplishment of this reparation on the Cross could 
 mercy be preached to man. This is not an arbitrary con- 
 dition ; it is claimed by universal conscience, which every- 
 where has poured torrents of blood upon the altars. 
 That pardon might be preached and received, it was 
 necessary that humanity should offer to God an atoning 
 saciifice, and thus proclaim the eternal rights of His holi- 
 ness. Now that is what its Chief, what the new Adam, 
 has voluntarily done for it. That is the only possible 
 explanation of His untold sufi'erings, of the anguish of 
 Gethsemane and Golgotha. That is the only fact which 
 will enable us to understand why the sight of that 
 troubled death has become here below an ever-flowing 
 source of peace. That is why human conscience feels a 
 thrill of profound assent in presence of the sacrifice of 
 Calvary, and that is why we feel that Jesus upon the 
 Cross suffers in our stead, that His work is our work, 
 that upon the accursed tree our salvation has truly been 
 accomplished. Destroy this belief, and what becomes of 
 the faith of St. Paul, of St. Peter, of St. John ? 
 
 Who does not see that if the Cross is not the central 
 point of divine revelation — if it tells not of Eedemption 
 — it may well be overthrown, and we may well dispense 
 with it ? 
 
 I have told you what constitutes the power of the 
 Cross ; I have told you that it answers to the deepest 
 wants of our souls, and that it alone manifests the love 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 273 
 
 and holiness of God in their fuhiess. How, then, 
 account for the fact that, satisfying as it does the human 
 soul, it raises an eternal opposition on the part of the 
 world ? how account for the fact that, though it is tho 
 power of God, it is at the same time foolishness ? 
 
 It is because the world takes a serious view neither of 
 the holiness nor of the love of God, I do not hesitate to 
 say that the human soul, when it is stirred in its depths, 
 when it understands all that the law of God requires and 
 all that His love has inspired, declares itself in favour of 
 the Cross, and finds in it the fullest answer to its inmost 
 needs ; that is why the Cross is eternal. But where 
 are those who reflect seriously upon these things ? 
 Where are those who, in the present day, resolutely 
 affirm the holiness of God ? Is it falling into the current 
 of empty declamations to affirm, to repeat incessantly, 
 that the sense of holiness is dying away in modern 
 society ? Do you find it strange that men should admit 
 a divine law which nothing enforces, a mercy without 
 reparation, a Gospel without redemption ? Do you find 
 it strange that men should mistake indulgence for love ? 
 that they should cast away the holy and jealous love of 
 a God who gives Himself that He may obtain the affec- 
 tion of man in return ; and finally, that they should accept 
 the Gospel — all the Gospel save its foolishness, whicli 
 is also its power ? 
 
 Consequently, for the greater number, the Cross will 
 remain what it was in the days of St. Paul, foolishness. 
 We must be made aware of this fact, that it may neither 
 surprise us nor shake our faith. The world will endeavour 
 to take from us this foolishness ; it will bring all its 
 powers into play against it, seductions, threats, mockery ; 
 it will try to make of the Gospel a reasonable doctrine, 
 an edgeless sword, a savourless salt, a religion which will 
 never wound, but which will never convert. Let not 
 
 s 
 
274 FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 
 
 enthusiasm lead iis astray ou this point. It is a fearful 
 thing to be in contradiction with the rest of men, to clash 
 against the favourite ideas of the generation to ■which 
 one belongs. Ah ! doubtless this part is easy for those 
 troubling and morose spirits to which any eccentricity is 
 welcome, and who would willingly add the foolishness of 
 the Gospel to the scandal of their own narrow-mindedness. 
 But he who aims at being the humble witness of a despised 
 truth, he who, loving much, must consent by his fidelity 
 to estrange the hearts whose affection was most precious 
 to him, he will understand me and tell me if such a part 
 is indeed easy. This opposition to the world, this firm 
 and. patient testimony is what men most dislike; there- 
 fore to clash with public opinion, to preach foolishness, 
 all this implies suffering, and is not that what the Cross 
 tells of? Well, let us suffer if it must be so, happy at 
 being thus made partakers of Christ's sufferings, happy at 
 being able to know the fellowship of His sorrows. 
 
 But if we are to be the witnesses of a thing which is 
 foolishness, let us at least show that this foolishness is 
 the power of God. Now, how shall we show this, I ask, 
 if not by the influence it will exert upon our lives ? 
 You wish to defend the Cross ; prove to us, first of all, 
 that it has converted you, j^rove to us that it sanctifies 
 you, prove to us that it inspires you with the spirit of 
 devotion and sacrifice. Do you know what does most 
 harm to the Gospel ? Not the attacks of its enemies, but 
 ihe apathy and timidity of believers. 
 
 Alas ! how can men believe that the Gospel is a power 
 when those who have heard it for ten, twenty, thirty 
 years are the same to-day as they were of yore ; when in 
 many cases they retrograde instead of advancing ; when 
 their life in nowise differs from that of the rest of men ; 
 when the world diverts, absorbs, engrosses them more 
 and more. 
 
FOOLISHNESS AND POWER. 275 
 
 How can men believe that the Gospel is a power when 
 they see it vainly demand of those who accept it the 
 sacrifices of time, money, ardour, life, which to-morrow, 
 perhaps, vanity, glory, the world in all its forms will 
 obtain without so much as asking for them ? 
 
 How can men believe that the Gospel is a power when 
 the hearts of those who hear it remain cold and dry ? 
 There is a heresy which no watchful zeal can reach, 
 which no profession of faith can remove, — a subtle and 
 dangerous heresy which insinuates itself in the very 
 bosom of the best organised churches, of the most en- 
 lightened societies, — a heresy which everywhere spreads 
 a deadly poison, and instils death under the ap[)earances 
 of life, — a heresy which refutes all the apologies of truth, 
 which paralyses every effort, and which well-nigh renders 
 the Cross itself useless — it is coldness of heart. To be a 
 Christian and not love ! To speak of the power of the 
 Gospel and not feel it in one's heart, not prove it by one's 
 life ! Is not that denying it ? Lord, at the foot of that 
 Cross where Thou hast revealed to us Thy love, teach us 
 to love more, and to prove by the change in our lives the 
 power of that Divine foolishness of which Thou wouldst 
 have us be the witnesses ! 
 
( 276 ) 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 " Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual 
 restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; considering thy- 
 self, lest thou also be tempted." — Gal. vi. i. 
 
 In the judgments which he bears upon sin, man always 
 oscillates between two extremes, excess of rigour, and 
 excess of indulgence. In the fourth century, in the 
 days of persecution, the Church was on the point of 
 condemning without mercy those who, in an hour of 
 weakness, had denied Jesus Christ ; later came plenary 
 indulgences and the unprecedented disorders which, at 
 the close of the Middle Ages, dishonoured Christendom. 
 In the sixteenth century Calvinism applied to the 
 most trifling faults the severe penalties of a Draconian 
 legislation; two hundred years later an insipid morality be- 
 came the general substance of Protestant preaching. The 
 same contrast strikes me in modern society. In certain 
 countries I see austerity easily degenerating into a pliari- 
 saical despotism ; in others, on the contrary, tlie mass of 
 the people are indulgent towards moral levity, and even 
 towards corruption, when it knows how to veil itself 
 under graceful appearances. This is natural to an age 
 in which men look upon crime as a disease, and seem to 
 have lost the sense of holiness. We find these two 
 extremes in our own method of judging of things. To- 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 277 
 
 day, severe and pitiless judgments fall from our lips in 
 presence of a passion or a vice from which we in- 
 stinctively recoil ; to-morrow, when brought face to face 
 with a fault or a disorder towards which our own heart 
 inclines, we can only protest with hesitancy and eSbrt. 
 
 Well, it is impossible to study the attitude of Christ 
 with regard to sin without being struck with astonish- 
 nient, and without acknowledging that with Him we 
 enter a sphere wliich is superior to that in which 
 humanity moves. 
 
 Jesus is holy ; His life is a light which sets forth the 
 thicivuess of the gloom which surrounds Him ; it is the 
 realisation of the prophetic words of Simeon, who said 
 that the thoughts of many hearts would be revealed by 
 Him. In His presence the Samaritan woman, frivolous 
 and debauched as she was, understands all the impurity 
 of her life and is alarmed ; the young ruler, this type of 
 the self-righteous man fully satisfied with himself, is 
 troubled in his conscience and goes away sorrowful ; the 
 wretched demoniacs exclaim : " What have we to do 
 with Thee, Jesus, Tliou Son of God ? " Peter himself, 
 on one of the first occasions of his meeting with Christ, 
 utters these words : " Depart from me, for I am a sinful 
 man, Lord." That was the impression produced by 
 an unparallelled holiness, beside which sin appears in all 
 its hideous deformity and all human virtues pale, just as 
 the lustre of glass trinkets grows dim beside the bright- 
 ness of the pure diamond. None can say that Jesus 
 was indulgent towards evil ; on the contrary, to use the 
 words of Pascal, He was " Holy, holy, holy to God, 
 terrible to devils, wholly without sin." None can say 
 that He lowered the moral ideal, for He set down as 
 His only rale perfection itself: "Be ye perfect, even as 
 your Father which is in heaven is perfect." 
 
 And yet, to whom have sinners ever obtained easier 
 
278 THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 access than to Jesus Christ ? with whom have they ever 
 found a safer refuge than with Him ? See how the 
 most contemptible, the most vicious, the most degraded 
 beings, see how all men, save hypocrites, come to Him 
 attracted by an irresistible charm. In general, a sullied 
 life dreads the sight of a holy; it shrinks from it just as 
 the diseased eye shrinks from the light which hurts and 
 annoys it. Speak of the moral ideal to the fallen being. 
 Even supposing he will listen to you, what effect will you 
 produce ? Nothing but a dull and profound discourage- 
 ment such as that which a man feels when, in his night- 
 mare, he sees standing out before him a straight wall of a 
 ])rodigious height over which he must climb if he would 
 save his life. And this effect will be produced only upon 
 the natures in which all moral nobility is not completely 
 extinct ; thoroughly debased sinners will, on the contrary, 
 be annoyed ; they will reject your words which condemn 
 them ; they will exclaim against your pharisaism ; they 
 will stifle your voice with the loud bursts of a cynical 
 mirth, and will leave you without hope. . . . Oh ! you 
 who have made these sorrowful experiences, is not that 
 incomparable attraction which Jesus exercised upon the 
 vilest beings a thing most strange to you ? Whilst 
 everywhere else we meet either with a repulsive severity 
 or with a complaisant indulgence, whence comes it that 
 in Christ we find that other marvellous contrast of per- 
 fect holiness joined to the most powerful art of drawing 
 to Himself all the most guilty and most vicious souls ? 
 Fathom this mystery, and you will see that its secret is 
 love. Yes, if they come to Him, those publicans, those 
 sinners, those gluttonous men and those wine-bibbers, it 
 is because they have never before felt a love like His ; 
 it is because there is something in His accent, in His 
 eye, that does not deceive them ; it is because in Jesus 
 Christ as in God Himself love and lioliness blend in an 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 279 
 
 admirable harmony, whilst in us, alas! they are almost 
 always separate. 
 
 I have thought it right to bring before you the example 
 of the Master before studying the exhortation of the 
 apostle who bids us raise those who may have fallen. 
 " If a man be overtaken in a fault," says St. Paul, " restore 
 him in the spirit of meekness." Let us, first of all, con- 
 sider the effect produced upon us by the falls of our 
 bretlireu, then we shall see what we are to do in order 
 to raise them. 
 
 Here before us is a worldly company. Those who 
 compose it are not coarse, untaught beings who from 
 tlieir childhood have been deprived of all moral influence ; 
 they are men formed by a brilliant education, capable of 
 understanding, of admiring the beautiful, susceptible even 
 at times of the most generous emotions. In this choice 
 circle suddenly something new is heard. ... It is a 
 secret which every one must keep for himself. . . . What 
 is it then ? A failing, a fall, a scandal which has just 
 come to light. ... Do you see the effect immediately 
 produced ? . . . Do you see those eyes shine with a 
 malignant joy ? Do you hear conversation, hitherto lan- 
 guid, flow on anew, free and sparkling as a flame which 
 a breath of wind fans and stirs into a blaze ? Do you 
 hear those multiplied questions ? Do you note that 
 ardent curiosity which is eager to feed upon the slightest 
 details of the sin in question ? Do you see those expres- 
 sions of the countenance which betray that one knows a 
 great deal more than one wishes to say ? Do you hear 
 those perfidious insinuations which veil themselves under 
 a false show of commiseration ? ... Is all this true ? 
 Do I exaggerate when I affirm that the follies and the 
 misconduct of others are the choice subjects of conversa- 
 tion in every stage of society (but more particularly, 
 perhaps, in what we call the upper classes), and that if 
 
28o THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 we should take slander out of these conversations, we 
 would rob them of their keenest fascination ? And 
 people tell us that man is good ! ... Oh ! I know that 
 they are clever at saving appearances. They will not 
 awkwardly exhibit a gross calumny, this they leave to 
 ill-bred folk ; but who does not know that the tongue 
 may learn the art of fencing, and soon acquire in it an 
 astonishing skill ? Who does not know that there is a 
 delicate art of gracefully shooting a poisoned arrow, of 
 mortally wounding with a smile, of insinuating all manner 
 of evil without affirming aught ? . . . 
 
 But, some will doubtless say, you speak to us of a 
 worldly company, and you forget that you are preaching 
 to a Christian congregation. True, I was on the point of 
 forgetting it ; true, I had wellnigh forgotten that amongst 
 us nothing of the sort ever happens, that the faults of 
 others never cause us any joy, that when we hear of 
 them our sorrowful hearts are filled with profound com- 
 passion, that we never comment upon them, that we 
 never magnify them, that we never exaggerate them, and 
 that this hateful pleasure of slander is as foreign to us 
 as the joy of demons is unknown to the angels. . . . Ah ! 
 let us set aside that cruel irony. Those worldlings of 
 whom I speak are often those who call themselves the 
 disciples of Christ; those men who rejoice at the evil 
 they hear are often believers who profess that the whole 
 of religion is summed up in charity. . . . Those worldlings, 
 they are perhaps ourselves. Let others excuse themselves 
 if they will ; as ibr me, I have ielt it, that fearful joy 
 which the discovery of others' faults produces ; and then I 
 found nothing at all extravagant in the strongest expres- 
 sions by which the Scriptures depict the depth of our 
 fall and the depravity of our heart. 
 
 And what shall we say when we find that detestable 
 joy lurking under a false appearance of charity and dis- 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 281 
 
 guising itself under sanctimonious phrases ? Ah ! I prefer 
 a thousand times the light, scornful, and biting slander of 
 the unbeliever and of the avowed worldling. ... As he 
 cares not for holiness himself, nor pretends ever to attain 
 it, he is at least consistent with himself when he refuses 
 to admit it in others. ... I understand that each of the 
 faults which he discovers in his fellow-men causes him to 
 rejoice, and that the falls of austere people are for him as 
 so many subjects of personal triumph. ... I understand 
 that he takes a singular delight in pointing out the -errors 
 of those lives whose holiness annoys him. That is the 
 sentiment of fallen beings who, when \Aiej see others 
 lapse, parody the words of Scripture, and say, " Lo, he 
 hath become as one of us." 
 
 But how shall I express what a Christian feels when 
 in a religious circle he hears the faults of others eagerly 
 criticised, exaggerated, magnified ; when he sees pious 
 slander dealing its deadly blows in the shade under 
 cover of the glory of God and of a brother's interest, and 
 men who call themselves Christians hasten to set up a 
 tribunal and to pronounce with cruel rashness sentences 
 which in many cases will be irrevocable ? . . . Now, 
 such things have occurred. . . . There are churches 
 which have perished in this way. . . . There are men 
 who, having seen all this, have taken a dislike to religion 
 and have become the most determined infidels. 
 
 If you should ask me why, in the circles where religious 
 life is most intense, this pitiless severity often attains its 
 most fearful proportions, I would answer that religion 
 itself has its perils, and that when holiness is separated 
 from love, it is altered and perverted, just as, when we 
 eliminate from the air we breathe one of the elements of 
 which it is composed, nothing is left us but poison. 
 
 The Christian, for example, by the very fact that his 
 conscience, rendered clear-sighted by the Gospel, easily 
 
282 THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 detects evil under the most delusive appearances — the 
 Christian, I say, may, if he does not take care, find in 
 this very search a secret pleasure of which he does not 
 suspect the danger ; he may, in support of his belief, 
 delight in pointing out everywhere the cankerworm of 
 selfishness which destroys all the human virtues ; and if 
 lie does not keep a careful watch over himself, he may 
 rejoice at finding it ; it may appear to him as a justifica- 
 tion of his faith and as an argument in favour of the 
 remedy of which he is the bearer. This is a first motive 
 which will develop in him the spirit of judgment. 
 
 To this motive is added another. The Christian 
 struggles for what he rightly calls the truth ; he is sur- 
 rounded by adversaries of his faith. . . . How great is 
 the temptation to find them in fault, and to point out 
 their inconsistencies, and, if possible, their falls. I appeal 
 to your experience on this matter. In this age of ardent 
 conflict and controversy, where are our scruples ? where 
 is our charity when we hear reports of the lapses of our 
 foes ? Where is that respect that St. Paul recommends 
 us to bear even to our enemies ? Is it not most sure, 
 that if we should hear that one of them has erred, and that 
 a scandal has been the result of his misconduct, this news 
 would be relished and repeated everywhere with an over- 
 flowing joy ? Verily we know not what spirit we are of. 
 Where, then, is that charity wliich rejoiceth not in iniquity, 
 but rejoiceth in the truth ? 
 
 But we must go further in this sorrowful research. . , . 
 It is not only the faults of our foes which make us glad, 
 but often — and this we say with amazement — often it is 
 those of our brethren themselves. What, then, dwells in 
 our heart ? and what gloomy passions ferment in its 
 depths ? What ! the fall of one of our brethren may be- 
 come for us a cause of secret joy 1 . . . Are we then so 
 anxious to believe in anything but good ? . . . Do we 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 283 
 
 think to exalt ourselves by lowering others ? . . . Do 
 we believe that their errors will set forth our own excel- 
 lence ? . . . Do we pretend to purify ourselves by the 
 sins of our fellows, as a man who would wash himself 
 with mud ? Oh, inconceivable misery ! to rejoice because 
 a soul has erred ! because the Holy Spirit has been 
 grieved! because the sanctuary of a heart in which God 
 was worshipped is threatened with ruin ! because the 
 Churcli has been weakened and scandalised ! To rejoice 
 at all this, and call oneself a Christian ! ... To rejoice 
 at all this, and follow Jesus Christ ! When we have dis- 
 covered in ourselves or in others a spark of that sinister 
 joy, we are appalled at all that a human heart shelters, 
 and we understand those terrible words which St. Paul 
 uttered when speaking of human nature : " Hateful, and 
 hating one another ! " 
 
 One of our brethren has lapsed ! Well, if you are 
 truly animated by the Spirit of Christ, let me tell you 
 what impression this fall will produce upon your soul. 
 
 He has lapsed ; but you who condemn him, have you 
 never erred ? Would it give you pleasure if some im- 
 portunate voice should here retrace all your past life ? 
 Are you not happy, on the contrary, at the thought that 
 oblivion may have swallowed it up for ever ? 
 
 You say that your life has been free from all crying 
 sins. Granted ; but is this due to yourselves alone ? If 
 the occasions for sin have failed you, has not your heart 
 a thousand times provoked them ? has it not called for 
 and solicited them ? Trace out, if you dare, the history 
 of your inner life. Eelate to us all those secret thoughts 
 which no one has ever suspected ; those idolatrous affec- 
 tions so fondly cherished and deeply enjoyed ; those 
 shameful lusts, those latent passions, those mean feelings 
 of envy ; those successes of self-love dreamed of at the 
 expense of the humiliation and sorrow of others. . . . 
 
284 THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 All this, no human eye has seen it. And whilst this 
 world of iniquity was fermenting in your soul, your out- 
 ward life was orderly, honoured, admired. But suppose 
 that in one of those hours when passion inflamed your 
 heart and fascinated your conscience, temptation had 
 come to you, real, living, with all its seductions and 
 enchantments, what would have become of you ? Where 
 would now be that pride of a spotless life and of an 
 honourable past ? Suppose this first fault had drawn 
 upon you the malignant eye of a man who would have 
 judged you as you now judge your brother, once again I 
 ask, where would you be ? God in His mercy has 
 spared you. A thousand circumstances have prevented 
 your fall. But be sincere : abandoned to your desires, 
 you had been lost, and to yourselves, least of all, can you 
 ascribe your salvation. 
 
 Your brother has lapsed ! But do you know his 
 history ? Do you know the illusions which surrounded 
 him, the seductions which assailed him, the temptations 
 which the world scattered on his path ? Do you know 
 if, in the fatal hour, he did not look for a brother's hand 
 to seize and save him, and can you tell if that hand 
 which he sought in vain was not your own ? 
 
 Your brother has lapsed ! But did he know what you 
 know yourself ? Had he, like you, a preserving past of 
 blessings and pure influences ? Had he, like you, from 
 his very cradle known the prayers, the tears, the warn- 
 ings of a Christian mother ? Had the Gospel been laid 
 before him from his youth ? Had he seen the Cross 
 standing out before him as a faithful guide 1 Had he 
 heard those multiplied warnings which have not failed 
 you ? Ah ! which is the most guilty before the God 
 who weighs all things in His just balance — which is the 
 most guilty, he or you ? To whom has most been given? 
 Of whom shall most be required ? 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 2^5 
 
 Such is the first mipression which the fall of one of 
 our brethren should produce upon us. It should call 
 forth a painful self-examination, and a sincere humilia- 
 tion before God. 
 
 This first feeling produces another; real and profound 
 compassion for the brother whom sin has overtaken. 
 
 When you read the beautiful chapters in which the 
 Gospels recount the birth of the Saviour, and in par- 
 ticular the sublime hynm which the angels sang in the 
 plains of Bethlehem, are you never struck by the touch- 
 ing fact that it is angels, that is, beings that have 
 remained pure, who rejoice and bless God the first on 
 account of the salvation of fallen humanity? From this 
 we infer that the nearer a being lives to God, the holier 
 is the love it bears Him, the more deeply also it feels 
 compassion and mercy. And why speak of angels when 
 He whom angels worship. He whom Scripture calls the 
 Holy One and the Just, is everywhere represented to us 
 as moved with infinite tenderness towards all His fallen 
 creatures ? . . . 
 
 Well, if those who have remained pure, if He who is 
 holiness itself, feels compassion for our guilty brethren, 
 what should we not feel for them, we who, more or less 
 guilty also, are therefore to a certain extent responsible 
 for their wanderings ? They have fallen ! This simple 
 word recalls their present misery and the more terrible 
 wretchedness which they are preparing for themselves in 
 the future. Nevertheless, if, in this very hour, it were 
 possible for them to return to God, our anger would 
 certainly not help to make this return easy, it would 
 simply harden them. And what ! can we tell if, in the 
 anguish by which they are tortured, their heart does not 
 seek another heart that will understand them and gladly 
 receive their first avowals of repentance ? What will 
 they do if they find it nowhere, and if they see, rising 
 
286 THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 all around them, the icy walls of our inflexible 
 severity ? 
 
 We reject the institution of the confessional such as it 
 exists in Eoman Catholicism. But it is not enough to 
 reject it, we must meet whatever may be true and legiti- 
 mate in the instincts which have created and main- 
 tained it. 
 
 Man must needs unburden his heart to man. " Con- 
 fess your faults one to another," says St. James. How 
 do we obey this commandment? Men tell us that it 
 is enough to confess our sins to God. That we may be 
 pardoned, yes, doubtless, and yet this confession would 
 not suffice if our silence were likely to be hurtful to any 
 one. But go to the depths of the human heart; you 
 will find that in it there is a secret but imperious desire 
 to be true towards the world. Men see but the outward 
 and superficial side of our life, and this side is its bright 
 side. Well ! there are times when reality must come to 
 li'dit, when the truth must appear, when one of our fellow- 
 men at least must be told of all the misery and tempta- 
 tion which dwells in our soul. It is not only the desire 
 to be true that leads us thus to unburden our hearts to 
 another, it is also the profound yearning to be under- 
 stood, aided, counselled ; ah ! do we not all know how 
 comforting and salutary are such avowals ? Do we not 
 know that certain temptations which mercilessly assail 
 us so long as they are permitted to float vaguely and 
 dimly before our eyes, lose their power and attraction as 
 soon as they are expressed in words ? Do we not know 
 how precious is the strength and consolation which a 
 sympathetic heart may impart to us ? This is, therefore, 
 a blessing ; but it does not follow that the confessional 
 is necessary. " Bear ye one another's burdens," says 
 St. Paid, addressing, as St. James had done, all the 
 members of the Church. Now, if any one has need of 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 287 
 
 this sympathy, it is evidently the man who has erred ; 
 shall he obtain it from us, brethren ? Shall he find in us 
 a charity that will condescend to hear him and to respect 
 him sufficiently to keep his confession a secret ? Shall 
 he find in us that serious interest which can never 
 deceive and which alone inspires confidence ? Let us 
 beware. A first fall often has the most decisive conse- 
 quences. The humiliation which follows it may be 
 turned into benediction, or it may degenerate into bitter- 
 ness and soon into rebellion, and upon us, perhaps, often 
 depends this momentous choice. 
 
 Thus to receive the erring soul with sympathy is, 
 doubtless, much; but that is not enough. Our mission 
 lays upon us the duty of its full restoration. 
 
 Sympathy alone will not suffice. There is even a 
 sympathy which is mere weakness. There is a soft and 
 eheminate manner of pitying the sinner which is but 
 an unworthy counterfeit of the charity of the Gospel. 
 Now, if we cannot accept holiness without love, by 
 the same reason we cannot accept love without holi- 
 ness. There are men to-day who affect to consider 
 criminals as the wretched victims of an unfortunate 
 nature, of some hereditary fatality, or of circumstances 
 which have all conspired against them. Guilty and 
 cowardly complaisance, well worthy of an epoch which 
 delights in giving to the prostitute the place of honour in 
 the play or in tlie novel, and which pretends to explain 
 the triumphs of the Gospel, at its birth, by its indulgence 
 towards all human failings ! Lying sentimentality which 
 is a mere parody of true love ! Men exclaim against 
 our Pharisaism, they shatter the pedestal on which the 
 Christian virtues were enthroned, and then hasten to 
 erect on its ruins an altar to rehabilitated vice. Ah ! 
 let us never cease to protest with all our might against 
 this blasphemous corruption of the holiest doctrine which 
 
288 THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 ever was preached ; let us remember that, if Jesus par- 
 dons, He says also : " Sin no more." Let us remember 
 that He transforms and restores all those whom He 
 pardons, and that the charity which leads not to complete 
 restoration is unworthy of Him. 
 
 " If a man be overtaken in a fault, restore him," says 
 the apostle. The soul which sin has overtaken is like 
 the bruised reed of which Scripture tells. It must be 
 raised up gently that it may once more aspire heaven- 
 ward. 
 
 This is a delicate and sublime work, for it is the work 
 of God ; yes, but the work of God destined to be accom- 
 plished by men, for it has pleased Him to use our instru- 
 mentality. Will you ask me to trace out a plan for you ? 
 How could I do so ? Everything must depend upon 
 character, and each individual requires to be studied and 
 understood. This only will I say: " Do the work of 
 Jesus Christ, in the spirit of Jesus Christ." You must 
 have for your fallen brethren a love without weakness 
 and a holiness without pride. Do not flatter ; Jesus 
 Christ never did so ; point out to those who have erred 
 the straight and narrow way ; tell them, if needs be, of 
 the cross to be borne, of the sacritices which God demands 
 of them. An easy religion will never take full possession 
 of the heart ; a low-toned morality will never save the 
 soul ; only those who ask much can expect to obtain 
 much. 
 
 But, at the same time, never grow weary of placing 
 before them that Divine mercy which always anticipates 
 the sinner's return, that ever-faithful kindness, that pro- 
 ibund love which meets their every want, and which, 
 having once begun a work of salvation, pursues and 
 achieves it. Be yourselves, not only its preachers, but 
 its living examples . . . , find, whilst loving the soul 
 which is entrusted to you, labour to make yourselves use- 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 289 
 
 ful, substitute the intervention of Jesus for your own, 
 and take as your motto the grand saying of the Fore- 
 runner : " He must increase, but I must decrease." 
 
 Here a thought strikes me. We speak of raising the 
 fallen. Well ! in our epoch, men seem to have set their 
 hearts upon an analogous and admirable work which 
 has but too long been forgotten, namely, the material and 
 moral restoration of those lower classes among which 
 Jesus lived, and which have been so cruelly neglected in 
 the past ages. Alas ! why must we have learned to fear 
 ere we learned to love them ? At length, however, the 
 day of reparation seems to have dawned for them. Many 
 of those whom fortune and instruction have raised to an 
 elevated rank, are beginning to understand that their 
 position lays them rinder the most imperious and sacred 
 obligations towards their humble brethren. I do not here 
 refer to those cowardly adulators who court and flatter 
 the masses by stirring their passions and in the mere 
 hope of self-advancement. No, in spite of such men 
 who are capable of injuring and destroying the grandest 
 causes, the elevation of the working population is every- 
 where advocated in the present day. Everywhere it is 
 acknowledged that their mind needs food, light, and health 
 as well as their body. Noble preoccupation this, which 
 cannot but call forth our deepest sympathy ! Well ! when 
 I read the writings of the generous men who have devoted 
 themselves most ardently to this task, I am surprised to 
 hear them, mere philosophers as they are, come to the 
 conclusion that, all things considered, the sovereign remedy 
 is in the hands of the workman himself, and that every 
 progress, every amelioration, every alteration, will be of 
 no avail whatever without the moral will of the indivi- 
 dual. 
 
 Grand conclusion ! Truly Christian thought ! for it 
 proves that in reality the soul governs the body, and that 
 
 T 
 
290 THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 the masses are not mere flocks whose condition may be 
 ameliorated by changing their pasture-land. You aim at 
 raising the working classes. Well, make their conditions 
 of life easier, open healthy workshops and lodging-houses 
 for them, assure them a legitimate time for rest, build 
 schools for their children ; . . . all this is doing much, 
 but listen, you will have done nothing if the moral will 
 of individuals, that is, if the soul has not taken a higher 
 direction. It is upon the soul, therefore, that we must 
 act in the first place. From this I, in my turn, inl'er 
 that the Church has greater reason than ever to pursue 
 her sublime mission, that is, spiritual restoration, and the 
 salvation of souls. Let the positivists of our times sneer 
 at what they call our useless dogmas and our fruitless 
 faith, ... let discouraged believers repeat that, in order 
 to be accepted by and to exert any influence upon modern 
 society, the Church must become utilitarian and servilely 
 follow in the train of philanthropy. iSTo, no ; now, as 
 eighteen centuries ago, in the life of the soul will be the 
 salvation of nations ; it was by acting upon the soul that 
 Jesus changed the world and transformed societies and 
 empires ; only by raising souls as He did shall we obtain 
 ■ similar results. The hour of Christianity always strikes 
 sooner or later, and the Cross, which so many affect to 
 disdain as useless, at length saves even those who have 
 despised it. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His 
 righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you." 
 
 Our duty, therefore, is to raise fallen souls, but let us 
 not forget this, however ; we cannot raise them en viassc, 
 if I may so speak, and by I know not what a collective 
 action which would exempt us from individual love and 
 sacrifice. Vainly would you form for yourselves the 
 ideal of a Church system, of a special organisation which 
 would save the whole of humanity at one stroke. 
 Vainlv would you cost heaps of gold into what we 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 291 
 
 call Christian works. All this will be of no avail unless 
 each of us, in the post where God has placed him, 
 acts upon those who surround him, and brings them all 
 individually under that influence of love wliich nothing 
 can either equal or replace. Labour then in the humble 
 sphere in which God has placed yon, work upon the 
 souls with which He entrusts yon, and if, your faith 
 growing feeble, you should feel crushed by the thought 
 of the insignificance of your efforts in that enormous mass 
 of humanity, behold Jesus saving first John, tlien Simon, 
 then Mary Magdalene, then Zaccliaeus, or, in other words, 
 unknown beings, beings for whom none before Him had 
 ever felt the least concern, but loving them, bearing with 
 them, raising them, and, through them, raising tlie human 
 conscience and saving the world. 
 
 To raise a fallen soul ! . . . Do you know what this 
 signifies ? Ask it not of the worhl, which would pay no 
 heed to you ; but hear tlie angels of heaven rejoicing over 
 a sinner saved. Ah ' in all the actions of His life and 
 ministry Christ attracts and ravishes me. Yet, shall I 
 say, . . . Kever does He stir me more deeply than when 
 He presents Himself under the image of the Good She}>- 
 herd bringing back His wandering sheep, and though weary 
 and foot-sore, yet never resting until He has deposited 
 it safely in the fold. Ah ! were I a painter, thus would I 
 represent His adorable figure ; but — like that monk and 
 painter of the Middle Ages who prayed and painted in 
 turns in his cell — only on my knees would I picture 
 Him thus. 
 
 Discuss His life if you will. . . . Tell us, if you can, 
 that He was not sent of God. As i'ar as I am concerned, 
 I believe what my heart tells me, and in that love which 
 bends towards fallen humanit}', I recognise the presence 
 and intervention of Goil. Where, I pray you, would He 
 be, if He be not there ? 
 
292 THE SINS OF OTHERS. 
 
 Well, He calls you to accomplish this suLlime work in 
 your turn. Oh ! brethren, those fallen souls are there, close 
 by your side. They suffer, they weep, they groan, or, sadder 
 still to say, they have become hardened and blaspheme. 
 Will you remain inactive when, by your love, you might 
 save some and bring them back w4th you to the Tather's 
 house ; when already, here below, you might participate in 
 the joy of the angels, until the day when, surrounded by 
 those whom you would have saved, you would enter the 
 everlasting habitations ? 
 
 One word more. Have you never asked yourselves 
 with terror if you have not lost some soul ? Do you 
 know what may have been the eternal consequences of 
 your former levity ; do you know whether, through you, 
 many a sinner may not have been precipitated into the 
 broad way ? AVhat have you done for those whom God 
 had confided to your care ? What have you done for 
 them in the days of your unbelief, of your scepticism, of 
 your sins ? Alas ! what have you done for them since 
 you have called yourselves Christians ? Do you know 
 what may have been the result of a harsh and scornful 
 word uttered on some fatal day, of a judgment lightly 
 pronounced, of a lustful glance, of an example of world- 
 liness ? Do you know where the wind may have borne 
 those seeds of death, and by what mysterious influence 
 some soul may have been the victim of your owai errors ? 
 Do you know if, among all those unfortunate beings 
 whom God will cast from His presence at the last day, 
 more than one will not sorrowfully turn towards you, 
 and say : " It is thou, it is thou that hast lost me ! " I 
 cannot tell, neither can you, perhaps, God only knows. 
 
 But if your conscience reproves you, if these words 
 sound in your ears as the reproachful cry of an inexor- 
 able past, listen to them, for still it is time. Still it is 
 time to act and to save some soul, the Divine Word still 
 
THE SINS OF OTHERS. 293 
 
 says to you to-day : " Brethren, if any of you do err 
 from the truth, and one convert him ; let him know, 
 that he which converteth the sinner from the error of 
 his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a 
 multitude of sins." 
 
( 294 ) 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 '•And Moses went np from the plains of jNIoab nnto the mountain of 
 Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericlio. And the 
 Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan," &c. — Deut. 
 xxxiv. 1-5. 
 
 There are in history few figures equal in grandeur to 
 tliat of Moses, and I know not if within the whole range 
 of the Old Testament there is one narrative more sub- 
 lime, more pathetic, than that of his death. Nearly a 
 century had elapsed since, in the palace of Pharaoh 
 where he had been reared amidst the pleasures of Egypt 
 and the splendours of royalty, the thought of his people's 
 degradation had laid hold of his heart for ever.* From 
 that time he had wandered about as an exile, taking 
 refuge in the wilderness where God had called him to 
 fulfil the most formidable of missions. He, the meek 
 and timid man, who shrank from notoriety, had been 
 forced to resist a cruel and crafty king until the day 
 when Israel, delivered by his hand, was able to cross the 
 Eed Sea and direct its steps towards the land of Canaan ; 
 but then had begun for liim an unceasing struggle with 
 that ignorant, ungrateful, and rebellious nation, unfit to 
 bear the noble burden of its religious destinies and of its 
 liberty. He had witnessed all the people's revolts, all 
 their sins ; at the foot of Sinai where God had pro- 
 claimed the sublime law which will endure to the end 
 
THE PROMISED LAND. 295 
 
 of time, he had seen them worshipping the golden calf. 
 Misunderstood by them, alone in the midst of Israel, 
 he had taught, led, sustained them during forty years, 
 ever ready, watchful, and indefatigable, now pleading 
 with God for His people, now pleading with his people 
 for God. At lengtli he is drawing near to the long- 
 desired end of all his thoughts. The j^romised land 
 stretches out before him, and the waters of Jordan alone 
 separate him from it. The promised land 1 . . . Oh, 
 how often had lie longed for it and beheld it afar off in 
 his solitary dreams during the long nights passed in the 
 wilderness when, beneath the starry sky, he had con- 
 versed with Jehovah! . . . There Abraham and Jacob 
 liad fixed their tents, and their tombs awaited the return 
 of Israel; there the reign of God upon earth was to be 
 established ; there, for Moses, was rest, the realisation of 
 all his hopes, the reward of all his tods. . . . Then it 
 was he heard the voice of the Lord saying unto him : 
 '' Get thee up into the mountain ; thou shalt see the 
 land before thee, but thou shalt not go thither." 
 
 From the solitary summit of Nebo, the worn and aged 
 man casts a wistful glance before and around him ; he 
 sees all the land from Dan to Gilead : tliere Jericlio, the 
 city of palm-trees ; there the fertile plains of Naphtali, 
 Ephraim, and Manasseh ; then Judah, and beyond, in the 
 far distance, the western sea. . . . Yes, this is indeed the 
 promised land, but he is forbidden to set his foot upon 
 it. . . . For one moment his heart sinl^s beneath its 
 weight of anguish, but soon, forgetting himself, he thinks 
 of Israel's future, he beholds with deep emotion the spots 
 where God will establisli His sanctuary, the valleys out 
 of which will one day come the salvation of the world. 
 Northward, the far-distant hills of Galilee; southward, 
 Bethlehem, Moriah, and the mount upon which was to 
 be raised the Cross we now adore. . . . Then, having 
 
296 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 embraced that long-desired Liiid iii one last lingering 
 look, Moses bows his head and dies. 
 
 A grand lesson is taught by this sublime scene. Have 
 we not all dreamed of a promised land upon earth ? 
 Have we not yearned for it ? Have we not been on the 
 point of reaching it when suddenly we have heard a voice 
 saying: "Thou shalt not go thither." I would inquire 
 to-day why God refuses to give us what we ask of earth ; 
 I would plead His cause and justify His ways. I shall 
 be happy if I attain this end, if, instead of leaving you 
 to the bitterness which fills your irritated and dis- 
 appointed hearts, I may lead you to submission and 
 gratitude. 
 
 Yes, we all dream of a promised land upon earth. Is 
 tliere a man who has not expected much of life, or one 
 whom life has fully satisfied ? . . . Do not believe in 
 appearances, trust not to the outward joy, to the un- 
 concern depicted on so many faces. All these are but 
 the mask. Underneath lies the true being which, if 
 sincere, will tell you that it seeks and suffers. But for 
 Moses the promised land was the country where the Lord 
 should reign ; the glory of God alone inflamed his soul ; 
 it was after righteousness and holiness that he thirsted. 
 Where are those now wliom the same ambition fires ? 
 
 The promised land — is it for you that renewed earth 
 in which justice shall dwell ? Is it the reign of God 
 realised among men ? Is it God loved, adored, occupy- 
 ing the first place in the hearts and minds of all ? Is it 
 tlie Gospel accepted, the Church restored, souls converted, 
 the Cross triumphant ? Is it, in the beautiful words of 
 Isaiah, the knowledge of the Lord fdling the earth, as the 
 waters covers the sea ? Are you so completely inspired 
 by this lofty ambition, by this ardent desire that, though 
 otherwise happy and enjoying all possible earthly bless- 
 ings, this one thing failing, vou feel that all else fails to 
 
THE PROMISED LAND. 297 
 
 satisfy ? Xeed I say that this promised Land will never 
 be yours here below ? In the fervour of your faith you 
 may have hoped to reach it. By certain signs you 
 thought you had perceived the approach of new and 
 better times ; you had seen the tottering nations shake 
 off their deadly sleep ; the Church rise at the voice of 
 God and awaken to the sense of her sublime destinies ; 
 you had seen the Holy Spirit descending as in the day 
 of Pentecost and kindling the sacred flame in every heart. 
 . . . Thus in the primitive Church did the believers await 
 on the ruins of the pagan world the triumphant return of 
 Christ. Yes, that was the promised land. Alas ! the 
 world has continued its march, the reign of God cometh 
 not with observation, the work of the Spirit is pursued 
 silently and mysteriously, and whilst this brilliant vision 
 of a renewed earth still Hits before your troubled sight, 
 a voice whispers mournfully in your ear 1 " Thou shalt 
 not go thither." 
 
 Let us not delude ourselves, however. They are few 
 in the present day, those who, consumed by the thirst 
 for righteousness and truth, ardently long for the estab- 
 lishment of God's reign. We are not to be compared 
 with those believers of whom the world was not worthy, 
 with those humble yet grand witnesses of the truth who, 
 having all the earthly blessings their hearts could desire, 
 counted all these as nothing because the God they loved 
 was denied by the world. Alas ! when we lack nothing, 
 when we have health, strength, fortune, hope, nnd earthly 
 affections, do we feel that we are strangers here below ? 
 Do we think of the reign of God, or pray that it may 
 come ? Let us confess it, even our griefs have a dif- 
 ferent character. Some selfish thought ever mingles 
 with our sorrow. The promised land for you was your 
 personal happiness, — the happiness you sought after 
 with unswerving perseverance, and which you afterwards 
 
298 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 so bitterly regretted. In His Divine mercy the Lord 
 does not despise these sorrows, these regrets, however 
 mingled with selfishness they may be. The God who 
 raises the bruised reed without questioning whence came 
 the wind that crushed it to the earth, often makes use of 
 our earthly troubles to bring ns back to the right path, 
 and to awaken in our hearts a secret desire for true 
 peace, for pardon, for eternal consolation. . . . Look 
 into the history of your own lives and see if this be not 
 true. 
 
 You had dreamed of a grand and noble existence 
 upon earth, for your nature shrank from sordid pleasures. 
 God had given you talents, brilliant faculties, a keen 
 sense of the beautiful and the sublime. How joyfully 
 you rushed towards the new sphere of life that opened 
 before you ! How every noble cause claimed your 
 sympathy ! Each day was to find you stronger and 
 wiser. To know, to love, to do, — such was your aim. 
 All these enchanted paths stretched out before you 
 wrapped in the dewy hnze of morn, which, in the spring 
 time, betokens the brightness and warmth of a fine day. 
 That was your promised land ; your eager eyes rested 
 upon it, yoit were on the point of entering it. . , . 
 Suddenly misfortune has come upon you; disease has 
 shattered your frame, your fortune has escaped you, you 
 have been forced to earn your daily bread in the sweat 
 of your brow, crushing cares have weighed down your 
 heart and withered your hopes, the selfishness and hard- 
 ness of men has caused you many a bitter and cruel 
 deception, and whilst others outstripped you in the race 
 and hastened to reach those prospects of felicity which 
 henceforth were closed to you, the stern voice of affliction 
 murmured in your ear: " Tliou shalt not go thither." 
 
 You, my sister, had dreamed of the happiness of reci- 
 procated love; the way of life appearel smooth to you 
 
THE PROMISED LAND. 299 
 
 whilst leaning upon a loyal arm and heart. "What joy to 
 pour all your thoughts and affections into a congenial 
 soul ! What joy to have ever present at your fireside a 
 living sympathy for which nought that would affect you 
 would be indifferent ! What joy to be able to share in 
 labours, preoccupations, works which would become yours ! 
 That was your promised land. . . . And now you are a 
 widow ; you are treading alone that solitary path whose 
 asperities none can smooth for you. Or, what is harder 
 still, you have seen infidelity, falsehood, cold indifference, 
 perhaps, opening between you and the heart of the man 
 whose name you bear, a gulf which nothing can fill up ;' 
 you have buried your hopes in a grave before which you 
 dare not ask for sympathy, for neither respect nor love 
 can soften the bitter anguish of this heart-sorrow which 
 you must endeavour to conceal from the world. 
 
 To others God has spared this trial. You have seen a 
 joyous family-circle gathering round you ; you have pre- 
 ]>ared for life the children God had given you. How 
 gladly you have observed the first awakenings of their 
 intelligence, how anxiously you have watched their temp- 
 tations and troubles, how thankfully you have witnessed 
 their victories and their progress ! They have never 
 known all the prayers and tears and sacrifices they have 
 cost you. Your end was well-nigh attained. They 
 were ready for the struggles of life ; all that a watchful 
 luve could sow in their hearts had been sown. Their 
 soul understood yours, and with a confident eye you 
 glanced upon their future career, their success, their 
 noble activity. That was your promised land. . . . 
 Alas ! but yesterday yet all this was real. But a day 
 has come — a day of fearful anxiety, of terrible presenti- 
 ments, followed by a reality more terrible still. . . . 
 From your desolate home a funeral procession has passed, 
 and to-day your wavering faith must seek in heaven the 
 
300 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 image wliicli coutiuually floats before your weeping 
 eyes. 
 
 Shall I tell of all our other deceptions ? Shall I speak 
 of those works so long pursued with abnegation and love, 
 but which have ended in failure and ingratitude, if even 
 our best intentions have not been misjudged and calum- 
 niated ? I will not attempt it. Let those answer who 
 in all ages have looked for happiness, rest, and gratitude 
 upon earth as the reward of their efforts. Let them tell 
 us what the world has given them, and how many of 
 those fruits of which the spring gave fair promise have 
 lasted until the autumn, Ah, the promised land ! — it is 
 not here below. We see it, we hail it from afar, we hope 
 to cross its threshold, but sooner or later a voice is heard 
 which says, " Thou shalt not go thitlier ! " 
 
 " Vain desires ! fruitless illusions ! " exclaims the world, 
 and in the name of its selfish philosophy it recommends 
 forgetfulness and dissipation. But of this forgetfulness we 
 w^ill not hear. No ; better far to have suffered, to have 
 known those desires, those affections, those hopes ; better 
 far to bear with us those holy images and sacred memories ; 
 better far to endure the torment of a soul that believes, and 
 of a heart that loves, than to enjoy the senseless and con- 
 temptible frivolity of the world ; better lar, Moses, after 
 forty years' fatigue and suffering, to die within sight of the 
 shores of Canaan, than to drag the heavy and shameless 
 fetters of pleasure and sin in the palaces of Egypt 1 
 
 And yet in presence of the stern law which forbids our 
 entering into possession of the pi'omised land here below, 
 our troubled heart turns questioningly towards the God of 
 love, and we ask Him to disclose the secret of His ways 
 which astonish and sometimes confound us. " Where- 
 fore," we ask, '• wherefore ! " Never on earth shall we 
 iully know the true cause of the ways of God. There are, 
 particularly in suffering, mysteries which are beyond all 
 
THE PROMISED LAND. 301 
 
 liuman explanation. Nevertheless, it is written that the 
 secret of the Lord is for them that fear Him. Let ns 
 therefore endeavour to explain it in part. Let us en- 
 deavour to understand that we may the better learn to 
 praise and to be content to remain in ignorance. 
 
 If Moses does not enter the promised land, it is, in the 
 first place, because he has sinned. On a solemn occasion, 
 in presence of the unbelieving and rebellious nation, he 
 transgressed the command of the Lord, and then for the 
 first time he was told, " Thou slialt not enter the land of 
 Canaan." What! some will say, could not God forget the 
 faults of His servant ? Had not Moses been His prophet, 
 His witness ? Had he not glorified His name, defended 
 His cause, ardently desired His reign ? Had not his 
 whole life been one long-continued sacrifice to truth ? 
 And would not the God he had served so long now re- 
 member to be merciful ? Yes ; He has remembered 
 mercy. ]\Ioses has received His pardon — he is not cast 
 away, and God, who has chosen, who has kept him, will 
 take him to His bosom ; but pardon and mercy do not 
 annul Divine holiness, and so long as Moses will remain 
 upon earth he will endure the visible consequences of his 
 former transgression. As he sinned in presence of the 
 people, so in presence of the people he will be smitten. 
 
 Now, this is what we find it difficult to understand. 
 The sense of Divine holiness is daily becoming more 
 feeble. Alas ! our unnerved conscience is afraid to hear 
 anything that is likely to produce disquietude or alarm. 
 With the Gospel we say God is love, and we forget that 
 the Gospel never separated His love from His holiness. 
 We forget this, even in presence of Gethsemane, of 
 Calvary, of those unutterable sori'ows which remind us 
 that pardon does not annul justice, and that Divine holi- 
 ness demands an expiation. 
 
 Yes, God is love ; but have you thought of this, that 
 
302 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 what God loves above all things is the right. Can God 
 love His creatures more than He loves the right ? That 
 is the question. Men at the present time solve it as best 
 suits their weakness. God, they say, loves His creatures 
 above all else, and when they speak thus they overthrow 
 the entire Gospel ; for it is obvious that, if God loves His 
 creatures better than He loves the right. He will certainly 
 save them, whatever be their corruption or their unbelief. 
 Thus heaven is open to all — to the impenitent, to the proud, 
 to the rebellious, as well as to the penitent and broken- 
 hearted. Thus sanctitication becomes nothing more than a 
 simple accessory to be possessed only by a chosen few, and 
 pardon a mere declaration of universal indulgence. What, 
 after all, are pardon, change of life, the painful struggle 
 against sin ? God loves us, He saves us all, and whatever 
 we may do, we are sure of heaven. 
 
 That is not all. If God can thus give to the right a 
 secondary importance, can He not do so in every case ? 
 What henceforth becomes of His holiness ? Why speak 
 to us of His law, if that law may be altered at His will ? 
 I go further. Why speak to us of redemption, and of 
 the Gross of Calvary, if you divest them of tlie idea of a 
 sacrifice claimed by Divine justice — of that idea which 
 the apostles have ever attached to them, and which alone 
 gives to the Cross its incomparable power ? 
 
 That is what many make of the Gospel ; that is the 
 convenient doctrine which, too often proclaimed from our 
 Christian pulpits, lulls consciences to the sleep of death, 
 lowers the Church, and then boasts of its popularity in 
 the midst of a generation whose every instinct it Hatters. 
 Not only is the notion of God darkened and obliterated, 
 but I defy you, wilh such a system as this, to explain 
 suffering. What ! God loves His creatures better than 
 He loves the right, and He leaves them to suffer ; and 
 sufiering, with its poignant reality, is the perpetual law 
 
THE PROMISED LAND. 303 
 
 of history ; and, without necessity, millions of beings 
 whom God wnth a word might save, must know of lite 
 nothing but its bitterest griefs ! . . . And often the 
 noblest and best are those whom He calls to the most 
 fearful trials ! 
 
 On the contrary, admit with Scripture that God loves 
 the right above all things, that holiness is His very 
 essence, and yuu will very easily conceive that, if for the 
 sinner His name is Love, for sin His name is Justice ; 
 that suffering, ordained by Him, is inseparably joined to 
 evil ; that sinners, persevering in impenitence, are fur 
 ever excluded from His communion, and that even to 
 pardoned sinners suffering is imposed that they may 
 remember His holiness. 
 
 That is the Gospel, the true Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, the only one a Christian miui.-ster should be allowed 
 to preach from a Christian pulpit, the only one that 
 affirms God such as He is, with all His rights, the only 
 one that troub e>, but also the only one that converts and 
 saves, and notwithstanding its many severities, the only 
 one that explains our sorrows and comforts our hearts. 
 You wish to know why life does not keep its i)romises, 
 why your day-dreams, your prospects of felicity are 
 mercilessly destroyed ; why, within sight of the promised 
 land, an inexorable voice exclaims, " Thou shalt not go 
 thither ? " The Gospel answers. Because you are sinners ; 
 because this earth wliich sin has sullied cannot be the 
 land of rest and happiness for you ; because God's pur- 
 pose is to warn you and prepare you to meet Him. You 
 wish to know — you, the redeemed of the Gospel — wliy, 
 though you have believed in the pardon of God, in His 
 love, in His promises, you are treated by Him with a 
 severity wdiich bewilders you. Ah ! it is because God, 
 Avho has made you His children, would also make you 
 partakers of His holiness ; it is because He would have 
 
304 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 you constantly remember what you formerly were, and 
 what, without Him, you still would be. Thus in all 
 ao-es God has dealt with those who most loved Him. 
 Ask Moses why he does not enter Canaan. Does he 
 murmur ? does he complain ? does he accuse Divine 
 justice ? No ; he bows his head and adores. Ask 
 Jacob why his grey hairs will go down in sorrow to the 
 grave. Does he accuse God ? No ; he remembers the 
 artifices of his youth — his conduct towards Isaac, his 
 perfidy towards Esau. Ask David why he wanders as a 
 fugitive among the mountains of Israel, pursued — oh, 
 sorrow ! — by his son, by his own son. Alas ! he remem- 
 bers his shameful sin, his murder, his adultery. Ask St. 
 Paul why his apostleship is such a long martyrdom. He 
 remembers that he has kicked against the pricks of his 
 conscience and persecuted the Church of God. Thus 
 it is God acts towards His worthiest servants. Thus is 
 the declaration fulfilled that judgment must begin at His 
 house. Thus God reminds those He has pardoned, and 
 whom He saves, that if they are the children of a God 
 of love, they are to become the children of a God of 
 holiness. 
 
 Oh, stern but paternal discipline, against which our 
 hearts have so often murmured ; we bow beneath thy rod, 
 for, by our very afflictions, thou remindest us that God, 
 yea, CJod Himself, is labouring for our salvation ! 
 
 But when, as for Moses, God forbids our entering the 
 promised land here below, He has another purpose still — 
 He aims at strengthening our faith. Let us for one 
 moment suppose we were permitted to realise our desires 
 upon earth, to see our designs accomplished, our sacrifices 
 rewarded — in one word, to reap all we have sown — what 
 would happen then ? We would walk by sight, and no 
 longer by faith ; gentle and easy would be our progress 
 through a life in which every one of our efforts would be 
 
THE PROMISED LAND. 305 
 
 followed with success, and every one of our sacrifices with 
 its reward. Who would refuse to be a Cliristian on such 
 conditions as these ? Who would not seeli this imme- 
 diate and visible blessing? Do you not see that an 
 interested and mercenary spirit would mingle with your 
 obedience like a deadly poison ? Do you not see that 
 your hearts, attracted earthwards by the whole weight of 
 their happiness, would soon forget the invisible world, 
 and their true, their eternal destiny ? Wliat heuceforth 
 would become of the life of faith, of that heroic struf^ole 
 of the soul which endeavours to break off the chains 
 which bind it to the world of sight, that it may unite 
 itself to God ? What would become of that noble heri- 
 tage which has been transmitted to us by the believers 
 of the past ? Now, God expects better things of us ; 
 and according to the beautiful image of Scripture, as the 
 eagle, bearing its eaglets on its wings, teaches them to take 
 their flight, so God tears us away from the world we 
 see that we may learn to soar towards our true country. 
 That is why He refuses you present rest and peace, the 
 sweet security of heart, and the delights which you would 
 have lingered to taste. That is why, when the world has 
 spread out before your gaze the promised land of felicity 
 which enchants and attracts you, you have heard this in- 
 exorable voice saying, " Thou shalt not go thither." But 
 be sure of this, — He does not deceive you ; for true rest, 
 true happiness will still be yours. Moses ! thou 
 hadst dreamed of a holy and blessed land beyond Jordan ; 
 beforehand thou hadst beheld its smiling valleys, its shady 
 and peaceful groves where rest awaited thee ; thou hadst 
 contemplated the sanctuary in which the Ark of the 
 Covenant would have its dwelling-place ; and thou hadst 
 already heard the songs of the faithful worshippers re- 
 sounding on the hills of Canaan, beside the graves of 
 thy fathers ! Alas ! this vision was but a dream. Ee- 
 
 U 
 
 / 
 
3o6 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 yond Jordan, as in the wilderness, thou wouldst have 
 found an ungrateful, idolatrous, and rebellious people ; 
 thou wouldst have seen the name of God dishonoured. 
 His glory despised, and each step of the conqueror marked 
 by crime and turpitude. Ah ! better far is it for thee to 
 die on Mount Nebo, for God has reserved a goodlier in- 
 heritance for thee — a promised land which thou shalt 
 enter in peace. There sin is no more ; there pure voices 
 proclaim the glory of the Lord ; there His sanctuary 
 is raised in ineffable radiance and ideal beauty ; there 
 rest, in the bosom of infinite Love, all those who, like 
 thee, have fought for justice ; there God reigns, sur- 
 rounded by the countless multitudes of His worshippers. 
 Close thine eyes, weary pilgrim ; thou wilt open them 
 again in light, in the heavenly Canaan, in the holy Ziou, 
 in the courts of Jerusalem. 
 
 Finally, if God refuses to give us what we would have 
 desired to possess here below, it is that our hearts may be 
 His unreservedly and for ever. Some will doubtless 
 object ; yes ; holiness and faith may be learned at this 
 school, but love, is it indeed thus that God thinks to 
 obtain it ? Would we have loved Him less had He left 
 us those treasures His jealous hand has so soon ravished 
 from us ? Would we have loved Him less had we been 
 able daily to render Him thanks for the continuance of 
 the joys antl affections He has so cruelly wrenched from 
 us ? Would we have loved Him less had our heart, in- 
 stead of retiring sorrowfully within itself, been permitted 
 to opt-n to felicity, and to beat freely in the full con- 
 fidence of bliss ? Less ? Ah ! we aflirm it indeed. If 
 what we have lost could be restored to us to-day, if our 
 loved ones who have died could come out of their graves 
 and appear to us, if our youth, our life, our hopes could 
 revive, no human words could tell our gratitude and our 
 love. I hear ; but beware, you have said, 'To-day, and 
 
THE PROMISED LAND. 307 
 
 you are right, for yesterday, alas ! when you were in full 
 possession of these treasures, when your life was happy, 
 where was that gratitude, that zeal, that love which 
 should have overflowed ? Answer ! Where was that 
 life, consecrated to the God from whom you had received 
 so many blessings ? where those prayers, that courageous 
 profession of your faith and hopes, those sacrifices ? 
 What place did God hold in your thoughts, in your 
 dreams of the future ? Did you reflect that God Himself 
 was scorned and treated as a stranger on that happy 
 earth, decked with all your joys ? Did you think of 
 His cause forgotten, of His Gospel attacked, of His Church 
 enfeebled and divided ? Did you care for those thousands 
 of souls groaning beneath their weight of ignorance, 
 misery, and sin ? Did you hear their never-ceasing cries 
 of anguish ? Did you seek the land where righteousness 
 dwells ? . . . No ; that all these might be revealed to 
 you it was necessary you should suffer. When injustice 
 has touched you and pierced you with its keen darts, you 
 have understood what the oppressed feel here below ; 
 your bereavements have inspired you with a new and 
 profound sympathy for those whose hearths death has 
 made desolate ; sickness has revealed to you some of the 
 trials and temptations which are unknown in the strength 
 of life ; your humiliation, your secret dishonour have 
 made you sensible of the hidden sorrows which are afraid 
 of the light of day ; and the more vividly evil, sin, and 
 suffering have appeared to you in their terrible reality, 
 the more you have understood that refuge, consolation, 
 salvation are to be found in God alone, the more your 
 heart has yearned for Him, the more you have loved 
 Him, the more you have felt the truth of the Apostle's 
 words — " Lord, to whom shall we go but unto Thee 1 " 
 
 We have seen how God rears us and prepares us for 
 the promised laud which is not on earth, but in heaven. 
 
3o8 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 Happy are those who wait not till they feel the rod of 
 trial to bend their steps thither, but happy also are those 
 whose chains trial has broken, and who are now walking 
 towards the true fatherland. Companions in sorrow and 
 fatigue, let us march on together, some with a firm and 
 joyful step, others more feebly and falteringly. The 
 Lord leads us on ; and if He gives courage to the strong, 
 infinite tenderness and inexhaustible patience are for the 
 weak and trembling. Let us march on ! The promised 
 land is open to us. Jesus has conquered it by His suffer- 
 ings and death. He calls us all. Come, you whom 
 earth has deceived, come to the God who never lies ; 
 come, and may we all one day, gathered in our true home, 
 be for ever united with the redeemed of all ages in the 
 communion of the thrice-holy God. 
 
( 309 ) 
 
 XVII. 
 ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 "And the Lord said, Go forth, and stand iipon the mount hcfore the 
 Lord. And, behokl, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong 
 wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces tire 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 : 
 and after the earthquake a fire ; but the Lord was not in the 
 fire ; and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when 
 Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and 
 went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave." — i KiNOS 
 xix. 11-13. 
 
 One of the most striking proofs of the deplorable ignor- 
 ance in which our age live concerning the Holy Scrip- 
 tures is the lightness with whicli it judges the God of 
 the Old Testament. I do not speak only of the dis- 
 paraging criticism which, since the last century, has 
 attacked the sublimest scenes of the Bible, and without 
 so much as seeking to understand their hidden meaning, 
 has found in them matter for the meanest raillery ; I 
 speak also of another science which aims at being more 
 real, more serious, and I am struck with the prejudices 
 to which it yields. For instance, because the Scriptures, 
 with inflexible truth, wdth holy candour, retrace the 
 many failings, artifices, and falls of Abraham, Jacob, 
 Moses, David, of all the Jewish heroes whom national 
 pride, had it dictated this book, would certainly not 
 have portrayed in such dark colours, it does not hesitate 
 
31 o ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 to charge "witli their faults and crimes the God they 
 adore, without inquiring if He sanctions them, without 
 considering that He condemns them, and that their 
 authors, without one exception, are brought under the 
 painful and severe discipline of trial and repentance. 
 Again, because Jehovah, in His providential plans to- 
 wards humanity, makes of Israel His instrument for a 
 time, because He places His chosen people under the 
 yoke of a theocracy, and consequently of a code of laws 
 which, like all other civil and political laws, are to be 
 sanctioned by force, it sees in Jehovah the God of ven- 
 geance, it ascribes to Him the same intolerance, the same 
 hatred, the same evil passions which mingled in Israel's 
 accomplishment of its Divine mission ; and it forgets 
 that, even then, beneath the veil of theocracy, His true 
 nature, that is. His universal justice. His love, and His 
 mercy, shines forth in a thousand passages of the Old 
 Testament, that many parts breathe a truly evangelical 
 tenderness and mansuetude, and that while listening to 
 some fragments of the prophetic writmgs, we might be- 
 lieve ourselves already sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ. 
 What ! because this God of Israel, revealing Himself in 
 His Son, has shed over us the fulness of His light, shall 
 we despise the Divine rays which illumined the old 
 dispensation ? Shall the lirightness of the noonday sun 
 make us forget the splendours of the dawn ? No ; under 
 the shadows with which He still surrounds Himself, we 
 worship tlie God of Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David, who, 
 for us, is and ever will be the God of Jesus Christ. 
 
 This thought has been suggested to me by the narrative 
 from which my text is taken, and I am not afraid to 
 afhrm that, as we meditate upon it and apprehend its 
 true signification, we shall see in it a sublime presenti- 
 ment of that supreme revelation of the Gospel l)y which 
 God manifests Himself to us in His true character. 
 
ELIJAH'S VISION. 311 
 
 This narrative is drawn from the history of Elijah. 
 EHjah is the true type of the heroes of theocracy. At a 
 period of degradation, abjection, and universal idolatry, 
 he is beset by the thought of God's glory ; this passion 
 consumes him, he knows no other. He longs to re- 
 establish the reign of Jehovah, and in this mission 
 nothing will stop him, no ties of flesh and blood. Like 
 John the Baptist, who, nine centuries later, wdll inherit 
 his name and office, he dwells in the desert. Thence he 
 comes forth to appear in the palace of Ahab, the bearer 
 of the Divine warnings, and his voice is startling like the 
 noise of thunder. The judgments of God accompany his 
 words, and so great is his power that the whole nation 
 hangs upon his lips; he defies the priests of Baal, un- 
 masks their deceit, and causes them to be put to death 
 without mercy. Then might he indeed believe that the 
 reign of the Lord is come, for the people sound His praise, 
 and during a whole day the hills of Carmel re-echo with 
 the cry of the multitude : " The Lord, He is God ! The 
 Lord, He is God ! " 
 
 But, oh, sorrow ! after the enthusiasm of a day things 
 take their usual course ; Aliab is still Ahab, Jezebel is 
 still Jezebel, and the crowd, exalted for a moment by the 
 fervour of the prophets, falls back with insatiable ardour 
 into the turpitudes of a bloody and voluptuous worship. 
 Then Elijah, like all other enthusiastic souls, passes from 
 one extreme to the other ; discouragement seizes upon 
 him ; his faith falters ; God escapes him ; he finds the 
 ways of the Lord incomprehensible; he is angry because 
 God forgets His cause. How easy it would be for Him 
 to interfere, to smite those who despise Him, and thus 
 complete the work of destruction begun on Mount Carmel ! 
 But no : heaven is deaf, God is silent, Jezebel is as power- 
 ful as ever, and the prophet's life is threatened. In despair 
 Elijah flies ; his soul is weary of life ; he will go and bury 
 
312 ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 himself in the wilderness. He directs his steps south- 
 ward, far, very far, from that land of Judah where he has 
 struggled in vain ; far, very far, from that ungrateful and 
 frivolous nation ; he reaches Horeb ; he wants that bound- 
 less waste, those rugged and lonely heights, that wild and 
 dreary prospect which agrees with the state of his soul. 
 There he will die, and when the voice of God, who follows 
 him even in his retreat, is heard, saying, " What doest 
 thou here, Elijah ? " he replies by a bitter complaint, he 
 reproaches the Almighty with having forsaken His cause 
 and left His servant alone in this terrible conflict to which 
 He Himself had called him. 
 
 Let us not judge the projjhet rashly ; even in his 
 despair I recognise the zeal which consumes him ; his 
 temptation is that of all noble souls, of souls that thirst 
 for righteousness and holiness. Would to God there 
 were many believers like him, notwithstanding his 
 momentary deviation from the path of duty ! 
 
 The indifferent will be at a loss to imderstand this 
 revolt of Elijah ; as they have no elevated ideal, as the 
 coming of the kingdom of God finds them wholly un- 
 concerned, as the cause of justice and truth has never 
 inflamed their hearts, they easily fall in with the habits 
 of the world, and persuade themselves that it cannot be 
 changed ; for them, wisdom consists in taking men as 
 they are, and moderation is, in their opinion, the wisest 
 and safest j^hilosophy. Why aim at reforming the 
 world, why raise against oneself a storm of prejudice 
 and passion when one might live in unbroken peace and 
 quiet ? All they cannot comprehend is styled by them 
 fanaticism, and such men as Elijah, at whatever period 
 they appear, are fools in their sight. But the man who 
 ardently desires the triimiph of truth, who suffers to 
 see the name of God despised. His glory brought low, 
 and justice trodden under foot, will recognise his own 
 
ELIJAH'S VISION. 313 
 
 history in tliis narrative, and the expression of his own 
 sorrows in the Lamentations of the prophet. Thus, me- 
 thinks, must the Christians of the first ages have been 
 tempted when, after having, with the whole of the primi- 
 tive Church, awaited the immediate return of Christ and 
 His glorious appearing, they saw truth persecuted and 
 rejected, reduced to win souls laboriously one by one, 
 to plead its cause before kings and emperors, wlien they 
 saw the Church growing with difliculty, and forced to 
 submit to the conditions of all human institutions, hav- 
 ing, like them, its imperfections, its infirmities, its fail- 
 ings, and counting, in times of persecution, its apostates 
 by thousands. Thus also must our fathers have been 
 tempted in the days that followed the Eeformation, when 
 after their dreams of the free and serious religion, of 
 conscience freed from the human yoke, and of the grand 
 future which the Gospel alone could have given their 
 country, they saw their churches levelled to the ground, 
 their homes destroyed, theh Bibles torn, and themselves, 
 like malefactors, driven forth as exiles. Who can tell 
 how many were the anxious hearts wdiicli these noble 
 martyrs turned towards the God who seemed to have 
 deserted His cause ? Who will tell their agonising 
 prayers, their murmurs, their bitter lamentiugs ? Thus, 
 too, are still tempted those who, having looked for the 
 triumph of the Gospel, for the extension of the Church, 
 for Christian unity around the Master's Cross, for one of 
 those grand religious revivals which save souls and 
 redeem the world, are forced to see what we see : in 
 presence of an indifferent and scoffing society, the Church 
 divided and weakened, insensible and passionless, and 
 the progress of God's kingdom dependent, apparently at 
 least, upon wholly outward chances, upon wholly human 
 causes. In presence of such a spectacle their faith is 
 shaken, their hearts are troubled, and, like Elijah, they 
 
314 ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 doubt God's power to act and interfere ; like Elijah, tliey 
 overlook the sublime traces of His intervention in the 
 past, and if to these general causes of disquiet be added 
 some special trial, some lasting injustice of which they 
 are the victims, some cruel and inexplicable blow, it is 
 enough to wring from the firmest a cry of anguish or 
 murmur, or, it may even be, to drive them to despair. 
 
 Christians who have known these temptations, let me 
 tell you that, terrible though they be, the sorrows they 
 brino- are noble sorrows ! Ah ! it were far worse indeed 
 to become indifferent to what is going on around you, to 
 feel at ease in a world where God is treated as a stranger, 
 to look witli a cold heart upon all the injustice, suffering, 
 turpitude that meet you at every step, to accept this life 
 and this world such as sin has made them, Happy 
 those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, says the 
 Gospel. Yes, to suffer like Elijah, like John the Baptist, 
 like Paul, is after all the best and noblest lot upon earth, 
 for only on this condition may we hope to be comforted 
 of God. 
 
 And God spake to Elijah, saying, " Go forth, and stand 
 upon the mount before the Lord." The prophet obeys. 
 Standing on the summit of Horeb, whence his eye em- 
 braces the whole expanse of eartli and sky, he waits, for 
 the Lord has promised to appear to him and commune 
 with him. 
 
 He looks, and behold on the horizon clouds of dust 
 appear ; it is the desert wind rising swift, impetuous as 
 in the East, and soon the sky is covered by a dark and 
 livid veil. The long and dismal blasts of the tempest are 
 followed by terrific peals of thunder; the trees writhe 
 in agony and are torn from the ground ; even the rocks 
 tremble, the sands of the desert, gathered into moving 
 hills, roll like the waves of an angry sea. The storm 
 passes . . . but the Lord was not in the wind. 
 
ELIJAH'S VISION. 315 
 
 He looks again, and before liis troubled gaze the 
 horizon seems to move ; the rocks totter, the earth is 
 rent, the mountain staggers as if seized with sudden 
 giddiness. It is an earthquake which opens yawning 
 chasms waiting to swallow up their prey ; for a few 
 moments nature is abandoned to this fearful convulsion 
 . . . but the Lord was not in tlie earthquake. 
 - Elijah looks once more, and behold a strange light 
 illumines earth and sky ; fire from heaven has set the 
 desert in a blaze. The reddish flame of the conflagration, 
 shining amidst the darkness of the storm, spreads swift as 
 lightning ; it runs, it winds around the mountain-sides, it 
 kindles the dried grass and the uprooted trees. It is an 
 all-invading flood of fire, whose burning waves whirling 
 rise towards the gloomy vault of heaven. Terrified, Elijah 
 starts back . . . but the Lord was not in the fire. 
 
 The tempest, the earthquake, the fire, were not these 
 what Elijah had asked when, weary and discouraged, he 
 had upbraided God for His inaction and His incomprehen- 
 sible silence ? Had he not said to the Almighty, as it 
 were : " Awake ! take Thy cause in hand, scatter Thine 
 enemies like the sands of the desert, crush them in Thy 
 fury, consume them like chaff ? " And now he has 
 witnessed that irresistible and -formidable power, alike in 
 the storm that swept everything away with its blasting 
 breath, in the earth shaken to its foundations, and in the 
 fire consuming what the hurricane had left standing. 
 He has seen it, he has trembled, and yet the Lord was 
 not there. Where then is He, and by what sign will 
 Elijah be able to discern His presence ? The prophet 
 will soon know. 
 
 The terrible vision of the hurricane has passed. . . . 
 The storm has ceased. After the convulsions of nature 
 there is a profound calm ; the fearful glare of the light- 
 ning is followed by the pure and fresh light of day. The 
 
3i6 ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 sky has become visible once more, the Eastern sky, with 
 its clear and deep azure ; nature seems to revive more 
 beautiful, more serene than before, and from the depths 
 of the valleys rises a soft and gentle murmur, the har- 
 monious sound of nature awaking to new life under the 
 influence of the Divine breath. It reaches the summit of 
 Horeb, the cave in which Elijah has taken refuge ; the 
 prophet comes forth from his retreat. An inexpressible 
 emotion, an ineffable sense of jDcace, freshness, and joy 
 seizes his terror-stricken soul. Neither the roar of the 
 tempest nor the convulsions of nature had impressed him 
 to such a degree. In this still small voice he recognises 
 the presence of God, and covering his face Avith his 
 mantle, he bows down and adores. 
 
 Was I mistaken when I said that in this Old Testa- 
 ment scene there is a sublime presentiment of the supreme 
 revelation which God, through the Gospel, was to give 
 humanity ? This God, whose presence Elijah was unable 
 to discern save in the manifestations of His justice and 
 w^-ath, this God of vengeance, so long as He smites and 
 chastens, has not spoken His last word. " He maketh 
 His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire," but 
 nevertheless He is not in the tempest that overthrows 
 nor in the fire that consumes, and if the law of Sinai, if 
 the theocracy of Israel have revealed His holiness and 
 justice, the day will come when He will reveal to the 
 world that His name is Love. 
 
 Elijah does not yet understand the true and profound 
 significance of this vision, and in what follows God ex- 
 plains it only in part. He tells him to resume his 
 journey and seek out Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, who are 
 all three to be the instruments of His vengeance in 
 chastising Ahab, Jezebel, and the idolatrous nation. 
 Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, these are the storm, the earth- 
 quake, and the fire which the Lord will send when He 
 
. ELIJAH'S VISION. 317 
 
 will think it fit. Tlius God will interfere, the day of His 
 anger will certainly dawn ; but Elijah must know that 
 vengeance will not be His last word. In these terrible 
 interventions God will manifest only one side of His 
 nature, and His true revelation of Himself is still to 
 come. 
 
 This revelation, we have seen it. . . . What are those 
 -glad tidings symbolised by the still small voice the pro- 
 phet heard ? Hearken, and through the stillness of the 
 first Christmas night you will hear the angels' song 
 descending from heaven upon the plains of Bethlehem : 
 " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good- 
 will towards men." Draw near to the cradle in which 
 the majesty of God is disarmed, behold this little child, 
 born amongst the poorest of the poor ; no splendour 
 surrounds Him ; there is nought in Him to repel or 
 terrify ; everything is simple and unpretending, and yet 
 in Him is the true revelation of the God of heaven and 
 earth ; from this lowly manger will come forth the salva- 
 tion of the world. He whose birth caused so little stir 
 will grow as a tender plant, to use the words of the 
 prophet ; no outward pomp will He display, nothing that 
 might recall the fearful majesty of the God of vengeance 
 whom Elijah invoked. Instead of the iron sceptre of 
 which Israel dreamed, He will bear a reed ; instead of 
 the conqueror's diadem He will wear a crown of thorns ; 
 His voice will not be menacing like that of the storm 
 and thunder, it will tell of pardon, peace, salvation. To 
 all the sorrows of earth He will say : " Come unto Me, 
 for I am meek and lowjy of heart." Nought but prayers 
 will He have for His foes, nought but blessings for His 
 murderers. He will be reviled, loaded with insults and 
 ignominy, nailed upon a cursed tree ; but in this excess 
 of humiliation He will reveal to the world an unknown 
 greatness, that of triumphant love, of a charity that 
 
3i8 ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 shrinks not from sacrifice. A majesty beyond compare 
 will surround His bleeding brow, and in this disarmed 
 victim mankind will acknowledge its King. What neither 
 Ibrce, nor terror, nor violence could have done, His cross 
 will accomplish . . . consciences will be troubled, hearts 
 will be stirred, the Church will be established, a new 
 humanity will rise to begin the reign of God upon earth ; 
 it will march on with faith, love, and hope for its motto, 
 it will subdue the nations ; after eighteen centuries it 
 will preach the glad tidings of salvation on all points of 
 the globe, until the glad day dawns, when, in the pacified 
 world, there will be but one flock and one Shepherd. In 
 presence of this wondrous triumph of redeeming love, oh! 
 let us bow our heads, and, like Elijah, adore, for truly the 
 Lord is here. 
 
 We see, therefore, what is the true signification of this 
 sublime vision, we know what means the " still small 
 voice " which fills the soul of Elijah with a thrill of holy 
 joy, we know that God is love. And now let us endea- 
 vour to draw from this scene some of the lessons it is 
 destined to teach us. 
 
 In the first place, let us learn not to judge the Lord. 
 As we have already said, the delays of God surprise us, 
 and we often find His silence inexplicable. Why does 
 He not interfere ? we ask. Why does He allow His 
 cause to be opposed, attacked, and apparently defeated ? 
 Why does He allow evil to prosper and triumph ? And 
 though our lips avow it not, our irritated and impatient 
 heart calls for His intervention, His judgment, and per- 
 haps His wrath ! His wrath ! . . . ah ! when Elijah 
 called it down upon the rebellious nation, he knew not 
 what tvc now know ; he had not seen the Holy One and 
 the Just expiring upon the Cross ; he had not seen the 
 love which is mightier than hate conquering hearts and 
 .establishinii' the reiun of God on the earth. His wrath ! 
 
ELIJAH'S VISION. 319 
 
 ... all ! what could we answer should it reach us first ? 
 Do we deserve it less than those who provoke our dis- 
 pleasure ? When we take into account all the mercies 
 we have received, the light which has illumined our life, 
 the patience which has borne with us so long, the deliver- 
 ances which have been wrought on our behalf; when in 
 opposition to the wondrous story of the Divine mercies 
 we place that of our rebellions, of our ingratitude, of our 
 baseness, of our secret faults, or, it may be, of our crimes, 
 can we, nay, dare we still invoke the God of vengeance ? 
 Let us rather rejoice that the hour of judgment has not 
 yet come ; let us rejoice that a time is still left us for 
 repentance and salvation. Let us remember that the 
 wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, 
 and that we may triumph over evil, let us imitate Divine 
 Providence, which, though able to subdue all things by 
 force, chooses rather to conquer by love. 
 
 I next find in my text a deeply-comforting thought. 
 Is there a man who, having vainly looked for Divine 
 intervention in the history of humanity at large and in 
 his own personal history, has not sometimes felt the 
 shudder of doubt pass over his soul ? Who, in times 
 like those, has not longed to ask God His secret, the 
 secret of those strange and mysterious ways which be- 
 wildered him ? Well ; this secret is revealed in the 
 vision of Elijah — this secret is love. Love is the final 
 and supreme explanation of all God's dealings with 
 humanity ; love, not wrath ; love, not vengeance, what- 
 ever our hearts may sometimes think to the contrary. 
 Nevertheless, it must be rightly understood that, if in 
 love alone God gives mankind a lull revelation of Him- 
 self, it is He also who sends the wind, the earthquake, 
 and the all-consuming fire. Let us beware lest, because 
 we believe in the Gospel, we render the arm of the Lord 
 powerless, and make of our G!od a so It and effeminate 
 
320 ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 being, suited to the spirit of the present generation. Xo, 
 for us also the Lord reigneth ; for us He will ever be the 
 centre of history, the Euler of all the convulsions that 
 shake the world. And are there not certain pages of the 
 world's history in which His intervention becomes visible, 
 so to speak, and in which, like Belshazzar during his 
 feast at Babylon, we discern a mysterious hand tracing 
 the death-warrant. of the powers of evil? When Nineveh 
 and Babylon fall, when those gigantic empires crumble, 
 do we not see the intervention of God there ? When 
 murderous Jerusalem is trodden under foot by the 
 Gentiles, when the plough tears the ground on which 
 stood its magnificent Temple, when exiled Israel is dis- 
 persed throughout the world to be the constant wonder 
 of history by its unique and extraordinary destiny, do we 
 not see in this the fulfilment of the awful words : " His 
 blood be on us and on our children ? " When Eome 
 itself, whose fall had been foretold four centuries before- 
 hand by St. John, the Seer of the Apocalypse, is invaded 
 by the barbarians ; when its conquerors, Attila and 
 Genseric, obedient to their mysterious destiny, call them- 
 selves the scourge of God ; when, on leaving their native 
 shores, they give the pilot this order : " Direct thy sail 
 whither blows the wind of Divine vengeance," can we 
 refuse to acknowledge the action of an avenging Provi- 
 dence ? and should we forget to recognise it, would not 
 the smoking ruins which marked their passage every- 
 where proclaim it loudly in our stead ? Finally, when 
 in modern history we see all the powers which have 
 opposed and rejected Christianity becoming the prey of 
 ruin and death, whilst civilisation, progress, respect for 
 conscience, true liberty exist only beneath the shadow of 
 the Cross and in the nations whose life the Gospel has 
 pervaded, when everything shows us, as the President of 
 a noble republic whose sons are not ashamed to invoke 
 
ELIJAH'S VISION. 321 
 
 the name of the living God once nobly confessed, when 
 everything shows us that justice exalts a people whilst 
 sin is the ruin of nations, we were blind indeed if we 
 denied the reality of God's action even in the darkest 
 days of history, if we refused to acknowledge that, as in 
 Elijah's vision, it is He who lets loose the tempest and 
 the all-destroying fire. Yes, God reigneth, we must 
 ■affirm it, we must proclaim it boldly, in presence of a 
 civilisation that prides itself on its material progress and 
 professes a scornful indifference, an insulting disdain for 
 the realities of the invisible world ; we must remind 
 society that it cannot with impunity banish God from its 
 midst, and that if the place He should occupy remains 
 vacant, it will be filled by the powers of darkness. We 
 must remind it that His justice slumbereth not, and that, 
 to chastise the nations that forget Him, He has only to 
 give them up for a day to the evil passions which fer- 
 ment in their depths, to the rising tide of materialism 
 to which He alone can say, " Thou shalt go no farther." 
 We must remind it that the moral corruption openly 
 displayed by the higher classes is stirring up in the 
 lower regions a blaze of hatred and savage passions 
 whose explosion would produce a moral tempest com- 
 pared with which the storm witnessed by Elijah in 
 Horeb w^ere a mere child's play. We must remind it 
 that God is holy, that He will not be mocked, and that, 
 for individuals as well as for nations, His judgment is 
 the surest of realities. 
 
 Yes, God reigns in history ; but if we believe in His 
 sovereign action, how often also do we fail to discover 
 the traces of His steps ? How often does the spectacle 
 of the world appear to us as a labyrinth in which we 
 wander hopelessly ? And in His very judgments, how 
 much there is that we cannot understand. Alas ! in the 
 storm which the breath of His justice raises I see the 
 
 X 
 
322 ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 innocent smitten with the guilty, I see the child atoning 
 for the sins of the father, I see the consequences of an 
 iniquitous action falling upon several generations ; I see 
 a mysterious fatality crushing individuals and nations, 
 I see success attending certain clever strokes of policy 
 whilst good causes are left to perish, so that, although I 
 know that these various events, even those which con- 
 found me, are directed by God, yet I feel with as much 
 certainty that God does not reveal Himself fully in 
 them. Ah ! then it is that the vision Elijah beheld 
 brings a truly Divine and cheering light to my soul, for 
 if it shows me that God sends the evils which are des- 
 tined to chastise the world, it teaches me at the same 
 time that His chastisements do not reveal His true 
 nature ; it teaches me that the secret of His ways is to 
 be sought elsewhere, that it lies wholly in that love 
 which history teaches not, but which God reveals in 
 silence to the pardoned soul that believes in His word, 
 that hearkens to His voice, and consents to be taught of 
 Him. 
 
 Accept these consolations, ye afflicted souls. You are 
 perhaps groaning to-day beneath the weight of trial ; it 
 seems to you as though God had directed all His power 
 against you, and you have realised in your lives all the 
 awful sides of the prophet's vision. The blast of aillic- 
 tion has swept all your hopes away, your happiness has 
 Hed in an hour of anguish, and your heart is passing 
 through what Scripture calls the furnace of sorrow. You 
 have been told to seek God in these trials, but your heart 
 has shuddered, and, like Elijah, you are waiting still . . . 
 Ah ! you are right, for if these afflictions have been per- 
 mitted of God, they will not fully reveal His will and 
 His true purpose. Have faith ! The day is approaching 
 when you will hear the still small voice which struck 
 the prophet's ear, that secret voice of the Lord which 
 
ELIJAHS VISION. 323 
 
 alone can appease the rebellious soul and fill it with 
 unutterable consolation. You will hear it, and then you 
 will know that love was at the root of all these dis- 
 pensations, that love alone can explain your sufferings ; 
 you will know this, and bowing your head and veiling 
 your face, with Elijah you will say, " Truly the Lord is 
 here." 
 
 When Elijah had beheld this vision on Mount Horeb, 
 he heard the voice of the Lord saying, " Go, return on thy 
 way to the wilderness of Damascus." Eeturn ; a fitting 
 word for him who in the hour of danger had deserted his 
 post and his mission. Eeturn on thy way to the wilder- 
 ness. On that way which he ought never to have taken, 
 for God had not called him there. Eeturn to those before 
 whom thou art to be My witness. Eeturn where hate, 
 scorn, persecution await thee. Eeturn, for if I have 
 strengthened thy faith and raised thy drooping heart by 
 the revelation of Myself on the holy mountain, it is 
 not that thy spirit may dwell there in endless ecstasy, 
 but that thou may est go back into the world stronger 
 and more faithful than before, to serve Me amongst 
 those who forget their God and are hastening on to 
 perdition. 
 
 Let us listen to this command of the Lord, and let it 
 be our strength. "We have come here, it may be, dis- 
 couraged and sorrowful like Elijah ; like him we have 
 learned once again the secret of tlie Divine ways ; but 
 more favoured than the prophet, we have beheld the love 
 which Jesus has revealed to the world, and which is for 
 us the supreme explanation of all the dispensations of 
 Providence towards us. Let us therefore, like the Lord's 
 servant, return to the post of duty ; let us return to those 
 wandering souls, to that fri^'olous and unbelieving world 
 before which God wills that we should be His witnesses ; 
 let us return with humility, courage, and fidelity ; let us 
 
324 ELIJAH'S VISION. 
 
 return with a renewed faith, a brighter hope, a stronger 
 and more persevering love ; let us return, and let the 
 world understand when it hears our words, when it sees 
 our works, that we too have ascended the holy hill and 
 heard the voice of the Lord. 
 
( 325 ) 
 
 XVIII. 
 REPENTANCE. 
 
 "Against Thee, Tliee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy 
 sight ; that Then mi;^htest be jnstified when Thou speakest, and 
 be clear when Thou judgest." — Ps. li. 6. 
 
 Had I no other recason to believe in the divinity of the 
 Bible than the manner in which the heart of man is de- 
 picted there, this would be enough for me. Here, for in- 
 stance, is the Book of Psalms, written three thousand years 
 ago. Do you know of any other which expresses more faith- 
 fully the noblest aspirations of your soul, your struggles, 
 your doubts, your sorrows ? Where is the man who does 
 not find in it his own history ? You have perhaps per- 
 used the religious books of the nations to which Chris- 
 tianity was unknown — those poems in which the Grecian 
 race expressed with so much grace and genius the be- 
 witching influence of a worshipped nature ; those lofty 
 hymns in which the northern tribes extolled the ven- 
 geance of their deities, or those monotonous and despair- 
 ing songs, by which the Hindoo stirred himself to 
 commit the suicide which would enable him to enter into 
 the rest of Nirvana. In order to understand them, you 
 travel in spirit to those countries which have produced 
 them. You seek, by dint of attention and study, to 
 picture to yourselves the feelings of a Hindoo, of a Greek, 
 
326 REPENTANCE. 
 
 of a barbarian. . . . But when you read the Psalms, it 
 is your own heart you find there. True, the words are 
 Jewish ; true, Israel and Jerusalem are the themes of the 
 inspired bard ; but beneath the surface you see man him- 
 self appearing with the truest and most characteristic 
 features of his nature. . . . That is why this book 
 awakens the same emotions among all races of men. The 
 miserable negro is comforted by it just as well as the 
 most highly cultured mind in our civilised countries. I 
 love thus to find the human soul in its simple and true 
 expression, such as it was thirty centuries ago, such as it 
 is still to-day, with its eternal yearnings for holiness, 
 pardon, love which the sages of the day may misunder- 
 stand or despise, but which reappear with indomitable 
 obstinacy. It is good thus to rise above one's epoch. In 
 fact, each epoch presents to us an incomplete idea of man. 
 One day he is deified, on the morrow he is lowered and 
 degraded ; one day the intellect is exalted at the expense 
 of the heart, on the morrow a sickly sentimentality seems 
 to be the true expression of the human soul. Education 
 creates in us artificial needs ; the fashion of the day alters 
 or falsifies our nature. For each century is prejudiced 
 and sectarian, and sees but one side of human nature. 
 . . . The Bible alone is the book of humanity — it alone 
 pictures man such as he has always been, with all his 
 greatness, but also with all his wretchedness ; it neither 
 flatters nor debases him, but it judges him from a point 
 of view which overlooks time and space — such, in a word, 
 as he must appear in the eyes of Him who embraces all 
 things. Let a man perverted by tlie spirit of system open 
 those Psalms, he will not recognise himself in them, but 
 will perhaps cast an unintelligent and disdainful glance 
 upon their sacred pages which so many tears have 
 watered. . . . But stay ! Here is trial approaching. 
 Here is a great sorrow which causes the most deeply 
 
REPENTANCE. 327 
 
 hidden chords that still exist in the depths of his soul to 
 vibrate. . . . Hark ! they will produce exactly the same 
 sounds which strike us in those inspired lines. So true 
 it is that the heart of nmn is always the same, and that, 
 when stirred in its depths, it responds by a sublime in- 
 stinct to the voice of the God who made it, and who alone 
 can understand and comfort it. 
 
 I have chosen as the subject of our meditations to-day 
 one of the most touching of these Psalms : it is the cry 
 of a guilty soul ; it is the bitter confession which escapes 
 David when his conscience is roused by the voice of 
 Nathan. I would show you by this example what is 
 true repentance. We have arrived at the period of the 
 year^ at which men most willingly admit that a little 
 time must be retrenched from the affairs of the world 
 and devoted to meditation and serious thought. That is 
 M'hat, in the religion of the majority, is called the time 
 for penitence. It is understood that Christians must 
 prepare tliemselves in this way to celebrate the memory 
 of the work of redemption and of the sufferings of the 
 Lord. A touching custom would this be if formalism 
 had not perverted it ! But what is it in reality ? The 
 soul presents itself before God as a debtor before his 
 creditor. It seems to say to Him, " I have robbed Thee of 
 so many days, of so much affection, of so many thoughts, 
 which I have given to the world and to sin, and which 
 I mean to give them still. But here, in exchange, are 
 so many days of contrition, so many good works, and 
 so many penances." . . . What a miserable calculation ! 
 That is what people call performing one's religious duties. 
 . . . One's religious duties indeed! Is this the reasoning 
 of true love ? Can it be satisfied with such a mercenary 
 combination ? Can it pretend to pay off its debt towards 
 God by prayers or tears ? This, however, is the most uni- 
 
 ^ Passion-Week. 
 
328 REPENTANCE. 
 
 versal idea of repentance. . . . That is what men make of 
 the most touching drama which can ever stir the human 
 heart. That is how they pretend to conciliate the most 
 complete worldliness with the most enthusiastic effusions 
 of piety. That is also why I must remind you once more 
 of what true repentance is, by studying with you this ex- 
 ample through which it has pleased God to instruct His 
 Church unto the end of time. 
 
 I need not here retrace all the details of David's fall. 
 Everything, in his twofold crime, is calculated to amaze 
 and appal us. To have been the object of so many 
 mercies, and then so openly to violate the Divine law ; 
 to have known the most celestial joys, and then to have 
 so deeply sullied his soul ; to have sung in presence of 
 the assembled multitudes the praises of the Lord, and 
 then to give to the entire nation the shameful spectacle 
 of so crying a scandal — everything here combines to make 
 of David a unique example of an unparalleled fall ; and 
 willingly would many a one in this assembly, comparing 
 himself with the guilty king, exclaim, in the words of the 
 Pharisee in the parable, " God, I thank Thee that I am 
 not as this man." 
 
 But the Christian who knows himself, the Christian 
 who knows the history of his own life and of his secret 
 temptations, pauses and reflects. He thinks of the posi- 
 tion of David, of that sudden prosperity to which the 
 youthful shepherd of Bethlehem had been raised, of the 
 examples by which he was surrounded, of the manners 
 and customs of the East, of the seductions of an unlimited 
 power, and then he has only to humble himself, and to 
 ask himself with terror what would have become of him 
 in such a situation and under the attraction of similar 
 temptations. 
 
 Do you know what strikes me most in this narrative ? 
 It is not the greatness of David's fall. Yet it is odious, 
 
REPENTANCE. 329 
 
 and no expression is too strong in which to picture it. 
 No ; it is the sincerity, the intensity of liis repentance. 
 Thus to fall, alas ! is the common lot of man ; but thus 
 to rise again is the miracle of God. 
 
 There is in all deep falls I know not what fatal power 
 which enslaves the soul and renders it well-nigh inca- 
 pable of restoration. David innocent would surely have 
 shuddered like you, like me, had this story been related 
 to him. What, then, has lost him ? A look. A look, 
 and from that moment see how guilt follows guilt, how 
 link after link is added to his chain of sin. An unlawful 
 desire first of all, then the sin, then the lie, then the per- 
 fidy, then the murder, then the hardening. . . . Ah ! if 
 ever repentance seemed an impossibility, it surely was 
 then . . ; and yet, at the first words of Nathan, behold a 
 soul so completely changed that we may take it as our 
 model, behold a criminal who teaches us how we are to 
 return to God ! 
 
 The sincerity of David's confession is the first lesson to 
 be learned from our text. Do you know what it costs 
 the human heart to speak these words : " Against Thee, 
 Thee only, have I sinned, that Thou mightest be clear 
 when Thou judgest ? " Do you know how difficult is an 
 avowal such as this, especially when a man occupies an 
 exalted position, when he is surrounded with flattery, 
 when everything conspires to lessen, in his eyes, the gra- 
 vity of his faults ? Do you know how hard, how humi- 
 liating, how bitter is such an attitude ? That is the first 
 aspect of David's confession. It is himself he condemns, 
 it is upon himself he casts the entire weight of his guilt, 
 and yet, excuses would certainly not have failed him. 
 Might he not have alleged, as we have already said, the 
 perils of his position, his exceptional temptations, the 
 intoxication of prosperity, the silence of his friends, the 
 encouragements of his flatterers ? All these arguments 
 
330 REPENTANCE. 
 
 probably presented themselves to bis mind, but lie did 
 not entertain them, and laden with the entire burden of 
 his crime, he falls at the feet of God. 
 
 Is our repentance marked by the same sincerity, 
 brethren? Scripture tells us of the incurable wickedness 
 of our heart, but never does this heart appear to me more 
 deceitful than when, being discovered in sin, we essay to 
 shift the responsibility of our faults upon others and to 
 excuse ourselves in our own eyes. All manner of soph- 
 isms, however wretched, serve our purpose then : excuses 
 which we would never accept on the part of others re- 
 assure ourselves. Excuses ! Man will sooner grow weary 
 of sin than of seeking excuses for his faults. From the 
 first of sinners, who lays the blame of his guilt on his 
 companion and on God Himself, down to Pilate who 
 casts the blame of his upon the Jews ; from Pilate down 
 to us never will you find a man who will not discover a 
 way of dispensing with repentance by self-exculpation. 
 One will plead his youth and the temptations of his age 
 in excuse of his dissipation. Another, on the contrary, 
 will plead the power of inveterate habits, and the fatal 
 influence of a long life in which God had no part. One 
 will comfort himself with the thought of the religious in- 
 difference in the midst of which he had been brought up, 
 and will not fail to remark that none ever spoke to him 
 of his soul. Another, on the contrary, will pretend tliat 
 he has been saturated with religion and has grown dis- 
 gusted with it. Here is one who will quote the examples 
 of dissolute life which met him in his own family. How 
 could his conscience live, says he, under such fatal influ- 
 ences ? Here is another who will accuse the severity of 
 those with whom he lived, their narrow-mindedness, and 
 their inflexible rigour. The ignorant will say that his 
 ignorance shields him from responsibility, and the learned 
 critic will believe himself exempt from the necessity of 
 
REPENTANCE. 331 
 
 repentance and conversion, because his studies will have 
 shaken his faith. The poor will allege their condition of 
 dependence and the oppression of material life which 
 leaves them no time to think of their soul ; the rich, the 
 temptations of worldliness, and the concessions forced 
 upon them by the rank which they must keep up. The 
 man of cold and calm temperament will say tliat his 
 -honesty stands him in the stead of conversion ; the man 
 of ardent passions will plead his impetuous nature. Will 
 excuses ever fail those who seek them ? Eather than 
 accuse ourselves we accuse others . . . ; we would be 
 Christians to-day, if Christians were not so narrow-minded, 
 so uncharitable, so intolerant . . . , as if we were to be 
 converted to Christians and not to God. More, we shall 
 accuse God Himself, for is it not accusing Him to allege, 
 in self-justification, the position in which He has placed 
 us, the character He has given us, the temptations by 
 which He permits that we should be beset, our unan- 
 swered prayers, and our fruitless struggles ? Deplorable 
 resources of a deceitful heart, worthless excuses which all 
 come to, casting at God these words of the unprofitable 
 servant in the parable : " Thou hard and cruel Master, 
 Thou reapest where Thou liast not sown, and gatherest 
 where Thou hast not strawed." 
 
 What will become of us when, to this natural disposi- 
 tion of our hearts, will be added the influence of a fatal- 
 istic philosophy which excuses everything in the history 
 and life of each individual as the effect of temperament, 
 of inherent character, of circumstances, so that at most 
 criminals will be diseased but never guilty beings ! 
 
 But behold those sophists who thus rob man of his 
 moral liberty ; see them when they themselves are the 
 victims of some injustice, of some perfidy, of some oppres- 
 sion. Do they accept all this with cool placidity ? do 
 they declare that those who thus trample under foot their 
 
332 REPENTANCE. 
 
 rights, their honour, their liberty, are to be pitied rather 
 than blamed, and simply yield to the force of circum- 
 stances, and to the fatal effect of their temperament ? 
 No ! they grow irate, indignant ; they thunder against 
 oppression and iniquity, or, in other words, they belie 
 their own theories. After having denied human account- 
 ability, they now recognise it ; and by accusing others 
 they lose for ever the right of excusing themselves. Thus 
 conscience, stronger than all sophisms, overthrows those 
 theories which, should they be permitted to triumph for 
 a day, would eventually become all-justifying. 
 
 But of what avail would it be to acknowledge that 
 man is accountable if we ourselves seek to cast off our 
 own responsibility ? Let us set aside all useless excuses. 
 Let us recognise that, however great may have been the 
 share of circumstances or the action of others in our falls, 
 it is we who, all things considered, have caused the 
 balance to incline on the side of evil, either by a de- 
 cided act of the will or by a cowardly weakness. Let 
 us not, therefore, seek to delude ourselves, for in the last 
 day we shall not deceive Him who searcheth the heart, 
 and before whom every mouth shall be stopped, but rather 
 may we utter this confession — " Against Thee, Thee only, 
 have I sinned." 
 
 Against Thee ! This is the second feature which 
 strikes me in David's confession. The source of his bit- 
 terest sorrow is the thought that he has offended God. 
 Not that he forgets those who, upon earth, have been the 
 victims of his guilty conduct, — and the remainder of the 
 psalm is sufiicient proof of this, — but he goes further and 
 reaches higher ; he thinks of the God whose lioly law he 
 has violated, of the Father whom he has grieved. 
 
 Here let us examine ourselves. When we sin, is it 
 the feeling that we have offended God which causes our 
 deepest sorrow ? I appeal on this point to the testimony 
 
REPENTANCE. 333 
 
 of your conscience. You have erred, my brother. In an 
 hour of temptation you have committed a shameful and 
 guilty deed, and your conscience, wilfully blinded, has 
 scarce uttered a reproachful word. But suddenly you 
 learn that this action, which you had thought buried in 
 oblivion, has had a witness, and that soon, perhaps, dis- 
 closed and commented upon everywhere, it will draw 
 upon you the judgments of the world and of your 
 brethren. What anxiety then seizes upon you ! What 
 unbearable uneasiness ! Ah ! how you do curse your 
 weakness ! How anxiously you watch the looks of your 
 fellows in order to discover in them what is their opinion 
 of you ! How you tremble at the prospect of the dis- 
 honour suspended above your head ! For you there can 
 be no more rest, no more security. You seem to hear an 
 accusing voice following you everywhere. ... At length, 
 however, you learn that you have been mistaken, that 
 your reputation is safe, that no voice will denounce you. 
 How freely you now breathe, and how bright life once 
 more appears to you ! Truly, you are a new creature, 
 and, nevertheless, God has seen all, God has known all, 
 and God has not yet pardoned you ! . . 
 
 Now what is this but sheer pharisaism ? Yes, this 
 is the odious pharisaism which, in theory, you condemn 
 as well as I, and which consists in cleansing the outside 
 of the cup whilst the inward part is full of ravening 
 and wickedness. In this lies the morality of the world. 
 We sometimes hear of men who have committed suicide 
 that they might not survive the dishonour which a sudden 
 discovery would cast upon their name. So long as they 
 have been permitted to practise evil with impunity, in 
 secret, in silence, the thought of suicide never entered 
 their minds. If success had crowned their actions, they 
 would have walked the earth with lofty brow ; it is the 
 mere idea that their crimes are known which overpowers 
 
334 REPENTANCE. 
 
 them and renders them desperate, and to escape the 
 judgment of men : fools that they are ! they rush head- 
 long to meet the judgment of God. That is what 
 becomes of conscience at the school of the world. The 
 essential point is to save appearances, to keep one's 
 lionour untarnished. This is easy to conceive on the 
 part of worldlings for whom God is an empty name, but 
 what are we to think when we see Christians tranquil 
 and undisturbed so long as God alone knows of their 
 guilt ? Ah ! they must allow me to tell them that 
 they have never known repentance. liepentance is 
 not the humiliation which is produced in us by the 
 thought of being judged by our fellow-men, and of see- 
 ing the entire edifice of our reputation crumble in the 
 twinkling of an eye. No, no, all this is the world's 
 method of reasoning ; true repentance dwells only in the 
 heart which, without any thought of men, but looking 
 only to God and feeling that only against Him it has 
 sinned, exclaims with David : " Against Thee, Thee only, 
 have I sinned." 
 
 Again, men call repentance what, in many cases, is a 
 mere mortification of their pride. Two very different 
 motives may lead us to accomplish the Divine law : the 
 love of God — this is the Christian principle ; the respect 
 of our moral dignity — this is the selfish principle, elevated 
 selfishness if you will, but selfishness, notwithstanding. 
 
 You have endeavoured, for instance, to obey the moral 
 law ; you have applied all your powers and your -honour 
 to practise it scrupulously ; your progress and the appro- 
 bation of your conscience are a cause of joy for you, 
 and you do not perceive that you are worshipping self; 
 that what preoccupies you is less the glory of God than 
 your personal esteem, and that in the innermost recesses 
 of your heart there is an idol which you call virtue, but 
 which is not God. 
 
REPENTANCE. 335 
 
 Well ! it pleases God, virtuous siuner, suddenly to 
 overthrow that idol by an unexpected temptation which 
 reveals to you your desperate weakness and your pro- 
 found corruption. Where now are the lofty serenity, 
 the proud satisfaction of an untainted conscience ? All 
 this has crumbled in an instant. 
 
 Then you grieve ; but beware, this sorrow is not 
 -repentance yet ... it is less to God than to yourselves 
 that you are anxious to make amends ; it is your pride 
 that suffers, rather than your love ; it is mortification far 
 more than penitence Mdiich causes your tears to flow. 
 
 Happy are you at least, if, willing to learn the lessons 
 which your very transgressions are destined to teach you, 
 you give up the delusions of your pride, and if, shattering 
 at the feet of God that idol which you had set up in 
 His place, you tell Him with David : " Against Thee, 
 Thee only, have I sinned." 
 
 Therefore, true repentance lies neither in the shame 
 which is the result of our guilt, nor in the mortification 
 of our mistaken pride. Nor does it consist in the 
 sorrows wdiicli our sins involve, but in which the thought 
 of the offended God does not enter. 
 
 It has pleased God that suffering should be annexed 
 to sin. We shall see this one day ; we sometimes see 
 it already here below. We read this terrible law in the 
 history of nations from which it detaches itself witli 
 supreme evidence ; we read it often in the history of 
 individuals. We read it, for example, in the pale brow 
 and dimmed eye of the profligate. And had we the 
 discerning eye of God, we would detect it in many of 
 those lives to which iniquity, artfully pursued, has given 
 a false show of happiness. We cannot tell all that 
 passes in the heart of those whom we call the elect of 
 fortune ; we ignore all that is felt by so many cadaverous 
 souls which no longer believe or love, and which, having 
 
336 REPENTANCE. 
 
 no hope for heaven, have seen all the illusions of earth 
 wither away and vanish for ever. 
 
 Whoever has sinned must suffer. . . . But to suffer 
 thus is not true repentance yet. Does he repent (this 
 is an extreme example), the wretch who is about to 
 suffer death for his crimes, and who, trembling, kisses 
 the crucifix as he marches to the scaffold ? Does he 
 repent, the miserable man who, blinded by the fever of 
 wealth, has lost everything, even his future, even his 
 children's honour, and now casts a dull and heavy eye 
 around his empty and desolate hearth ? Does she repent, 
 that prostitute whom a guilty passion has degraded, and 
 who feels that the celestial joys of pure love are for ever 
 denied her ? Do you repent, alas ! when, keenly feeling 
 how factitious, empty, and derisive is the world, you 
 come hither to mourn over its vanity ? No, let us dare 
 to say it, all this may still be useless suffering. Sorrow 
 alone has never saved a soul, and none can tell how 
 many hearts it has hardened. . . . No ; those disenchant- 
 ments, that bitterness, that gloomy melancholy, those 
 very tears are not repentance. . . . When you weep, 
 you are perhaps only thinking of yourselves, and your 
 sorrow is merely refined selfishness. . . . No ; so long 
 as your conscience will not have spoken, so long as your 
 tears will not have flowed at the feet of God, so long as 
 you will be unmindful of His despised holiness, of His 
 slighted love, speak not of repentance, for you know not 
 what it is. 
 
 Let us beware lest on this point we go further than 
 Scripture and flatter man while humbling him. Does 
 it not seem that true repentance should be absolutely 
 disinterested, and that the sinner returning to God 
 should forget himself and think only of his offended 
 God ? Yes, that is the ideal ; but that is not what most 
 generally takes place. . . . Alas ! it must be acknow- 
 
REPENTANCE. 337 
 
 ledged, it is often by wholly personal suffering that man 
 is led to consider his ways and that his conscience is 
 roused. ... It was when the prodigal son felt the 
 pangs of hunger that he remembered his father's house. 
 . . . Ah ! if we had written his history, we would doubt- 
 less have portrayed him in the midst of the luxury and 
 enjoyments of life suddenly seized with a mysterious 
 •sorrow and yearning after the true happiness which he 
 had lost. Jesus, who knows human nature better than 
 we do, tells us simply that he grew hungry ; his thoughts 
 went back to the mercenaries who, in his father's house, 
 had bread in abundance . . . then came the repentance 
 which penetrated his soul. Let us accept this humiliating 
 truth. Let us accept it, lest we look upon repentance 
 as the privilege of noble souls, lest, decking ourselves 
 out in our griefs, ay, even in our misery, we pretend 
 thus to enter the kingdom in which mercy reigns and 
 in which repentance itself is a Divine gift. 
 
 We Jiave seen how tlie guilty king pours out his soul 
 before the Lord. But it is not enough for him to mourn ; 
 what he desires, what he asks with importunity, is 
 pardon, and a pardon full and free ; it is salvation, and 
 the joy of salvation. Hear the words he utters : " Wash 
 me thoroughly from mine iniquity ; — cleanse me, and I 
 shall be clean ; — wash me, and I shall be whiter than 
 snow ; — make me to hear joy and gladness ; — create in 
 me, a clean heart, God ; — restore unto me the joy of 
 Tiiy salvation ; — and uphold me with Thy free Spirit." 
 What ! some will perhaps say, it is David guilty — David 
 still covered with his pollution — David scarce restored, 
 who dares to claim such mercies as these ! Would you 
 then liave him remain afar off, miserable, mourning, atoning 
 with his tears for all his past iniquity ? 
 
 Afar off ! and why ? and how long ? Ah 1 I understand ; 
 you would have David appease the wrath of God by his 
 
 Y 
 
338 REPENTANCE. 
 
 sufferings. You would have a salvation merited by the 
 sinner's expiations ; or, in other words, under pretence of 
 humility, you overthrow the Gospel and annihilate mercy ; 
 for if it is man who atones for his sins, there is no more 
 need of redemption, and the Cross is a vain symbol. No- 
 thing henceforth for the sinner but the prospect of an 
 eudless expiation ; for when will he dare believe that he 
 has suffered enough ? Ah, not thus did David understand 
 the love of God. He, born under the old dispensation, 
 under the covenant of works, here rises to salvation by 
 grace so fully that we might suppose tiiis psalm written 
 by St. Paul. He the sinner, he the criminal, dares to 
 ask the love of God anew, thus realising beforehand the 
 admirable words of !St. Augustine : " If thou wouldst flee 
 the wrath of God, run and cast thyself into His arms !" 
 
 But here a serious voice anxiously asks if this view of 
 salvation is not in contradiction with the moral ordei'. 
 How will David, thus pardoned, be capable of understand- 
 ing Divine holiness and the greatness of his fall ? What! 
 absolution once pronounced, the sorrow ibr sin will dis- 
 appear, and his soul will, undisturbed, enjoy the delights 
 of communion with God ! How far will not such a doc- 
 trine lead, and who does not see that the moral levity so 
 universal in the present day finds in it its support and its 
 excuse ? 
 
 I understand the objection, for more than once it has 
 presented itself to my mind. And how could we avoid 
 beinfT struck with it when we see moral unconcern, frivo- 
 lity, and worldliness growing so rapidly under shelter of 
 the doctrine of pardon, when we see the most deploralde 
 falls so easily forgotten, when we vainly seek in souls 
 the profound traces which true repentance should leave 
 behind it ? 
 
 Here is my answer: K the doctrine of pardon favours 
 moral unconcern, the fault lies with us who disfigure it, 
 
REPENTANCE. 339 
 
 nml not with God who gave it. The God of Scripture is a 
 holy God. You fear lest, by pardoning David when he 
 claims His mercy, He will allow the sinner to forget his 
 crime. That is because you yourselves forget the path 
 through which God is about to lead him. Wait a little 
 ere you judge. You will soon understand how God 
 sanctifies those He truly forgives. Behold, in that deso- 
 lated palace, a father weeping beside the corpse of a little 
 child ; hear him repeating those words which so many 
 broken hearts will re-echo throughout all ages : " I shall 
 go to him, but he shall not return to me." That man is 
 David, David pardoned, David saved, but David suffering, 
 not in expiation of his sins, but that he may learn to 
 hate them. Behold, later, on the hills of Judea, that 
 aged and white-haired man, that wandering fugitive, for- 
 saken by his family, betrayed by his friends, and fleeing, 
 oh, sorrow ! before his own son. Hear his bitter com- 
 plaints. Alas ! hear him, more sorrowful still, when, hav- 
 ing conquered his foes, he must exclaim, " my son 
 Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! " It is David ! 
 Ah ! you thought forgiveness meant unconcern. Come 
 and learn how God works out tlie education of the hearts 
 which He would make partakers of his holiness. No ; 
 God forgets no one. Peter pardoned will bear with him 
 everywhere the memory of his threefold denial ; Paul 
 pardoned will ever remember that he has persecuted the 
 Church. God leaves to each of them a thorn, a painful 
 thorn in the flesh, as if to remind them of what they 
 were when it pleased Him to save them. 
 
 You seemed to look with mistrust upon- a salvation 
 without pain. Be comforted. The Lord has provided. 
 Ask of those who surround you. Only the point in 
 question is to know whether we are to suffer far from 
 God in order to deserve forgiveness, or in His bosom be- 
 cause we have been forgiven. On this hangs everything. 
 
340 REPENTANCE. 
 
 If it is to deserve pardon, then, as we have already said, 
 there is no need of mercy ; then the Cross of Calvary is 
 overthrown ; and it is your own, brethren — beware ! — 
 your own, that you are raising in its stead. But if it is 
 with God, if salvation is a free grace, if even David in 
 the day when he exclaims, "I have sinned," may be 
 purified and rendered white as snow, ah ! let liim believe 
 in that fountain of mercy, let him plunge in it, and fear 
 not for his soul. Never will this holy love lead him 
 astray. Those who make of it a plea in favour of their 
 sins calumniate it and lose themselves ; for if there is 
 anything calculated to sanctify a soul, it surely is pardon. 
 Pardon is heaven. Dare to say that it is dangerous for 
 the soul to breathe the air of heaven. Pardon is God 
 found anew. How could God not transform the heart 
 which finds him thus ? Leave God to save the sinner. 
 He will not be at a loss how to achieve His work. 
 
 Such was the repentance of David, such also must be 
 ours. But how could I conclude without pointing out 
 the feature which sums up everything in this psalm, and 
 which alone suffices to prove the sincerity of the guilty 
 kind's repentance. David wishes to be forgiven, and 
 why ? That he may walk with God, that lie may be His 
 witness upon earth : " I will teach transgressors Thy 
 ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee." Eepen- 
 tance, therefore, is, in reality, a change of life ; anything 
 short of this would fail to prove your sincerity. Is this 
 your resolution ? I expect to find you at work to-morrow, 
 nay, to-day, walking with your Saviour, going only whither 
 He can go with you, loving what He loves, fleeing what 
 He condemns. 
 
 But if you are not sincere, if you do not wisli to mend 
 your life, I know what you will do. As your conscience 
 speaks, as you cannot stifle its voice, you will endeavour 
 to satisfy it by a show of penitence. You will urge your 
 
REPENTANCE. 341 
 
 soul to sorrow, you will seek religious emotious which 
 will bewilder you, you will shed bitter tears. You will 
 comfort yourselves by these very emotions, and, without 
 having made one step towards true conversion, you will 
 return to the world to-morrow more frivolous, more un- 
 concerned, more dissolute than ever. 
 
 Know, liowever, that the holiest thing in the world — 
 •the forgiveness of God — is not to be trilled witli. Know 
 that fruitless penitence at length wears out the soul, that 
 each of those factitious emotions deprives it of a portion 
 of its frankness and of its energy. Know that the voice 
 of conscience, if too often silenced, loses its power and 
 becomes an insipid formula. Know that there are souls 
 which nought can move, neither promises nor threats, 
 neither the love of God nor His anger. Know, finally, 
 that many a dying sinner has wished to repent, but for 
 him repentance has been an impossibility, and ask your- 
 selves if it is thus you wish to die. 
 
 God, grant us a repentance which will transform us, 
 and give us grace to walk in Thy presence henceforth, 
 with the freedom of a son before his Father and the 
 holy fear of a sinner before God ! 
 
( 342 ) 
 
 XIX. 
 
 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 "He that is faithful in that ^vhich is least is faithful also in much." 
 — Luke xvi. lo. 
 
 When we study the work of God in creation, it presents 
 itself to us under two equally admirable aspects : tlie 
 infinitely great and the infinitely small. On the one 
 liand, we have those immeasurable distances of the uni- 
 verse which no figures can express, and in presence of 
 which our imagination stands still in awe ; those endless 
 ages unfolding one after the other throughout all eternity. 
 On the other hand, we have that not less marvellous 
 spectacle of life with all its wonders displaying itself in 
 a space which is imperceptible to the human eye, those 
 masterpieces of organisation, of mechanism, of structure, 
 concentrated in beings of which a single drop of water 
 can contain thousands. . . . Two infinites which alike 
 fill us with amazement ! 
 
 And if we cast our eyes upon humnnity alone, we 
 Christians who believe in the intervention of God in its 
 history, a similar spectacle strikes us. On the one hand, 
 we see the sublime and oft terrible action by which God 
 leads the nations at His will, making of certain tribes 
 the instruments of His wrath, mowing down thousands of 
 lives by war, by storms, by epidemics, effacing, as has 
 been the case in America, a national iniquity in torrents 
 
LITTLE THINGS. 343 
 
 of blood. On the other hand, we adore that paternal 
 l*rovidence which forgets not one of its creatures, which 
 counts our sorrows and tears, and for which no being is 
 too small or too insignificant. Accordingly, in little 
 things as well as in great, we adore Divine wisdom and 
 bow before its purposes. 
 
 Let us descend from these heights. From the works 
 of God, let us pass on to the works of man. We may 
 do so without pride, since man was created in the image 
 of God. We also, in our lowly existence, have a twofold 
 activity ; before us are placed duties great and small. 
 Great duties impose themselves upon us with strong 
 evidence ; we are constantly reminded of them, and we 
 cannot neglect them without, at once, hearing the expos- 
 tulations and warnings of our conscience. Therefore 
 I will not refer to them to-day ; I shall draw your atten- 
 tion to the faithfulness we are called to bring to the 
 accomplishment of the little duties of life. 
 
 But at the very outset, I meet with several dangers 
 which I must, first of all, point out. 
 
 In the first place, if, with Scripture, I lay before you 
 the importance of small duties, 1 do not mean to say 
 that you are to become fully absorbed by them. That 
 is the danger of shallow minds. From the way in which 
 they set to work, it would seem that little things alone 
 are of importance ; they continually hold them out to us, 
 they weary others and confuse themselves M-ith them. 
 Every detail is for them an event, every obstacle a 
 mountain, every anxiety a crushing burden. Accordingly 
 their life is a busy, bustling, restless thing which leaves 
 their soul neither peace nor serenity. Such must be 
 incessantly reminded that small duties are to be per- 
 formed in a great spirit, that they must be referred to 
 the noble sentiments which are the springs of action of 
 the Christian life, and that the soul, even in the midst 
 
344 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 of the most agitated life, must tend towards a higher 
 aim, just as the skiff on the dancing waves makes for 
 tlie port under the firm hand of the pilot who guides it. 
 Let us talce another illustration : the trees must not pre- 
 vent us from seeing the forest, or, in other words, the 
 duties of each successive hour must not prevent us from 
 taking in the whole of life. Martha, absorbed by her 
 liousehold cares, must not prevent Mary from coming, 
 peacefully and contemplatively, to sit at the feet of her 
 Lord. 
 
 Secondly, observe tliat, if I recommend small duties, 
 I do not mean to say that they are to be preferred to 
 greater. This is the danger of phnrisaism. "When the 
 soul forgets its true destination, \vhieh is the service of 
 God in love, it transfers upon unimportant objects the 
 need of holiness by which it is tormented; and the more 
 insignificant these objects, the more ardently and fana- 
 tically does it pursue them. IJemember the Scribes of 
 the Gospel straining a gnat, paying the tithes of tlic 
 meanest herbs, counting the number of steps %Yhicli 
 nii^ht be taken on the Sabbath day. To-day habits and 
 customs are changed, but the same spirit manifests itself. 
 Thus, the superstitious Iioman Catholic will plunge into 
 the most minute observances, and the stranger these will 
 be, the more valuable also will they become in his sight. 
 Thus, the sectarian Protestnnt, losing sight of the grand 
 instructions of the Gospel, will easily imagine that little 
 things possess I know not what particular holiness : a 
 small Cliurch, a little flock, ordinary remnrks of edifica- 
 tion upon a subject of detail reserved for the most 
 advanced Christians, all these will be his objects of pre- 
 dilection, and, far from wishing to enlarge the circle of 
 the Divine mercies, he will prefer restraining it to the 
 measure of his own narrowed heart. Alas ! and he will 
 peradventure forget justice, love, and holiness ! 
 
LITTLE THINGS. 345 
 
 Deplorable error which has often served to justify 
 the i^reveritions of unbelief ! Those who fall into it must 
 be energetically reminded tliat we are not permitted to 
 reverse the Divine order of things ; that there are in life 
 duties which are clearly indicated ; pressing, imperious 
 duties to which God wishes all others to he subordinate ; 
 that these duties are the grand moral lines to which all 
 commandments of detail must be referred, just as the 
 rivulets which traverse the valleys must, that they may 
 not become transformed into marshes, flow towards the 
 river in whose region they have taken their source ; 
 — that, if this be not coirsidered, piety goes astray, and 
 tluit, by separating itself from moral life, it falls into 
 ridiculous and often odious extremes. 
 
 But it is not only the narrow-minded who are in 
 danger of becoming fully engrossed in little things; it 
 is often, on the contrary, in the noblest and most sincere 
 natures that conscience reaches the highest degree of 
 sensibility. Here we are in presence of one of the most 
 real and most painful religious phenomena I know of, 
 namely, the disease of over-scrupulousness. Have you 
 never met with any of those souls preoccupied to the 
 highest degree with finding out what is the Divine will 
 and living in constant dread lest they should fail to 
 acquire an adequate knowledge of it ? Troubled, anxious, 
 trembling, they dare not take a decision, make oire step, 
 utter one word without a scrupulous pre-examination, 
 and, ever absorbed, on the one hand, by their painful 
 recollections of a past whose errors they deplore and on 
 the other by apprehensions as regards a future whose 
 snares they dread, they lose all confidence, joy, and 
 peace. This is a touching error, which commands our 
 respect, for these very scruples betoken a serious search 
 after holiness ; nevertheless, it is also a perfidious error, 
 for it robs the soul of all its vigour and energy ; it 
 
346 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 destroys in it tlie inspiration of love by bringing it 
 liack to the servile fear of the slave, and, sinking it into 
 liopeless sorrow, it gives piety a morbid and repulsive 
 cliaracter. 
 
 Those wlio have fallen into its toils must be reminded 
 that salvation is a mercy, and that, by continually bring- 
 ing into question its efticacy, by making it wholly depen- 
 dent upon the incessant fluctuations of their troubled 
 conscience, they constantly pive the lie to the Divine 
 promises, they forget that God is an all-pardoning God, 
 they set at nought the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. 
 '1 hey must be reminded that the God of the Gospel will 
 not be served by slaves, but by children, and that He 
 expects of them a filial confidence and a joyful trust. 
 Tliey must, finally, be told that the Gospel bids them 
 rejoice because joy is a power, because alone it enlightens 
 and warms the soul ; to their downcast eyes the love of 
 God must be presented such as it was revealed in His 
 Hon until they learn to read upon the Cross of Calvary 
 the joyous assurance of Christian liberty which alone 
 enfranchises the soul and restores it to life. 
 
 I have pointed out the dangers presented by the 
 subject before us ; I have removed the obstacles which 
 might have impeded our march. I now go straight to 
 my text, and the first thing which strikes me is the vnst 
 importance of those small duties which Jesus Christ 
 recommends in it. 
 
 Look closer and you will see that little things, small 
 virtues, small sacritices, small duties, in a word, form the 
 \vhole texture of the moral life of individuals as well as 
 of societies. Have you ever taken into consideration the 
 vast number of obscure sacritices and ibrgotten actions 
 which are daily required in order that a grand result may 
 be obtained, nay, in order that good be not overborne by 
 evil in that struggle which they have waged with one 
 
LITTLE THINGS. 347 
 
 another from the Leginuing of the world ? When we 
 read the account of a battle, we generally see nothing 
 beyond the skilful tactics and the- heroic charge which, 
 in the decisive hour, produced victory ; but we must not 
 forget the clever calculations, the slow and complicated 
 works, the multiplied precautions, the unknown labour 
 which, at the given moment, rendered the final manoeuvre 
 , possible, and placed at the general's disposal well-dis- 
 ciplined, well-fed, well-rested soldiers, well armed for 
 the battle, and provided with all that was necessary. 
 Suppose one of those insignificant details had been 
 omitted, suppose one of the general's orders had been 
 neglected, suppose one of the advanced vedettes had feared 
 to peril his life by uttering the cry of alarm, and who 
 can tell if victory would not liave been changed into 
 defeat ? 
 
 This is a striking image of Cliristian life. When we 
 cast a superficial glance upon the reign of God here 
 below, we see only the grand struggles and the grand 
 triumphs, only the glorious results which are connected 
 Avith the names of great men ; but we forget all the per- 
 severance and abnegation, all the hidden prayers and 
 tears, all the privations and sacrifices that have been 
 required ere a moral triumph could be won. Obscure 
 actions, sacrifices buried in oblivion, prayers apparently 
 lost ! All these were nothing, you would perhaps have 
 said. True, all these were nothing. They are nothing 
 also, those imperceptible grains of sand which cover the 
 shores of the sea ; taken separately, they scarcely would 
 cause the balance to oscillate ; nevertheless, when clus- 
 tered together, tliey stay the rush of the waves, and say 
 to the raging ocean, " Thou shalt go no farther." 
 
 Accordingly, I feel no surprise when, in history, I see 
 that the greatest men have precisely been those who 
 have paid most attention to little things. In the political 
 
348 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 or military order, as well as in the domain of art or 
 poetry, all true geniuses have been men of detail ; never 
 have they judged of little things as being below their 
 notice. True, they have never allowed themselves to be 
 fully absorbed by them, but never have they thought it 
 possible to dispense witli them. On the contrary, it is 
 by making themselves familiar with all the little drud- 
 geries of their art or science that they have learned to 
 master it at will. Examples of this abound. Here is 
 CiBsar minutely recounting in his Commentaries the 
 exact measures of the intrenchments of his soldiers or of 
 the bridges which they have Ijuilt at his command. 
 Here is Michael Angelo curbing the ardour of his genius 
 to study with a scholar's patience the play of the muscles 
 and the laws of anatomy. Here is Eembrandt unwilling 
 to trust any but himself with the grinding and mixing 
 of the colours which give their magical tint to his im- 
 mortal paintings. Here is llacine seeking with inde- 
 fatigable perseverance the correct expression, the fitting 
 word which alone can exactly render his thought. Here 
 is Napoleon governing empires, but growing angry in 
 presence of the slightest error which his eagle-eye 
 detected in the calculations that were referred to him. 
 But let us set aside these examples, and return to the 
 Gospel. "Who can deny that Jesus Christ has accom- 
 plished the most extraordinary and the most mighty 
 revolution which the world has ever seen ? Well, it is 
 Jesus Christ who has taught us what, in the moral 
 order, is the value of the sinner's tears, of the widow's 
 mite, of the publican's humble sigh, of those little things 
 ibr which none had cared before Him. Jesus Christ ! 
 How can we pronounce His name without being reminded 
 that His life is the most admirable commentary of the 
 words we are now meditating, " Faithful in that which is 
 least ? " "Would vou know the secret, if this word I 
 
LITTLE THINGS. 349 
 
 may use, of the prodigious work by which He lias 
 conquered the world ? See him in Galilee, Leside those 
 humble and lowly ones wliom God gave Him as His 
 lirst disciples. Does He look upon them as unworthy 
 of His attention ? Is He preoccupied with seeking a 
 wider scene for His activity ? Does He think that the 
 soul of a Samaritan woman is incapable of comprehend- 
 ing His instructions, or that He is labouring in vain 
 when He teaches sinners and publicans ? No, Jesus is 
 faithful in the accomplisliment of the humblest duties, 
 faithful towards each of His disciples, even towards the 
 most unintelligent and tardy to believe, faithful towards 
 each soul He meets, towards each sorrow which God 
 calls Him to comfort. No work of restoration and 
 salvation is beneath His notice, and it is often in the 
 lowliest sphere that His Divine wisdom and His mercy 
 shed forth their most dazzling lustre. 
 
 Therefore, everything in the world and in the Gospel 
 tells of fidelity in matters of detail. 
 
 Now, how do we accomplish this duty which is laid 
 before us in a manner so clear, so evident, so imperious ? 
 On this point I will appeal to your own testimony and 
 to your own conscience. 
 
 You, my brother, for instance, you have a grand ideal of 
 holiness. The moral beauties of the Gospel attract and 
 subdue you ; and when we tell you of a life consecrated 
 to God, of a joyless and, if need be, crucified life, we 
 are sure to awaken a noble ambition, an enthusiastic 
 admiration in your soul. When you compare modern 
 society or even the Church of the ]iresent day with this 
 ideal, then bitter and sorrowful words escape your lips. 
 You condemn your epoch, you point out all its pollution, 
 all its meanness, all its turpitudes, and you say, " Who 
 will restore mortal rectitude, obedience to principle, the 
 authoritv of conscience to the world " ? I understand 
 
350 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 and admire that holy anil)ition. Would to God it were 
 more universally spread and fired all our souls ! 
 
 Here is an immediate occasion for realizing in detail 
 that holiness which you so much admire in the gross. 
 Here is a luxurious and sensual habit to be retrenched 
 from your daily enjoyments. You loathe the corruption 
 of your epoch, you deplore the laxity of its morals. 
 Well, here, in your own life, are lusts to be quenched, 
 unwholesome reading to be given up, a frivolous society 
 with whom all intercourse should be interrupted, a 
 connection which disquiets your heart, and which should 
 be broken off. But what ! You draw back ! Where is 
 the generous ardour which but a moment ago expressed 
 itself in burning words, where is that moral firmness of 
 which you were so proud, where is that noble disin- 
 terestedness ? Vainly do I seek them now that the 
 hour for action has come. That is because in reality 
 those acts of devotion and self-denial of which I speak 
 are too insignificant for you. Were you called to great 
 sacrifices, to striking actions, you would be found ready, 
 but in the unpretending duties of life where is your 
 fidelity ? 
 
 You, my brother, have a grand ideal of charity. 
 That is the I'eature which strikes you most in the 
 Gospel ; it is this aspect of the Cross which most power- 
 fully attracts and subdues you. You feel a thrill of 
 emotion in presence of the work of restoration and love 
 which the Lord expects of you, you emljrace the whole 
 of humanity in your sympathy, and in particular, its 
 poor and destitute members. You long most ardently 
 for the advent of the reign of righteousness, and gladly 
 hail its approach. Noble desire ! holy ambition ! Would 
 to God all our hearts were filled with it ! 
 
 Here is an opportunity for exercising that charity by 
 which you are thus animated. Here, at your door, is a 
 
LITTLE THINGS. 351 
 
 ijeggar, a wretch in rags ; here is a misery, surely not 
 ideal or poetical, but low, vulgar, defiled perhaps ; or 
 here is a Christian work which needs your aid. What is 
 required of you ? A trifling sacrifice, one pleasure less, a 
 little less of luxury in your dwelling, a little more of 
 simplicity in your life. Or here, beside you, are soured 
 hearts, whose sufferings a word of sympathy might alle- 
 viate ; here is a rancour to be effaced, an offended brother 
 to be brought back to your affection, or a wandering soul 
 to be brought back to God. Kay, it is even less than 
 this. The question is' simply to show in your daily life a 
 little condescension and meekness, a little of that humility 
 which thinks not of self ; . . . the question is merely to 
 repress a bitter spirit of judgment, a hateful predilection 
 for biting words, which leave behind so many ]3oisoned 
 wounds. . . . But what ! you remain inactive ! Where 
 is that ardent sympathy, that profound love of humanity, 
 which caused your heart to throb ? I understand such 
 duties are too unpretending for you. They weary and 
 annoy you, they are all alike. It is continually the same 
 appeals, the same complaints, the same lamentations. 
 Ah ! you are willing to love humanity at large, and for it 
 you would perhaps die a martyr's death ; but in little 
 things where is your charity ? 
 
 You, my brother, have a grand ideal of the Church and 
 of its destinies. You delight in reverting in imagination 
 to its heroic age, when, in the amphitheatre or on the 
 burning pile, it triumphed over the world while succumb- 
 ing beneath its blows. As you think of the divisions 
 by which it is now rent, and of its sufferings, you sorrow- 
 fully exclaim, Who will restore us the Church of olden 
 time ? Noble ambition ! would to God it seized upon us 
 all, and that the zeal of God's house fired each of our 
 hearts ! Now here is an immediate opportunity of rais- 
 ing the Church or extending its limits. The Gospel is 
 
352 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 to be spread in an obscure locality, schools are to be 
 established, a missionary is to be sent to some foreign 
 land . . . Nay, it is less than this even. The question 
 is simply for you to defend, in a conversation, some at- 
 tacked truth, or to confess the despised name of Jesus 
 Christ. ... It is less than this still. . . . You are re- 
 quired to fill some humble office in the Church ; to show 
 by the very assiduity with which you will accomplish its 
 meanest duties, what is your faith, your principles, the 
 general direction of your life. All these duties are very 
 small, alas I too small, perhaps, for you to feel their im- 
 portance ; and trampling them under foot, or, to say the 
 least, setting them continually aside, you wait for the 
 advent of the great day of the Lord ; you look forward to 
 the grand future of the Church, and you forget that the 
 Church to-day is suffering and pining away through the 
 unconcern and apathy of men who think as you think 
 and do as you do. 
 
 You have, doubtless, observed that all these examples 
 bear the same character. In all of them imagination 
 takes the place of conscience, and admiration that of will. 
 Let us beware ! All Christian virtues, holiness, faith, 
 love, devotion, have their grand and luminous side, 
 which strikes and touches even the most insensible souls. 
 Nothing is easier than to give way to these emotions ; 
 but when all these grand things are to be realised in 
 detail, then we perceive that they involve innumerable 
 sacrifices, sacrifices which, for the most part, are obscure 
 and unpretending ; then we perceive tliat we must come 
 in collision with many a repulsive duty ; that we must 
 submit to bow beneath the yoke of obedience ; that we 
 must renounce human glory, and bear what Scripture 
 rightly calls the reproach of Jesus Christ. Now, that is 
 precisely what we are anxious to avoid. Thus over- 
 looking small duties, we comfort and reassure ourselves 
 
LITTLE THINGS. 353 
 
 with the thought that -what has most deeply affected and 
 penetrated us in the Gospel has been its grandest and 
 most sublime points ; and we do not rejflect that this 
 very emotion, this very admiration, render our responsi- 
 bility still more terrible, and that, in the last day, God 
 will not ask us if we have admired His Gospel, but if we 
 have believed in Him, if we have confessed Him, if we 
 have lived for His glory. 
 
 We have still to show what are the logical and inevit- 
 able consequences to which the neglect of small duties 
 fatally leads. 
 
 The first result of this neglect is the gradual weaken- 
 ing and decline of religious life in the soul. And why ? 
 Because, as we have already said, life is commonly made 
 up of small duties, and because, by daily overlooking 
 them, we finally die to true life. Very small is the 
 number of those who are called to striking actions or 
 heroic deeds, and even for such, these actions and sacri- 
 fices are required of them only once or twice during their 
 whole life-course. Our common destiny will probably be 
 modest, unnoticed . . . ; it is to little duties that God 
 will doubtless call us. What will become of us if we 
 neglect them ? Nothing strengthens faith and moral 
 energy as much as unbroken fidelity ; a multitude of 
 unknown actions, of trifiing sacrifices, eventually form a 
 compact and indissoluble mass resembling those Roman 
 walls which have remained standing amongst the heaped- 
 up ruins of centuries, because they are composed of tiny 
 stones joined together by an indestructible cement. On 
 the contrary, nothing weakens the soul as much as petty 
 but multiplied infidelities. Each of them separately is 
 as nothing, yet each of them shakes the moral life and 
 loosens some of its parts till the day when, under the 
 stroke of some sudden temptation, the entire edifice 
 crumbles into dust in one moment. 
 
 z 
 
354 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 To this first result is added another more terrible still. 
 Eeflect seriously upon this : by neglecting small duties, 
 conscience becomes obliterated, it insensibly loses its 
 uprightness and sensibility, and this all the more rapidly 
 that it is warned or alarmed by no crying scandal. Not 
 that it becomes utterly silent ; on the contrary, it pro- 
 tests ; at each of our faults it utters a deep groan ; but 
 ■who is not aware of the fact that its voice may be stilled 
 even by sanctimonious words and by the sounds of an 
 apparently fervent and piously employed life ? Thus man 
 goes on deceiving himself more and more. 
 
 But he does not deceive others, brethren. The world 
 has a penetrating eye, and soon detects the secret laxities 
 and the inconsistencies of a religious life. The world 
 which often disdains the Gospel, nevertheless expects 
 much of the Gospel ; I appeal,* in support of my affirma- 
 tion, to the extreme severity with which it judges 
 Christians. The world, and this must not surprise you, 
 is not easily taken in by pious discourses or fair appear- 
 ances ; it will resolutely. require of you fidelity in small 
 duties, and if its expectations be not realised, your piety 
 will be, in its opinion, as the empty sound of a clashing 
 cymbal. If it finds you consistent with your principles, 
 scrupulous in the observance of insignificant duties, I do 
 not say that it will love you more (for how could it love 
 you when it hated Jesus Christ?), but in reality and in 
 spite of itself it will do you justice, or if its lips condemn, 
 its "conscience will approve, and though it may curse you, 
 yet will it feel your power and come inevitably under 
 your influence. That is the most powerful and the only 
 true apology for Christianity, compared with which all 
 our affirmations are as nothing. 
 
 We must conclude, and my first conclusion will be a 
 warning. Be faithful in that which is least, and, in the 
 first place, be faithful in small temptations. 
 
LITTLE THINGS. 355 
 
 It was a lustful glance that lost David, it was the 
 simple question of a servant-girl that lost Peter, it was 
 an avaricious thought that lost Judas. Great tempta- 
 tions are less to be feared ; they warn and alarm us by 
 their very greatness ; they call forth all our moral vigour, 
 all our powers of resistance, and often save us by the 
 dread which they inspire. If, for instance, the world 
 .should tell you to deny Jesus Christ, and to desert His 
 cause, you would shrink back in terror. But it will sur- 
 round you with its blandishments, it will lavish its 
 praises upon your talents and virtues, it will tell you 
 that you are losing your strength and your influence in 
 too gloomy a piety ; and if you yield to its seductions, 
 it will govern you so completely, that one day you will 
 be ashamed of that Cross beneath whose shadow it is 
 now your hope to die. Again, if the world should tell 
 you to hate one of your brethren, all your generous 
 instincts would rise against this thought ; but it will 
 awaken in you a slight feeling of jealousy which will not 
 alarm you in the least, and, if you entertain it secretly, 
 that heart which now is so loving, so sympathetic, will 
 soon fall a prey to bitter sentiments, to a hellish blend- 
 ing of envy and detestable passions. If the world should 
 tell you to yield to the flesh, and to bring your soul 
 under its shameful bondage, all your instinctive nobility 
 of sentiment would loudly protest ; but by one unchaste 
 look it will cast a secret disquiet in your breast, and if 
 you yield to it, all the powers of an unbridled passion 
 will bear you away as they will, until the day when you 
 will awake to find yourself wallowing in the mire of vice. 
 Ask those fallen beings whose very sight is loathsome to 
 you, and whom the world crushes with its scorn, ask 
 them the secret of their history. How many of them 
 commenced their downward course by a great fall ? 
 Very i^ew. An apparently innocent habit, a small temp- 
 
356 LITTLE THINGS, 
 
 tation gave the first impulse towards the abyss of perdi- 
 tion. It was a mere nothing, they said, but that mere 
 nothing lost them. 
 
 Here is a ship setting sail at dawn ; the breeze fills 
 her sails ; majestically she advances towards the open 
 sea, all eyes follow her, and joyful cries hail her passage 
 out of port. But with what sorrowful looks would you 
 look after her if you knew that, in the depth of her 
 hold, by an imperceptible fissure, the water is entering 
 drop by drop without one moment's interruption ; if you 
 knew that while the sun shines and all is joy and glad- 
 ness upon her deck, death is stealthily invading her, and 
 will soon swallow up its prey ; if you knew that far out 
 on the fathomless ocean, in the silence of the approach- 
 ing night, she will suddenly go down ! 
 
 Alas ! how many have we seen of those Christian lives 
 advancing, they also joyfully and trustingly, on the ocean 
 of life. The Church followed them lovingly, and already 
 hailed their brilliant destiny ; but in their hidden depths 
 some new-born passion was noiselessly giving entrance to 
 the seductions of the world, to its pleasures and lusts. 
 Everything has sunk, , . . and now all that is left us is 
 the sad and heart-rending memory of those souls whom 
 the world has entrapped in its snares, and over whom the 
 ancels of God wdth us mourn. Brethren, beware of small 
 temptations. 
 
 Again, be faithful in the least opportunities you have 
 of serving God. Be faithful, for, as we have already 
 said, nothing strengthens us more than unbroken fidelity. 
 Be faithful, that you may attain a stronger faith, a deeper 
 sanctification. Be faithful, and after each sacrifice which 
 you will have made for truth, holiness, justice, you will 
 feel that these are not mere abstractions but the most real 
 things in the world. And, in fact, who does not see that 
 ]n the service of God each faculty which He has given 
 
LITTLE THINGS. ' y^^-j 
 
 U3 is developed by exercise and weakened by inaction ? 
 Here is a conscience, careless at first, which having obeyed 
 the voice of duty in a first trial, becomes more delicate, 
 more keenly sensitive. Here is a heart, hitherto happy 
 in its selfishness, whicli having answered the first call of 
 God, has opened to the true life of devotion and love. 
 Here is a soul, long wavering and undecided, which hav- 
 -ing, in spite of all sophisms, on one occasion followed the 
 truth, feels its faith growing stronger and stronger initil 
 it reaches to the possession of the eternal realities. Thus 
 in every domain is accomplished this strange saying of 
 the Gospel : " Unto every one that hath shall be given ; " 
 thus, under tlie blessing of a faithful God, the fidelity of 
 the Christian bears its fruits and brings with it its own 
 reward. 
 
 Again I say, be faithful in the little which God has 
 given you. It is on this point that fidelity is often the 
 most difficult, and Jesus acknowledges this sufficiently 
 when, in a striking parable, He shows us the servant 
 who had received but one talent despising that which he 
 has received, and giving himself up to envy, to anger, 
 and to cowardly discouragement. Striking image of the 
 temptations of poverty which the Gospel has never 
 flattered, and of which it points out at the same time the 
 blessings and the perils. Oh, you to whom God has 
 denied the blessings of earth, and who have often said 
 with bitterness that if you possessed them you would 
 be faithful in their use, more faithful than those whom 
 you envy, beware lest in casting upon your brethren a 
 look of anger, you forget what is still left you ; beware 
 lest you become so completely blinded by ingratitude as 
 to scorn that which God has left you. Ah ! how can 
 you consider yourselves destitute and incapable of action 
 when you are in the service of a Master who has said 
 that a class of cold water criven in His name will not 
 
358 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 lose its reward ? Up to this time, sadly looking to your- 
 selves alone, and mourning over your miserable lot, you 
 have ignored all the good you may do, you have despised 
 the sublime mission to -which God has called you. It is 
 time to learn it. Heirs of eternity, servants of God, 
 awake, and in the humble position where God has placed 
 you, show us what a loving heart can do to prove its 
 love to Him. Show us all the resources it can call forth, 
 all the work it can accomplish. Prove by your example 
 that the last often may become the first, and that the 
 feeble are called to confound the strong. Courage ! the 
 reign of justice is approaching. It comes, the day when 
 all the seeming grandeurs of selfishness and pride will 
 appear in their hideous nakedness, but when "the humblest 
 and most obscure life which will have glorified God here 
 below will shine with eternal glory. Happy those who 
 in that day will hear the words : " Well done, good and 
 faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
 Grant, God, that we may be among those who will 
 hear them, among those who, from this day forth, will seek 
 their encouragement in Thy approbation and their reward 
 in Thy love ! 
 
( 3 = 9 ) 
 
 XX. 
 
 SIMEON. 
 
 "And, behold, there was a man in Jenisalem, whose name was 
 Simeon ; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the 
 consolation of Israel ; and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And 
 it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not 
 see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came 
 by the Spirit into the temple : and when the parents brought in 
 the child Jesus, to do for Him after the custom of the law, then 
 took he Him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said : Lord, 
 now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy 
 word ; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, Avhich Thou hast 
 ]irepared before the face of all people ; a light to lighten the 
 Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel." — LUKE ii. 25-32. 
 
 Everything is simple in the narrative we have just read. 
 Nothing there to recall the ostentatious grandeur, the 
 puerile succession of prodigies with which religious sys- 
 tems generally surround the infancy of their prophets and 
 of their gods. See Mary and Joseph entering the Temple 
 of Jerusalem. Who would have imagined that so grand 
 a destiny hung over the child whom they had come to 
 present to the Lord ? No retinue attends them, no strik- 
 ing miracle marks the ceremony which they now accom- 
 plish, and St. Luke merely tells us, in passing, that they 
 ofi'ered to God two turtle-doves, that is, the sacrifice of 
 the poorest. Then appears Simeon, that Simeon of whom 
 the legends of the Church have made now a priest, now 
 a Pharisee, now a glorious personage, as if the Gospel had 
 
36o SIMEON. 
 
 need of our worldly distinctions, and as if it had not con- 
 ferred upon him a nobility sufficiently high when it had 
 summed up his character in these simple words : " He 
 was a just man, and devout, waiting for the consolation 
 of Israel." Yes, everything is perfectly simple in this 
 scene, and yet who of us can read it without emotion ? 
 How beautiful is that figure of the aged Simeon, of that 
 man whose whole life has been but one long expectation, 
 and who now sees the realisation of all the desires of his 
 heart ! How touching are the w^ords which escape his 
 lips : " Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
 peace ! " How lively is the faith by which he hails, in 
 a little child, the Saviour of men, and proclaims His 
 destinies, the full accomplishment of which is daily ap- 
 proaching. Does it not seem to you that Simeon is the 
 representative of all the believers of the ancient covenant, 
 of all those who, during long ages, have sighed for de- 
 liverance, of all those who have foretold and expected it ? 
 Does it not seem to you as if you saw in him the Church 
 of the patriarchs and prophets taking the new-born Christ 
 in its feeble arms and presenting Him to the Church of 
 the future with the words : " As for me, my task is 
 finished ; behold Him whom I have so ardently desired ; 
 behold thy Saviour and thy King ! " 
 
 Let us meditate upon this narrative, and may it become, 
 for each of us a reality. Why should we not all fintl 
 here what Simeon found in the Temple, namely, a Saviour ? 
 ])Ut if lie found the Saviour there, let us remember that 
 it was because he went thither moved " by the Holy 
 Spirit." Is it the Spirit of God that has led us to this 
 sanctuary ? Oh, sorrowful thought ! when on this Christ- 
 mas Day we see our churches filled, how can we avoid 
 thinking of all those whom formalism alone has brought 
 there ? How can we avoid thinking that, strangers to 
 God all the rest of the year, they are satisfied, and be- 
 
SIMEON. 361 
 
 lieve they have done their duty when, on similar occasions, 
 they grant Him a few moments' divided attention ? In 
 times of holy festival they flock to the house of God, there 
 to behold once again the most touching mementoes of the 
 God of the Gospel ; they come and sit in turn before the 
 cradle, the cross, or the open sepulchre of Jesus, and 
 when they have learned once more how much God has 
 .loved them, and of how vast a mercy they have been the 
 objects, they conclude therefrom that they may plunge 
 anew, body and soul, in the vortex of business, of the 
 world, and of sin. They reassure themselves by thinking 
 of the religious emotions which they have experienced, as 
 if those very emotions themselves did not render their 
 habitual indifference more guilty, and their levity more 
 inexcusable. ... Holy Spirit, if there be any amongst 
 us who have come hither without having felt Thy Divine 
 attraction, without having heard Thy voice, speak to their 
 hearts, as well as to our own, that they and we, attracted 
 by Thee like Simeon, may like him also be led to con- 
 template and to bless Him whose humiliation aud mercy 
 this day recalls ! 
 
 Simeon, we are told, waited for the consolation of 
 Israel. In these short but striking words we discover 
 a thought unknown to the ancient world, and which gave 
 to the Jewish nation an incomparable grandeur. Israel 
 is a waitiyig people. Whilst other nations grow, conquer, 
 and extend their limits, whilst their only thoughts are 
 of power and external prosperity, Israel waits. Even in 
 the most glorious days of its history, it turns its eyes 
 towards the future. This little nation has a vast, a 
 strange ambition : it expects the reign of God . upon 
 earth. . . . Ah ! I know full well all the carnal and 
 interested motives that mingled with this ambition ; I 
 know that, for the great majority of the people, the 
 reign of God was the reign of Israel, a brilliant Jeru- 
 
362 SIMEON. 
 
 salein, an enlarged territory, enemies trampled under 
 foot, a lofty dominion over all the nations of the world ; 
 but all truly pious and holy souls took another view of 
 " the consolation of Israel." For them it signified, above 
 all, deliverance, pardon, salvation. It w^as for the glory 
 of God that they thirsted, it was truly His reign that 
 they expected upon earth. 
 
 Yet how few they were, the souls that grew not 
 weary in their expectations ! For more than four hun- 
 dred years no prophet had appeared to revive their hope. 
 The stranger ruled in Jerusalem ; every day Eoman 
 centurions trod the holy ground where rested the bones 
 of the fathers ; in Moses' seat, proud and hypocritical 
 priests read over, without understanding them, the pro- 
 mises of Scripture ; religious formalism wrapped the 
 entire nation as in a leaden shroud ; instead of the sub- 
 lime effusions of the piety of bygone days, nought was 
 heard but the monotonous prayers of the Pharisees, 
 sounding like a funeral knell. At rare intervals, some 
 high-souled believers rekindled for a moment the faith 
 of Israel, but these passing gleams, soon extinguished, 
 left the night darker still than before. The Sadducees, 
 the scoffers, the reasoners of that time doubtless asked, 
 mockingly, where was the promise of the Messiah. 
 Nevertheless, in the midst of that icy indifference, Simeon 
 still waits. Neither the flow of time, nor the wretched 
 condition into which Israel has fallen, nor the sneers of 
 the unbelievers, nor the indifference of the priests, nor 
 the strange silence of God, who seems to have deserted 
 His cause, nor his advancing age, nor his white hairs 
 which tell him that the time of illusions is past, can shake 
 his indomitable hope. Ptesting upon the Divine promise 
 which he sets against all he sees, against all he hears, 
 against all the doubts of his intellect, against all the 
 discouragements of his heart, Simeon believes, he waits. 
 
SIMEON. 363 
 
 he hopes until the clay when he can exclaim : " Xow 
 lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." What an 
 example is such a life as this, and for us believers of this 
 age, what a striking lesson ! 
 
 Do not be mistaken on this point ; a Christian is 
 indeed a man who waits. Oh ! I know that the Christ 
 is come. He is come, He who hath the words of eternal 
 Jife, and to whom should we go but unto Him ? He is 
 come, He who alone can quench our thirst after right- 
 eousness, pardon, holiness, love ; He is come, and we 
 have known Him, and we would have Him hold in our 
 hearts the most sacred place. ISTo, we do not expect 
 another, for we believe that neither earth nor heaven 
 could produce a holiness superior to His, or a more 
 sublime charity than that which He has so magnificently 
 levealed upon the Cross. But if Christ is come. His 
 kingdom is yet to come, and it is this kingdom that we 
 are waiting for. Are you of those who expect it, of those 
 who turn an anxious eye towards the future, because the 
 present fails to satisfy them ? Yes, you will doubtless 
 answer; for where is the man who would declare himself 
 fully satisfied ? All who suffer grow weary of the pre- 
 sent; they wait, they hope. But I do not here refer to 
 the suffering of the egotist who hopes to find to-morrow 
 what is denied him to-day. Every suffering which bears 
 upon self alone is selfish in its principle. No, tell me 
 not of those restless aspirations, of that melancholy 
 which is caused by discouragement, by wounded pride, 
 by envy, by discontent at an inferior position, by secret 
 anger at not occupying the first rank. In all this there 
 is nothing grand ; and however poetic your grief may 
 appear to you, it is none the less a mean, petty and 
 fruitless sorrow. 
 
 Here I address those who seek and suffer, because 
 they hunger and thirst after truth and righteousness, and 
 
364 SIMEON. 
 
 because tliey see aroimd tliem error, selfishness, and cor- 
 ruption. Those are the waiting souls. They wait all 
 the more ardently that they love Jesus Christ. And, 
 in fact, how, after having beheld in Him purity, moral 
 harmony, and iu particular, love in all its fulness, could 
 they give up the hope of seeing these virtues elsewhere, 
 and be content to take mankind and the world such as 
 they are, such as sin has made them ? Consequently, I 
 will show you men whom the world might have ren- 
 dered perfectly happy, men who had talent, power, 
 wealth, affection, all that can make life beautiful, but 
 who, having once contemplated Jesus Christ, have felt 
 that henceforth all this would fail to satisfy them. A 
 burning thirst after holiness has taken possession of 
 their soul, and so long as they have to struggle with the 
 sin that besets them, with the lusts that degrade them, 
 they are not satisfied — tliey wait. They have beheld 
 Jesus Christ, they have seen His love, their heart has 
 opened to all the unredressed wrongs, to all the un- 
 alleviated sorrows of humanity ; the more penetrating 
 becomes the eye of their charity, the more does this 
 spectacle overpower them. At sight of so much real and 
 bitter misery, of so many bleeding wounds around them, 
 they feel oppressed, they ask God that His kingdom may 
 come, they wait. . . . 
 
 Ah ! if our heart could love with a love more vast, 
 more generous, more unselfish, if all sufferings and acts 
 of injustice awakened a bitter sorrow in our conscience, 
 would we not all, lilve Simeon, wait for the consolation 
 of Israel ? 
 
 But, in order to be sinccire, we must confess that the 
 number is very small of those who suffer thus and who 
 feel the ardent need of taking refuge in the expectation 
 of God's kingdom. Let us not flatter mankind, let us 
 not assign too generous causes to our griefs, and to our 
 
SIMEON. 365 
 
 distaste for the world. Let us Lumbly acknowledge that 
 when a man possesses health, strength, talent, and for- 
 tune, when he succeeds in the world, his soul must 
 indeed be strongly inflamed with love to God to long 
 passionately for His kingdom. Let us acknowledge that 
 between our words and our true dispositions there is, in 
 this respect, a contrast which is often derisive, and that 
 if the Christianity of our period has struck the melan- 
 choly chords of the soul, if it has spoken of great sorrows, 
 of ideal aspirations, this language appears very declama- 
 tory and very vague to the man who sees how easily 
 satisfied, how busily engaged in present interests, how 
 deeply sunk in ease and worldliness are our lives. 
 
 Well ! what is required in order that this language 
 may become sincere ?• Affliction. Affliction, not only 
 with its heavy blows, but with the hard and repulsive 
 trial of patience. Then it is that our heart understands 
 for the first time what, so far, it has only caught a 
 glimpse of. Admit it, ye Christians who think you love 
 God, you must suffer here below that you may under- 
 stand how God is contemned by the world ; you must 
 exhaust all the deceptions of earth that you may learn 
 to long after the land where righteousness dwells. Is 
 not that our common experience ? 
 
 You delighted, for instance, in speaking of the reign of 
 truth, of the triun:ph of justice. Thinking upon all the 
 iniquities which oppress humanity, oft had your imagina- 
 tion taken its flight towards the time when the cause of 
 God will finally triumph. You had perhaps thought 
 that to indulge in such dreams was to expect the reign 
 of God. Suddenly injustice sweeps down upon you, it 
 enters your heart like a sharp and poisoned arrow ; you 
 feel a treacherous hand thrusting tlie dart deeper into 
 the bleeding wound. Ah ! how ardently and sincerely 
 you now invoke the just Judge ! The prayer which now 
 
366 SIMEON. 
 
 escapes your lips is no longer a burst of your imagina- 
 tion, but a cry of your heart ! All the oj^pressions of 
 earth reveal themselves to you in their appalling reality, 
 and with tears and groans you call for the day of 
 supreme reparation. 
 
 You spoke with emotion of the sufferings of mankind ; 
 this sympathy, I willingly believe, was natural to you. 
 ]\Ioreover, it is the great current of modern piety ; the 
 sufferings of the poor, of the ignorant, hitherto too much 
 neglected, now impose themselves upon the Church. Your 
 thouglits were turned in that direction : the poetic, the 
 grand idea of Christ as the Comforter was, of all others, 
 dearest to you. But when you were called to descend 
 from those hazy regions of sympathy to meet with real 
 sorrow under its vulgar and oft repulsive features, what 
 then became of your charity ? Suddenly here is sorrow 
 reaching you personally ; here you are groaning under 
 the pangs of a cruel disease, suspended between life and 
 death, or struck with sudden distress and with a terrible 
 affliction. Is it not true that at such times the veil 
 which had hidden the world of the suffering from your 
 sight is rent, and that now before you appear all who 
 suffer, alas ! without sympathy, all who have neither 
 your consolations nor your resources ? Your own grief 
 lends a more heart-rending accent to all those forgotten 
 sorrows, and with renewed ardour you call for the reign 
 of the Comforter. 
 
 Tiius, under the blows of trial, our soul learns to desire 
 the eternal realities. Thus, after having begun to mourn 
 over ourselves, we embrace at one glance the world which 
 knows not God, and unite our prayers with that deep 
 longing of the whole creation which St. Paul tells of. 
 To wait ! that is our common calling. We are servants 
 whose Master is in exile and who await His return. Ah ! 
 guard that grand hope in the depths of your hearts, let 
 
SIMEON. 367 
 
 not that Divine flame be extinguished by the breath of 
 indifference or unbelief. Like Simeon, you will have to 
 struggle against all thfe temptations of doubt, against all 
 the sneers of scoffers. Men will tell you : " Where is 
 the promise of His coming ? " They will tell you of the 
 Gospel gradually losing its power ; they will affirm that 
 God no longer interposes to defend His cause ; they will 
 set before you the feebleness and the divisions of the 
 Church, the defections of those who desert the standard 
 of Christ, the scepticism of scholars, the hostility of the 
 multitudes. Well, like Simeon, hope against hope, fly 
 for refuge to the Word of the 'faithful God, and, safe upon 
 that rock, wait, wait still. The day of the Lord will 
 come. Happy those who will see its advent ; but happier 
 still, in the great day of final retribution, those who, 
 without having seen its dawn, have died fixing their 
 eyes upon the east and firmly trusting in the fidelity of 
 God ! 
 
 The second feature which strikes me in Simeon is the 
 greatness of his faith. To appreciate it aright, let us 
 cast off our own notions, let us set aside that deceitful 
 prism through which infant Christianity appears to us 
 enveloped in the most magnificent tints of grandeur and 
 poetry. What does Simeon see in the Temple of Jeru- 
 salem ? A poor child brought thither by poor parents. 
 What more frail, what more uncertain than His future ? 
 A cliild without glory, without appearance ! Yet in this 
 child he discovers Him who is to be the glory of Israel, 
 and what is more marvellous still and utterly foreign to 
 a Jewish mind. Him who is to enlighten and raise the 
 Gentiles. What a sublime destiny ! Accordingly it is 
 the whole of mankind that Simeon gives as His retinue 
 to the little child whom he bears in his arms. Never 
 were loftier hopes attached to so frail a basis ! Never 
 did a bolder faith launch out into the infinite, relying 
 
368 SIMEON. 
 
 upon the word of God ! Well, was Simeon mistaken ? 
 I appeal to unbelief itself. Let it tell us whether all 
 the facts announced l)y him have not been realised ; 
 whether the name of that child has not become, I do not 
 merely say the glory of Israel, but the highest glory of 
 all humanity ; whether the Gentiles whose restoration 
 Simeon thus predicted, raised indeed by Jesus Christ, 
 have not formed, under His adorable name, a spiritual 
 family which continually increases and pretends to absorb 
 in its bosom the whole of mankind ; or rather, let it hear 
 the song of Simeon himself repeated every Christmas 
 Day in all parts of the earth by the increasing choir of 
 the Church of the redeemed ! 
 
 Brethren, have you the faith of Simeon ? But what 
 do I say ? Do we need to make so sublime an effort as 
 he ? Compare for a moment, I pray you, our situation 
 with his. Simeon believed when Jesus was a little child 
 only a few days old. For eighteen centuries now Jesus 
 has lived and has given life to the world. Simeon be- 
 lieved when Jesus had no other train than Joseph and 
 ]\Iary. You see Him surrounded by the prophets who 
 announced Him, by the apostles who preached Him, 
 by the redeemed of all ages who all proclaim that in 
 Him alone they have found pardon, light, and peace. 
 Simeon believed when Jesus had yet performed no 
 mighty deed. You have seen, I do not say simply 
 His three years' ministry. His incomparable life. His 
 stupendous miracles, but you have seen His work unin- 
 terruptedly pursued and gradually extending ; you have 
 seen His Gospel, everywhere victorious, waging against 
 iniquity, error, and corruption, an implacable war ; you 
 have seen His Church, a thousand times ready to perish, 
 ever rising again and growing in spite of threats, perse- 
 cation, and scorn ; you have seen Christ accomplishing 
 around you, in the very depths of souls, the most as- 
 
SIMEON. 369 
 
 tonisliing and the most undeniable of works, the conver- 
 sion of the will, the renewal of affections, — a change, in a 
 word, which none but Himself could have effected ; you 
 have seen Him taking possession of souls to-day just as 
 well as when His eye rested with its wondrous power 
 of attraction upon Levi or Zacchseus ; you have seen what 
 His name can do in the bitter temptation of suffering, 
 . or at the solemn hour of death when illusion is impossible, 
 when man is on the point of appearing before the supreme 
 Judge, and must obtain pardon, at any cost ; you have, it 
 may be, heard dying lips utter, with a last benediction, 
 that adorable name which summed up a whole life of 
 faith, love, and long expectation. All this, if others have 
 ignored it, you have seen, you have been its witnesses, 
 and yet, you do not believe. That is not all, Simeon 
 believed when Jesus had done nothing for him. But you 
 have seen His love in all its magnificence ; you have been 
 led to the foot of the Cross ; you have been told of His 
 mercy and of His abasement; you have seen the body which 
 Simeon held in his arms pierced with nails, struck with 
 rods and streaming with blood ; you have seen those eyes 
 vainly seeking a Father's face ; you have heard those lips 
 uttering the most sublime words amidst the most fearful 
 anguish ; you have been told that you were the objects 
 of that unspeakable love ; alas ! you have doubtless known 
 this long; this thought has touched you sometimes. But 
 when you should have believed, you have drawn back : 
 before the prospect of a Christian life and of the sacri- 
 fices it involves, before the judgments of men, you have 
 fled, refusing even that effort of attention and goodwill 
 without which serious faith is impossible ; before so many 
 witnesses who call you, before that Cross where so many 
 sinners like yourselves have found their only refuge, before 
 that love which confounds even angels, you remain unde- 
 cided, keeping back the heart which God claims of you, 
 
 2 A 
 
 y 
 
370 SIMEON. 
 
 or determining, by an odious calculation, to give it to Him 
 only when the world will have had enough ! 
 
 I hear your excuse : " Faith," you say, " does not come 
 at our bidding," and you add, perhaps, that it was easy 
 for Simeon to believe since he had been warned by the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 Oh yes, well do I know that faith comes not at any 
 one's bidding ! God forces nobody. It was not to be 
 served by slaves that He sent His Son here below ; to 
 win us over to Himself, He draws us, He calls us gently, 
 and that is what Scripture calls the attraction of the Holy 
 Ghost. But who will tell me that you have never felt 
 this attraction, and that you have the right to say that 
 God has not warned you ? 
 
 I do not know your inward life, but I know my own, 
 and the heart of man, says Scripture, answers to the heart 
 of man. Now, I beg each of you individually to examine 
 himself before God, and to consider whether he has never 
 felt in his heart a secret voice drawing him towards Jesus 
 Christ. Most varied is this mysterious voice, its accents 
 are not the same for all : it often strikes the hardened 
 sinner's ears like a terrific peal of thunder ; but for the 
 little child who reads the Gospel at its mother's feet, it is 
 the kind and gentle voice of the Good Shepherd. Have 
 you never heard it ? It has often recalled to your memory 
 your past sins and your secret faults ; in silence, far from 
 the din of the world, it tells you of a holy God, of a judg- 
 ment which it will be impossible for you to avoid, of an 
 eternity which awaits you. It disturbs your guilty plea- 
 sures, and pours into them the poison of remorse. When 
 you seek to shake off your thoughts in dissipation, it 
 writes upon your conscience those words which a myste- 
 rious hand traced upon the palace wall during Belshaz- 
 zar's revel, " Thou art weighed in the balance and found 
 wanting." It has sometimes led you to understand fully 
 
SIMEON, 371 
 
 and well how low, how cold, how empty and derisive is 
 the life of the world. It causes you to yearn after a pure 
 love, after a holy life, after inward peace ; it calls you to 
 the infinite joys of heaven, to communion with God, to 
 all that is grand, heavenly, and good ; it now touches your 
 heart by the memories connected with this day, and in 
 this very hour it persuades you that I speak the truth, 
 and that I have simply narrated your own history. Well ! 
 that voice which disquiets, alarms, or attracts you, is the 
 voice of the Holy Spirit. Say not, therefore, that God 
 has not warned you, or that He has left you uncalled and 
 without witness ! Do not, by such sophisms as these, be- 
 lie the most evident proofs of His mercy ; do not cast 
 upon God a fault for which you alone are responsible. 
 To unbelief add not ingratitude, and to-day, if you hear 
 His voice, harden not your hearts I 
 
 I have shown how Simeon waited for his Saviour, and 
 how he believed in Him on the very day when Jesus was 
 presented to him. We have still to consider the feelings 
 which were awakened in his soul by the certainty of his 
 faith — all these sentiments may be summed up into one : 
 joy, the joy of a soul which is well-nigh overpowered by 
 the goodness of God, the joy which finds expression in a 
 truly sublime song : " Now lettest Thou Thy servant 
 depart in peace." 
 
 Joy! Is not that the feature which characterises this 
 Christian festival above all others ? Alas ! why should a 
 painful thought here come across our heart ? This Christ- 
 mas night, during which we celebrate the purest and most 
 touching of memories, is, of all nights in the year, that 
 which the world most particularly devotes to the extremes 
 of dissipation and to the grossest pleasures, that in which 
 vice and pollution fill our streets, till morning, with the 
 sounds of their cynical mirth and impious revels. Ah ! 
 may at least the voice of prayer, rising towards God from 
 
372 SIMEON. 
 
 the hearts that love Him, cover all these blasphemies, 
 and fall back in blessings upon those who thus delight in 
 profaning that which we consider as most adorable and 
 most sacred ! 
 
 Be joyful, but let your joy be like that of Simeon. Now, 
 what is the principle of his joy ? It is Divine peace : 
 " Thou lettest Thy servant depart in peace." And this 
 peace, upon what does it rest ? Upon the assurance of 
 salvation. "Mine eyes have seen Tliy salvation." Had 
 Simeon been told by some special revelation at what 
 price this salvation would be accomplished ? I cannot 
 tell, but what I gather from his words is that he knew 
 that this salvation would be accomplished by suffering, 
 for he clearly announces to ]\Iary that a sword should 
 pierce through her soul. He knows that salvation is 
 brought to the earth, and that is what gives him peace. 
 That is also what should be to-day the best foundation 
 of your joy. If for you this question still remains un- 
 settled, if for you God still remains a stranger, if eternity 
 is for you a troublesome thought, if the sight of the 
 Divine Tribunal brings you only terror and affright, if 
 the promises of the Gospel, if its pardon resound in your 
 ears like a mystic language to which your heart is closed, 
 how can I tell you of peace and joy ? There can be no 
 peace but in truth, and for us guilty sinners there is no 
 truth save in pardon. To your knees, then, my brother, 
 my sister, to your knees at your Saviour's feet ! To your 
 knees, if need be, in tears, to your knees with a broken 
 heart ! And tell me not that I bring you a sorrowful 
 message, for, with the whole Church, I can assure you 
 that if there be upon earth a vast, unspeakable joy, a joy 
 beside which all the delights of the world grow dim, a 
 joy which makes us even happier than the angels, it is 
 the joy of a penitent and pardoned sinner. 
 
 And you who know this joy, keep it not all for your- 
 
SIMEON. 373 
 
 selves. Let it irradiate your entire existence, and by the 
 joyous light whicli will ray out from your soul, men will 
 see that the peace of heaven has descended there. Too 
 much preoccupied with defending our faith by arguments 
 and painful discussions, we have not reflected sufficiently 
 upon all there is of power and persuasiveness in the pure 
 and peaceful joy of a heart that believes in God. Never- 
 theless, Scripture calls our attention to it, for if it no- 
 where enjoins upon us to discuss and argue, it often bids 
 us be joyful. The Gospel makes of joy a command. Who 
 can measure its mild but irresistible influence, who will 
 tell us how often unbelief has melted in its contact, just 
 as the soil, hardened by a cold winter's night, is softened 
 by the rays of the sun ? 
 
 Be joyful. Let not your doubts and your melancholy 
 place themselves to-day between your souls and the 
 opening heavens. To-day is the anniversary of the child 
 Jesus. Beside His cradle have the hearts of children. 
 Have their simple and joyous confidence, have their 
 innocent and uncalculating faith, have their unreserved 
 happiness, whose power is such that it unruflles the most 
 anxious brows and softens the most stony hearts. Ke- 
 deemed of Christ, shake off the weight of life, let not 
 your thoughts and hearts turn towards the earth when 
 God would draw them heavenward. Join in the angels' 
 song, and if you vainly seek beside you those whose 
 voices would to-day have mingled with yours, think 
 that in heaven they repeat the same glad anthem, and 
 that the heavenly strains answer to the melodies sung by 
 the faithful here below. 
 
 Be joyful, but not with that evil joy which carefully 
 avoids the sight of suffering because it is afraid of being 
 troubled in its selfish security. Christian joy opens the 
 heart and unceasingly expands it, for it is inseparable 
 from love. That which saddens it, on the contrary, that 
 
374 SIMEON. 
 
 whicli causes this life-giving stream to dry up, is the 
 bitter regret of having loved too little. 
 
 Go, then, brother ; go if need be to those who have 
 offended you, to those from whom you are separated by 
 a cruel resentment which casts a gloomy shadow over 
 this day's festival. Go tell them that to-day you have 
 seen your Saviour abased and humbled, and that in pre- 
 sence of such a spectacle your pride has been broken 
 down. Go tell those who suffer that to-day you have 
 seen your Saviour taking upon Himself poverty, and that 
 your heart has been stirred ; go tell the afflicted that to- 
 day the glad tidings which alone can raise and comfort 
 have descended from heaven. 
 
 If there be in this assembly an unbelieving heart, a 
 heart closed to the faith that makes our joy, to such an 
 one would I say ere I close : You do not, brother, share 
 in all the sentiments of love, confidence, and profound 
 gratitude which this Christmas Day awakens in us. For 
 you this festival is a touching legend and nothing more, 
 and your reason, you say, is too much enlightened to 
 allow of your believing that the heavens really opened, 
 and that the song of the angels was ever heard on the 
 earth. 
 
 Now, let me ask this question: Are you anxious to 
 gain us all over to your opinion, and, in a word, would 
 you rejoice to see the time when Christmas would no 
 longer be celebrated ? If you are firm and consistent 
 with your principles, this must be your wish. Well, let 
 the memory of this holy night be blotted out, let the 
 angels' song die away, let the name of Bethlehem be 
 added to so many others buried in ancient mythology, 
 your desire will be satisfied. But know this, at least, 
 from the day when faith in the Incarnate Son of God 
 will have disappeared, faith in God Himself, that is, in 
 the living God, will vanish from the earth, for if God 
 
SIMEON. 375 
 
 has not manifested Himself in Jesus Christ, where is He, 
 and where shall we hear His voice ? You will not hear 
 of an opening heaven ; your reason cannot conceive of a 
 God who saves His creatures by an act of His love. 
 "Well ! let heaven be closed, and let your God remain 
 there in inactivity, bound by the most immutable laws. 
 Like ancient paganism, you have placed Fatality at the 
 top of the scale of beings ; for the God of Love you have 
 substituted the God of Destiny ; but ancient paganism 
 had the Gospel for its heir, while yours will lead you 
 simply to nothingness ! 
 
 But no ; you will not deprive us of our Christmas. 
 Discuss, if you will, in your schools. Dream of a more 
 perfect, of a more reasonable religion, if you can. With 
 the mystery of the Incarnate God suppress the mystery 
 of the personal and living God, I am tranquil. Wliilst 
 you will agitate those unsolved problems, the sinful and 
 guilty man, the man who hears the voice of his conscience, 
 the man who suffers and seeks a God who loves Him, the 
 man who feels his need of a Saviour, will, with the 
 Christian Church, go and worship at Bethlehem. Each 
 year he will direct his steps thither ; each year more 
 numerous worshippers will surround the cradle of Him 
 whom we call the Son of the living God, till the day 
 when, over the whole of the human family kneeling to- 
 gether at the Saviour's feet, will resound the angels' song, 
 " Glory to God in the highest ; peace on earth, good- will 
 to men ! " 
 
( 376 ) 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits." 
 — Ps. ciii. 2. 
 
 One day ten lepers, meeting Jesus in Galilee, exclaimed 
 in their anguish, " Jesus, Master, have mercy on us ! " 
 The Saviour sends them away cured, purified. One only 
 returns to give Him thanks, and then these sorrowful 
 words escape His lips : " Were there not ten cleansed ? 
 and where are the nine ? " This is a distressincf but 
 faithful picture of our conduct towards God. If I 
 required a decisive proof of the depth of our misery, I 
 would find it in our inconceivable ingratitude towards 
 Him who hath given us all things. Where are they, in 
 the world, those who think of blessing God and of count- 
 ing all His benefits ? There are, whatever men may say 
 to the contrary, very few atheists, very few who dare 
 openly to deny the existence of God ; but do I exaggerate 
 when I affirm that the great majority of our fellow-men 
 live as if God existed not ? 
 
 I mistake. This God whom they ordinarily contemn, 
 they are careful not to forget Him when fear or interest 
 seizes their soul, and that is what gives to their habitual 
 ingratitude a still more odious character. It has been a 
 thousand times observed that these two sentiments which 
 I have mentioned — interest and fear — are the dominant 
 
THE UNGRATEFUL. 377 
 
 features in all heathen religions, those which are expressed 
 in almost all the acts of their worship. Alas ! in this re- 
 spect the human heart is ever the same ; and if you should 
 divest the religion of the greater number of all that is 
 inspired by these sentiments, what would remain for God ? 
 Here, for instance, is a man who to-day is stirred and 
 fearful because he is threatened by some great misfortune, 
 because death seems to hold one of his children in its 
 grasp ; he prays and weeps, but to-morrow where will 
 be his fervour, his repentance, his short-lived piety ? 
 
 To bless God, to feel one's absolute dependence upon 
 Him, — who thinks of this ? Suppose our felicity were 
 never disturbed, is it not almost certain that our ingrati- 
 tude would last for ever ? It is not necessary, in order 
 to develop this brutal unconcern in our souls, that we 
 should occupy an intoxicating position, or possess a pro- 
 digious fortune, or enjoy one of those unutterable prosper- 
 ities which bewilder and confuse ; no, alas ! an unalloyed 
 happiness, an undisturbed security, the assurance of find- 
 ing the daily bread upon our table, is enough to make us 
 forget that all we have is lent us. It would seem, from 
 our conduct, that God owes us all that He is pleased to 
 give. The very regularity of His benefits deprives them 
 of all savour in our eyes ; they must be withdrawn from 
 us that we may understand that they were His gift. 
 
 Behold the spectacle which the world presents in this 
 respect. In every sphere, you will find men who despise 
 that which God gives them, who look beyond and above 
 themselves, and who continually ask that which is denied 
 them. See, for instance, this workman, to whom God, 
 with his daily bread, gives health, strength, and affection 
 which would suffice to make him joyful. Do you think 
 he appreciates his happiness ? No ; his eyes are turned 
 higher. He envies those to whom God has given a more 
 elevated position, and the only blessings to be desired are. 
 
378 THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 in his eyes, those which he cannot attain. Now the man 
 who is the object of his envy — that more fortunate indi- 
 vidual — do you think he esteems himself happy and satis- 
 fied ? Do you think he feels his heart overflow with 
 gratitude at the thought of all he possesses ? No ; m his 
 turn he looks up higher. Higher ! that is towards the 
 region of abundance and luxury ; there only is happiness, 
 and for him the only happy people in the world are those 
 who occupy a position superior to his. Well, question 
 tliese happy beings in their turn. They have all that 
 can be desired — independence, wealth, and all possible 
 means of gratifying the least of their fancies. You think 
 they are happy. Alas ! it is amongst such that we most 
 often meet the contempt of happiness ; it is amongst such 
 that heart and mind are most easily sated. You would 
 see them in their turn forming new and extravagant 
 plans, and seeking happiness everywhere save where God 
 has placed it. You would see this worldly woman, to 
 whom God has hitherto spared all veritable trials, forget- 
 ting that amongst thousands of beings she has an excep- 
 tional position, that she possesses that which is denied to 
 the great majority of women. You would see her calling 
 forth imaginary woes, absorbing her thoughts in them, 
 conversing about them, complaining continually in pre- 
 sence of a world where real and heart-rending sorrows, 
 which her selfishness veils from her sight, cross her path 
 at every moment. You would see them — those elect of 
 fortune — despising the thousand joys which God has 
 scattered on their way, rushing with an insatiable ardour 
 towards an ever- receding end ; seeking, always seeking, 
 that happiness which they will never attain. 
 
 At this view we are tempted to sneer at human nature. 
 Let us rather pity it. In this latent discontent which 
 everywhere pursues man, which corrodes his joys and 
 withers his happiness, I see in reality a striking proof of 
 
THE UNGRATEFUL. 379 
 
 the greatness of his destiny. Ah ! you thought that man 
 could be happy here below, you thought that happiness 
 dwelt in all those envied joys. No, answers the experi- 
 ence of ages as well as our own ; no, happiness is not 
 there. And why ? Because our soul is made for God, 
 and the infinite alone can satisfy it. "0 God," exclaims 
 St. Augustine, " Thou hast made us for Thyself ; therefore, 
 pur heart is restless so long as it has not found repose in 
 Thee." You call him foolish, that happy worldling who 
 tramples under foot all his joys and seeks new and im- 
 possible pleasures ; you accuse him, the man who might 
 enjoy everything, but who gives up his soul to the excite- 
 ment of passions the very ardour of which consumes all 
 delight, just as fire burns up dry leaves. Ah ! recognise, 
 nevertheless, in all these excesses the secret thirst which 
 tortures the human soul, and by the immensity of his 
 desires measure the greatness of the object which alone 
 can satisfy it for evermore. As for me, I confess that I 
 prefer this eternal research, however senseless it may 
 appear, to the moderate and selfish wisdom of those who 
 are satisfied ; between the superficial optimism which the 
 philosophy of the world preaches and the incurable sorrow 
 which lies in the depths of the human soul, I would 
 choose the latter. Yes, it was to be so. In this deep 
 abyss of the heart from which God is absent, vainly have 
 you cast blessings of earth, success, glory, affection, all 
 that man sees, all that he loves, all that he envies . . . 
 the gulf is yawning still, and all you have cast into it has 
 only enlarged it more and more. What it wants, this 
 unsatisfied heart, is more than the happiness of the world, 
 more than the world itself, — the love of God alone can 
 fill it. 
 
 However this be, ingratitude lies at the foundation of 
 our nature ; that is the sentiment of man towards God. 
 But if, for the worldling, it explains itself, as it were by 
 
3So THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 that bitter disencliantment which is so fatally attached 
 to all his subjects of joy, how can its presence in the 
 Christian's heart be justified ? 
 
 You are a Christian, my brother, that is to say, you 
 have learned in the light of the Gospel to know yourself. 
 You know all the misery and lust and sin which your 
 life and heart shelter; you have fathomed those gloomy 
 depths of 3'our nature which the eye of man does not 
 perceive ; you are aware of all that mingles of pride and 
 self-love with your works, even the best ; you have 
 measured the abyss which separates you from the love 
 of God, and you know full well what would be your fate 
 should He judge you according to His holy law. 
 
 You are a Christian, however; that is to say, you 
 rejoice at having found in God a Father, and in Jesus 
 Christ a Saviour ; you believe that you have been the 
 object of an immense love ; you detect this love alike in 
 the Divine Providence which sought you out in your 
 wanderings ; in those cries of your conscience which drew 
 you towards the Cross of Calvary; in the heavenly joy 
 which filled your heart at the glad news of pardon; in 
 those multiplied deliverances of which you have been 
 the object, and in the hope of the sublime felicity which 
 eternity has in reserve for you. 
 
 You are a Christian ; that is to say, you subsist before 
 God only by grace ; you have no other refuge than His 
 mercy. Where are your titles, your virtues, your merits ? 
 What would you have become without the love which 
 sought you out ? Wlrat would you have become in the 
 day when temptation invaded your soul, if, abandoned to 
 yourself, you had been left alone to struggle ? All that 
 you are you owe it to God. Eeduced to your own re- 
 sources, you had been lost ; to yourselves, least of all, can 
 you ascribe your salvation. Everywhere throughout your 
 past life you see the Divine footprints of the Good Shep- 
 
THE UNGRATEFUL. 381 
 
 herd who sought you ; everywhere you find His unwearied 
 love. Well ! if gratitude should dwell anywhere upon 
 earth, should it not be in your heart ; and if you are not 
 the most grateful of men, will you not be the most 
 thankless of beings ? 
 
 This consequence is so natural that it seems as though 
 now there were no more to be said, as though the soul, 
 -inflamed by the sight of the love of God, had simply to 
 follow its impulse and to give itself to Him completely. 
 But, strange to say, into this pardoned, sanctified soul, 
 into this soul filled as it is with the love of God and the 
 joy of angels, you will perhaps see ingratitude glide like 
 a cold serpent. How, then, has it found entrance there ? 
 Is it only through our natural levity or the fearful facility 
 with which we forget our liveliest and most serious 
 impressions ? No. There is something more than this ; 
 here we must search one of the most sorrowful sides of 
 our heart. This heart is ungrateful because all obliga- 
 tions lie heavily upon it, even that of the love of God. 
 Yes, there still remains in our heart a spark of proud 
 independence which will not accept the yoke of God ; we 
 feel that His benefits bind us, and we will not be 
 fettered ; we feel that if the work of redemption be true, 
 our selfishness is criminal. Let us say it bravely. There 
 are days when the love of God annoys us because it re- 
 quires of us a reciprocal affection, a boundless gratitude, 
 an unreserved sacrifice. That is why ingratitude reappears 
 even in the soul of the believer ; that is why that poisonous 
 seed germinates and grows with such frightful rapidity in 
 his heart. I find it in that truly brutal unconcern with 
 which the Christian accustoms himself to be the object 
 of the love of God, to consider his situation as most 
 natural ; I find it in the cold-hearted and profane manner 
 in which he speaks of the most touching and sacred 
 features in the work of redemption which has been 
 
382 THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 accomplished for him ; I find it in the murmurs which 
 escape him as soon as the liand of God keeps back one 
 of the blessings with which he had so soon become 
 familiar. Alas ! in that sanctified soul I find the old 
 man, the old scorn, the old insensibility. That is also 
 why God afflicts us, why He calls each of us in his turn to 
 pass through the fiery furnace, thus pursuing that Divine 
 education which pardon of itself could not have achieved ; 
 that is why God visits us, according to the striking ex- 
 pression which Scripture applies not to the blessings but 
 to the evils which God sends us, doubtless because it is 
 especially in affliction that we learn to discover His pre- 
 sence. Observe, in fact, that it is in the very hour when 
 God strikes us that we reflect upon the truth that till 
 then He had spared us. His wrath sets forth His love ; 
 the just God reveals the good God ; and it is under the 
 blows of His justice that we first understand the fulness 
 of His mercy. 
 
 If we are naturally inclined towards ingratitude, we 
 must infer from this that it is foolish to believe that 
 gratitude will spontaneously gush from our hearts. No ; 
 here as elsewhere, as everywhere, discipline and obedience 
 are required, new habits must be set against the old ; 
 with David we must learn; yes, learn to number the 
 benefits of the Lord and not forget one. That is the 
 thought I would impress to-day upon your hearts. 
 
 What ! some will say, can one learn to be thankful ? 
 Yes, one can do so ; everything can be learned at the 
 school of the Gospel ; but rather make the experiment 
 for yourselves. 
 
 Have you ever tried to gather together, as in a bundle, 
 all the mercies, all the blessings, of which you have been 
 the objects ? Eecall to mind, for an instant, the first 
 appeals of Divine goodness, those blessings of your child- 
 hood, those pure and sweet memories which so many of 
 
THE UNGRATEFUL. 383 
 
 your fellows know nothing of. Eemember those prayers 
 of home, those warnings, those emotions, those secret 
 desires which came to you from God ; then those dis- 
 enchantments, those sorrows, those bitter griefs which 
 taught you what the world is worth. Eemember that 
 path traced out and prepared for you by the hand of 
 Providence, those deliverances, that unwearied patience, 
 those protections ; finally, those efforts, those appeals, 
 those triumphs of grace by which your heart has been 
 conquered. Make up that account and you will surely 
 be seized with confusion, you will surely feel overpowered, 
 as it were, by the weight of Divine goodness. 
 
 Then, to those past blessings, add your present mercies. 
 Have you reflected upon this ? Ah ! too often, like 
 those worldlings of whom I spoke just now, we have 
 counted only that which we had not. Clear-sighted in 
 discovering what failed us, we have remained blind to 
 the benefits of God. And yet, why should we not 
 number them ? I exhort you to do so, and I dare tell 
 you beforehand that you will be surprised at all you will 
 discover of hidden benefits in your life, were it appa- 
 rently the most empty and the most joyless. What 
 would be required to make you understand that what I 
 say is true ? Some new trial which to-morrow would 
 deprive you of one of your faculties, of one of those 
 afi'ections, of one of those joys which you do not so much 
 as appreciate. In losing it, alas ! you would understand 
 its price, and your privations would reveal to you your 
 riches. Have we not often made this sorrowful experi- 
 ence ? When sickness has come to you, then you have 
 known the importance of health ; when one of your 
 faculties has grown weak, then you have understood that 
 it had been a gift of God ; when your home has become 
 desolate, then you have felt the value of those affections 
 which you had too imperfectly sanctified by gratitude 
 
384 THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 while it was your privilege to enjoy them. You have 
 remembered all there is of strength and encouragement 
 in a sympathetic glance, in a friendly grasp of the hand, 
 and all the infinite joy which the smiles of a little child 
 can produce. Ah ' what would you not give to have all 
 these back again ? But no, it is too late, and all your 
 regrets cannot restore them to you. But what sorrow, 
 what confusion, at having passed by all these joys with- 
 out fully appreciating them, at having sought happiness 
 where God had not placed it, and at having scorned the 
 most delicate and touching proofs of His love ? Why 
 must such trials be sent to teach us gratitude ? Why 
 cannot happiness alone produce it in our hearts ? It 
 does so sometimes. I have seen happy beings touched 
 and converted by their very happiness. The portion 
 which God had allotted to them appeared to them so 
 beautiful and undeserved that they have been, so to 
 speak, overwhelmed by it, and His very goodness has 
 called forth in their souls the first awakenings of repent- 
 ance, and of a renewed life. Oh ! you who are still 
 young, you whom God has hitherto spared, why should 
 you not be called, moved, converted by these multiplied 
 evidences of Divine tenderness ? Wliy do you allow it 
 to spread, the fatal and gloomy idea that suffering alone 
 can bring souls to God, and that none come to Him but 
 those whom the world no longer cares for, and who fly 
 to Him as to their only refuge ? Why should this good 
 and merciful God have but the- refuse of the world, 
 defiled sinners, mourning souls ? and why should you 
 give occasion to worldlings to sneer at those tardy con- 
 versions, and to say that the love of God has no power 
 save on those for whom the earth has ceased to have any 
 attraction ? Prove the contrary, brethren. Show the 
 world that youth, life, hope, happiness, may bloom in all 
 their beauty under the eye of God, that joy may blossom 
 
THE UNGRATEFUL. 385 
 
 in the heart and bring forth fruits of devotion, charity, 
 and sacrifice. Prove this to the world that needs to 
 hear it, and to count all the benefits of the Lord, wait 
 not until they are taken from you. 
 
 But you who groan beneath the weight of trial, shall I 
 dare apply to you also the words of my text, shall I dare 
 exhort you to say with the prophet : " Bless the Lord, 
 my soul, and forget not all His benefits ! " 
 
 Ah ! God forbid that I should speak lightly of sorrow, 
 or wound a heart under pretence of comforting it ! No, 
 let us be true ; there are days when blessing seems an 
 impossibility. Will you bid him bless God, this being 
 who is crushed by an unutterable grief, and who needs 
 to summon all the energy of his faith to avoid falling into 
 despair ? Will you bid them bless God, this father and 
 mother whose heart God seems to tear from their breast 
 by tearing their child from their arms ? Will you dare 
 do so ? And in presence of such afflictions, is it not 
 enough, is it not a great deal that no feelings of rebellion 
 arise in the hearts of these afflicted ones ? And yet, if 
 God be love, if love be at the root of all His works, shall 
 I have nothing to say to such ? Why should I not draw 
 near to those broken hearts, why should I not tell them, in 
 the name of the Gospel, that in their unutterable sorrow 
 there was a blessing ? But if I dared not tell them so, 
 it would seem as if I believed that we are in the iron 
 hands of fatality ! But no ! there is no fatality, 
 
 I believe in a God who worketh ever, in trial as well 
 as in benediction ; I believe in His love even when He 
 chastens. Ah ! beware lest you misconceive His visita- 
 tion, beware lest you pass blindly beside those stern but 
 real marks of His mtervention. • I know what you will 
 answer. You will tell me : " "Wliere then is God in my 
 life, where is His action, where is His love in the blows 
 that have fallen upon me ? " But unhesitatingly I reply, 
 
 2 B 
 
386 THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 " Wait ere you judge." You recollect that Gospel scene 
 iu which the apostles, far out on the sea in the dark hours 
 of night, saw a phantom approaching their bark and uttered 
 cries of terror. But from the midst of that fearful shadow 
 a sweet and gentle voice was heard saying : " It is I, be 
 not afraid ; " it was the Master, it was Jesus. Ah ! how 
 often also, wandering like the apostles and like them 
 tossed upon the stormy billows, you have seen standing 
 out before you in the dark night of trial a phantom, 
 the terrible phantom of fatality. Wait a while, your eyes 
 will soon be opened, soon you will hear from the depths 
 of the gloom your Saviour's voice saying, " Weep not, it 
 is I ! " Yes, it is He who comes to you in that mysterious 
 afhiction, it is He who is approaching, it is He who seeks 
 you, it is He you must bless, but at the same time you 
 must humble yourself at having misjudged Him so long. 
 That is wliy I say to you : " Beware lest you mis- 
 estimate the benefits of God in trial." Ah ! when we do 
 not detect His presence there, we have but to choose 
 between despair and dissipation. Despair is the portion 
 of the noblest souls, of those who would perhaps have 
 sought their refuge in God had they known Him. Dis- 
 sipation is the consolation of the greater number. Thus 
 they forget what God wished to teach them in the solemn 
 hour of sorrow ; and how can we think without a fearful 
 heart-sinking of all those useless afflictions which pass 
 without leaving any fruitful result ! What ! God has 
 smitten you, and you have not recognised His hand, and 
 it is in vain that He has come to you ? What ! you 
 whom God has stamped with the mysterious seal of 
 suffering, you have succeeded in efiacing that Divine 
 impress, and in getting used to that world which seemed 
 no longer fit for you ? Do you not feel that even the 
 worldly are astonished at your conduct, and that they see 
 you with surprise share in their dissipation ? No ! you 
 
THE UNGRATEFUL. 387 
 
 were not made for such a destiny. Everything tells yon 
 so, and that secret wound which reopens at my words 
 speaks to your conscience more powerfully still. Ah ! if 
 it be not too late, seek the blessings of trial, and accept 
 the instructions it is destined to impart. 
 
 For you, brother, the temptation is elsewhere. You 
 surely cannot forget your trial. No, it is there, holy and 
 .respected ; it is there in all its greatness, so vividly pre- 
 sent, it may be, that you see nothing else, and thinking 
 only of what God has taken from you, you forget all He 
 has left you. That is your temptation, and why should 
 I not tell you that it is also a peril and a snare, and that 
 the sorrow which thus degenerates into bitterness or 
 gloomy discouragement renders you unfit for the mission 
 lor which God has left you upon earth ? 
 
 Nevertheless, understand me w^ell. Too often, in the 
 day of trial, the world in its way preaches forgetfulness. 
 It tells us in the name of its philosophy to forget what 
 we have lost, and think only of what is left us. It tells 
 us so, but the heart which is faithful to its affection 
 protests energetically. Yes, you are right. The living 
 should not make us forget the dead. The dead, alas ! 
 the world so soon forgets them, their place is so soon 
 tilled up by others, the waves of life sweep so rapidly 
 over the spot from which they have disappeared, that we 
 must respect those hearts which guard with jealous care 
 the shrine of memory. Understand me well, therefore ; 
 it is not of forgetfulness I would speak. I will tell you, 
 on the contrary : " If you love those whom God has taken 
 from you, would you not be happy to do what they them- 
 selves would counsel ? Think then of what they would 
 say to you if they could reappear and speak ! Ah ! from 
 the abode of eternal love where God has gathered them, 
 they would bid you love those who are left you, they 
 would bid you labour for their good, and employ for their 
 
388 THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 Lenefit those powers of the soul wliich you are consuming 
 in bitter regrets. Well ! it is in their name, it is for the 
 sake of their memory that I now tell you : " Beware lest 
 you forget what God leaves you, beware lest you despise 
 the task which He gives you to fill." 
 
 Shall I give you an example which will show you how, 
 even in the midst of sorrow, man may learn to bless God 
 jmd carefully number His benefits ? This example is 
 that of St. Paul. 
 
 Do you know a man who suffered more than St. Paul, 
 a man who, during thirty years, concentrated in his per- 
 son more suffering of body, heart, and mind, a man whose 
 life was more tormented by struggles and defections, by 
 the hatred and scorn of the world ? Well, have you 
 observed how St. Paul begins all his epistles ? By words 
 of thanksgiving and praise. Piead them all. There is 
 not one of them in which, from the very first lines, you 
 will not hear him bless God. iSTevertheless St. Paul was 
 not a man to be easily deceived, to be blinded by his enthu- 
 siasm, or to view things through a delusive prism. He 
 saw the miseries and shames which desolated the Church, 
 and yet St. Paul, writing to those persecuted Churches, 
 St. Paul, writing from his prison, St. Paul, on the eve of 
 his execution, St. Paul gives thanks, and why ? Because 
 above all these causes of sorrow he sees causes of joy ; 
 because above that which is transitory he sees that wluch 
 passeth not away ; because in his eyes present suffering 
 is swallowed up in the victory of love. Learn of him to 
 see the all-surpassing goodness of God above all which 
 saddens you. 
 
 Moreover, in recommending gratitude to the alliicted, 
 can I forget that it is they who often give us the most 
 touching examples of this virtue ? It has been observed 
 that accents of love oftener rise to the lips of the un- 
 fortunate than to those of the happy ; that misfortune. 
 
THE UNGRATEFUL. 389 
 
 frenerally speaking, is more grateful than prosperity. 
 From the taV)le of the poor rather than from that of the 
 rich does Messing rise to God for the daily bread. Ah ! 
 how beautiful is this instruction ! How can we see with- 
 out emotion, in poverty, on a bed of pain, and oft amid 
 the pangs of disease, a believer count up carefully, with 
 scrupulous attention, all the benefits of God without for- 
 aettinQ' one ! More than once have I beheld this beauti- 
 ful spectacle ; in more than one bitter trial in which it 
 seemed that rebellion was the only feeling that might be 
 awakened, I have seen Christian souls accept everything 
 with angelic meekness, delight in pointing out all the 
 tenderness and consolation which God mingled with their 
 sufferings. How can I forget that the prayers in which 
 thanksgiving has burst forth in the most sublime accents, 
 have been uttered by martyrs on the burning pile, in the 
 dungeons, or upon the rack ? Grand spectacle, in pre- 
 sence of which the Church may well exclaim with the 
 Apostle : " Thanks be to God, which givetli us the victory 
 throuo'h our Lord Jesus Christ ! " 
 
 I have exhorted you to gratitude, I have pointed out to 
 you all the blessings which attend it. But there is one 
 more feature in this sul)ject which I cannot overlook. 
 
 We are living in a period of painful agitation, when 
 the strongest convictions are called to pass through the 
 crucible. The Church will come out of it victorious ; the 
 Gospel will come out of it justified. At all times attack 
 has been easy ; it is not difficult to raise multiplied 
 objections against faith, and to triumph because they are 
 not always met l)y a ready answer. But after this first 
 attack, the wisdom of the age must, in its turn, justify 
 its pretensions ; it must show us how the Gospel came 
 into existence, from what human source it sprang, and it 
 is on this ground that we will meet it. 
 
 Nevertheless, the struggle is fierce, more than one soul 
 
390 THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 is disquieted, more than one soul needs to Le strengthened. 
 Well, among all the means %Yhieli you have at your dis- 
 posal for stimulating your faith, have you never thought 
 of what gratitude, yes, the mere habit of counting all the 
 Lord's benefits, can do ? I do not hesitate to affirm that 
 if in presence of certain specious objections which confuse 
 your intellect, you could remember all you have found in 
 the Gospel of strength, life, and light, you would assuredly 
 feel yourselves strengthened. 
 
 Remember, for instance, what you would be without 
 those beliefs of which men try to rob you. What has 
 sustained you in the obscure and decisive struggles of 
 the soul against the flesh and its seductions, but the 
 tliought that the eye of a living and holy God was upon 
 you, of a God with whom men say that our reason might 
 dispense to-day ? What has given you those firm con- 
 victions of conscience which have been your safeguard in 
 the hour of temptation, but the Gospel at whose school 
 your conscience and character have been formed? Wliat, 
 in your hours of anguish, has alone kept you from the 
 dull resignation of the fatalist, or from the despair under 
 which so many succumb, but those inspired and divine 
 words which have brought life and immortality into 
 evidence ? Ah ! ponder over all that past in which at 
 every step you find the trace of a God of love ; think 
 of all those holy emotions which in bygone days have 
 stirred your soul, of those sorrows and joys, of all that 
 inward life which has l)een your true life. Think of all 
 those regrets, of those many falls and restorations, of 
 those tears poured out at the feet of God, of the heavenly 
 joys of pardon. Were all these mere illusions, or were 
 they not, on the contrary, the most certain of realities ? 
 Iiecall to mind all they have said to you, in the hour 
 when delusions vanish, those deathbeds where you have 
 seen heaven opened, where you have heard the last 
 
THE UNGRATEFUL. 391 
 
 words, the last prayer of some cherished being, and where 
 you have felt all the powerful consolations of eternity 
 enter your soul. Those experiences have been yours, 
 and it is all that past, all that wealth of mercies and 
 blessings which the world would have you forget, because, 
 on some particular point, modern criticism has shaken 
 your faith. But no, that is impossible. You cannot 
 forget your history, you cannot tear up the past, you 
 cannot deny the best, the purest, the most sanctifying 
 emotions which have filled your heart. Born blind like 
 the man whom Jesus cured, you cannot be mistaken as 
 regards the Saviour who has opened your eyes and 
 restored true life to you ; and when the world will bid 
 you deny Him, you will recall to mind the reply of 
 Polycarp, that grand martyr of the primitive Church. 
 Before the tribunal of the Proconsul, in presence of the 
 instruments of torture, his tormentors said to him, " Deny 
 Jesus Christ ! " but he, raising his venerable hand, 
 answered : " Deny Him ! but how could I do so, when 
 for eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has done 
 me nothing but good ? " 
 
 What I say to each of you individually I say to the 
 Church collectively. Oh ! if the Church could but re- 
 member ! If the experience of the fathers could but be 
 beneficial to the children ! If all those dead lying in 
 their graves could but rise again and tell us what for 
 them were those beliefs which we now see vacillate ! If 
 in that arena where to-day, iu the very bosom of the 
 Church, are being discussed the most precious doctrines 
 of the Gospel, all those grand witnesses of the past could 
 but appear and speak, what strength, what encouragement 
 for us ! 
 
 Finally, if this world which surrounds us, if this light, 
 frivolous, and indifferent world could but remember, if it 
 could but remember all it owes to the God of the Gospel, 
 
392 THE UNGRATEFUL. 
 
 all that it would be without Him ! But no, it will not 
 think of this, and ingratitude will seal its eyes. You 
 will see modern society, which owes to Christianity all 
 its best and most precious gifts, progress, liberty, respect 
 for conscience, true equality, immortal hope and charity, 
 which alone can cure all its moral and physical sufferings, 
 you will see it forget all this, forget that in all countries 
 where the Cross has not been preached, those mercies are 
 utterly ignored, and consequently unregretted ; you will 
 see it welcome with senseless curiosity all the new-fangled 
 doctrines which pretend to take the place of antiquated 
 Christianity. You will see it, oh, sorrow ! take posses- 
 sion of all the progress, light and strength which it owes 
 to the Gospel to turn them against its divinity and bring 
 it down to their own level. Ah ! if it could succeed, if 
 for one and but for one day this rampart of Christian 
 faith could be overthrown, if God in His justice left those 
 ungrateful beings to themselves and withdrew His light 
 from them, then they might appreciate the value of those 
 beliefs which we defend with too much languor, and from 
 the fearful obscurity which would invade the world, they 
 would judge of the splendour of the extinguished sun. 
 God will not do so ! He who for sixty centuries sends 
 His light and blessings upon this earth which forgets and 
 contemns Him, He who, in the person of His Son, has, 
 on the Cross, saved a world which crucified and cursed 
 Him, He will still bless tliat ungrateful race, and His 
 love, mightier still than all our re'belKon, will shine in 
 all its beauty long alter those blaspheming voices will 
 have been hushed in the silence of death. 
 
 Oh, power of Divine mercy, if others despise Thee, we 
 bow before Thee, and seized with confusion at sight of 
 our own ingratitude, henceforth we shall repeat with the 
 Psalmist : " Bless the Lord, my soul, and forget not all 
 His benefits ! " 
 
( 393 ) 
 
 XXII. 
 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 "There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, Israel ! " — 
 Joshua vii. 13. 
 
 The God of the Old Testament is most often surrounded 
 with a terrible glory ; He is the mighty God of vengeance, 
 He is a consuming fire. Here and there, however, that 
 majesty is softened; traits of infinite compassion allow us 
 to anticipate the day when He will reveal Himself in 
 the plenitude of His nature. An incomparable tender- 
 ness and mercy mingle with the prescriptions of the 
 Mosaic law and permeate the revelations of the prophets 
 and the Psalms ; in them we already see the God of the 
 Gospel, Him whom Jesus revealed in all the fulness of 
 His love, and whom Moses had but imperfectly known, 
 for, according to the expression of St. John, if the law 
 was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus 
 Christ. Jehovah, during the period of the theocracy, 
 reveals Himself especially by His justice and holiness. 
 He is the great justiciary of the nations. Just as He 
 chastises the infamy of Sodom by fire from heaven, so 
 He punishes the abominations of the Canaanites by the 
 sword of Israel. True, Israel often joins to this awful 
 mission its own vindictive passions and national animo- 
 sities ; thence in its history more than one bloody page 
 which troubles our conscience and our heart. But let 
 
394 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 us not trace these acts of vengeance back to Jehovah 
 Himself ! Jehovah proclaims His holy law, and if Israel 
 violates it, Israel will be chastised as severely as its 
 enemies. That which arms the hand of the theocracy 
 is justice still unmitigated by mercy, but for all this 
 justice is the same, and it is often upon Israel that the 
 most terrible blows fall. I find a proof of this in the 
 narrative before us. 
 
 The Israelites had just entered the Promised Land. 
 Hitherto victorious in every encounter, they unexpectedly 
 suffer the most shameful defeat before the little city of 
 Ai ; Joshua, baffled in his hopes, troubled in his faith, 
 casts himself at the feet of the Lord and pours out his 
 complaints and nmrmurs with bitterness : " Alas ! 
 Lord God ! " said he, " v/herefore hast Thou at all brought 
 this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of 
 the Amorites, to destroy us ? would to God we had been 
 content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan ! . . . The 
 Canaanites shall environ us round, and cut off our name 
 from the earth, and what wilt Thou do unto Thy great 
 name ? " But the Lord answered Joshua : " There is an 
 accursed thing among you ; up, and sanctify the people." 
 Then Joshua assembled all Israel, the trumpets sounded 
 through the camp and the whole people passed in order 
 before him, and the tribe of Judali was taken, and in 
 this tribe the family of the Zarhites was taken, and in 
 this family the household of Zabdi was taken, and in 
 tills household Achan was taken ; then Achan, terrified 
 ])y this awful inquest, confessed all. He had stolen a 
 portion of the booty and hidden it in his tent. In the 
 midst of that holy war, when all manner of rapine was 
 forbidden, he had thought only of self. By his sacrile- 
 gious theft he had brought the punishment of God upon 
 all Israel, and therefore he was put to death without 
 mercy. 
 
HIDDEN GUILT. 395 
 
 We must here recall to mind the solemn significance 
 which this expression, " the accursed thing," had for the 
 Jews. Israel had been chosen for a grand mission, to 
 preserve the knowledge of the true God, the moral law 
 and the hope of a Eedeemer in the midst of the heathen 
 world ; it bore in its bosom the destinies of humanity. 
 For such a mission it was necessary that it should keep 
 aloof from the other nations ; all the more so that, as 
 we learn from the Old Testament itself, the natural 
 cliaracter of the Jews led them, as well as the other 
 inhabitants of the land, to idolatry, to the infamous 
 passions which ancient Asia had enthroned, and, to say 
 the least, to the hope of an enlargement of territory and 
 of a military glory. Accordingly, the Israelites were 
 jtrohibited i'rora holding any intercourse whatever with 
 the stranger ; in war especially, the booty taken by them 
 was to be nobody's property (admirable prescription 
 which was destined to repress the cupidity of this avari- 
 cious people, and to remind it that it did not wage all 
 these fearful wars for the mere purpose of enriching 
 itself). All that had been taken from the Canaanites 
 was to be devoted or sacrificed to the Lord. Conse- 
 quently, Achan, in committing his crime, in burying in 
 liis tent the gold, the silver, and the goodly garments 
 which he had stolen from the foe, had added sacrilege 
 to his theft, and that is what explains the severity of 
 his condemnation. 
 
 Times are changed, brethren ; the people of God is 
 no longer confined wathin national limits ; the judgments 
 of Jehovah are no longer executed in an immediate or 
 visible manner by the hand of man ; in a word, the 
 theocracy is no more. But the instruction contained in 
 my text is as true, as necessary amongst us as when, 
 three thousand years ago, Joshua set it forth in the eyes 
 of all Israel, by the punishment of a guilty man. 
 
395 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 As Cliristians we are placed in a world against which 
 we must continually struggle ; like Israel of old, we must 
 be in its midst the witnesses of God by our words as 
 well as Ijy our life ; we must renounce all guilty habits, 
 all criminal attachments; in a word, every accursed thing. 
 Oh ! I know full well that so long as we walk here 
 below we shall drag after us the remains of a sinful 
 nature, and that we shall often be surprised by the sin 
 which easily besets us ; but these errors, these falls, how- 
 ever sad they may be, are not the accursed thing ; in my 
 opinion, it is simply some evil habit, some guilty affec- 
 tion, some hidden sin which our conscience condemns, 
 but which we are unwilling to give up. That is the 
 danger to which I would draw your attention to-day. 
 
 " There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, 
 Israel." Ezekiel relates a striking vision: In order to 
 reveal to him the true condition of His people, God 
 j)ierces before his eyes the walls of the houses of Jerusa- 
 lem. Then tlie whole nation appears to him with its 
 idolatry, with its odious ceremonies, with its vices and its 
 corruption, which ordinarily were covered with the veil 
 of a hypocritical formalism, and the prophet is seized 
 with horror at the sight. He knew much already, but 
 what he now sees surpasses all his former conceptions. 
 Well, if the walls of our dwellings were transparent, 
 do you think they would not reveal the most sorrow- 
 ful and heart-rending realities ? if the stones of our 
 houses could speak, would they not have strange things 
 to tell ? AVhat a contrast, it may be, between our atti- 
 tude here, in public, under the eye of our brethren, 
 and our ordinary life ! What a derisive contradiction 
 between the aspirations, the desires, the hopes expressed 
 in our prayers and in our hymns, and our most habitual 
 conversations ! Some, ruthlessly pulling to pieces the 
 absent, take a detestable pleasure in calumny ; others, 
 
HIDDEN GUILT. 397 
 
 allowing the shameful chains of ease, luxury, and sen- 
 suality to surround them, become incapable of responding 
 to the most pressing appeals of misery, that is, to the 
 voice of God Himself, and easily make up their mind to 
 be useless servants. Others, feeding their imagination 
 upon sins which they would not dare to practise openly, 
 wander in the most unwholesome dreams, and sate their 
 curiosity with a literature their acquaintance with which 
 they would be unwilling to avow. Others, again, by 
 their example, their levity, and their worldly language, 
 encourage in those who surround them dispositions which 
 will perhaps lose their souls. Is that all ? Are you 
 sure that God detects no other disorders in your lives ? 
 Are your actions always utterly unquestionable ? Does 
 no unholy connection keep you under its yoke ? Can all 
 your business transactions bear the examination of the 
 JJivine Scrutator ? I cannot tell ; but I can hardly be- 
 lieve that such questions are out of place in so numerous 
 an assembly as this. Some years ayo a minister was 
 preaching in a large town and before a select audience 
 on the absolute necessity of restoring ill-gotten property. 
 Judging from the cultured and Christian aspect of his 
 congregation, one might have supposed that his sermon 
 was a singular mistake, and that his words would touch 
 none of his hearers ; but on the following days many a 
 considerable sum, spontaneously restored to the State or 
 to private individuals, proved that he had hit the mark. 
 Let us, however, admit that our private life harbours no 
 crime, no accursed thing, is it so with our heart too ? 
 and if God should pierce its walls, would not men dis- 
 cover in it affections, habits, passions which are in accord- 
 ance neither with our faith, nor with our name of Christians, 
 nor even with our ordinary language ? 
 
 Would you dare confess, I do not say the temptations 
 which often cross your heart, for these may be but 
 
398 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 sudden seductions which are not the sincere expression 
 of your nature, and which you will soon look upon with 
 disgust — but would you not be ashamed to avow that 
 which lies at the very basis of your life, the affections 
 which most deeply stir your hearts, the thoughts upon 
 which you most ordinarily delight to dwell, the habits 
 which you have not yet renounced ? Now, that is what 
 is most to be dreaded ; for if evil when it becomes a 
 habit is always awful, what then will lie guilt tolerated, 
 accepted, preserved, nay, growing Ijeneath the very shadow 
 of the Cross and under the eye of the holy God ? 
 
 I hasten to acknowledge that at the outset of a Chris- 
 tian life, in the fervour of first love, such a condition of 
 soul is an impossibility. At such times the temptation is 
 rather to look upon sin with pity and to treat it as a con- 
 quered enemy. When the Prince of Life has descended 
 into our heart and transformed it into a sanctuary, when 
 we have heard the Divine harmonies of holiness and 
 mercy there reconciled, when the assurance of pardon 
 has filled our soul with a felicity which even angels 
 know not, when our broken wills and subdued affections 
 have exhaled a sweeter fragrance than the perfume which 
 Mary poured at the feet of the Lord, how then could we 
 believe that the soul honoured with such a love can ever 
 become possessed by frivolous, mean, wicked, or vulgar 
 passions ? And yet, what has often happened ? 
 
 When we offered our soul to God, an accursed thing 
 was preserved there, or perhaps it entered it afterwards ; 
 it was an idolatrous attachment, an inveterate habit, which 
 for a moment had seemed dead ; placed on the extreme 
 limit of our soul, that enemy appeared quite harmless ; 
 and yet, even then, we could not justify ourselves by 
 pleading our ignorance, for the voice of the faithful God 
 warned us of our peril, but we were already seeking ex- 
 cuses and alleging that God could not expect so many 
 
HIDDEN GUILT. 399 
 
 sacrifices at once, and perceiving not that when love 
 begins to calculate it ceases instantly to be true love. 
 Nevertheless, days glided on, and in our soul, now become 
 Christian, the accursed thing still remained ; sheltered in 
 its innermost recesses, it occupied a very insignificant 
 place there ; but like those weeds whicli grow rapidly 
 and absorb the vivifying substance of the soil, it spread 
 its roots everywhere, so that they soon mingled w^ith the 
 most tenuous fibres of our heart ; the danger increased, 
 and God redoubled His warnings. Sermons which seemed 
 meant only for us, and in which we found the exact repre- 
 sentation of our moral state, impressive and unexpected 
 words, passages of Scripture upon which our eyes fell as 
 if by chance, all these shed in the deeps of our heart a 
 terrific light, and revealed to our horrified gaze the enemy 
 seated at the very centre of our lile. But who is not 
 aware of the fact that we possess the alarming faculty of 
 closing our eyes to what we do not wish to see ? You 
 have doubtless seen some of those invalids who persist in 
 averting their eyes from the danger by which they are 
 threatened ; they reject the warnings of sincere friend- 
 ship, they cling desperately to life, and find niarks of 
 health even in the febrile paroxysms of the disease which 
 is consuming them. Alas ! so it is likewise in spiritual 
 life ; we will not confess that our soul is diseased, we 
 endeavour to deny the secret distemper with wdiich it is 
 affected ; and, as if to delude ourselves completely, we 
 carefully note all the signs of life and health which it 
 still manifests. We look to our religious habits, to our 
 ffood works, to our alms, to our emotions, to the tears we 
 have shed at the foot of the Cross, and we do not reflect 
 that the more real these emotions have been the greater 
 is our responsibility, the more reprehensible is our in- 
 fidelity ; we count all the sacrifices which we have made 
 for God, willingly would we add to them new and extra- 
 
400 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 ordinary ones which God does not require of us, and all 
 tliis sunply to obtain the right of refusing Him those He 
 claims, those which we should have offered first of all, 
 those without which all others are vain. We may even 
 seek to shake off our remorse by the effusions of a noisy, 
 active, eager piety. Nay, in the very hour when the 
 guilt is at its height, we may appear doubly zealous in 
 the service of God. Thus, little by little, we take the habit 
 of deceiving others and of deceiving ourselves. Hence- 
 forth, there are in us two existences : the outward ex- 
 istence which is apparently moral, religious, and correct, 
 admired of men, it may even be ; then, below, our true 
 life where lurks and grows the guilty passion which we 
 have refused to sacrifice ! Oh ! how rapidly has it 
 developed itself! It seemed to us a mere nothing, and 
 now, behold ! it exerts upon us an extraordinary j)ower. 
 And no wonder indeed, for it occupied, tlie most intimate 
 place in our heart ; like a fondly cherished idol it had 
 taken its stand in the sanctuary wdiere God alone should 
 have dwelt. To it we referred all our thoughts and affec- 
 tions, in it we concentrated our life. Now, the game is 
 up, it is so firmly settled on its pedestal that it holds us 
 under its bondage, and we have become Pharisees far more 
 guilty than those of the Gospel, for we have known from 
 our childhood that Jesus Christ hates Pharisaism; we have 
 become Christians in appearance and language, living a 
 life whose front is that of a sanctuary, but whose inner 
 parts are full of corruption and uncleanness. 
 
 I have endeavoured to tell you how, almost unawares, 
 we may be led to harbour an accursed thing in our 
 heart. I cannot tell if any recognise in this their own 
 history ; but if this disease has never attained its last 
 stage in any of your souls, I believe I may affirm that 
 we have all felt its attacks, or if not, that we may feel 
 them to-morrow. Consequently, I have thought it my 
 
HIDDEN GUILT. 401 
 
 duty to point out to you its winding and treacherous 
 course. I have now to indicate the undeniable symptoms 
 by which it betrays its presence. . . 
 
 In the first place, when a soul harbours an accursed 
 thing, it is sorrowful, and the peace of God forsakes it ; 
 for, in the deplorable state in which it has fallen, it can 
 know and taste neither the heavenly joys of Divine com- 
 munion, nor the unholy joys of the world. It can no 
 longer know the former, for how can Christian joy be 
 associated with sin ? Will you place a song of praise 
 and thanksgiving on the lips of David after his adultery ; 
 will you suffer Peter to tell you of the joyful assurance 
 of forgiveness in the very hour when he has denied his 
 Lord ? Ah ! Divine peace in the midst of a guilty life 
 would be so monstrous an inconsistency that the con- 
 science of the most degraded of beings would shudder 
 with horror at the sight. But if the soul that preserves 
 an accursed thing can no longer taste the Divine joys, it 
 cannot either taste the joys of sin ; it had looked for 
 happiness in its guilty passion, but this happiness is 
 envenomed by shame and remorse ; so great a bitterness 
 mingles with it that the most severe trial would be more 
 acceptable than such a felicity. Vainly does the Chris- 
 tian endeavour to yield to the seductions of evil. He 
 knows too much to be easily deluded. His eye, en- 
 lightened by the radiance of the Gospel, sees through 
 the charms of a guilty passion ; he sees all that it con- 
 ceals of selfishness, shame, and degradation. He once 
 has known the pure joys of holiness, he has walked 
 under a bright and cloudless sky which poured floods of 
 light and peace across his path, and now that shameful 
 life on which he has entered is but a stormy night, 
 illumined at intervals by the dismal flashes of sin. He 
 once has known the delights of Divine love, he has 
 felt his heart burn with its sacred flame ; and now, how 
 
 2 c 
 
402 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 could be join in the happiness of worldlings, how could 
 he share in their enjoyments and once more fall a victim 
 to those seductions whose nothingness and vanity he 
 knows so well ? He knows too much to participate in 
 those delusions, too much to be worldly without shame 
 or remorse. Henceforth, what will he do ? An unutter- 
 able sorrow overpowers him. We sometimes see persons 
 who labour under what doctors call marasmus. An 
 inexplicable languor takes possession of their entire 
 being, every effort is painful to them, their face grows 
 pale, their body droops and decays without any apparent 
 cause ; but after death it is stated that one of the vital 
 organs was seriously diseased. Well ! tliere is spiritual 
 as well as physical marasmus, and its secret source is 
 always some moral disorder which causes the inner life 
 to die away. Of what avail then are all the blessings 
 from above ? When a worm has found its way to the 
 root of a tree, in vain do the cool showers water it, in 
 vain does the sun warm it with its rays ; its leaves grow 
 yellow, its branches wither, and in the very season when 
 all is life and beauty, it dies smitten without remedy. 
 Let eacli of us examine himself, let him seek out the 
 cause of his languor and melancholy, let him ask himself 
 why the Gospel brings him no joy. Happy will he be 
 if he does not discover in the innermost depths of his 
 soul some accursed thing which would sufiice to explain 
 all! 
 
 Not only does this secret guilt deprive us of all our 
 joy, but it paralyses all our powers. It was on the day 
 when Achan hid the accursed thing in his tent that Israel 
 was beaten by the foe. Up to this time the Lord's 
 people had always been victorious. So it is in the Chris- 
 tian life. There is no real or lasting strength but in 
 sincerity. Ah ! I understand that in other domains 
 success does not always depend upon conviction ; I 
 
HIDDEN GUILT. 403 
 
 understand that, in politics, men may inflame tlie multi- 
 tudes by the charm of their words, and raise the edifice 
 of their popularity on the profession of principles which 
 are not sincere. I understand, likewise, that skilful 
 leaders may inspire crowds with fanaticism ; that has 
 been seen at all tunes. But to the honour of Christianity 
 it must be said that it can never be preached efficaciously 
 ,by those whose inward life gives the lie to their profes- 
 sion. A church, for instance, in which spiritual life has 
 ceased to flow, may abound in first-rate talents ; its acti- 
 vity will nevertheless be without the least influence. 
 Now, what may be rightly said of a church, may with 
 greater reason still be affirmed of individuals. Whoever 
 harbours an accursed thing in his heart and life is, from 
 that very cause, struck with impotence. How, in truth, 
 could he act when he hears within himself an invisible 
 witness reproaching him with assuming an attitude and a 
 language which his life most deplorably belies ? His 
 conscience is there before him like a phantom whose 
 piercing eye penetrates to the innermost depths of his 
 life. In mysterious accents, which however he is forced 
 to hear, it tells him that he is acting an unworthy part. 
 If he tries to speak, it shuts his mouth ; if he tries to 
 act, it paralyses his arm, so that, weary of resistance, he 
 at length remains silent and inactive, sacrificing to sin the 
 cause of God which he should have served. Oh ! who 
 will tell us how many souls have thus been lost — lost 
 to all that is true, holy, eternal ; lost by a secret disorder, 
 by a guilty attachment, by an idolatrous craving for 
 human glory. We had seen them set out on the ocean 
 of Christian life like vessels sailing rapidly over the 
 waves ; the wind filled their sails, a firm hand was at 
 the helm, a brilliant future awaited them, . . . but in 
 the hold of the ship, by an almost imperceptible opening, 
 the water penetrated, drop by drop, day and night un- 
 
404 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 ceasingly. Then the progress of the bark grew slower, 
 and none knew why until the day when it went down, 
 and when nothing was left ns but the gloomy recollection 
 of a vanished faith and of an eternal hope which has 
 given place to nothingness ! 
 
 But of all the consequences of keeping an accursed 
 thing in the heart, there is one which is more fearful 
 still than those I have mentioned : it is the hardening 
 of the heart. Tell us if you know of anything more 
 terrible than this hardening ; as for me, I can conceive 
 of nothing which should alarm us more, and what 
 is the most appalling of all is that men often reach 
 it by a gradual and insensible slope. Suppose you 
 have preserved an accursed thing in your heart. At 
 first you are not quiet ; on the contrary, there are 
 hours when your heart, attracted on the one hand by 
 God and on the other by the world, seems to be rent ; 
 but lust and passion gain the mastery and bring you 
 under their subjection. From that moment there is in 
 your heart a dull irritation against God, against His 
 Word, against all that speaks to you of holiness and 
 salvation ; a strange uneasiness takes possession of you 
 when you read the Gospel, you pass with feverish haste 
 over certain passages whose meaning is too plain for you. 
 The faith of others annoys and their holiness condemns 
 you. You feel an exquisite joy when you can detect a 
 flaw in their Christian life ; you count up their inconsis- 
 tencies with secret delight ; you find a strange pleasure in 
 the discovery that, after all, everybody resembles you, 
 and that there is no Christian life that can bear a very 
 close examination. Instinctively you seek an easy and 
 accommodating doctrine ; you want sermons that will 
 quiet your conscience and lull it into a false security ; 
 but you cannot endure those which unveil your secret 
 miseries ; you shrink from the contact of the friendly 
 
HIDDEN GUILT. 405 
 
 hand which would lay itself upon your wound to show 
 you that the mischief is there. Thus you judge your 
 brethren with bitterness, and you willingly keep aloof 
 from them. But though they are no longer beside you, 
 your conscience is still there, and how is it to be lulled 
 to sleep, how is it to be bought over ? Prisoners have a 
 slang word to denote the conscience ; they call it the 
 ■mute. The mute ! ah ! right glad would they be indeed 
 if it were so. Can it ever become mute ? I cannot tell. 
 That is one of the secrets which God alone knows ; but 
 I know that if anything could stifle its voice, it would 
 be an accursed thing fondly cherished and unrenounced. 
 When a man perseveres in a criminal life which he hides 
 under appearances of piety, all the springs of his moral 
 existence eventually break ; scarce is there room left in 
 his soul for fear and despair. He finds no attraction, no 
 delight whatever in spiritual things ; he has lost the sense 
 by which they are to be perceived ; " everything," says 
 Vinet, " becomes languid and insipid in his being ; he 
 feels this ; he understands that it should be for him a 
 cause of sorrow ; he foresees his doom, and he has not 
 even the energy to be appalled at it." The most solemn 
 and terrible realities strike upon his heart with a dull 
 sound such as that produced by a hammer upon a leaden 
 bell. Yes, in presence of such a spiritual condition, we 
 may well be alarmed, for final hardening of heart, alas ! 
 is perdition begun here below, in anticipation of the 
 eternal judgment. 
 
 Do you now understand all that is implied by the 
 words of the text : " There is an accursed thing in 
 the midst of thee, Israel ? " If you have taken 
 in their full import, let each of you examine him- 
 self, let each search his dwelling and his heart, let 
 each bring to God the sacrifice which he expects of 
 him. Here, no illusion, no equivocation, let us fully 
 
4o6 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 persuade ourselves that we shall uot escape tlie all- 
 searching eye of God. 
 
 Ah ! when the trumpets of the Levites summoned all 
 Israel together at the tabernacle of the congregation that 
 all the people might be brought before Joshua, Achan, 
 no doubt, said to himself : " Who will know me in this 
 vast multitude ? Who will discover the silver and the 
 gold which I have hid in my tent ? " And yet, have you 
 observed how solemnly brief is the manner in which 
 Scripture recounts his judgment: "And Joshua brought 
 Israel by their tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken ; 
 and he brought the tribe of Judah, and the family of the 
 Zarliites was taken ; and he brought the family of the 
 Zarhites, and Zabdi was taken ; and he brought his house- 
 hold man by man, and Achan was taken." See how 
 surely Divine justice reaches the guilty one, just as the 
 eagle, descending from the heights of heaven, whirls 
 round in ever-narrowing circles vuitil at length it swoops 
 down upon its prey. Think not you will be able to 
 escape God. However secret be your guilt, at whatever 
 depth you may have buried it, the day will come when 
 you will have to give account of it. Alone among the 
 multitude of your fellow-men you will have to appear, 
 and the voice of Him whom none can deceive will 
 force you to confess your crime. Ah ! what would 
 you not give then to have renounced that passion, that 
 habit, that ill-gotten gain, that sin, in a word, to which 
 your soul has attached itself, and which has finally lost 
 you I 
 
 I conclude this long and painful review. I know that 
 my words will have seemed harsh to many, and I expect 
 to be reproached with having troubled many souls. 
 Troubled souls ! Ah ! would to God we might trouble 
 them ! but what I fear, will you know it ? is rather not 
 to have succeeded. Point them out to me those souls 
 
HIDDEN GUILT. 407 
 
 troubled by a lioly fear, trembling at the thought of the 
 accursed thing which they still cherish, desirous of glo- 
 rifying their Saviour by a perfect obedience. With bitter 
 sorrow I affirm that nothing is more uncommon in our 
 ministry than to meet with those who tremble at the 
 thought of the judgment of God. Some come to us for 
 instruction, others for consolation, the greater number for 
 ,help, but the words which I have most rarely heard are 
 these, " What shall I do to be saved ? " Souls easily 
 led astray, souls easily reassured is what we see to-day, 
 but the holy love that trembles at the thought of grieving 
 God, alas ! I seek it in vain. 
 
 Here also do you know what will take place ? The 
 most upright, the most sanctified, the purest souls will 
 precisely be those who will anxiously question whether 
 they are not cherishing some accursed thing in their life, 
 whilst guilty Achan, having made sure that this discourse 
 is not meant for him, has already named in his heart 
 those of his brethren to whom he intends to apply it. 
 Oh, the craftiness, oh, the inconceivable levity of the 
 human heart ! Was I not right when I said : " Would to 
 God we might trouble souls ! " 
 
 But if we would trouble you, it is that you may be 
 saved. And what immense and profound joy would fill 
 your heart if, in this very hour, without further delay, 
 you brought at the feet of the Lord all that which you 
 have so long refused Him ! if, like the sinner in the 
 Gospel, you broke at His feet that which is most precious 
 to you ! Ah ! it were a happiness greater than that of 
 angels, it were indeed the felicity of heaven ! So far, you 
 have seen in this sacrifice only what it cost you ; see to- 
 day what it will give you ; see that conscience calmed, 
 that heart pacified, that inward dignity regained, that life 
 freed from the most shameful bondage and devoted to 
 the noblest of causes ; above all, see the delightful assur- 
 
4o8 HIDDEN GUILT. 
 
 ance of Divine approbation, the possession of that joy 
 which will be your life throughout eternity. That is 
 what God has in reserve for you to-day. Ah ! refuse it 
 not ; cojne to Him, and in silence perfect the sacrifice 
 which He expects of you ! Amen. 
 
( 4C9 ) 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 " Ye are the salt of the earth." — Matt. v. 13. 
 
 The Gospel abounds in extraordinary sayings whose 
 strangeness is modified only by our familiarity with 
 them. Among these are the words of my text. Imagine 
 what a worldly philosopher would have felt if he had seen 
 the disciples to whom they were addressed. The salt of 
 the earth ! They ! those Galileans whose uncultured 
 mind was incapable of understanding a lofty question, 
 or of discussing it, those publicans, those fishermen, 
 prejudiced and narrow-minded, those poor and ignorant 
 beings who spoke ill an unknown language, those men 
 whose zeal was so. often to fail them in presence of the 
 slightest obstacles, and at length to transform itself before 
 their Master's Cross into a most shameful cowardice ! They, 
 the salt of the earth ! 
 
 Nevertheless, these words were true ! To-day, whether 
 they will or no, men are forced to admit it. Cast your 
 eyes upon the map of the world. Where is moral life, 
 where is progress, where is civilisation, where is hope, 
 where is liberty, where, in a word, is the future ? Where 
 the words of those Galileans have been heard, where they 
 have found their way into the national heart and spirit. 
 Yes, the modern world owes what in it is best to that 
 handful of men ; they are our masters, and we are living 
 
4IO THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 upon their heritage. They have imparted to our beliefs 
 and manners a power so great that we all feel its in- 
 fluence. Wliilst the ancient world gradually languished 
 and decayed so that, at the very zenith of its civihsation, 
 it had become a mere corpse whose decomposed elements 
 crumbled into dust, in all Christian societies there is a 
 hidden sap which resists everything, and which, after 
 eighteen centuries, spreads its victorious power in all 
 directions. The faith of the Galileans has so completely 
 mingled with our life, that we can no longer eliminate it. 
 It has entered our laws to transform and perfect them ; 
 it has entered our manners to save them from the corrup- 
 tion in which modern paganism would plunge them ; it 
 has entered our home-life and dwells in the tender and 
 holy respect with which the Christian wife and child are 
 surrounded ; it is in the purest of our joys which selfish- 
 ness does not wither ; it is in our ever-awakening and 
 ■ ever-increasing sympathy for the poor and the destitute ; 
 it is in the consolations which the Gospel pours upon our 
 sufferings ; it is in the words of life and hope immortal 
 that we write upon the graves of our departed friends ; 
 it is in our conscience when it revolts against iniquities 
 and crimes which, had it not been for Christianity, would 
 have left us indifferent : it is even in the qenerous indi^iia- 
 tion which the inconsistencies and cowardly infidelities 
 which Christians call forth on the part of unbelievers ; 
 it is everywhere ; and the Master spoke true when, 
 addressing His disciples, He said to them : " Ye are the 
 salt of the earth." 
 
 It is this saying of our Lord that I would meditate 
 upon to-day. It contains a simple and striking illus- 
 tration of tlie influence which Christians are to exercise 
 upon the world. "VVliat is the nature of this influence ? 
 How do we exercise it ? Those are the two questions 
 which, with God's help, we shall endeavour to solve. 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 411 
 
 There are two ways of acting upon men : the one 
 outward, by material or moral constraint ; the other inward, 
 by persuasion. Which of these did Christ adopt ? You 
 know it as well as I. He who laid claim to universal 
 dominion, He uttered not one word from which we may 
 infer that He leaned upon the arm of force. With 
 His Divine glance He embraced the future ; He foretold 
 the antipathy, the contempt, the persecution, the hatred 
 which the Gospel would raise ; but at the same time 
 He promised that the trutli deposited in the earth like 
 a grain of mustard -seed would become a great tree 
 beneath whose shadow all the nations would one day 
 take refuge. He imparted to a dozen men the truth 
 which He possessed unlimitedly. He inspired them with 
 His spirit, and when He sent them to the conquest of 
 the world. He said to them : " Ye are the salt of the 
 earth." Thus was the Church established ; thus, after 
 the lapse of three centuries, the Cross was planted on all 
 points of the known world. 
 
 But the Church grew weary of that slow and sublime 
 task. Foroettino; that the Master had bid her subdue 
 the world by truth, she sought to govern it by the hand 
 of might. She asked for that outward dominion which 
 Jesus Himself had refused in the day of His temptation. 
 She obtained it — by what craft, by what violence, by what 
 persecution, you well know. I am aware that many 
 pretend that the Church herself never oppressed souls, 
 and that this responsibility must be cast upon civil 
 power. But this mode of reasoning is simply a strange 
 equivocation ; as for me, between the ecclesiastical power 
 wliich gives up to the executioner, and the executioner 
 himself, I see only the distance which separates the head 
 that thinks from the arm that strikes, and, all things 
 considered, I think that the arm which kills is less odious 
 than the head that wills and orders the murder. Let us 
 
412 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 be true ! The Church has sought to rule by force ; she 
 has pretended to realise a universal theocracy. Ah ! I 
 know how much of true greatness there was in this 
 dream ; I know that she meant to save souls ; I know 
 that she said to the world : " Obey me, I am thy mother ! " 
 But the world was seized with a shudder of horror when 
 it saw that mother's hands dyed in the blood of her wan- 
 dering children. She thought thus to acquire supreme 
 dominion over the nations. Of course success would not 
 have justified her ; but has she met with success ? It 
 may have seemed so when at certain epochs she contrived 
 to stifle heresy, and to impose Catholic unity upon the 
 nations crouching at her feet. But wliat has been over- 
 looked is the fact, that from that very hour the missionary 
 spirit which had characterised primitive Christianity was 
 suddenly arrested ; that at the close of the Middle Ages 
 the Christian Church had witnessed the decline and 
 fall of all the centres of life and light ; of Carthage, 
 Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Constantinople, 
 Athens ; that the third part of her territory had escaped 
 her even before the Eeformation. That which is too 
 much disregarded is the fact that it is in the midst of 
 the races which have bowed longest beneath the yoke of 
 that factitious unity that modern unbelief makes most 
 ravages and provokes tlie most bitter hostilities against 
 Christianity. That is what the Church has gained by 
 wishing to govern the world by force, instead of subduing 
 it by the Spirit. 
 
 Against this spectacle allow me to set another. One 
 day, about two centuries and a half ago, a handful of 
 exiles landed on a rock of the New England coast. They 
 had come to seek a spot where, unmolested, they might 
 pray the God of the Bible. There, in solitude, amidst all 
 manner of privations, they raised the first refuge which 
 ever was opened in the whole world for conscience freed 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 413 
 
 from the yoke of men. Slowly they grew. In that new 
 society there was neither the authority of a secular hier- 
 archy, nor altar protected by the sword, nor dominion 
 assured to the clergy, nothing but Christian faith acting 
 by its own inherent virtue, nothing but the salt of the 
 earth permeating consciences with its strong savour ; and 
 some years ago, the nation which they thus founded pre- 
 sented to the world a magnificent spectacle before which 
 Protestants and Catholics alike gazed with admiration. 
 It was the spectacle of an immense people spontaneously 
 bowing beneath the Divine hand, the spectacle of Chris- 
 tian faith sincerely, openly professed by the most illus- 
 trious chiefs, magistrates, and soldiers, who in their pro- 
 clamations, in the senate as in the camp, affirmed the 
 true God and His intervention in history, spoke of repent- 
 ance and humiliation, joined in a common prayer, and 
 thus closed the most gigantic struggle without one appeal 
 to vengeance, without one attack against liberty. That 
 is what we have seen, and in the words of a great Catholic 
 orator, the sun of the nineteenth century never shone on 
 anything more beautiful. 
 
 Therefore faith, Christian life, acting from soul to soul 
 and thereby penetrating the world, is the only efficacious 
 means of establishing the reign of God here below. 
 Moreover, it is the only means we have still at our dis- 
 posal, and I rejoice at this. I know that many believers 
 turn a regretful glance upon the past, and dream for the 
 Church of a return to those privileges, to those prero- 
 gatives which would anew ensure its dominion over souls. 
 Vain regrets ! That time has fled, and fled for ever. All 
 your complamts will not bring it back again. Modern 
 society will no longer accept the external yoke of a 
 Church ; it will never again give you what you ask of 
 it. What surprises me is that faith should ever be 
 shaken by such a fact. What ! your faith falters be- 
 
414 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 cause the Church is brought hack again to the very 
 conditions in which Christ had estahhshed it, because 
 instead of imposing itself upon the world as a political 
 institution, it must act in its bosom as the salt of the 
 earth ! Your faith totters because you can no longer 
 obtain a dominion which would rest merely upon a 
 factitious and soon hypocritical respect. Ah ! look be- 
 yond this, and instead of claiming of this world the 
 power and outward authority which it denies you, ask 
 of the Head of the Church the secret of that invisible 
 and spiritual power by which alone the world can be 
 conquered. 
 
 We now understand what is the nature of the influ- 
 ence which Christians are to exercise upon the world. 
 That influence is spiritual, and, in the second place, I 
 add that it is individual ; by this I mean that every 
 believer is to exercise it. I insist upon this thought, 
 and this is why. It is impossible not to be struck with 
 the inclination we all have of shaking off the yoke 
 of our rehgious responsibility, and of casting it upon a 
 system or an institution. For the great majority of our 
 fellow-men, faith consists in accepting what the Church 
 does for them ; the Church teaches, prays, confirms, 
 absolves, sanctifies, guides the soul from the cradle to the 
 grave, and the first of their duties towards it is docility. 
 Well, I believe that this idea which favours our secret 
 instincts of levity and moral apathy is directly opposed 
 to the spirit of the Gospel. It is not of the Church 
 Jesus spoke when He said : " Ye are the salt of the 
 earth," neither was it of revealed truth, but of Christians. 
 We must be made aware of this ; no institution, no 
 system, no book, not even the Bible, can fulfil the 
 mission for which it has pleased God to call us. This is 
 alarming, overpowering for our weakness, but it is so 
 nevertheless. Ye are the salt of the earth. It has 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 415 
 
 pleased God that the truth, havmg become incarnate in 
 His Son, should also in a certain measure become in- 
 carnate in every Christian, that in him it should trans- 
 form itself into life, and thus, passing from heart to 
 heart, convert the world. Christianity will be what 
 Christians are. Vainly would you escape this solemn 
 responsibility, vainly would you cast it upon others ; no 
 one has a right to take it from you, and you have no 
 right to shake it off. Vainly would you, lay Christians, 
 lay it upon us, your ministers ; in the name of the 
 Gospel I reject it, for here we may apply the words of 
 the Apostle : " Every man shall bear his own burden." 
 Whatever you do, you must be the salt of the earth, and 
 the future of truth in the world depends upon each of 
 you. How, then, shall we exercise that mighty influence? 
 That is the question we have still to solve. 
 
 There are two modes by which we can act spiritually 
 upon our brethren : by language, written or si3oken, and 
 by our life. In the first place, by language. Language ! 
 What power lies in human speech ! Tlie Word is the 
 name by which St. John calls the Son of God Himself. 
 Well ! our words must be so thoroughly impregnated 
 with the savour of the Gospel that they will bear within 
 themselves a virtue. Is that your idea and your ambi- 
 tion ? Alas ! I know that for many of those who hear 
 me. it is enough that the Christian word be heard from 
 the pulpit, and to that quarter they look for the pro- 
 pagation of truth. Preaching ! Ah ! you can never say 
 anything too lofty or too grand concernmg it. Yes, when 
 the words which are uttered from the Christian pulpit are 
 truly penetrated with the salt of the Gospel, when they 
 reach consciences and alarm them, when they trouble 
 liearts and stir them, when they place before our eyes 
 the realities of the invisible world so that they seem 
 truly present to us, then indeed they are the two-edged 
 
41 6 . THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 sword of which Scripture tells. Yes, were those words 
 uncultured and rude, awkward and unpolished, if they 
 issue from a deeply convinced heart, if they have that 
 inimitable accent of authority which Christian faith gives, 
 they are indeed a power which can transform the world. 
 But how can we think, without a fearful heart-sinking, 
 of what preaching becomes when the salt of the Gospel 
 has lost its savour ? A man ascends this pulpit which 
 Christian faith has prepared for him, and this man, instead 
 of looking to the God who sends him, thinks only of those 
 who listen to his words ; instead of being preoccupied with 
 the message of which he is but the bearer, he thinks only 
 of the ideas of his age which he is anxious to please ; 
 instead of troubling consciences, he aims only at quieting 
 them, and people think they have sufficiently praised him 
 when they have said that he is a successful and popular 
 preacher. Popular ! Ah ! was St. Paul popular whein 
 his voice troubled sinners and scandalised the wise ? 
 Was Christ popular when He saw crowds murmuringiy 
 disperse and He was left well-nigh alone ? Ah ! God 
 preserve us from such popularity as this ! No ! it is by 
 another feature that you must recognise a faithful preach- 
 ing, by this feature which a great monarch, too much 
 accustomed to the low flattery of court preachers, pointed 
 out in a single phrase : One day Louis XIV. said to a 
 monk who had preached the Gospel without weakness, 
 " Father, when I hear others preach, I am satisfied with 
 their sermons ; but when I hear you, I am dissatisfied 
 with myself." He was right, and would to God that he 
 had never heard any but such preaching ! Would to God 
 that, enlightened on his monstrous pride, he had spared 
 his country the demoralising spectacle of a persecuting 
 devotion joined to the most shameful pollution ! Ah ! 
 would to God w^e also, in our turn, might send you away 
 dissatisfied with vourselves ! Would to God we might so 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 417 
 
 deeply stir your hearts that you would leave this sanctuary 
 anxious, annoyed, it may be, but at least troubled and 
 serious ! 
 
 Nevertheless, do not be mistaken ; preaching, were it 
 the most faitliful, will never suffice to propagate the 
 Gospel. As for me, I confess witli sorrow that I am 
 struck with its impotence. Think of all that is dis- 
 played in our pulpits of energy, conviction, efforts, 
 thoughts, and words, and for what mean results ! What 
 may be the cause of this ? Habit, doubtless, and 
 especially the idea, which is so deeply rooted in our 
 midst, that pulpit language is more or less a conventional 
 language. Everything is allowed to the pulpit. No one 
 will be surprised if from it, in general terms, I oppose 
 unbelief and worldliness, if I speak of the judgment of 
 God, or of the necessity of repentance and conversion. 
 On the contrary, people expect this. They expect and 
 require it, and the unbeliever and worldling find it most 
 natural ; beforehand they know what they will hear, and 
 after having heard it and given their appreciation of our 
 discourse, they find it equally natural to resume, at the 
 very door of our churches, their frivolous thoughts, their 
 trivial conversations, and their worldliness. In vain do 
 we summon all our energy, and beg of them to alter 
 their life ; they will perhaps say that the sermon was 
 impressive, but not for an instant will they think that it 
 referred to themselves, to their own salvation, to their 
 eternal future. Oh, sorrowful thought ! But now enter 
 this court of justice, see that advocate who, without con- 
 viction, perhaps, pleads before a tribunal a cause with 
 which important interests are connected. See how his 
 client listens, see how his lustrous eyes, his compressed 
 features, his whole attitude betrays the anxiety with 
 which he follows the argument ; for upon this pleading 
 depends a fortune or an inheritance. Does this heir 
 
 2 D 
 
41 8 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 whom passion absorbs think for a moment of the out- 
 ward form of the discourse he hears, of its literary 
 beauties, of the inflections of the voice or of the graceful 
 attitude of his advocate ? He cares very little indeed 
 for all this. What he wishes is that it he proved that 
 he has the law on his side ; what he wishes is that his 
 cause be victorious. His cause, do you hear ? Yes, that 
 injured right, that disputed heritage, that fortune upon 
 which his happiness depends. Alas ! and. when we speak 
 to you of the inheritance of the skies, of the salvation of 
 your soul, and of the irrevocable sentence of the just 
 Judge, you listen with more or less attention or curiosity, 
 you sum up your critical impressions in a general judg- 
 ment, and declare that, all things considered, the dis- 
 course was tame or that it was interesting. 
 
 That is why it is foolish to expect the diffusion of 
 truth from preaching alone. But do you know the 
 means of rendering these same truths efficacious and 
 powerful ? Preach them elsewhere. Try this, and you 
 will see if the salt of the Gospel has lost its savour ? 
 Here your are, for instance, my young brother, in a circle 
 of men of your own age, engaged in the same pursuits as 
 you ; around you all the questions of the day are dis- 
 cussed with the rashness and intrepidity of youth, which 
 no problem arrests. The conversation soon turns upon 
 religious matters ; all you believe, all we preach to you 
 here, is discussed, criticised, attacked, and perhaps 
 ridiculed, in a few moments. You suffer ; a secret un- 
 easiness tortures you, but you remain silent. Yes, 
 strange to say, men are cowards when they are called 
 to confess their faith. Men who would affront death 
 without shrinking, men who, for a political cause, will 
 become impassioned and will brave raillery, such men 
 will now be timid and fearful, trembling lest they should 
 call forth a smile. Oh ! if the question were simply to 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 419 
 
 declare in favour of this or that religious opinion, of 
 the Pope's temporal power or against it, of the orthodox 
 or the liberal party, they would not be embarrassed. But 
 to open their hearts, to affirm what they believe in their 
 intimate and hidden life, to speak of the God in whom 
 they hope, that seems to them an impossibility. And 
 yet if, triumphing over that natural cowardice, you 
 dared to speak then, if without infatuation and in 
 courageous, firm, and sincere accents you confessed your 
 faith and your hopes, I affirm that in this there would 
 be something more persuasive than in all our discourses. 
 Were your words rejected or scoffed at, you would not- 
 withstanding inevitably awaken in the minds of those 
 who would hear you, a feeling of respect, and without con- 
 fessing it, it may be, they would understand all there is of 
 power in that faith which, when it passes by our mouth, 
 scarce succeeds in moving them. 
 
 0\\ ! what power, brethren, in language thus placed at 
 the service of truth, and how truly it is the salt of the 
 earth ! Yes, even though it seems to have been lost on 
 the soil like a useless seed. Can you ever tell what a word 
 of faith, truth, and love may bring forth ? Do you know 
 how far its mysterious action may extend ? Do you know 
 how many hearts it may reach ? Does not history, in 
 ■each of its pages, reveal the extraordinary influence of 
 words uttered in secret, perhaps, and which, falling into a 
 heart, have become the germ of a renewed life ? In 
 Egyptian tombs, grains of wheat have been found which 
 had been deposited in the hands of the dead three thou- 
 sand years ago. They have been cast in the ground and 
 have germinated, and produced magnificent ears of corn. 
 Yes, thirty centuries passing over those seeds buried in the 
 depths of the grave, had not destroyed that prodigious 
 \dtality. And think you that God, who has endowed 
 matter with so mighty a power of life, will allow those 
 
420 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 words of faith, hope, and love which you cast into the 
 vast field of the world to he wholly wasted away ? Be 
 undeceived : they can never die ; they also will germi- 
 nate in the depths where they are huried. Christians, 
 ye who speak in the name of the living God, ye are the 
 salt of the earth ! 
 
 But what, after all, are words without action ? And 
 what influence can they exert if they are not the expres- 
 sion of our life ? It is the honour of Christianity that it 
 cannot progress if it he not realised by those who pro- 
 claim it. That the savour of the Gospel may be im- 
 parted to others, it must, first of all, have penetrated us. 
 Other causes may succeed if pleaded by rhetoricians, by 
 phrasemongers ; that of the Gospel cannot. Suppose a 
 Church possessing the most powerfid orators, the most 
 skilful apologists, the most i)fofound reasoners, if that 
 Church be without holiness, it will also remain without 
 influence. 
 
 History furnishes us with a striking example of tliis. 
 I know not if in any country or at any period of its 
 history the Catholic Church possessed so great a number 
 of noble minds and fine geniuses as towards the year 
 1700. What an age was that in which Bossuet, Feni'lon, 
 Massillon, Bourdaloue, each of whom would have sufficed 
 to render his epoch illustrious, were heard in turns in 
 the churches of Paris ! Depth of thought, sublimity of 
 expression, exactness of reasoning, penetrating unction, 
 clearness, grace, poetry, all was there ; if e^'er human 
 language seemed likely to be efficacious, it surely was 
 then ; and yet, thirty years later, France, corrupted by 
 the regency, was at the feet of Voltaire, and the eighteenth 
 century was prepared. Now, if we have beheld that 
 profound and unexampled fall, it is because in the Church 
 thfit produced those great men, laxity of morals, venality, 
 corruption had entered; it is because, in spite of Pascal, 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 421 
 
 casuistry reigned over conscience, a dull hypocrisy was 
 secretly mining its foundations, unbelief was rapidly in- 
 vading the clergy itself, so that, when philosophy swept 
 over France like a stormy wind, it found no rampart 
 whatever to arrest its progress. Ah ! if for our happi- 
 ness we had but possessed beside that brilliant constella- 
 tion of distinguished men a humble, living, and faithful 
 Church, impregnated with the Spirit of God, which had 
 been for us the salt of the earth ! 
 
 Let us come back to ourselves. If all we have said 
 be true, it follows that our life, far more than our words, 
 exercises a powerful influence around us. The action of 
 words is intermittent ; that of life is continuous. Now 
 what is an intermittent power beside a permanent force ? 
 What is the blast of the most violent storm beside that 
 law of tides which daily raises and lowers the ocean in 
 an endless motion ? What is the eruptive force which 
 casts up to the sky the burning lava of a volcano com- 
 l^ared with the power of gravitation which Ijrings down 
 to the centre all the elements of matter ? Likewise what 
 are our words, our prayers, our liveliest effusions of piety, 
 beside that still and unostentatious preaching of our daily 
 life ? That is not all. The action of our life is involun- 
 tary, and therein lies its strength. Let us not be mis- 
 taken. It is not when we wish to act upon others tliat we 
 best succeed ; on the contrary, when our fellows discover 
 our intention, they instinctively guard against us ; they 
 arm themselves with mistrust, and close their hearts to. 
 us ; but how will they escape the influence of a life 
 which daily, hourly, by the fruits it bears, proclaims the 
 sentiment by which it is animated ? Do you not see 
 that under all its forms, and in every way it enters and 
 penetrates minds, and leaves in them a savour which 
 nothing can destroy, so that if you should ask me what 
 is the most powerful, the most efficacious method of pro- 
 
432 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 pagating saving truth, I would be forced to answer that 
 the best means is to realise it fully in your life. 
 
 Besides, all are not called to speak ; but show me the 
 Christian who, in his own special way, cannot act upon 
 the world by his life. He fills this mission, the man 
 who, in presence of injustice, powerfully protests and 
 startles as by a thunderbolt the conscience of his con- 
 temporaries ; but she fills it also, the poor nurse who, 
 in the wards of a hospital, breathing a murderous atmo- 
 sphere, watches beside the couch of the victims of the 
 dreaded pestilence. He fills this mission, the missionary 
 who, far from all his heart could love, and in presence 
 of a dull and stony indifference, prays, preaches, waits 
 and glorifies God by his patience more than many another 
 by his martyrdom ; but he fills it also, the young man 
 who, at the entrance of a brilliant career, called to take 
 part in an unfair transaction, breaks all his future hopes 
 and silently returns to the painful labour which will 
 procure him his daily bread. He fills this mission, the 
 scholar, the writer, who, indefatigable even to his old 
 age, employs all his powers in defending the convictions 
 upon which his soul lives ; but she fills it too, the maiden 
 who, at the age when the world calls her and surrounds 
 her with its seductions and flattery, resists it, chooses a 
 life of devotion and sacrifice, and displays the pure light 
 of grace and beauty decked with a celestial reflection. 
 He fills this mission, the man who, having received of 
 God immense wealth, consecrates it with unwearied 
 activity and perseverance to works of faith and charity ; 
 but he fills it also, the sick man who, upon his bed 
 of pain and incapable of action, living upon charity 
 perhaps, serves God unmurmuringly, bows his head 
 beneath His paternal hand, and teaches us by the touch- 
 ing outbursts of his gratitude to blush at our own 
 thanklessness. Well ! all these visible or secret actions, 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 423 
 
 all these known or unknown acts of devotion, all these 
 sufferings, all these sacrifices, all these are what sustains 
 the Church, what causes the truth to progress, what 
 saves the world. Suppress them all, and what will be 
 left you wherewith to face the powers of evil ? Wliat 
 force, what resistance will you have to oppose them ? 
 What would we become without that continued action 
 of holiness, of Christian charity, which daily, hourly, 
 fills the Church and the world with a renewed life ? 
 What would be the ocean if its waters, losing their 
 powerful savour, became tasteless, insipid, nauseous, and 
 left deadly miasma upon our shores after each of its 
 tides ? What would become of society deprived of the 
 salt of the Gospel ? What would become of that bril- 
 liant civilisation which bears in its midst so many 
 elements of scepticism and dissolution ? Ah ! see how 
 the ancient world expires, after forty centuries' exis- 
 tence, in the mire of despotism and of an unutterable 
 corruption. 
 
 And here what I affirmed of the human language 
 comes back to me with renewed force : words of truth, I 
 have said, can never be lost. Now, do you think that 
 an action of faith, of charity, can ever perish ? No ; it 
 enters that immense ensemble of good which increases, 
 and derives strength from each of our acts of devotion, 
 from all our prayers, from all our sacrifices. Though 
 ignored and despised, it serves nevertheless to the advance- 
 ment of the reign of God upon earth. Each act of 
 abnegation, of charity, is for the Church a victory and 
 for the empire of evil a defeat. Each sacrifice which 
 faith inspires renders the triumph of truth more certain. 
 Some years ago, an English ship, the " London," perished 
 in the Bay of Biscay, dragging down with it into the 
 depths of the ocean more than two liundred human 
 beings ; but on this ship, amidst that fearful scene and 
 
424 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 the roar of the storm, the voice of prayer was heard ; in 
 the supreme hour, when the only remaining boat was 
 being detached from the side of the vessel, some of the 
 shipwrecked were seen, oh, heroic spectacle ! giving up 
 their only chance of safety to others whose lives they 
 considered more useful than their own ; and when the 
 boat rowed off from the deck of the ship, now almost 
 buried beneath the waves, the wife of a missionary 
 unfastened her cloak and flung it after tlie departing 
 ones, that it might serve to protect some of them from 
 the cold. Will this touching find sublime act of Chris- 
 tian charity die buried with her beneath the waves of 
 the ocean which have swept over the bodies of those 
 unfortunate beings ? No, it remains, it has been added 
 to that marvellous history of the sacrifices which the 
 spirit of Christ produces here below ; and in the unceas- 
 ing struggle which Christian love wages against selfish- 
 ness, it will be of more service towards the progress of 
 truth than all our words. 
 
 I have shown what is the influence which every 
 Christian life must exert on the world. Have you re- 
 cognised yourselves in this picture, and are you sure 
 that you exercise this penetrating action upon those who 
 surround you ? 
 
 The world is unanimous to-day in condemning the 
 austere piety which dreads the contact of mankind, which 
 feels no sympathy for the generous causes that inflame 
 humanity, which keeps away from public life, from all 
 the noble research of the human mind, and admits of no 
 possible holiness save in the narrow circle wherein it 
 confines itself. In all imaginable strains men say and 
 repeat that the Christian must join in the preoccupations 
 of his age, and that there is no sphere of human activity, 
 whether politics, science, art, or literature, in which 
 religion cannot find its place. So long as this general 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 425 
 
 principle is affirmed, no objection is raised. How could 
 tlie natural heart look with anything but joy upon those 
 paths which open to it ? With joy it enters them, and 
 thus returns to the world ; but is it to permeate it with 
 the spirit of Christ ? That is the question. Ah ! if it 
 be to lose the stern savour of piety, to become converted 
 to the ideas, sentiments, and language . that reign in the 
 world, better far had it been for it to remain in solitude ; 
 for solitude, in spite of its strange and gloomy aspects, 
 is a power; by keeping apart from society, one may act 
 upon it more powerfully than at first sight it would 
 seem. We complain of the scarcity of individual con- 
 victions and of strong characters. Such convictions, 
 such characters are not to be acquired in the world. It 
 is not on the road-side, it is not in the dust of our public 
 walks that we see the oak raising heavenward its gigantic 
 trunk, and spreading its vigorous branches in all direc- 
 tions ; neitlier is it in the enervating atmosphere of 
 worldly circles that you will find truly virile souls 
 capable of will and action. The greatest prophets have 
 all dwelt in the desert ; there is also a moral solitude 
 which all who aim at being the witnesses of the truth 
 must know. Society, even the best, weakens and un- 
 nerves us in the long run ; we continually, though 
 unawares, yield to the opinions of others ; we often 
 sacrifice to them what was most precious to us, -the share 
 of the truth which we were called to give to the world. 
 I even dare to affirm tliat religious society may become 
 unwholesome if the soul, in its midst, cannot enter into 
 communion with God ; there also we may fall into the 
 prevailing current of ideas, of injustice, of prejudices as 
 regards men and things ; there also we may don I know 
 not what pious livery which is the fashion of the day. 
 What, then, will it be if the Christian imprudently 
 associates with those who are strangers to his faith and 
 
426 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 hopes ? Foolish, indeed, must he be if he does not per- 
 ceive that in this dangerous intercourse he ^Yill be the 
 loser ! See, in fact, how rapidly the world succeeds in 
 robbing him of tlie convictions which were his strength! 
 It employs all manner of means to attain this end — 
 threats or flattery, promises or scorn ; and the day comes 
 when the salt loses its savour, and sorrowfully we 
 question whether it will ever get it back again. How 
 many Christian lives which, of yore, were full of the 
 most austere fervour, have thus ended miserably ! Vainly 
 would they employ themselves in the service of God to- 
 day. They can no longer do so. The world ensnares 
 them more and more ; it enchains and paralyses them. 
 Do not look for any generous devotion on their part; 
 charity becomes ever more foreign and sacrifice ever more 
 impossible to them, and the service of God ceases to have 
 any attraction in their siglit. God, keep us from 
 such an end, and after having deposited Thy saving truth 
 in our souls, grant that we may ever be its firm and 
 faithful witnesses ! 
 
C 427 ) 
 
 XXIV. 
 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 " I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in 
 vain; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work 
 with my God," — ISA. xlix. 4. 
 
 Each epoch has its peculiar temptations and trials ; the 
 spiritual as well as the physical world is at certain tinies 
 affected by general diseases which are all the more to be 
 dreaded that, as everybody feels their influence, no one 
 perceives the full danger. For the Christian in the pre- 
 sent day, one of those maladies is discouragement. 
 
 Discouragement ! Not under that demonstrative and 
 passionate form which strikes us in the bitter and des- 
 pairing complaints of the prophets and believers of bygone 
 days. We rarely meet with such stirring dramas, with 
 such explosions of grief on the part of noble souls whom 
 the heart-rending spectacle of life and the world has 
 deceived. We labour under a disease which is less 
 violent, less dangerous apparently, Init whicli is dull, 
 slow, and treacherous. 
 
 We may account for this in many ways ; the human 
 mind in its onward march passes through successive 
 stages of affirmation and doubt. There are times when 
 men live upon generally accepted truths, which are all 
 that is requisite for ordinary life and action. Thus it 
 was, for instance, in the seventeenth century, when, in 
 
428 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 the social order, monarchical traditions, and in the religious 
 order, the autliority of the Church for Eoman Catholics 
 and that of the Bible for Protestants, were the very ele- 
 ments of the common life. Thus also it was, though in a 
 very different sense, at the close of the eighteenth century, 
 when confidence in the supremacy of human reason, in 
 man's native goodness, in his unlimited progress, intoxi- 
 cated both heart and mind, until the day when the Eeign 
 of Terror, in its formidable explosion, disclosed what lurked 
 beneath all these dreams. There are other times when, 
 far from believing and affirming, man, having missed his 
 way, stops and tries to find out the right path. What till 
 then he had accepted is now insufficient for him. He 
 would analyse everything, sift everything, call everything 
 into question anew. This tendency in itself is lawful, 
 but it has its dangers. The aim of analysis is to dccom- 
 2wse the objects which it studies ; now, it is evident that 
 the analytical spirit, if it predominates exclusively, is 
 fatal to the creative spirit, to enthusiasm, to religious 
 faith, to all those sentiments by which the soul instmc- 
 tively apprehends the most sublime truths. You may, 
 therefore, be assured that whenever analysis is carried to 
 an extreme, the vital powers of the soul grow feeble, and 
 are in danger of dying away. Well, one of the first 
 fruits of that tendency in religious souls is languor. 
 How is it possible for the soul to love, to act, to believe, 
 when each of its impulses is met by the phantom of a 
 2')era(lventure ; when, behind the heart which feels and 
 would live, rises inquiring reason with its arguments, 
 negations, and sneers ? 
 
 If this analytical spirit is injurious to individual in- 
 spiration, it acts more fatally still u[)on collective life. 
 Nothing is rarer in the present day tlian energy in 
 common impulses. The Church, as well as society, 
 breaks up into fragments, each of which claims its inde- 
 
DISCO URA GEMENT. 429 
 
 pendence, its right of free iuquiiy, and in many cases 
 party spirit alone takes the place of declining solidarity. 
 I do not judge this tendency ; I believe it providential 
 and necessary. I believe that the external and wholly 
 political bonds which hitherto have united souls in one 
 and the same Church by right of birth and tradition, 
 must be broken, and that henceforth it is on the ground 
 of, a common faith that unity must be sought. But, 
 without developing this thought, which does not enter 
 into my subject, I state that this latent process of decom- 
 position shakes us all ; that, born as we are to be members 
 of one spiritual family, born to love, to believe, to sutler 
 with sister-souls, and feeling as we do that all our powers 
 are increased tenfold by sympathy, we do not traverse 
 our epoch uninjured. Impulse fails us, and for want 
 of being carried away by one of those mighty currents 
 of life and ardour wliicli have often swept through the 
 world, we labour under atony and discouragement. 
 
 That is not all. Our epoch has another character ; it 
 is, it aims at being positive. The marvellous progress 
 of certain sciences, the wonders of industry, attract 
 minds with a strange force towards the lower world. 
 Men believe in what they see, in what they feel. An 
 ill-disguised scorn meets the research which goes beyond 
 the world of sense or of pure logic. The supernatural 
 is laid down as mysticism, and this word, in the eyes of 
 many, is an irrevocable condemnation. This tendency 
 reacts upon the Church. It is a fact not to be denied 
 that utilitarianism invades it. 
 
 Men look for a religion of facts and sentiments. 
 When we expound the grand doctrines of Christianity, 
 when we point to the Divine and superhuman side of 
 the revealed truths, they give us but a divided attention. 
 Our hearers unwittingly prefer that we should tell them 
 of man rather than of God ; if we speak to them of 
 
430 DISCO URA GEMENT. 
 
 themselves, of their struggles and doubts, of their tempta- 
 tions and sorrows, we stir up their feelings and their 
 sympathy ; if we fathom the depths of the revealed 
 doctrines, their interest flags. But allow me to tell you 
 that this is fatal to the soul. It is neither good nor 
 healthful for man to contemplate himself too long ; it is 
 not from this sight that he will derive strength and 
 moral restoration. The Gospel teaches this admirably, 
 for it always aims at raising our eyes on high towards 
 " the liills from whence cometh our help ;" on high, that 
 is, towards the superior world, towards Him who npon 
 earth has been the living image of the invisible God. 
 The grand epochs of life, holiness, faith, and powerful 
 action, have been those when the heavens have opened 
 npon himianity. Man, by looking to himself alone, can 
 at most become a stoic, but the last word of stoicism is 
 despair and suicide. Now, whenever religion has been, 
 and has aimed at being, purely human, it has produced 
 discouragement. 
 
 These are some of the causes which explain the state 
 in which so many souls languish to-day. Add to them 
 the intlueuce of peculiar dispositions of mind and tem- 
 perament, and the purely physical causes which act in so 
 mysterious yet powerful a manner upon our moral con- 
 dition. Add to them the inclination wliich the most 
 serious minds have of looking at the gloomy side of 
 human things ; add to tliem those tendencies which exist 
 in every age, but which, amid the general dispositions I 
 have mentioned, develop themselves far more strongly 
 and rapidly, and you will understand why nothing is 
 more rare in the present day than the joyous, heroic, and 
 serene faith which has characterised other epochs ; you 
 will understand that discouragement is an enemy that 
 must be opposed at any cost. All feel tliis, and mourn 
 over such a state of things. In certain spheres, people 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 431 
 
 seek to escape falling into it by excesses of feverish ardour; 
 they excite their imagination by the prospect of a speedy 
 realisation of the promises of prophecy ; they produce in 
 this way an exaltation which is more or less sincere, but 
 this galvanic excitement is soon followed by a prostration 
 still more profound. Those factitious Ijut fitful gleams 
 do not long enlighten the soul's path, and those decep- 
 tions often result simply in changing its languor into 
 unbelief. Wliat then is to be doue, you ask ? I reply : 
 Build up your life upon another foundation than that of 
 your fleeting impressions ; edify it upon the central and 
 eternal truth which survives the fluctuations of opinions 
 and beliefs ; live in Jesus Christ, and, upon the heights 
 where communion with Him raises you, breathe the 
 vivifying air which alone can restore your strength. 
 Then only will you be enabled to set faith against sight, 
 that which is eternal against that which passes away, 
 and thanksgiving against discouragement. But this is as 
 much as to say that you are to be the children of God, 
 that you are to become Christians, if you have never 
 been, or if you have ceased to be such. Now, this 
 remedy, which is the only one that can avail against the 
 disease under which we all laljour, cannot cure us in 
 one day. 
 
 I admit this ; consequently, now that I have pointed 
 it out to you, I hasten to descend with you upon the 
 ground of immediate action. Let us seek under what 
 aspects discouragement most often seizes upon us, and 
 with what weapons it must be repulsed. This invisible 
 and gloomy enemy that attacks us secretly in the twilight 
 of our waning faith, let us now bring it forth into the 
 open day ; let us look at it full in the face with a firm 
 and steady gaze ; for when it is well known, it is already 
 half conquered. 
 
 When I look closely into it, I discover two principal 
 
432 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 causes of cliscourrigemeut for the Christian. The first is 
 the importance of the task which God sets before him ; 
 the second is his powerlessness to fulfil it. 
 
 I say, in the first place : the importance of the task 
 which God sets Lefore us. What ! will some enthusiastic 
 soul, doubtless, object, is it not that very greatness which 
 kindles in the Christian's heart an ambition that nothing 
 can extinguish ? Yes, I admit this ; we are so wonder- 
 fully made that each time the ideal of love and holiness 
 to which the Gospel calls us is presented to us in its 
 sublime beauty, our heart thrills with deep assent, and 
 we feel that for this indeed we have been created. Bat 
 when we must cease to admire in order to act ; when we 
 must no longer allow our imagination to be inflamed by 
 a perfection which captivates it, but realise this perfec- 
 tion in our life, then with affright we measure the dis- 
 tance which separates us from it, and discouragement 
 seizes upon our soul. 
 
 See what takes place in human things. Let a man 
 having but an ordinary mind have in view an end as 
 commonplace as himself, it will cost him but little effort 
 to attain ; whether artist, thinker, or poet, he will be 
 easily satisfied. But let a true genius catch but a glimpse 
 of some sublime ideal and endeavour to reproduce it ; you 
 will hear him bewail his failures ; each of his attempts 
 will no doubt produce a masterpiece which will satisfy 
 all the world but himself; you will see the greatest poet 
 of Piome order that his immortal work be burned after 
 his death ; you will see, according to one of the most 
 beautiful legends of the Middle Ages, Saint Cecilia break- 
 in f^ to pieces her musical instruments on the day when 
 she hears the distant choir of the angels. 
 
 Now, suppose the Gospel had set before us no other 
 end than worldly honesty, than that wholly external pro- 
 bity which looks to the outside of life, and is limited to 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 433 
 
 the worship of honour and propriety, all would doubtless 
 tend towards it, for all would believe it easily attainable. 
 But when the point iu question is to be holy before God, 
 and not only before men, to submit to the Divine will, 
 not only one's actions, but one's intentions, and day by 
 day, hour after hour, to bow beneath the sanctifying 
 discipline of the Spirit of God, then the more we advance, 
 the further the end seems to recede, and the very great- 
 ness of our task sometimes stands out before us like the 
 gigantic wall over which a man, labouring under the 
 terrors of nightmare, imagines he must leap at any cost. 
 
 Again, let us suppose that the Gospel had held out to 
 us no other ideal of charity than love of the fatherland, 
 and called us to seek in humanity nothing more than 
 the progress of some political cause, or the triumph of some 
 system, none would have shrunk from this task. But 
 you well know that it requires of us more than this : 
 you know that it enforces upon us not only that love 
 for our fellow-men which, after all, is but an enlarged 
 selfishness, so to speak, but charity, that charity which 
 shrinks not from sacrifice ; you know that it places 
 before us all the miseries, all the sufferings of humanity 
 as a field open to us ; that it does not allow us to turn 
 a deaf ear to the cries of distress which reach us from 
 the extremities of the earth ; you know that it forbids 
 our falling asleep in the lap of luxury and in a satisfied 
 egotism, that it renders us responsible to a certain extent 
 for all the sorrows that surround us, that it cries to us as 
 God did of old to Cain : " Where is Abel, thy brother ? " 
 and that, in presence of our cowardice, ever ready to 
 shrink that sublime duty, it lifts, like an accusing image, 
 the bleeding and Di\dne figure of crucified love. 
 
 Now, that is what alarms, what wounds and irritates 
 us. Oh ! how we would prefer a religion whibh would 
 leave us to ourselves instead of invading our indepen- 
 
 2 E 
 
434 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 dence to such a degree and thus placing its hand upon 
 our heart. Shall I dare to say it ? There are days 
 when all the evil powers of our sovil rebel against that law 
 of love and holiness ; days when we say to God : " Why 
 hast Thou revealed it to me ? Why, whilst so many 
 others are unconcerned and joyous, carried away by the 
 current of pleasure, interest, or lust, why hast Thou 
 placed before me that task which overpowers me by its 
 very greatness ? Why hast Thou produced in my con- 
 science that thirst after holiness which troubles all my evil 
 joys ? Why hast Thou deposited in my heart that love 
 which envenoms all my pleasures and causes me to feel, in 
 their very enjoyment, their bitterness and their vanity ? " 
 Thus we utter our foolish complaints against God, and 
 yet, what would we have had Him do ? Ask less of 
 us, set before us an ideal meaner than holiness, meaner 
 than love ? But what God would this be whom so little 
 could satisfy ? All ! you would not believe in Him a 
 single day, He would be inferior to you, and your con- 
 science would require what He Himself would have 
 ceased to demand of you. Brethren, you must choose 
 between lowering the Divine law to the level of your own 
 cowardly nature, or raising your nature to the level of the 
 Divine law. Alas ! you know how the great majority of 
 our fellow-men live on gradually wearing away, in contact 
 with the world, the image of God graven within their 
 hearts, deforming their soul to shape it according to the 
 morality of the day, stifling the voice of their conscience 
 and of their heart. But you cannot do this. If for a 
 moment I should counsel you to follow that course, if 
 from this pulpit I should preach to you a low-toned 
 morality which would flatter your selfishness, you would 
 doubtless sound my praises, but in the depths of your 
 soul there would be something which would despise my 
 preaching. No, you are too well versed in these matters 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 435 
 
 to renounce the ideal to which God calls you ; all the 
 arguments, all the sophisms of the world and of your own 
 heart will vainly endeavour to deceive you ; a supreme, 
 imperious voice cries loudly in your ears that your life 
 must be referred to God, to the God whose you are by 
 right of creation and by right of redemption. Instead of 
 lowering the Divine law to the level of your nature, raise 
 -your nature to the level of the law of God, that is the 
 only solution of this awful problem worthy of God and of 
 you. But is this solution possible ? It is possible, for 
 there is no other ; it is possible, for our conscience affirms 
 it ; it is possible, for God declares it ; and He who 
 knoweth our frame. He who knoweth our misery, our 
 coiTuption, and our incurable weakness, places before us 
 no other end than that of becoming like Himself. Dare 
 to say that He is deceiving us, that He sets before us an 
 end which we can never reach, that He makes sport of 
 us in creating in our souls a desire without object, a 
 hunger without satisfaction, an endless and fruitless search 
 after truth ; or rather, believe in the God of the Gospel 
 who sets the ideal before us, and urges us constantly to- 
 wards its realisation ; in the God of the Gospel who calls, 
 converts, and regenerates us, and who, after having com- 
 menced the work of our salvation, wishes to continue and 
 to perfect it. 
 
 But I hear your objection. You admit with me that 
 the end which the Gospel sets before us is the only one 
 worthy of God and of yourselves ; but to this affirmation 
 you oppose your experience ; you point me to your languid 
 faith, to your useless life, to your fruitless efforts, and 
 you are ready with the prophet to exclaim, " I have 
 laboured in vain, I have spent my strengtli for nought, 
 and in vain." The non-success of his labour is, as we have 
 already said, the second motive of discouragement for the 
 Christian. 
 
436 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 Before I answer, allow me to remind you of a fact which 
 you will doubtless have observed as w'ell as I. Do you 
 know who are tlie Christians who most bitterly mourn over 
 the failure of their efforts ? They are almost always the 
 most active and the most advanced. Yes ; hear him, that 
 man whose sanctified life is a pattern for you, who lives in 
 the midst of the world as if he were not of the world, 
 who preaches by his works far more than by his words, 
 who, severe for himself, indulgent for others, astonishes 
 you by his vigilance, his abnegation, and his charity. 
 You will hear him bewail his weakness, his lukewarm- 
 ness, his want of zeal ; you will hear him speak with 
 sincere terror of all the mercies which God has accu- 
 mulated upon him for so many years, of the responsibi- 
 lity which weighs upon his soul, of the time he has wasted, 
 of the opportunities he has allowed to slip ; you will hear 
 him without affectation apply to himself the most humi- 
 liating passages of Scripture, and ask God to forgive him, 
 even those of his good works in which His discerning eye 
 has detected the tares mingled with the wheat, and the 
 dross mixed up with the pure gold. Or again, draw near 
 to those giants of the spiritual order, to those of God's 
 workmen who, at various epochs, have called themselves 
 Eljah, St. Paul, Chrysostom, St. Bernard, Luther, or White- 
 field, and who bewilder us by the immensity of the work 
 they have accomplished, you will hear them mourn over 
 the feeble results of their labours. Elijah cries to God : 
 " Take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers." 
 Isaiah utters the words of my text : " I have spent my 
 strength for nought and in vain." St. Paul trembles lest 
 he be found to have been a useless servant. St. Bernard 
 in his last letters expresses the distressing sentiment of 
 having accomplished nothing of importance. Calvin, 
 dying, says to those who surround him, " All I have 
 done has been worthless. The wicked will rejoice at 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 437 
 
 these words. But again I say that all I have done is 
 worthless, and that I am a miserable creature." What 
 are we to infer from this ? That these men have been 
 inactive ? No ; but that in presence of the ideal which 
 God had put it into their hearts to realise, their work has 
 seemed to them well-nigh lost ; for, in fact, it enters into 
 the Divine plan to conceal almost always from us the 
 results of the works we accomplish for God. In other 
 domains, the success of truth is often visible and striking. 
 Here, it seems as though the seed were lost, as though 
 the bread were swallowed up beneath the waters upon the 
 surface of which it had been cast ; as though, in a word, all 
 our labour remains fruitless. 
 
 Why does God permit this ? Ah ! first of all, that 
 our faith may be tried. Picture to yourselves, were it 
 but for a moment, a Christian life in which every effort 
 would bear its fruits, in which the answer would imme- 
 diately follow the prayer, in which sowing time would 
 be rapidly succeeded by harvest, and long and painful 
 sacrifices by the joy of deliverance. Who would not 
 long to be a Christian on such conditions ? All would 
 become such from motives of interest, first of all, and the 
 kingdom of God would be peopled with hirelings. But 
 where would be the sublime spectacle of a faith that 
 hopes, waits, and acts though it sees not ? and how 
 could God be glorified in it ? Now God will not be 
 served by mercenaries ; He often hides from His children 
 the fruit of their labours that it may be for Him they toil, 
 and not for themselves ; He hides it from them that they 
 may seek their reward in Him, and not in the results of 
 their work, nor in the outward success which would sup- 
 ply the place of His approbation, nor even in the progress 
 of a sanctified life, for, if separated from God, perfection 
 itself may become an idol. 
 
 But it is not only to strengthen our faith that God 
 
438 DISCO URA CEMENT. 
 
 treats us thus, it is also to humble us. Ah ! they are 
 few those who can bear success without tottering beneath 
 its weight. You have perhaps admired some great man 
 at a distance ; so long as you have been acquainted with 
 his works only he has appeared to you raised upon a 
 lofty pedestal and suiTounded with a pure halo of glory ; 
 everything in him seemed to be equal to his genius, and you 
 believed him exalted far above all the petty passions of 
 mankind. So you thought till the day when you came into 
 closer relations with him ; then you have been dismayed 
 at finding in the soul of that scholar, artist, or writer, all 
 the baseness which excited self-love and vanity can call 
 up ; you have seen him yield to envy, disparage his rivals, 
 deny the genius of others, join pedantry to ostentation ; 
 you have seen the finest talents associated with the 
 meanest character, and you have suffered for the human 
 race. Is this an imaginary picture, or is it not, on the 
 contrary, a most notorious fact ? That is because there 
 is in success a fascination and an intoxication which very 
 few can bear. 
 
 Therefore picture to yourselves success in a Divine 
 work thus becoming a source of seduction for the man 
 who obtains it, exciting his mind, inflating his heart, 
 and filling it with the most unworthy vanity in the 
 very hour when he is speaking of what is grandest and 
 most sacred in the world. Picture to yourselves, O 
 blasphemy ! a St. Paul full of self-conceit, intoxicated 
 with his own glory, seeking to win for himself a name, 
 labouring only for the furtherance of his own schemes. 
 Now, that is the scandal which God has wished to spare 
 His Church, and whilst in all other dominions the deepest 
 selfishness and the most arrogant pride often obtain the 
 grandest results, it has pleased God that, in His kingdom, 
 the dominion of souls should belong only to those who 
 are capable of self-denial. Accordingly, to save His ser- 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 439 
 
 vants from tlie temptations of success, it pleases Him to 
 hide from tliem the results of their labour, and to send 
 them, in the midst of the most fruitful activity, the most 
 bitter motives of discouragement. Severe discipline of 
 love by which He chastens those He loves, and corrects 
 those of whom He makes His choice instruments ! 
 
 At this school He teaches them not only humility but 
 -meekness and compassion. Success alone would never 
 develop these virtues. Success gives strength. Strength ! 
 ah, that is much, doubtless, but something more than 
 strength is needed to do good here below. If there are 
 hours when a powerful arm is necessary, there are others 
 when what is especially required is a soft and delicate 
 hand that will not break the bruised reed. When Jesus 
 pronounced these sublime words : " Come unto Me, all ye 
 that labour 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 in 
 heart ; " admirable expression, which shows all the power 
 of humble and obscure virtues, of tenderness and com- 
 passion ! He possessed those virtues in their fulness. He 
 whom the Bible calls in turn the Lion of Judah and the 
 Lamb of God ; but He will create them, wonder of 
 wonders ! in the soul of a former Pharisee, of Saul of 
 Tarsus ; He will make of this hero of faith, of this giant, 
 of this indomitable combatant, a man who will be able 
 to speak to the Galatians " as to his own dear children ; " 
 He will produce in that rude, lofty, arrogant nature the 
 linest features of the most exquisite charity. How will 
 He do so ? By breaking his strength, by leaving him a 
 thorn in the flesh, by placing him under the stern dis- 
 ciplme of patience. Is not that what alone can explain 
 the gentleness of Paul and the tender solicitude for the 
 feeble which breathes throughout all his epistles ? 
 
 I appeal to your own experience ; when you sufier, 
 
440 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 when your soul falters beneath the oppression of doubt, 
 what you want, is it simply one of those firm souls whose 
 serene and never disturbed faith cannot enter into your 
 perplexities ? No, you want a soul which, like yours, 
 has sorrowed, which has felt the sufferings and the doubts 
 that oppress you, which has trod your own dark paths. 
 Oh ! you who like us have known the anguish of dis- 
 couragement, you who have prayed in vain, you who 
 have laboured for nought, what has been most comfort- 
 ing to you in those bitter hours ? Has it not been con- 
 fessions like that of our text ? When you have heard 
 Elijah complain at having toiled in vain, or Isaiah ex- 
 claim, " I have spent my strength for nought and in 
 vain," have you not blessed those sister-souls in which 
 you discovered your own struggles, your own deceptions, 
 your own griefs ; and have you not felt your heart grow 
 calm and your faith grow firm at the thought that, 
 though separated from them by the distance of cen- 
 turies, you are merely passing through the trials out 
 of which those mighty believers of the past came forth 
 triumphant ? 
 
 That is why, so far at least as we are able to under- 
 stand the Divine purposes, God hides from us the results 
 of our labour. Nevertheless, these results are simply 
 hidden, they will appear in their own time. No, none 
 in serving the Lord has the right to say : " I have laboured 
 for nought." He may say so, the man wliom success has 
 always attended, and who has thought only of self, the 
 man who has seen his coffers filled, his projects realised, 
 his cup overflowing with prosperity. He may say so, 
 even though crowds should surr6und him with congratu- 
 lations upon his immense labours, upon his well-employed 
 life, upon his prodigious success; for as he has worked 
 for himself alone, his work is indeed a work of vanity. 
 But the believer who has referred his life to Gud never 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 441 
 
 has the right to say, " In vain have I kboured ; " no, 
 not though he had merely accomplished in secret the 
 lowliest of tasks, not though he had merely bewailed his 
 inutility in the forced inaction of sickness. There is no 
 work, however insignificant it be, but God gathers and 
 rewards, if its principle has been an impulse of love for 
 Him. You never can tell how much good you do when 
 you do what is right. Did they know, those heroes of 
 the Bible, who, faithful to duty, humbly died in perform- 
 ing it, did they know all they would leave behind them 
 of strength, courage, and edification, as an inheritance for 
 all coming ages ? Did he know — 'he, St. Stephen, the first 
 of the martyrs — when, falling beneath the blows of those 
 that stoned him, he turned towards heaven an angelic 
 glance and prayed for his murderers — did he know that 
 this look and this prayer would produce an ineffaceable 
 impression on the conscience of one of the witnesses of 
 that scene, and that, by a marvellous solidarity, the mag- 
 nificent apostleship of Paul would be connected with his 
 death ? And you, when you utter a firm and humble 
 word in testimony of the truth, do you know whither the 
 wind will bear that precious seed, and in what heart it 
 will germinate ? Do you know what that sacrifice which 
 has been misjudged, what that act of devotion which has 
 been sneered at, what that seemingly fruitless but patient 
 love Will one day bring forth ? 
 
 And even though no traces of them wovild be left upon 
 earth, even though your labours and sacrifices would 
 seem to be for ever buried beneath the world's indiffer- 
 ence, still would the prophet's consolation be yours : 
 " My judgment is with the Lord, and my work is with 
 my God." Yes, in this lies the never-failing strength of 
 the Christian. Solitary, forsaken, despised of men, he 
 has as his witness, as his approver, as his judge, the in- 
 visible Master whom nothing escapes and who forgets 
 
442 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 nothing. God has seen him, that is enough for him ; he 
 has not lost his reward. 
 
 Does this mean that, in an indirect manner, I wish to 
 appeal to interested motives, and exhort you to labour in 
 view of an assured salary ? Many cast this reproach 
 at us. I hear an arrogant philosophy tell us that, after 
 all, we labour merely for success ; I hear our modern 
 stoics, from the heights of their serenity, attack our hope in 
 a supreme retribution. They tell us, these would-be sages, 
 they repeat again and again, that the approbation of con- 
 science is sufficient, and that the honest man requires 
 nothing more. What do they mean by this ? That the 
 right must be loved for its own sake, and not from any 
 outward motive ; that God must be served, not because 
 He rewards, but because He is truth itself ? Is that 
 their idea ? But it has been ours long before, and a 
 thousand times, in the name of the Gospel, we have 
 opposed that servile, interested motive which seeks itself 
 while pretending to serve God. But if we condemn that 
 vulgar motive, that low attraction of reward, shall we go 
 so far as to say that the approbation of conscience is suf- 
 ficient ? No, to affirm this would be to take a mistaken 
 view of human nature, to wound it in its noblest instincts. 
 We cannot be our own aim, our own judge, or our own 
 reward. We need a witness of our actions, a look to 
 encourage us, a heart to understand us. This is claimed 
 likewise by the imperious desire for justice which de- 
 mands that good may never be lost, but that it may find 
 its sanction in the will and approbation of the universal 
 Judge. If you leave man nothing but his conscience, 
 you will have the grand but desperate spectacle of stoicism 
 committing suicide to escape the triumph of evil ; if, on 
 the contrary, you point us to a God who understands and 
 encourages us, who numbers all our sighs and tears and 
 sacrifices, you will kindle in the heart of humanity a 
 
DISCO URA GEMENT. 443 
 
 courage wliicli nothing will ever destroy, no, not even 
 the most cruel failure ! Count, if you can, all the souls 
 which this mere sentiment prevents from falling into 
 despair ! 
 
 Oft on the Sabbath morning when we unite in song 
 and prayer, and feel that our faith is strengthened in 
 brotherly communion, I think of those to whom these 
 blessings are denied ; I think of that lonely pastor, pain- 
 fully pursuing his ministry in the midst of an indifferent, 
 or, it may be, hostile population, praying without answer, 
 working without success, and compelled to say, as he casts 
 a retrospective glance upon the past : " I have laboured in 
 vain ; I have spent my strength in vain, and for nought." 
 I think of that missionary in a distant heathen land, 
 gathering about him a few proselytes who scarce under- 
 stand him, and feeling that all the enthusiasm of his 
 heart will be met by an icy indifference or by a dull and 
 stupid opposition. For them each of these Sabbaths, 
 which are the festivals of the Church, are like a new 
 trial by which their faith is to be exercised, and in which 
 the bitter sentiment of the vanity of their efforts haunts 
 them unceasingly. Ah ! those are the heroes of faith ! 
 The world often looks to those ministries which are 
 rendered easy by success, and exclaims : " What ardour ; 
 what zeal ! " And I, I will tell you, like Jesus Christ, 
 " See ye all these things ? " Is it so grand a task or so 
 difficult a mission to speak to sympathetic hearts and 
 minds, to preach the truth to a congregation whose at- 
 tention and approval one is sure to obtain ? Ah ! if God 
 in His Divine wisdom did not take care to mingle with 
 such a ministry some secret crosses, some unknown humi- 
 liations, it were indeed to be feared that those who pursue 
 it would walk by sight rather than by faith, and place 
 the approbation of men above the approbation of God ! 
 No, the true combatants, the true heroes, are there in 
 
444 DISCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 those unknown and inglorious posts, alone in presence of 
 an unbelieving world, alone to believe, to hope, to love, 
 called by a severe dispensation to sow without reaping, 
 and scoffed at perhaps by infidelity which casts at them 
 these words of the Psalm, " Where is thy God ! " Ah ! 
 I know that God who sees them and knows their anguish 
 has secret compensations in store for them ; I Icnow that, 
 in their loneliness, they enter more deeply than we do in 
 the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, and that they 
 feel more closely united to the crucified Witness of con- 
 demned Truth who, He also, saw His ministry despised, 
 who stretched out His arms towards a rebellious people, 
 who wept over Jerusalem, and whose dying eyes beheld 
 nought but a cursing multitude. But what would they 
 do, I ask, 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 should I choose such extreme examples ? 
 Look at the question closely and you will see that w^e all 
 have to bear this trial if we are truly the disciples of 
 Christ. The best portion of our life escapes the eyes of 
 the world, for the world sees only what is external. 
 There are virtues and sacrifices which are already here 
 below rewarded by gratitude and love. But these are 
 few. Do you know what maintains life in the world 
 and saves humanity ? It is those thousands of obscure 
 actions, of silent sacrifices of which God alone is the 
 witness and which would never have been performed 
 without Him. Yes, if there are Christian nations which 
 are the bearers of the world's future, that is, of progress, 
 liberty, faith, and hope ; if there is upon earth an asylum 
 open to suffering souls ; if there is a Church in which the 
 Gospel may be preached, all this has become possible only 
 by dint of heroism in the past, of sacrifices buried in 
 oblivion. Like those Iioman walls which are composed 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 445 
 
 of tiny stones joined together by an indestructible cement, 
 and which have braved the efforts of centuries, so the foun- 
 dations of the Church consist of little virtues which none 
 can ever count. 'We are the heirs of eighteen centuries 
 of devotion, and the world sees but an insignificant por- 
 tion of all this wealth. No ear hath heard, no voice can 
 ever tell all the anguish, but also all the sublime firmness 
 and courage which have been displayed in those dungeons, 
 in those oubliettes where the martyrs of faith have 
 perished by thousands ; neither can any one tell all that 
 Christian faith daily obtains around us of forgiveness, of 
 generous forgetfulness of the past, of acts of self-denial, 
 of victories over the flesh and over pride. But these 
 triumphs so dearly bought and which often cost so many 
 tears, how would they ever be possible if the Christian 
 could not say : " My judgment is with the Lord, and my 
 work is with my God ? " 
 
 At work, then, ye discouraged souls. Shake off that 
 dull apathy which paralyses you, that unwholesome 
 melancholy in which you seem to delight. At work ! 
 and to so many days wasted in the past add not days 
 wasted in the future in useless regrets. At work ! since 
 your work is with your God, since He is pleased in His 
 mercy to count your shghtest efforts without disdaining 
 one. Ah ! why should you not bring to the service of 
 that adorable Master as much of your time, heart, and 
 life as the worldly know how to devote to the vanities 
 that are losing them ! Is it not in the service of the 
 world that one may say : " I have laboured in vain ; I 
 have wasted my strength for nought, and in vain ? " 
 And if they cannot say so to-day while their eyes are 
 still dazzled by its passing splendours, will they not be 
 compelled to admit it in the fearful hour when illusions 
 will vanish, when death will speak, when the world will 
 have neither hope nor consolation for them, when they 
 
446 DISCO URA GEMENT. 
 
 will have to give God an account of the talents with 
 which He has entrusted them ? despair ! misery ! 
 to have lived for self alone ; to have perhaps acted a 
 great part, attained a high position, gained a fortune and 
 a name, and after all be forced to acknowledge that their 
 lives have been wasted, and that they have forgotten the 
 essential ! To learn all this, but too late ; to see the 
 night of their agony illumined by the light of the Gospel 
 as by the hirid glare of lightning, and to understand how 
 they sliould have lived in the hour when they are about 
 to die ! 
 
 You, my brother, do not dread so fearful a surprise. 
 You know what is the direction of your life, for towards 
 eternity it tends, and whatever be your trials, you have 
 the ineffable joy of serving the living and faithful God. 
 And it is you who know all the greatness, all the beauty 
 of a Christian life, you who believe that not one of your 
 efforts is lost, you who add your stone to the edifice 
 which God is raising from age to age, it is you who 
 mourn, you who walk with a bowed head, you who allow 
 your arms to droop with fatigue and your heart to fail ! 
 You believe in the triumph of redeeming love, and it is 
 you who give the world the spectacle of a languishing 
 and melancholy piety, of a joyless religion, of an ex- 
 tinguished hope ! And what success, what victory do 
 you pretend to gain, what proselytism do you expect to 
 exercise ? No, no, it is not by contemplating yourselves 
 alone, it is not by contemplating your fruitless labours, 
 but by looking to the Author and Finisher of faith that 
 you will feel strengthened. Safety, strength, salvation, 
 victory lie in the sight of the Sun of Eighteousness that 
 riseth with healing in its wings. Look heavenward, ye 
 disciples of Jesus Christ ! Set the ineffable beauty of 
 heavenly blessings over against all the ills of nature, 
 against all the sorrows of the soul, against all the decep- 
 
DISCOURAGEMENT. 447 
 
 tions of earth. Above this world which misjudges and 
 despises you, see the eye of your God resting upon you ; 
 hear the applause of the saints. Eejoice even for those 
 who sneer at your efforts, for they will be the heirs of 
 your sacrifices ; and if anything can save them, it will be 
 your unwavering fidelity, your unwearied love. Courage ! 
 and after all your failures and defeats, repeat these 
 words of faith: "My judgment is with the Lord, and 
 my work with my God." 
 
( 448 ) 
 
 ,.V^"^ ^ ^ XXV. 
 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 " There was a certain rich man, which Avas clothed in pnrple and fine 
 linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a cer- 
 tain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of 
 sores." — Luke xvi. 20, 21. 
 
 Are you not amazed at the striking contrast contained 
 in these simple words ? They were uttered eighteen 
 centuries ago. Have they lost their actuality ? Wealth, 
 misery ! ever in presence, now as then, and so constantly 
 in presence that the conflict between them is, of all social 
 questions, the greatest and most difficult, the darkest and 
 the most pregnant with dismal forebodings for the future. 
 And yet for this terrible problem many a solution has 
 been proposed. "Down with the rich!" some have said, 
 and we have heard the crowds repeating that senseless 
 cry. " Down with the rich ! Let us strike down opu- 
 lence, let us attack capital, let us destroy the right of 
 inheritance ! " and men have not seen that, in this way, 
 they aimed a deadly blow against liberty, and with 
 liberty against energy, and with energy against labour 
 itself, and left us nothing but the equality of savages, 
 who, without laying up anything for the morrow, 
 unconcernedly fall asleep until hunger again rouses 
 them and sends them forth in search of their prey. 
 " No more poverty ! " other voices have exclaimed ; 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 449 
 
 and in this age a loud eclio has repeated : — " No 
 more poverty ! " Ah ! if this had been a mere desire, 
 a mere impulse of charity ! but it has become a motto, a 
 promise. No more poverty ! and some said, " The State 
 must provide labour for all;" others, "The State will feed 
 the needy ; " and men saw not that they assigned to 
 the State an impossible part, and created the most 
 artificial and the most tyrannical Utopia ; they saw not 
 that they were mistaken concerning human nature, for 
 to decree that there will be no more misery comes to 
 enacting that there will be no more idleness, no more 
 vice, no more passions, no more sin. But whilst all 
 these theories succeeded one another, and led into the 
 most delusive and cruel dreams multitudes whom they 
 were to leave without consolation and without bread, the 
 social evil pursued its slow and fatal march. No more 
 rich, no more poor ! See what takes place in England, 
 in that classical land of philanthropy and social economy ; 
 there, beside the most colossal opulence derived from all 
 parts of the world, you will find the most squalid pauper- 
 ism which, after having exhibited its more than heathen 
 degradation in the full light of day, repairs at night to 
 haunts of which a generous-hearted man who visited 
 them once said, in a famous article, that Sodom alone 
 could have sheltered the infamy he had seen. That is 
 the state of things in the da,ys in which we live. The 
 rich, the poor, in presence as in the words of our text ; 
 and if the abundance and resources of the former have 
 increased in reason of the progress of eighteen centuries' 
 civilisation, the misery of the latter is as real, as appal- 
 ling as ever. 
 
 What social remedy is to be applied to this evil ? 
 That enters not into my subject ; such a question it is 
 not my part to decide. I do not mean to analyse 
 systems; I take hum-^nity such as I find it. Now, 
 
 2 F 
 
450 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 before me I see two classes of men, the rich and the 
 poor ; I believe these two classes will exist to-morrow 
 as they existed yesterday, and, in the name of the Gospel, 
 I come once more to remind the former of their duties 
 towards the latter. Tlie suliject is not new, I admit ; it 
 is as ancient as suffering itself. I will, doubtless, repeat 
 only what yuu have a hundred times heard. But what 
 matters ? From the day when seliishness will have 
 died away in our midst, I promise, brethren, never to 
 speak to you again of charity or sacrifice. 
 
 Here, then, is Lazarus lying at the rich man's gate. 
 Well ! what I ask, in the first place, is that the rich 
 man cast his eyes upon Lazarus. Here I mean by the 
 rich man all who have beneath them some Lazarus, all 
 who have it in their power to succour and comfort 
 him. 
 
 To look upon Lazarus ! But understand me well. The 
 question is not to be stirred, in passing, by the account 
 of some misfortune. To cast one's alms at it, to act 
 a certain part in some charitable work, and after having 
 thus quieted one's conscience, to comfort oneself by 
 saying that this age is an eminently philanthropic and 
 generous age. The question is to look at sufiering in 
 the face, and become acquainted with it. That is what 
 I call looking upon Lazarus. Do you think that is what 
 men do ? Our age is the age of systems of charity, of 
 associations, of institutions. Grand progress ! some will 
 say. Yes, but fatal progress too, if it should prevent the 
 immediate contact between rich and poor, between the 
 happy and the wretched, which the Gospel enforces in each 
 of its pages, and whose salutary action no institution 
 could ever replace. 
 
 I know what objection people bring forward ; they 
 say, " Time fails us ! " and I am not of those who dis- 
 dain this excuse. In all vocations, life is becoming more 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 451 
 
 and more like a forced march ; everybody wishes to 
 arrive first at the goal. Every career is crowded, the 
 new-comers press forward impatiently, anxious to find 
 their place. It is a struggle, a rush, through which all 
 must advance on pain of being very soon supplanted. 
 Never, perhaps, since the law of labour exists, has work 
 been so intense, so crushing. Men no longer walk, 
 they run. Woe betide him who stops too long to take 
 breath ! But is it always duty whicli thus straitens life ? 
 I ask it of those to whom God has given a certain 
 measure of ease and fortune. Is it true that you can 
 never in any way find a few spare hours ? Now, in a 
 society in which reigns, I will not say the Christian 
 spirit, but mere justice, do you not think that the leisure 
 hours of the well-to-do providentially belong to those 
 whom daily labour fully absorbs ? Of this spare time 
 what share do you give Lazarus, what portion of your 
 life do you devote to the poor and the suffering ? Ah ! 
 leisure thus consecrated is indeed a sublime mission, an 
 immense boon for the unfortunate and for yourselves too ! 
 We shall, therefore, see you set to work ; and the humble 
 and the lowly who are overpowered by toil, and chained 
 to their post by the necessity of earning their daily 
 bread, will henceforth rely upon you to whom God has 
 allotted the most privileged of all portions. Alas ! it 
 might be so, were it not for the ambition, selfishness, and 
 worldliness which take up all this leisure and absorb it 
 completely. 
 
 I take an example, and I choose it amongst the class 
 which is continually brought into contact with the suffer- 
 ings of the masses, and which cannot justify itself by 
 pleading its ignorance of them. 
 
 Here is a great manufacturer whose fortune well-nigh 
 reaches opulence ; in his mills and factories the opera- 
 tives are numbered by thousands ; all these hands, wills. 
 
452 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 energies are his, and from morn to night they obey him ; 
 he has disciplined these creative forces, and by dint of 
 skill and experiments he has contrived to obtain from 
 them all they were capable of giving. But in these 
 factories men suffer : the air is tainted, faces grow pale 
 and thin ; then men and women all work together in 
 one confused mass ; the moral atmosphere is foul, baneful 
 and corrupt ; the apprentice to whom the law insures at 
 least the rest of the Sabbath, is often deprived of it, as is 
 the case in most of the great manufactories in Paris ; and 
 there, bent over his loom, stupefied by a precocious and 
 unremitting labour, deprived more and more of religious 
 and moral life, he droops, the victim of a vitiated blood 
 and of the general decay of mind and body. 
 
 But the man on whom this serious responsibility rests, 
 this man, the life and soul of that industry, what is he 
 then that he should pass coldly beside those sufferings 
 which he might assuage by applying to them, were it but 
 for one moment, that penetrating glance, that clear- 
 sightedness, that resolute action which he brings to bear 
 upon all he undertakes ? Brethren, he has no time ! . . . . 
 To look upon Lazarus, he ! and do you not see what 
 engrosses his attention, what wrinkles his brow, what fills 
 his heart and his thoughts ? Yonder, before him, see 
 those rivals whom he must still outrun, see those for- 
 tunes whose colossal amount seems a perpetual insult to 
 his own, see that opulence, that splendour which float 
 before his imagination ! This end, he must attain it ; 
 he must march on, press on, run on, without losing 
 a moment. But this man, has he not a Christian wife, 
 has he no Christian daughters capable of feeling for 
 those thousands of beings whose existence and happiness 
 are so closely connected with him ? They have a pious 
 soul, a sensitive heart ; they have shed torrents of tears 
 at the touching accounts of imaginary woes, they have 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 453 
 
 mourned, like you, over the lot of the people, over those 
 poor children so early degraded and deprived of all 
 which ours possess in abundance. They will, no doubt, 
 set to work ; they will visit those families, look closely 
 into all those sorrows, hold out a helping hand to those 
 women, to those miserable young- girls. Ah ! this might 
 have been but for worldliness ! To look upon Lazarus ! 
 They! But. their heart is elsewhere. Between the plea- 
 sures of to-day and those of to-morrow, between the last 
 l)all and the next concert, between the recollections of 
 the past and the preoccupations of dress for the coming 
 season, between all these ambitions, all these jealousies, 
 all these questions of self-love, how do you think they 
 can find time to care for what goes on yonder, in the 
 suburb, within those bare and gloomy walls, amongst 
 that needy, irreligious, and miserable population ? The 
 suburb, why, they will pass through it one day, proud, 
 decked out in bright jewels, borne swiftly away by their 
 fiery horses, and so will the people learn to know them. 
 Then the following Sabbath, seated, like you, my sisters, 
 in their pew, they will condemn, like you also, the rich 
 man in the parable who leaves Lazarus to suffer aban- 
 doned at the gate of his palace ! 
 
 Let us go further and say on this point what every- 
 body knoM's and what everybody thinks. If there are 
 many who, to-day, will not look at Lazarus, it is because 
 they are no strangers to his misery, and because their 
 conscience could not but find in this sight a subject of 
 remorse. The Gospel tells us of unrighteous wealth. 
 What name must we give to much of that which is 
 being acquired to-day ? A man enters upon an enter- 
 prise which, if it be not thoroughly evil, is at least 
 exposed to fearful chances of failure. What matters ? 
 He will launch into it ; once undertaken, it must be 
 carried on ; the ordinary means present themselves un- 
 
454 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 looked for ; without any effoit on his part, he will 
 simply allow them to follow their habitual course ; soon 
 enticing annoiuicements fill all the newspapers ; the most 
 pressing solicitations, the most brilliant promises lay 
 before the eyes of the most ignorant all the attractions 
 of an easy, rapid, and certain gain. Alas ! poor wretches ! 
 they come, they give up for this tempting speculation, 
 the one the hard-earned savings of his life, the other the 
 marriage-portion of his children and their daily bread. 
 And why should they not come? Who warns them, 
 who enlightens them ? They come, then, and with all 
 these spoils extorted from honest labour, the capital 
 goes on increasing till the hour when suddenly the whole 
 iabric totters and crumbles. Now, miserable fathers ; 
 now, unfortunate servants, who for thirty or forty years 
 had faithfully fulfilled your duty ; now, poor needle- 
 women who, refusing yourselves necessaries, hnd care- 
 fully laid by a small treasure for the evil days ; go now 
 and seek the fruit of your labours ; claim it of those 
 sumptuous buildings rising as by magic, claim it of all 
 those splendours which dazzle your eyes, of all that 
 wealth against which Christ would have thundered forth 
 His anathemas ! Is this fiction ? Is it not the true 
 and distressing tale of thousands of unfortunate beings ? 
 And you who hear me, are you sure, before God who 
 sees you, that you have never, directly or indirectly, 
 shared in these iniquities ? Have you decried and 
 denounced them by your attitude and your example ? 
 Who will do so, if not Christians ? Who will rouse 
 modern conscience which is so lenient, so tolerant for 
 the evil which is crowned with success ? Who will 
 remind it that God reigns, that He counts the sufferings 
 of the poor, that He hears the complaints of the oppressed, 
 and that the lot of the rich man in the parable is a 
 hundred times to be preferred to that of those who 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 455 
 
 themselves have laid Lazarus upon his Led of poverty 
 aud abjection ? 
 
 Therefore, to look upon Lazarus, to become acquainted 
 with his sufferings, such is our first duty. But that is 
 not all. We must do more. We must draw near to 
 him, he must feel our presence, hear our voice. I have 
 already said that charity exercised at a distance will not 
 suffice. Moreover, it is this charity which is often mis- 
 taken and often deceived ; it is this charity wdiich encour- 
 ages tlie vice and intrigue that skilfully cover themselves 
 with the rags of poverty. Nothing can replace a direct 
 and personal intercourse with those who suffer. Accord- 
 ingly, in each of its pages, the Gospel bids us visit the 
 poor and comfort them directly. And what exhortation 
 can have the same vahie as the beautiful example which 
 Jesus Christ has left ns ? 
 
 Have you never remarked the brief and striking fea- 
 ture which accompanies almost all the cures and deeds 
 of mercy wrought by the Saviour ? " Jesus drew near, 
 touched the sick man or the leper, and said, ' Be thou 
 clean, go in peace.' " He touched them, and this reminds 
 me of a word pronounced by the most learned of the 
 modern adversaries of Christian faith. '• What ! " says 
 Strauss, in his criticism of the Gospels, " Jesus touches 
 the sick, and when He washes. He can cure them at a 
 distance ! Do you not see in this the thaumaturgist who 
 aims at acting upon the popular imagination ? " No ! 
 learned doctor, we see in this only the partiality of your 
 criticism and the shallowness of your soul. Jesus can 
 cure at a distance, but He will not do so ; it pleases Him 
 to touch with His divine hands those lepers, those sin- 
 ners, those demoniacs from whom everybody fled with 
 disgust ; and it is precisely in this fact that we recognise 
 the miracle of miracles, that of a charity which the world 
 
436 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 liacl no conception of. Admirable example which we must 
 imitate if we would follow Jesus Christ ! 
 
 I do not hesitate to say that sympathy thus understood 
 is a great step towards the restoration of the suffering 
 classes. You cannot avoid having been struck with one 
 of the consequences which inevitably follow extreme want 
 and misery. The WTetch, as he falls lower and lower, 
 believes he sees the whole of society turn against him ; 
 it seems to him that he is excluded and banished, as it 
 were, from its midst, and that he is treated as an outcast. 
 A wall rises, so to speak, between himself and the rest of 
 mankind. Thence those bitter accusations against the 
 world, against society, against the Church, which escape 
 him, as if that world, that society, that Church, did not 
 contain beings who suffer as he does, and who, they also, 
 are subject to this strange hallucination of excessive 
 grief. Well ! suppose that, while indulging in those 
 angry feelings, that miserable creature sees one of those 
 prosperous and privileged ones, wdiom fatality appears to 
 have spared, come and sit at his bedside, suppose he feels 
 your hand grasp his own, suppose he hears words of sym- 
 pathy fall from your lips, do you think his evil dreams 
 will not soon be dispelled ? That is not all ; as he listens 
 to you, he w411 perhaps learn that sorrow can dwell in the 
 heart of those who seem to him happy ; he will see by 
 your mourning garb that fortune does not save from the 
 most cruel trials, and in that ulcerated heart compassion 
 for you will perhaps he awakened l)y the thought that 
 you also have wept. Do you rememljer what happened 
 some years ago in England ? A fearful exjilosion had 
 Ijuried in the bowels of the earth more than two hundred 
 unfortunate miners ; there, upon the yawning chasm, their 
 widows and mothers lamented, seeking their dead, and 
 asking themselves with bitter anguish whence would come 
 the bread for the morrow. It came ; the morrow's bread, 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 457 
 
 it was assured them for the future, and she who sent it 
 joined to her gift these words : " From a widow." A 
 widow ! This widow was the Queen ; but on that day 
 she had descended from her royal state to weep with them 
 that wept. The Queen ! What ! yonder, upon that throne, 
 in those palaces, in the midst of that wealth, of that splen- 
 dour, there is a widow who weeps with us, who mourns 
 as we mourn ! I dare aftirm that the children of those 
 poor w^idows will never learn to hate or despise the rich, 
 and none cnn tell how much of bitterness and revolt that 
 cry, that simple cry issuing from the heart, has stayed 
 and rendered for ever impossible ! 
 
 Those who suffer must, therefore, learn to know you. 
 It must be so for themselves, it must be so because God 
 commands it, it must be so for your own good. You 
 will never know what life should be so long as you will 
 not have seen misery face to face. There are things 
 which can only be learned there, and which nevertheless 
 must be known. When you, for instance, who rejoice at 
 the birth of a little child, will have seen, beneath another 
 roof than your own, the entrance of an infant into the 
 world looked upon as a cause of sorrow and anxious 
 grief, when you will have seen this little child hold out 
 its tiny arms confidingly and joyously towards a world 
 which rejects it ; when you, who mourn over the death 
 of a father or mother, will have seen a sorrow such as 
 yours comforted by a brutal and cynical word expressive 
 only of delight at being relieved of too hea\y a burden, 
 then you will learn what is the world ; you will question 
 whether" it be right for you to live in it in unconcern 
 and pleasure, and you will know what it is to yearn after 
 the reign of righteousness and love. Such, is the lesson 
 which misery teaches. Do we understand it ? Alas ! 
 when to-day, by a liideous reversal, I see the upper 
 classes turn their looks, not towards honest suffering, but 
 
458 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 towards vile corruption, borrow its fashions, its manners, 
 its very language, or its slang, rather, I question what 
 must be the effect of this monstrous spectacle upon the 
 suffering and labouring classes, and towards what name- 
 less abjection it is dragging them down. But of what 
 avail is our indignation, I ask, if we do not oppose to the 
 spread of corruption the spread of charity ? We must 
 set to work, we must descend to those low grounds, we 
 must learn to look evil closely and unflinchingly in the 
 face. 
 
 I know that this contact is painful; there are sights 
 that wound our delicacy ; extreme poverty hurts our 
 sensibility ; it requires a certain amount of bravery to 
 face it. A filthy and winding staircase, a low and 
 narrow room in which one breathes a close, foul atmos- 
 phere, and that undefinable smell which misery imparts 
 to whatever it touches ; children in tatters, a pallet upon 
 which a sick man moans, and upon the table food, the 
 very sight of which is sickening ; all this is hard to 
 bear. Moreover, confess it, it troubles and saddens 
 us, for it preaches in such heart-stirring accents the 
 necessity of sacrifice • How can one think of grati- 
 fying one's fancies in presence of beings who have not 
 so much as the barest necessaries of life ? How can 
 one allow one's thoughts to dwell upon a handsome 
 dress when one is surrounded by creatures who have 
 not even the luxury of a little linen ? How can one 
 reflect upon the enjoyments of a banquet when one sees 
 the unpalatable remains with which a whole family will 
 satisfy its hunger ? You suffer at this sight, and before- 
 hand you are anxious to avoid it. But who are you that 
 you should refuse to suffer ? Is the service of God always 
 easy ? Is it by a Sinuous, gentle, and shady path that 
 heaven is to be reached ? Christians, you to whom God 
 has spared the persecutions and the bloody sacrifices re- 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 459 
 
 quired of your fathers, do you find your lot so liard that 
 you would retrench from it even the acts of self-denial 
 which fliarity involves ? You follow Jesus Christ, but 
 who is your Saviour ? In that vague and gentle figure 
 that leads you only upon the ideal heights of a poetical 
 reverie, I recognise indeed the Christ whom our age has 
 moulded in its own image, but it is no longer the Man 
 of Sorrows, it is no longer the Christ of publicans and 
 outcasts, it is no longer He wdio sought out vice and 
 sorrow, however low they had fallen. You suffer in 
 contact with want ! Well ! what is your suffering com- 
 pared with that of the beings who must live and die in 
 that atmosphere which you cannot for a moment breathe 
 without disgust ? If the mere sight of wretchedness 
 appals you, wliat then must be the condition of those 
 who cannot escape it for a single instant ? You suffer, 
 but to efface your painful impressions, you have in 
 summer your parks and shady bowers ; in winter your 
 comfortable dwellings, and your hearth in which a bright 
 fire sparkles ; while they have only their four bare and 
 murky walls, their attics in which they suffer the ex- 
 tremes of heat and cold, their fireless hearth, the spectacle 
 of other woes as repulsive as their own, and in their mind 
 the incessant and cruel anxiety of the daily gain — of that 
 gain without which, at the first touch of disease, their 
 last refuge will fail them. The sight of their destitution 
 is painful to you ; your increasing ease and luxury Ivcep 
 you so completely enchained that you can no longer obey 
 God who sends you towards those who suffer ; but how 
 will you dare appear before God and give an account of 
 your task? What will you have to answer if God, in 
 His turn, rejects you ? Will you be surprised if your 
 selfishness, your cowardice, your idleness, are offensive to 
 supreme love ? Do you think you are a more attractive 
 spectacle in His sight than the wretchedness of the in- 
 
46o LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 digent is in yours ? Do you think that, even under the 
 most lovely appearances, a heart without charity is not 
 in the eyes of the Supreme Judge an ol)ject of just 
 aversion ? Do you think you will be able to justify 
 yourselves by alleging your native delicacy and your 
 instinctive sensibility ? Answer — or rather, obey that 
 secret voice which troubles and annoys you, and cries 
 out loudly that there is no salvation without sorrow, no 
 eternal felicity without sacrifice. 
 
 Have I exhausted my subject, and to have gained my 
 cause, is it enough to have placed you in presence of 
 suffering ? Yes, if the heart were upright, if it followed 
 the instructive logic of devotion and charity. But such 
 is not the case, and even in presence of sorrow, it argues, 
 it negotiates, it disputes love every inch of ground. 
 You acknowledge that the task is immense, that it 
 imposes itself upon you ; but who knows if, at' the first 
 appeal of charity, you will not silence us with these 
 simple v/ords, " I cannot ? " I cannot ! This answer, I 
 hope, is not lightly given, neither will I accept it 
 lightly. Xo, I will not judge you ; if, before God, you 
 cannot, that is enough for me. I know that there are 
 limits to everything, I know that liberty must be re- 
 spected, and I will respect it. And what would we 
 become, I pr^y you, without that mutual respect which 
 the Gospel enforces ? What should we become if the 
 spirit of judgment should, under pretence of charity, 
 allow itself full scope and exact a certain amount of 
 abnegation from each ? I will respect your answer, but 
 nevertheless permit me to beg of you, ere you reply, to 
 examine whether you are sincere and in earnest. You 
 cannot ! And why cannot you ? Might it not be because 
 the world has invaded everything, even the portion which 
 should have belonged to the poor ? Might it not be 
 because you also have yielded to that tide of luxury 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 461 
 
 whicli nothing ere loner will be able to resist ? Ah ! it 
 was to the world you should have said, " I cannot ! " 
 You should have answered this firmly and bravely when 
 it required of you that useless expense, that extravagance 
 of dress and furniture, those refinements of delicacy to 
 which your vanity so readily consented. AVhat would you 
 have lost by this ? A triumph of self-love which, while 
 it has excited the envy of others, has merely straitened 
 your own heart. Suppose even you had been judged, 
 suppose you had been accused of rigour and sternness, 
 could you not have accepted this ? Will there be hence- 
 forth no distinction between the Christian and the worldly 
 dwelling, and must we make up our mind to see those 
 who profess Christianity follow docilely upon the track 
 of a world whose approbation is a snare and whose 
 applause is a danger ? But though you have not dared 
 to oppose the world, you are now compelled to say no to 
 your Saviour. It is to your Saviour you will reply, " I 
 cannot ! " to your Saviour, whose kingdom progresses but 
 slowly, and whose needy members are neglected. It is 
 for your Saviour that you have kept the courage of a 
 refusal. Oh ! you are not afraid to grieve Him. His 
 approval, His blame, what are these to you ? True, He 
 has redeemed you at the price of an unutterable sorrow ; 
 true. He comes to you with His crown of thorns, with 
 His pierced hands and feet ; true, in your dying hour, 
 when the world will have no charm for you, you will 
 call Him to walk with you through the gloomy valley and 
 to appear with you before the eternal tribuiial. It matteis 
 not ! to-day, coldly, after having given the world its share, 
 you will say to Him, " I have nothing left ibr Thee ! " 
 
 I will not conclude without unmasking a sophism 
 beneath which it is fashionable to-day to conceal luxury 
 and worldliness. Men tell us, " Eather than give to the 
 poor, spend money and enjoy yourselves. Your luxury 
 
462 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 is the people's labour ; yonr expenses are their profit. 
 The more costly your garments will be, the more heavily 
 laden with delicacies will be your table, the more orna- 
 mented will be your dwelling, the more hands also will 
 work, the greater number of families also will be snatched 
 from misery." This is indeed a charming remedy, an 
 admirable process which men do not always dare to 
 affirm, but by means of which they often lull their con- 
 science to sleep when they intend to yield to their tastes 
 or to gratify their fancies. 
 
 Well, is this excuse valid, and does it rest upon a solid 
 basis ? That is what remains to be examined. 
 
 The best way to test the truth of a principle is to see 
 how far it may lead. You say that luxury is the 
 redeemer of misery. Well, if you are right, spend, spend 
 on, exhaust your wealth in extravagant fancies, invent 
 new pleasures and unparalleled refinements. Ye apostles 
 of a new charity, at work, at work then for the redemp- 
 tion of mankind ! Oh ! how convenient, in truth, is this 
 religion, and how well it answers to the secret instincts 
 of our nature ! How it will be gladly hailed everywhere ! 
 Away with that gloomy piety that preached sacrifice and 
 abnegation ! Luxury, give us luxury, more and more, 
 and when you shall sv/im in an opulence which had not 
 its equal in Eome or Babylon, then the people, saved by 
 you, will for evermore ignore suffering, and heaven will 
 be begun upon earth ! 
 
 You smile, but beware. If the principle proposed to 
 us be true, that will be its direct and legitimate conse- 
 quence ; but if this consequence is absurd and cruel, 
 must we not come to the conclusion that the principle is 
 an absurdity ? Common sense, in harmony with expe- 
 rience, has long since told us that the expenses of luxury 
 are absolutely unprofitable, that the greater the amount 
 of the vital forces consecrated to the production of what is 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 463 
 
 superfluous, the smaller the portion that is left for the 
 production of necessaries. When you will have torn a 
 hundred thousand labourers from our rural districts to 
 cast them into the workshops where your palaces are 
 being prepared, or into the factories where your sumptuous 
 materials are being woven, is it not most certain that, to 
 obtain an unproductive luxury, you will have lessened, in 
 the same proportion, the fecundity of your native soil ? 
 When you will have transformed heaps of gold into jewels 
 or delicate ornaments, is it not most sure that you will 
 not have added one farthing to the capital upon which 
 humanity lives ? Your principle, therefore, is false ; false 
 and cruel, for its final result would be famine. You 
 would soon see this on the first occasion of a social com- 
 motion. When, at the first alarm of a revolution or of 
 some vmforeseen crisis, all this purely conventional 
 wealth would dwindle away in an instant, what would 
 become of those hundreds and thousands of men torn by 
 your luxury from the manly and healthful labours of agri- 
 culture ? Cast out of employment in your large towns, 
 accustomed to an easily acquired and as easily expended 
 gain, they would become for you a real danger, and all 
 the more to be dreaded that, having become acquainted 
 wdth your senseless luxury, their hearts would be torn by 
 envy and hatred at sight of their own wretchedness. 
 
 That is not all. Not only is this principle cruel, but 
 it is immoral. It is immoral for yourselves ; for luxury, 
 after all, is enjoyment, and unlimited enjoyment, however 
 refined it be, is the degradation of soul and will, the 
 satisfaction of selfishness, and by a natural consequence, 
 the narrowing of the heart. It is immoral also for those 
 to whom your example is a lesson. Beside you, the 
 workman who sees your life will say, he also: "Why should 
 I not enjoy ? why should I not shake off the stern and 
 cruel law of abnegation ? " And he will enjoy, and he 
 
464 LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 
 
 will waste in coarse pleasures his daily earnings. Instead 
 of your refined delights, he will seek the cynical joys of 
 the gin palace or of the haunts of vice. I defy you to 
 prevent this consequence. Suppose it extending more 
 and more. Ere long, from the depths of convulsed 
 society will rise, like the dismal sound of the storm, the 
 voice of an immense people exclaiming : " Enjoyment is 
 the right of all ! Paradise, ye Christians, you tell me 
 that it is in heaven, but you lie, for I have seen you seek 
 it upon earth ! I have seen you, would-be religious men, 
 cull here below all the pleasures, all the refinements, all 
 the delights that my toil could provide. Well ! I, too, 
 must have my Paradise on earth. I must have it to- 
 morrow ; I must have it to-day. Long enough you have 
 pointed it out to me beyond the grave ; but science has 
 instructed me, and I will no longer waste my sweat and 
 my tears for what is a mere intangible nothing. I am 
 weary of waiting. I must have happiness ; I must have 
 it in this life, of which hitherto I have knowui nought 
 but the self-denial. My happiness is luxury also, it is 
 wealth, it is pleasure, it is the produce of the earth which 
 was given to me as well as to you. My happiness is 
 there, before me — I may take it when I will. Woe to 
 him who would stay my hand ! Woe to him who would 
 stand across my path ! Enjoyment is the last word 
 of life. I must enjoy, I will enjoy, for my name is 
 legion. Upon my robust arms I bear the whole of society. 
 With a lift of my finger, when the time is ripe, I will 
 overthrow it ! " 
 
 That is what the masses will say if it be true that the 
 enjoyment of some redeems the misery of others. You 
 will be unable to escape this terrible logic. God grant 
 that our country may never witness its fearful demonstra- 
 tion ! Moreover, I do not expect you to be moved by 
 such arguments. If fear alone was to be your motive for 
 
LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE. 465 
 
 doing good, I would prefer descending from this pulpit 
 whence another language, more elevated, more worthy of 
 God and of yourselves should he heard. To succour 
 misery I will propose hut one remedy — the spirit of 
 Christ ; that spirit which is at the same time righteous- 
 ness and love. At work in that spirit, brethren ! — at 
 work to-day, to-morrow, ever, so long .as there will be 
 upon eartli a misery to alleviate or a sorrow to comfort ! 
 
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