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Messrs. Xooeru Broc/iers Publications. 
 
 LIVES OF EXEMPLARY WOMEN. 
 
 Messrs. ROBERTS' BROS, are publishing a series of Lives of Exemplary 
 Women, uniform in size and price. The first volume is 
 
 fltEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF MADAME 
 RECAMIER. Translated from the French and edited by Miss 
 LUYSTER. With a fine portrait of Madame Re"camier. Sixth edition. 
 One handsome 12mo volume. Price $ 2.00. 
 
 " Her own contributions to it are exceedingly brief, but her individuality permeates the 
 whole work and gives it unity. She was undoubtedly a woman of genius ; but it was in hei 
 life alone, in her noble friendships, in her unselfish devotion to all bound to her by any ties, 
 that gave her genius expression, and it is only fair, therefore, that she should attain immor- 
 tality not through the labor or her own spirit, but rather through the praise of those by 
 whom she was so well beloved." Virginia Vaughan in " Hie Leader." 
 
 The second volume is 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. By 
 COUNT DE FALLOUX. Translated by Miss Preston. Fourth edition. 
 In one volume. 12mo. Price $ 2.00. 
 
 " The Life and Letters of Madame Swetchine, is a companion volume to Mme. Recamier, 
 and both works give us two phases of contemporary Paris life, aud two characters that, 
 with some accidental resemblances, present strong points of contrast. 
 
 " The social influence both women exercised was good, but when we compare the two, 
 Madame Recamier's sinks to a much lower level. She (Madame R.) was gentle and kind, 
 ready to sacrifice herself to any extent to advance the material influence of her friends, but 
 she was essentially a worldly woman ; whereas Madame Swetchine was ' in the world but 
 not of it.' She exerted an immense spiritual as well as intellectual influence on all who 
 approached her, and raised her friends to her own level. Madame Recamier made her asso- 
 
 persons, and as a book of reference is more valuable. We frequently meet the same people 
 in each, and in this respect they serve to illustrate and explain each other." Prondenco 
 Journal. 
 
 The third volume is 
 
 THE FRIENDSHIPS OF WOMEN. By REV. W. R. ALGER. 
 Fourth edition. One volume, 12mo. Price $2.00. 
 
 " Mr. Alger is among our most diligent students and earnest thinkers ; and this volume 
 
 content with what he has already accomplished. His ' Friendships of Women,' for many 
 reasons, will have a wide circle of readers, and cannot fail to increase our sense of the 
 worth of human nature, as it enthusiastically delineates some of its most elevated manifes- 
 tations. By telling what woman has been, he tells what woman may be; intellectually aa 
 well as morally, in the beauty of her mind as well as in the affections of her heart, and the 
 loveliness of her person." Salem Gazette. 
 
 The fourth volume is 
 
 SAINT BEUVE'S PORTRAITS OF CELEBRATED 
 'WOMEN. 
 
 MADAME DE SEVIONE. MADAME DE DURAS. 
 
 MADAME DE LA FATETTE. MADAME DE REMUS AT. 
 
 MADAME DE SODZA. MADAME DE KRUDENER. 
 
 MADAME ROLAND. MADAME OUIZOT. 
 
 MADAME DE STAEL. 
 
 To match " Madame Re"camier," ' Madame Swetchine," and " The 
 Friendships of Women." In one volume, 12mo. Price $2.00. 
 
 49- Mailed^ post-paid, to any address, on receipt of the price, by the 
 
 Publishers. 
 
THE LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 BY COUNT DE FALLOUX. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY H. W. PRESTON. 
 Sixth edition. 1 vol. 16ino. Price $2.00. 
 
 MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 BY LUCY LARCOM. 
 
 A well-written history of an excellent and gifted woman, like the * ; Life and 
 Letters of Madame Swetchine,-' by Count de Falloux, will naturally meet with a 
 welcome among people of the truest culture. Madame Swetchine was not a 
 woman who courted publicity ; but the thread of her life was so interwoven with 
 the political and religious movements of her time, it was impossible for her to 
 escape notice. And it brightens that dark period of strife between France and 
 Russia, with which the present century opened, to follow the life-track of this 
 Russian lady, who seemed to hare been equally at home in both countries. 
 
 She was intimately acquainted with the noblest men and women of that re- 
 markable period, and there is not one of them upon whom her friendship does not 
 cast a beautiful glow. 
 
 She was one of those rare beings who seem to have been created to draw out 
 what is best in others, by the power of sympathy and self-forge tfulness. She was 
 a woman of uncommon intellect, and of wide reading ; and every thing she read 
 was brought to the standard of a judgment remarkably clear and penetrative ; 
 indeed, her conversion to the Roman Catholic faith seems to have been mostly a 
 matter of the head, a choice between the Greek and the Roman ecclesiasticisms. 
 Long before her decision was made, her life shows her to have been a humble and 
 earnest Christian ; and, as such, as one whose sympathies took wing higher and 
 wider than the opinions in which she had caged herself, her history has a rare value. 
 
 One wonders at the amount of good accomplished by her, always a weak in- 
 valid. In order to understand how she lived, and what she did, the book must be 
 read through ; but some extracts might give a hint of it : 
 
 "She rarely gave what is called advice, an absolute solution of a given 
 problem : her humility made her shrink from direct responsibilities. She did not 
 lecture you. She did not set herself up as a model or guide. She did not say, 
 ' Walk thus ; ' but sweetly. ' Let us walk together ; ' and so, without making the 
 slightest pretensions, she often guided those she seemed to follow. Young and 
 old acknowledged her sway. She never evoked a sentiment of rivalry, because no 
 one ever detected in her a temptation to win admiration at the expense of others, 
 or to eclipse any person whatever. Her disinterestedness won pardon for her 
 superiority 
 
 u Sick and erring hearts came and revealed themselves to Madame Swetchine 
 in all sincerity ; and she shed upon them, sweetly and gradually, light and truth 
 and life. 
 
 " In her turn she drew from this intimate intercourse, added to her own ex- 
 quisite penetration, a knowledge of the human heart which amounted almost to 
 divination. She knew the science of the soul as physicians know that of the body. 
 
 " Her charity was not a careless and mechanical practice. She consecrated 
 to it all her strength and all her skill. Almsgiving was not, with her, the mere 
 fulfilment of a duty. She liked to give pleasure besides doing good, and her 
 heart always added something to what her hand gave." 
 
 Madame Swetchine lived a little beyond the boundaries of threescore and ten. 
 It is only ten years since she died. Heaven does not ask to what communion she 
 belonged, neither will posterity. The memory of her saintliness is a possession 
 to the church universal, in the present and in the future. Such a record as hers 
 is an inspiration to all who read ; such an example, the most imperative " Go 
 thou and do likewise." 
 
 Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, postpaid ', by the publishers. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 
 
THE WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 MADAME[SWETCHINK 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 COUNT DE FALLOUX, 
 
 OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY H. W. PRESTON. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 1869. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
5 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 
 
 HPHE favor with which the " Life and Letters of 
 Madame Swetchine " was received by the pub- 
 lic, has induced the belief that some portion of her 
 graver writings might also awaken general interest. 
 No woman of our time has felt more deeply, or 
 reasoned more keenly, on subjects of supreme mo- 
 ment, than she; few women of any time have 
 possessed in a more remarkable degree the gift of 
 gracious and vivid expression. The story of her 
 early doubts and struggles was told in the previous 
 volume : in this we have the fruit of her self- con- 
 quest, the gentle admonitions of her ripened wisdom, 
 the last serene results of her rich opportunities and her 
 reverent life. It is hoped that these pages may find 
 
VI TRANSLATOR S NOTE. 
 
 a welcome with all who love experimental no less 
 than speculative truth, and who recognize the essen- 
 tial unity, under whatever name or form, of all 
 profound religious experience. 
 
 HARRIET W. PRESTON. 
 DANVERS, Sept. 1, 1869. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE 1 
 
 AIRELLES. 
 
 KLUKVA PODSNEJNAIA 3 
 
 AIRELLES 4 
 
 ON Music 34 
 
 ON THE FIRMAMENT 35 
 
 ON NATURE 36 
 
 ON COURTESY 38 
 
 THOUGHTS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ON HERSELF. ON GOD. ON THE SOUL. ON THE 
 
 INTELLECT 41 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE WORLD. ON THE AFFECTIONS. ON DIF- 
 FERENT AGES. ON POLITICS 57 
 
 PAGES SELECTED FROM AN ALBUM 82 
 
 ON THE REPROACH OF EXCLUSIVENESS AS INCURRED 
 
 BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 84 
 
 ON THE CHURCH AND HER FORM 87 
 
 ON OLD AGE. 
 
 COMPILER'S DEDICATION 92 
 
 NUNC DIMITTIS 130 
 
 CHRISTIANITY, PROGRESS, AND CIVILIZATION ... 131 
 
VI 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 ON RESIGNATION. 
 
 PAGE 
 PREFACE 142 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ON RESIGNATION APART FROM CHRISTIANITY . . . 144 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE JUSTICE AND PROPRIETY OF RESIGNATION. ITS 
 
 DIFFERENT DEGREES 162 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 ON THE ADVANTAGES OF SUBMISSION 174 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 ON RESIGNATION TO SO-CALLED IRREPARABLE ILLS . 186 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE DIFFICULTY OF RESIGNATION TO SORROWS 
 
 CAUSED BY OUR FELLOW-BEINGS 198 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 How, IN THE WORLD AND OUT OF IT, EVERY THING 
 AND EVERY BEING, EXCEPT MAN, ACCOMPLISHES 
 GOD'S WILL, AND KEEPS IN THE PLACE ASSIGNED IT 211 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THAT THERE is AN EXCESS OF GRIEF WHICH BELIES 
 
 THE WORDS OF SUBMISSION ........ 223 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Is RESIGNATION COMPATIBLE WITH PRAYER, THAT GOD 
 WILL REMOVE THE EviL WHICH AFFLICTS OR 
 THREATENS US? 241 
 
 CONCLUSION 251 
 
WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 COMPILER'S PREFACE. 
 
 volume contains what may be called the 
 works of Madame Swetchine, unless that 
 term implies a degree of premeditation which she 
 never entertained. 
 
 The pages denominated w Airelles," a title of 
 Madame Swetchine's own selection, and those 
 only, were carefully collected by herself, and copied 
 into a small volume. 
 
 The "Pensees," and the succeeding pages, even 
 those which bear the name of " Treatise," were writ- 
 ten at different times, without any fixed plan or 
 reliable dates, upon loose leaves, thrust successively 
 into an envelope, or rolled into a shapeless bundle, 
 and confined by a pin. The writing is invariably 
 very rapid, and often almost illegible, much of it 
 being in pencil. 
 
 The " Treatise on Old Age " was far from being 
 finished according to the author's ideas. It was 
 necessary, before publication, to cut out certain frag- 
 ments, which were but summary indications of points 
 of view to which Madame Swetchine proposed to 
 
 1 
 
2 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 return ; also some unfinished inquiries and imperfect 
 sentences. 
 
 The " Treatise on Resignation " is more connected 
 and complete. It is divided into chapters, which 
 have already received their titles : but it is not fin- 
 ished ; and the multitude of indices shows us that 
 the author intended to retouch it in every part. 
 
 This labor, now of correction, now of co-ordina- 
 tion, always deeply respectful of Madame Swet- 
 chine's own primary thought, whenever it is distinctly 
 revealed, has required prodigious sagacity, pa- 
 tience, and devotion. I have a right to insist upon 
 these merits, for they are in no sense mine. Constant 
 trouble with my eyes has prevented me from reading 
 or writing for several years ; and I have been obliged 
 to call to my assistance other friends of Madame 
 Swetchine, who have been willing to be mine as 
 well. 
 
 I should not allow myself this personal confidence, 
 did not the strict fulfilment of my duty towards these 
 friends require it. I had only one way of discharg- 
 ing my debt, to place their names beside hers. 
 
 I venture to hope that the public will sympathize 
 with my feeling, if I select each one of my fellow- 
 laborers for a tribute of gratitude with regard to that 
 portion of the work which he has especially helped 
 to illustrate. 
 
 A. DE FALLOUX. 
 
AIRELLES. 
 
 KLUKVA PODSNEJNAIA. 
 
 (AN AlRELLE 1 WHICH HAS BEEN UNDER THE SNOW.) 
 
 Airelle is distinguished from all the others 
 by its shape and its" corolla. It is common in 
 all the northern marshes of Europe, Asia, and even 
 America, where it. creeps over the moss with its 
 loosely trailing stems. It blossoms in Russia in the 
 month of June, and the fruit ripens in October ; but 
 it is tart at this season, and to sweeten it, they let it 
 remain under the snow through the winter, and 
 gather it the ensuing spring. Hence its name, 
 podsnejnaia, that which has been under the snow. 
 Under the auspices of this simple flower, I have 
 placed the following thoughts. They, too, have 
 ripened under the snows, and taken their hue, like 
 this little red berry, from the fires of the interior sun. 
 The most of them were committed to writing during 
 the winter of 1811, which I passed in the country, 
 in profound retirement. They are utterances which 
 sprang from my own heart, but reached no other ; 
 impressions which clothed themselves in images to 
 people my solitude. 
 
 1 The Vaccinium Vitis Idsea, or Cowberry. 
 
WHITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 AIKELLES. 
 
 I. 
 
 Let our lives be pure as snow-fields, where our 
 footsteps leave a mark, but not a stain. 
 
 II. 
 
 In the season when nature is despoiled, there is 
 no lightest breeze or breath of wind which is not 
 strong enough to detach the leaf from the tree which 
 bore it. So, in the autumn of the heart, every 
 movement deprives us of a joy or a hope. 
 
 in. 
 
 To reveal imprudently the spot where we are 
 most sensitive and vulnerable, is to invite a blow. 
 The demi-god Achilles admitted no one to his con- 
 fidence. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Happiness and Vice are mutually exclusive : Hap- 
 piness and Repentance mutually prejudicial. Happi- 
 ness and Virtue clasp hands and walk together. 
 
 v. 
 
 When fresh sorrows have caused us to take some 
 steps in the right way, we may not complain. We 
 have invested in a life annuity, but the income 
 remains. 
 
AIRELLES. 5 
 
 VI. 
 
 The mind wears the colors of the soul, as a valet 
 those of his master. 
 
 VII. 
 
 There are souls which, like the pontiffs of the 
 ancient law, live only on the sacrifices they offer. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 There are people who never speak of themselves, 
 for fear of interrupting their own introspection. 
 
 IX. 
 
 With how many futile signs and superstitious 
 inductions do we not associate our destiny, when 
 impelled by a strong need of happiness ! All nature 
 then seems to conspire for or against us ; and there 
 is no one of her secrets which does not appear to be 
 mysteriously connected with our own. Poor hu- 
 manity ! so dependent, so insignificant, and yet so 
 great ! Who has not seen, on those green plains, 
 where the peaceful flocks graze with all the ease and 
 dignity of tranquil possession, the intelligent being, 
 the being who is superior to all the magnificence 
 of creation, subordinating all his hopes for the 
 future to the destiny of a few leaves left motionless, 
 or carried away by the wind ; following with unquiet 
 eye the course of a cloud, or calling on the daisy to 
 declare the sentiments of his beloved. 
 
6 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 X. 
 
 The second Paulus JEmilius had two sons : the 
 first died three days before his father's triumph ; 
 the second, three days after. Such is the universal 
 fate of man. He dies before he is happy, or has but 
 a few days in which to be so. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The beings who appear cold, but are only timid, 
 adore where they dare to love. 
 
 XII. 
 
 It would seem that by our sorrows only we are 
 called to a knowledge of the Infinite. Are we 
 happy? The limits of life constrain us on all sides. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 In retirement, the passage of time seems accele- 
 rated. Nothing warns us of its flight. It is a wave 
 which never murmurs, because there is no obstacle 
 to its flow. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 What is resignation ? It is putting God between 
 one's self and one's grief. 
 
 xv. 
 
 There is an English song beginning, "Love 
 
AIRELLES. 7 
 
 knocks at the door." He knocks less often than he 
 finds it open. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Those who have made the strength born of pas- 
 sion conducive to their return to virtue, are like the 
 people in the neighborhood of Vesuvius, whose 
 dwellings are constructed out of the very lava which 
 threatened to destroy them. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Exaggerated expressions do not chord with the 
 idea, and wound the ear of an exact mind. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Those who have suffered much are like those who 
 know many languages : they have learned to under- 
 stand and be understood by all. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 We may say of many Christians, whose actions 
 do not correspond with their words, " The voice is 
 Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." 
 
 XX. 
 
 There are but two future verbs which man may 
 appropriate confidently and without pride : " I shall 
 suffer," arid "I shall die." 
 
8 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 "Do not pity him : he is to blame." Harsh and 
 revolting expression ! He is to blame. The words 
 excite my keenest and most tender compassion. The 
 innocent, when oppressed by fate or by man, has 
 two unfailing asylums, God and his own conscience. 
 But the guilty dares neither lift his eyes to the 
 God whom he has offended, nor descend into him- 
 self, where he encounters a manifold remorse. His 
 last and sole refuge is our pity. Ah ! let us esteem 
 and admire persecuted and ever triumphant virtue ; 
 but let our tears fall upon the sores of conscience 
 like the Samaritan's oil. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 How difficult is purity to the pure ! A little 
 pollen is enough to rob the lily of its whiteness. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 If it were ever allowable to forget what is due to 
 superiority of rank, it would be when the privileged 
 themselves remember it. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 That mysterious stone on which Jacob reposed 
 was faith. Let us, too, sleep on its breast, and our 
 future greatness will be revealed to us. 
 
AIRELLES. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 We do not judge men by what they are in them- 
 selves, but by what they are relatively to us. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Impassioned characters never attain their mark 
 till they have overshot it. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Conscience is, at once, the sweetest and most trou- 
 blesome of guests. It is the voice which demanded 
 Abel of his brother, or that celestial harmony which 
 vibrated in the ears of the martyrs, and soothed their 
 sufferings. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 The literature of Russia is a little like that iron 
 money of Lacedsemon, which had no circulation out 
 of the country. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 There are questions so indiscreet, that they de- 
 serve neither truth nor falsehood in reply. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 The symptoms of compassion and benevolence, in 
 some people, are like those minute guns which warn 
 you that you are in deadly peril. 
 1* 
 
10 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 O widow's mite ! Why hast thou not, in human 
 balances, the immense weight which celestial pity 
 accords thee? 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 One may make a solitude in the depths of his own 
 heart, in the midst of a dissipated and worldly life. 
 He may also, when his isolation becomes oppressive, 
 people that solitude with beings after his own heart, 
 and adapted solely to his purposes. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 The magic gifts of Oriental romance, which be- 
 nevolent fairies dispensed freely and at will, are, it may 
 be, a fantastic image of those more real boons which 
 Providence has impartially distributed among all men. 
 Thus, our volition recalls that mysterious ring which 
 was endowed with creative power, prudence, 
 the talisman which anticipates or avoids danger ; 
 the imagination, the wonderful carpet which rendered 
 all places present, and annihilated distance ; resig- 
 nation, finally, the universal balm, since it soothes and 
 calms even the evils which it cannot cure. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Humility is a cuirass which turns aside the blows 
 dealt by the enmity of man ; but that cuirass is de- 
 fective at the heart. 
 
AIRELLES. 11 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 There are words which are worth as much as the 
 best actions, for they contain the germ of them all. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Courtesy, in the mistress of a house, consists in 
 feeding conversation, never in usurping it. She 
 is the guardian of this species of sacred fire, but it 
 must be accessible to all. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Misfortune is, like the honest man, as good as 
 her word. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 The qualities destined to subserve the happiness of 
 others, remain too often idle and self-centred, like 
 charming letters, which have never been sent. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The injustice of men subserves the justice of God, 
 and often his mercy. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Before Socrates, it was said, "Let us do good to 
 those who love us, and evil to those who hate." 
 Socrates changed the precept, and said, "Let us do 
 good to our friends, and let us do no evil to our ene- 
 mies." Only Jesus Christ says, "Bless them that 
 
12 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 curse you." It belongs to the Saviour of men alone, 
 to train them to supernatural virtues. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 It is necessary, sometimes, to refrain from ques- 
 tioning our friends, that we may not draw from them 
 what we ought not to know, and especially that we 
 may not tempt them to deceive us. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst 
 for happiness, while a single grief suffices to shroud 
 life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness 
 at all points. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Let us desire no more intellect than is requisite for 
 perfect goodness, and that is no small degree ; for 
 goodness consists in a knowledge of all the needs of 
 others, and all the means of supplying them which 
 exist within ourselves. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Mental culture and a well-regulated education 
 assist the memory. An isolated idea is with diffi- 
 culty impressed upon the mind ; but when the 
 newly acquired notion finds a point of contact already 
 prepared in the intellect, it fastens upon what is 
 analogous to itself, and forms, along with its antece- 
 
AIRELLES. 13 
 
 dents and consequents, a chain whose very prolon- 
 gation is the assurance of its strength. Here, as 
 elsewhere, the richer one is, the easier it is to in- 
 crease in riches ; and here, too, the parable of the 
 talents applies, " To him that hath shall be given, and 
 from him that hath not shall be taken away even that 
 which he seemeth to have." 
 
 XLV. 
 
 The smile upon the old man's lip, like the last rays 
 of the setting sun, pierces the heart with a sweet and 
 sad emotion. There is still a ray, there is still a 
 smile ; but they may be the last. 
 
 XL VI. 
 
 There are minds constructed like the eyes of certain 
 insects, which discern, with admirable distinctness, 
 the most delicate lineaments and finest veins of the 
 leaf which bears them, but are totally unable to take 
 in the ensemble of the plant or shrub. When error 
 has effected an entrance into such minds, it remains 
 there impregnable, because no general view assists 
 them in throwing off the chance impression of the 
 moment. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 In the conflicts into which we are betrayed by pas- 
 sion, it is especially just to say, " Vce victis /" 
 
14 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 The most culpable of the excesses of Liberty is 
 the harm she does herself. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Let us resist the opinion of the world fearlessly, 
 provided only that our self-respect grows in pro- 
 portion to our indifference. 
 
 L. 
 
 Alas for him, who, in the tranquillity of his heart, 
 desires death, while there are yet sacrifices for him 
 to make, happiness to secure, wants to anticipate, 
 or tears to wipe away. 
 
 LI. 
 
 I would say of princes as the Protestants say of a 
 higher Master, " service without worship." 
 
 LII. 
 
 If we devoted to the understanding of a thing the 
 time we consume in appearing to have understood it, 
 and listened all the while that we are revolving our 
 own replies, would it not be better for the world? 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity. 
 
AIRELLES. 15 
 
 LV. 
 
 Providence has willed that all the virtues should 
 originate in actual wants, and all the vices in factitious 
 ones. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Love sometimes elevates, creates new qualities, 
 suspends the working of evil inclinations ; but only 
 for a day. Love, then, is an Oriental despot, 
 whose glance lifts a slave from the dust, and then 
 consigns him to it again. 
 
 LYI. 
 
 We are always looking into the future, but we 
 see only the past. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 It is by doing right that we arrive at just princi- 
 ples of action. 
 
 LYIII. 
 
 Indifferent souls never part. Impassioned souls 
 part, and return to one another, because they can 
 do no better. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 He who has ceased to enjoy his friend's supe- 
 riority has ceased to love him. 
 
 LX. 
 
 Would you push the sinner to extremes, dis- 
 courage the weak, and cause the sore heart to fes- 
 
16 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 ter? Assume the uncompromising severity of stern 
 and haughty speech, and rest assured that the bad 
 passions which provoke your zeal will redouble their 
 violence. Oh, you who have surrendered your hearts 
 to God, forget for a moment, if possible, your hatred 
 of vice, if you would snatch away its victims ! Ani- 
 mated by this sacred and consoling hope, let the 
 wholesome knife, with which your hand is armed, 
 penetrate, without tearing, the wound ! Lift up, after 
 you have cast down ! Have ready pity for every 
 fault, a ray of hope for every trial. Let not the 
 unfortunate, as he leaves your presence, cry, "All is 
 lost," (terrible words ! they are hell in themselves ! ) 
 but let him bless you as a comforter, and feel that all 
 may yet be regained. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 is 
 
 The courage with which we have met past dangers 
 often our best security in the present. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 The chrysalis is a type of the old man. He vege- 
 tates, and is torpid ; but he will live ; and, during this 
 slumber and temporary impassibility, the wings are 
 forming which shall bear him on to immortality. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Loving souls are like paupers. They live on 
 what is given them. 
 
AIRELLES. 17 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 There are things which we cannot help knowing, 
 but which we must never acknowledge. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 The most dangerous of all flattery is the inferior- 
 ity of those about us. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 The labor which perfects our intellectual faculties, 
 while it develops, elevates, rectifies, and clarifies or 
 dilutes our ideas, is the source of a wealth which tands 
 to become inherent, and which positively augments our 
 individual worth. Those acquirements which simply 
 furnish the mind ; which are imported into it without 
 taking root, or adding any thing to its power and 
 compass, are our property, indeed ; but they are not 
 ourselves ; and they leave us, in point of moral value, 
 exactly where they found us. Gold, tortoise-shell, 
 and ivory may embellish a lyre ; but these vain 
 ornaments can never cause it to send forth full 
 and sonorous tones. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 To have ideas is to gather flowers. To think is 
 to weave them into garlands. 
 
18 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHESTE. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 We estimate the virtue of others by its fruits ; 
 our own, by the sacrifices it enables us to accomplish. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Real sorrow is almost as difficult to discover as real 
 poverty. An instinctive delicacy hides the rags of 
 the one, and the wounds of the other. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 He who has never denied himself, for the sake of 
 giving, has but glanced at the joys of charity. We 
 owe our superfluity ; and, to be happy in the perform- 
 ance of our duty, we must exceed it. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 How can that gift leave a trace, which has left no 
 void? 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 There are sinners whose justification is nowhere, 
 and their excuse everywhere. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 In strong and thoughtful characters, the motives of 
 action and conduct generally must be sought in fixed 
 principles ; while the ground of the ideas by which 
 impetuous characters suppose themselves to be gov- 
 erned is found in the sway of passing impressions. 
 
AIRELLES. 19 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 w Is not life useful when it is happy ? " asks the 
 egotist. " Is it not sufficiently happy when it is use- 
 ful? " asks the good man. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Since there must be chimeras, why is not per- 
 fection the chimera of all men? 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 "Prayer," says St. Jerome, "is a groan." Ah! 
 our groans are prayers, as well. The very cry of 
 distress is an involuntary appeal to that invisible 
 Power whose aid the soul invokes. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 The chains which cramp us most are those which 
 
 weigh on us least. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Virtue is the daughter of Keligion : Eepentance, 
 her adopted child a poor orphan who, without the 
 asylum which she offers, would not know where to 
 hide her sole treasure, her tears ! 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 There are people who betray their friends a little, 
 just for the sake of showing that they are faithful. 
 
20 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 When Charity commands us to love indifferent per- 
 sons " as ourselves," it doubtless authorizes us to love 
 our friends better. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 Indulgence is lovely in the sinless ; toleration ador- 
 able in the pious and believing heart. Modesty is 
 especially becoming to superiority, affability to great- 
 ness, moderation and simplicity to wealth, and self- 
 forgetfulness to those who never forget others. But 
 the guilty, obscure, or commonplace man has too 
 much interest in the goodness of others, for his own 
 to be taken kindly. He is always in the position of 
 an unfortunate debtor who is seeking to soften his 
 creditor's heart; and, when any disposition is useful, 
 it is rarely unsuspected. The virtuous man alone 
 can be compassionate and generous at his ease. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 If we would go on to perfection, we must take care 
 not to refer back to external causes our faults and 
 deviations from duty, even those which may be 
 called accidental. Our faults are indeed our misfor- 
 tunes ; but their memory is a precious heritage ; for 
 they alone, it may be, cause us seriously to reflect. 
 Let us not repudiate their moral teaching for the sake 
 of ridding ourselves of their troublesome weight, but 
 rather strive unceasingly to ascend from the effect to 
 the cause within. Let us deny the involuntary theory, 
 
AIRELLES. 21 
 
 reject that of accident, and accuse none but our- 
 selves. Let us take note of the misgivings of con- 
 science, of impulses whose origin is obscure or 
 suspicious, of nameless remorse. Let us note these 
 things, and give ourselves no uneasiness ; " The 
 Lord knoweth them that are his." 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 Let us ever exceed our appointed duties, and keep 
 within our lawful pleasures. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 The freest and the most despotic governments rep- 
 resent the two regimes under which religion is most 
 needful to man. In the first, there is an excess of 
 life, and of development of the individual will, which 
 may become a source of disorder and of danger if 
 its exercise be not regulated by the restraints of an 
 interior law. Under the second, which includes every 
 variety of social evil, man cannot have too many of 
 the hopes of heaven, or the consolations of earth, to 
 enable him patiently to endure humiliation and mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 By becoming more unhappy, we sometimes learn 
 how to be less so. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 "Woman is in some sort divine," said the ancient 
 
22 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 German. " Woman," says the follower of Mahomet, 
 "is an amiable creature, who only needs a cage." 
 "Woman/ 5 says the European, "is a being nearly 
 our equal in intelligence, and perhaps our superior in 
 fidelity." Everywhere something detracted from our 
 dignity ! It is very like the history of the dog ! 
 a god in one country ; muzzled or imprisoned in 
 many others ; and sometimes " the best friend of his 
 master." 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 Those who make us happy are always thankful to 
 us for being so. Their gratitude is the reward of 
 their own benefits. 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 It is not true that a strong feeling is necessarily 
 exclusive. On the contrary, a lively affection, if 
 happy, brings into play our faculties of loving, and 
 increases their activity outside the circle of the 
 primary interest. Ah, how rich is the overflow of a 
 softened heart ! 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 We are early struck by bold conceptions and bril- 
 liant thoughts : later, we learn to appreciate natural 
 grace and the charm of simplicity. In early youth, 
 we are hardly sensible of any but very lively emo- 
 tions. All that is not dazzling appears dull ; all 
 that is not affecting, cold. Conspicuous beauties 
 overshadow those which must be sought; and the 
 
AIRELLES. 23 
 
 mind, in its haste to enjoy, demands facile pleasures. 
 Ripe age inspires us with other thoughts. We re- 
 trace our steps ; taste critically what, before, we de- 
 voured ; study, and make discoveries : and the ray 
 of light, decomposed under our hands, yields a thou- 
 sand shades for one color. 
 
 xc. 
 
 w Firenze non si muove, se tutta non si duole" 1 
 says an old Tuscan proverb. There are many souls 
 like Florence. 
 
 xci. 
 
 Our faults afflict us more than our good deeds con- 
 sole. Pain is ever uppermost, in the conscience as 
 in the heart. 
 
 XCII. 
 
 Friendship is like those ancient altars, where the 
 unhappy, and even the guilty, found a sure asylum. 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 I would sooner believe in a happiness born of tears, 
 than in a joy which should be compatible with aridity 
 of soul. The obstacles to the bliss of a loving heart 
 are external. The hard heart bears them within ; 
 and the more immediate cause has also more certain 
 effects. A few plants still lift their moist heads above 
 
 1 If Florence is moved, all things suffer. 
 
24 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 inundated plains ; but the sands of the shore are 
 always sterile. 
 
 xciv. 
 
 We expect every thing, and are prepared for noth- 
 ing. 
 
 xcv. 
 
 A good, finished scandal, fully armed and equipped, 
 such as circulates in the world, is rarely the produc- 
 tion of a single individual, or even of a single co- 
 terie. It sees the light in one ; is rocked and nurtured 
 in another ; is petted, developed, and attains its 
 growth in a third ; and receives its finishing touches 
 only after passing through a multitude of hands. It 
 is a child that can count a host of fathers, all ready 
 to disown it. 
 
 xcvi. 
 
 Suspicion has its dupes, as well as credulity. 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 In the first part of life, we give every thing to* 
 others, and expect every thing from them. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 Eepentance is accepted remorse. 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 The doctrine of compensation is one of those whose 
 truth becomes ever more and more apparent; but 
 
AIRELLES. 25 
 
 those who are blessed with outward advantages, are 
 not to appropriate it without hesitation, or maintain 
 it without caution. It would ill become him who has 
 been happy in the long run (though every day may 
 have brought its trials) to insist upon an equilibrium 
 which seems to have been disturbed in his favor. It 
 is on the lips of the poor and oppressed that this 
 truth becomes powerful, and serves the cause of vir- 
 tue by reminding us of the noble and saintly joys 
 which God has ordained by way of counterpoise to 
 grief, misery, and despair. 
 
 o. 
 
 A good action leaves behind it an impression of 
 seemingly incompatible effects. On the one hand, it 
 attaches us to life ; on the other, it strengthens us 
 against death. In the first instance, it mediates be- 
 tween us and our sorrows ; in the second, between 
 God and our sins. The Christian is the only man 
 who can, logically, both love life and desire death ; 
 and have we not here the secret of that sovereign 
 good which Plato sought? 
 
 01. 
 
 Parodies, on things I love, either disgust me, or 
 trouble my conscience. Nothing that has touched the 
 heart ought ever to be profaned. 
 
 2 
 
26 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 on. 
 
 Men do not go out to meet misfortune as we do. 
 They learn it; and we, we divine it. 
 
 cm. 
 
 It is marvellous to think how much cannot be done 
 by those who can do every thing. 
 
 Civ. 
 Devotion, like genius, has its feats of daring. 
 
 cv. 
 
 All chains weary : and if we shake them, they gall 
 us. God doubtless has permitted this, that one yoke 
 may be easy, and one burden light. 
 
 cvi. 
 
 Let us not fail to scatter along our pathway the 
 seeds of kindness and sympathy. Some of them will 
 doubtless perish; but if one only lives, it will per- 
 fume our steps and rejoice our eyes. 
 
 cvn. 
 
 When Friendship asks for her share, Love is always 
 disposed to answer, " You will have nothing while I 
 live." " Ah, well, my Lord ; I can wait ! " 
 
 cvm. 
 
 There is nothing at all in life, except what we put 
 there. 
 
AIRELLES. 27 
 
 CIX. 
 
 Strength alone knows conflict ; Weakness is below 
 even defeat, and is born vanquished. 
 
 ex. 
 
 In each new trial, we must seek for the chastise- 
 ment, or the warning, which it implies. Every ex- 
 ternal event is a fable which illustrates some moral 
 truth. 
 
 CXI. 
 
 " Moi seule, c'est assez." l 
 The " moi " of Medea, is " God " for the Christian. 
 
 1 I alone am sufficient. This a quotation from Corneille's Me- 
 dee, and the entire passsage is as follows : 
 
 NERINE. 
 
 Forcez 1'aveuglement dont vous etes seduite, 
 Pour voir en quel e'tat le sort vous a reduite : 
 Votre pays vous hait, votre epoux est sans foi. 
 Dans un si grand revers que vous reste-t-il 1 
 
 MEDEE. 
 
 Moi! 
 Moi, dis-je, et c'est assez 
 
 NERINE. 
 
 Quoi, vous seule, Madame ? 
 MEDEE. 
 
 Oui, tu vois en moi seule et le fer et la flamme, 
 Et la terre et la mer, et Tenfer et les cieux, 
 Et le sceptre des rois ? et le foudre des dieux. 
 Of this passage, Voltaire says, 
 
 " Ce moi est celebre. C'est le Medea super est de Seneque. Ce qui 
 suit est encore une traduction de Seneque." TR. 
 
28 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 CXII. 
 
 Man's inclination is to know all ; to understand all, 
 even at the price of his own happiness. Has he been 
 wounded by a few isolated words ? He regrets that 
 he was unable to seize their connection. Has some 
 trifling anxiety ruffled the surface of his heart ? He 
 cannot rest till he has reduced it to a melancholy cer- 
 tainty. In short, were misfortune at hand under 
 her most fearful aspect, wrapped in the folds of a 
 triple cloak, his consuming instinct would force him to 
 remove them all. 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 . It is a mercy to the rich that there are poor. Alms 
 is but the material life of the latter : it is, at least in 
 a degree, the spiritual life of the former. If the rich 
 could not give, they might still be charitable : the 
 heart has a thousand ways for that ; but the portion 
 of wealth which they retain , would no longer be puri- 
 fied, ennobled, and sanctified by that which they dis- 
 pense. 
 
 CXIV. 
 
 Love enters the heart unawares : takes precedence 
 of all the emotions, or, at least, will be second to 
 none, and even reflection becomes its accomplice. 
 While it lives, it renders blind ; and when it has 
 struck its roots deep only itself can shake them. It 
 reminds one of hospitality as practised among the 
 ancients. The stranger was received upon the thresh- 
 
AIKELLES. 29 
 
 old of the half-open door, and introduced into the 
 sanctuary reserved for the Penates. Not until every 
 attention had been lavished upon him did the host 
 ask his name ; and the question was sometimes de- 
 ferred till the very moment of departure. 
 
 cxv. 
 
 Only a just appreciation of things will enable us to 
 possess them tranquilly, or console ourselves for their 
 loss. 
 
 cxvi. 
 
 The world has no sympathy with any but positive 
 griefs. It will pity you for what you lose ; never for 
 what you lack. 
 
 CXVII. 
 
 It is only in heaven that angels have as much abil- 
 ity as demons. 
 
 CXVIII. 
 
 There are not good things enough in life to indem- 
 nify us for the neglect of a single duty. 
 
 CXIX. 
 
 Intellectual pride is less outraged by the obscurities 
 of faith than by the authority with which it is clothed. 
 
 cxx. 
 
 There are people who never give their hearts : they 
 lend them, and always at high interest. 
 
30 WHITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 CXXI. 
 
 Moral difficulties the perplexity attendant on 
 conflicting interests and duties, between which we 
 cannot choose, and dare not decide have often made 
 me think that it is the will of Providence to im- 
 pose mysteries upon the conscience, as well as the 
 mind. On the one hand, we have the faith that sub- 
 mits blindly ; on the other, the heart humiliated, 
 because it cannot take refuge in the certainty of 
 having done right. 
 
 CXXII. 
 
 Kindness causes us to learn, and to forget, many 
 things. 
 
 CXXIII. 
 
 Pride dries the tears of anger and vexation ; hu- 
 mility, those of grief. The one is indignant that we 
 should suffer ; the other calms us by the reminder 
 that we deserve nothing else. 
 
 CXXIV. 
 
 I would rather choose my griefs than my joys, 
 because I dread the former more than I anticipate the 
 latter. 
 
 cxxv. 
 
 A woman who has never been pretty has never 
 been young. 
 
AIRELLES. 31 
 
 CXXVI. 
 
 Let us guard against touching those strings whose 
 ready and sad vibration carries us back to a time of lost 
 happiness. The conquerors of Scotland endeavored to 
 insure their peaceful possession of the country by 
 interdicting to her bards those pensive, yet stirring, 
 airs, wherein yet lingered all the power of the olden 
 time. 
 
 CXXVII. 
 
 Silence is like nightfall. Objects are lost in it in- 
 sensibly. 
 
 CXXVIII. 
 
 There is nothing steadfast in life but our mem- 
 ories. We are sure of keeping intact only that 
 which we have lost. 
 
 CXXIX. 
 
 Attention is a silent and perpetual flattery. 
 
 / 
 
 cxxx. 
 
 I can understand the things that afflict mankind, 
 but I often marvel at those which console. An atom 
 may wound, but God alone can heal. 
 
 CXXXI. 
 
 Servility is almost always worse than insubordina- 
 tion. 
 
32 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 CXXXII. 
 
 If it were allowable to use proper names, how easy- 
 it would be to make out a list of the ninety-and-nine 
 just persons, whose safety causes less joy in heaven 
 than the repentance of a single sinner ! 
 
 CXXXIII. 
 
 Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and 
 the serious part of frivolous ones. 
 
 CXXXIV. 
 
 There is a rapture, an eloquence, a brilliancy, and 
 an animation of the mind, which belongs peculiarly 
 to youth, and corresponds to that condition of the 
 body which is called "La beaut du diable." 
 
 cxxxv. 
 
 It is possible to be cured of every thing and sick 
 of nothing. 
 
 CXXXVI. 
 
 Power is the act ; authority, the right. The one 
 compels, the other induces, submission. 
 
 CXXXVII. 
 
 We want justice from indifferent persons, and par- 
 tiality from those we love. And the more such 
 partiality transcends our deserts, the more evident is 
 the source of so sweet a misconception. 
 
AIRELLES. 33 
 
 CXXXVIII. 
 
 We are rich only through what we give, and poor 
 only through what we refuse. 
 
 CXXXIX. 
 
 Nothing can be more insolent than some forms of 
 indulgence. There are people who absolve you with 
 the air of having the right to condemn. 
 
 CXL. 
 
 In youth, we feel the richer for every new illusion; 
 in mature years, for every one we lose. 
 
 CXLI. 
 
 What a difference it makes in private relations, 
 whether one is irreproachable, or merely unimpeach- 
 able ! 
 
 CXLII. 
 
 No two persons ever read the same book, or saw 
 the same picture. 
 
 CXLIII. 
 
 We are often prophets to others only because we 
 are our own historians. 
 
 CXLIV. 
 
 There is a transcendent power in example. We 
 reform others unconsciously when we walk uprightly. 
 
 CXLV. 
 
 Men are always invoking justice ; and it is justice 
 which should make them tremble. 
 
 2* 
 
34 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 ON MUSIC. 
 
 Harmony and melody which have an equal 
 share in the effects produced by sound find their 
 original type, it may be, in the double nature of the 
 universe, and of human destiny considered socially 
 and individually. Harmony, like the external world 
 and its moving masses, presents us with various 
 parts, linked together and arranged so as to subserve 
 one and the same end. Regular and measured in its 
 movement as the celestial orbs, no deviation is 
 allowable even in its boldest flight. An almighty 
 will seems to have bound it to magnificence and 
 grandeur, restricting its freedom to the latitude of the 
 laws whose expression it is. * But melody is thor- 
 oughly moral, and consequently free. It is the 
 heart's utterance, and follows and renders its emotions 
 faithfully. When brilliant, it recalls our joys ; when 
 sweet and lingering, it portrays our rare and de- 
 licious intervals of repose. It sighs for our disquie- 
 tudes and sways beneath our sorrows, like a friend 
 who shares them. Would it reproduce the sad and 
 vague yearnings which by turns agitate and soothe 
 the soul of man? its songs are as dreamy as his 
 chimeras. Melody is but one thought at a time, but 
 mobile and rapid it renders all thoughts in suc- 
 cession and tells the tale of a complete destiny. 
 ' Harmony, with its grand effects, seems made to appeal 
 to assembled men ; melody, to transport the memory 
 
AIRELLES. 35 
 
 in solitude. Words may of course be adapted to a 
 piece of pure harmony ; but they are only accessory, 
 When melody is associated with human speech, they 
 rival one another in charm and in power. Speech 
 is, indeed, the heart's expression ; but melody re- 
 mains its accent. 
 
 ON THE FIRMAMENT. 
 
 Is it not amid the rigors of winter that the celestial 
 vault impresses us most deeply as the region of the 
 immutable and the eternal ? Type of the world of 
 souls ! there is no trace of time in that kingdom 
 of space. There is beauty without spot or wrinkle, 
 immortal youth. Like the soul, the sky has 
 dates, but not age. Like the soul, it has no night, 
 but changes its lights as the soul varies in bright- 
 ness. The succession of the seasons causes the vicissi- 
 tudes of the earth, its burning heats and hoary 
 frosts, its long and sad intervals of desolation. But, 
 by a sublime immunity, the heaven, although created, 
 knows neither change nor decay. In the day-time, 
 waves of light burst from its glowing central fire ; 
 in the night its dark depths sparkle with innumera- 
 ble suns. The mighty immobility of its planets, 
 or their triumphal march beneath the watchful gaze 
 of the Most High, seem to image the impassibility of 
 the saints or their swift and irresistible zeal. Thus, 
 while nature bound beneath the yoke of the winter 
 solstice, desolate, mute, hiding her nakedness in a 
 
36 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 shroud seems to accuse man of sin and its fatal 
 consequences ; the sky remains blue ; the sun keeps 
 the gold of his beams, the moon her silver clearness, 
 the stars the blaze of their many-colored diamonds : 
 in a word, the vault of heaven, resplendent and glori- 
 ously arrayed, seems like the heart of the good man 
 to celebrate a perpetual feast, the feast of the 
 promised restoration. Kindly mother though she be, 
 the Earth sometimes allows her breasts to dry ; but 
 the fount of light never fails, the world could not 
 live else. Again and again the day dawns and the 
 shadows flee away, that we may be lured to the 
 sweetness of a hope in the future. Nothing is irre- 
 vocable, within or without us. The cloud parts, the 
 mist rises, the vapor disappears ; and the trustful, 
 hopeful, watchful observer is comforted. Power is 
 watching over him, under the form of imperishable 
 beauty. 
 
 ON NATURE. 
 
 The diverse aspects of nature, like the manifold 
 meanings of art, are so many voices which pene- 
 trate the heart and speak to the intelligence. Every 
 thing in the visible world, the world which we see 
 and hear, expresses the heart's thought or responds 
 thereto. Tis the old story in another language ; for 
 nature, too, is what the fall of man has made it. Its 
 scenes and effects have a mysterious analogy with 
 the dispositions we bear within, both with those we 
 
AIRELLES. 37 
 
 would resist and those whose triumph we would 
 secure. The result of the connection is, that this 
 inanimate, insensible nature is not without its effect 
 on us, that our moral impressions depend upon 
 it and it does us good or harm. According to the 
 page which arrests our attention in this great book 
 of nature, we find ourselves modified. By turns, it 
 strengthens or seduces us, troubles or calms ; causes 
 to circulate in our veins the pure air of the moun- 
 tains with its swift and buoyant life, or the perfumed 
 breezes of the valley with their perfidious softness. 
 We yield to the influence of the phenomena which 
 it displays in our sight. Thus, its grand perturba- 
 tions unsettle us : a terrible fatality seems to urge 
 us toward the yawning chasm. The rocks, piled 
 and jagged, like petrified tempests, remind us of 
 other terrible and lasting ravages. Vertigo seizes 
 us on steep and lofty heights ; and a close and narrow 
 horizon fatigues the eye, which requires space as the 
 soul requires a future. The sublime majesty of the 
 ocean or the Alps transports us, enchants us, gives 
 us glimpses of other heavens beyond the clouds ; 
 yet soon the need of rest, even from admiration, 
 forces itself upon us. In consequence of this re- 
 action, when urged by a longing for strength and 
 peace we fly the foaming, hurrying torrent, the 
 running stream which makes us dream too much, 
 the river which flows into the distance. Instinct- 
 ively, and as if to assure the free possession of our- 
 
38 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 selves, we pause on the shore of those peaceful 
 lakes, those wonderful sheets whose aspect, at once 
 solemn and serene, raises the tone of our medita- 
 tions. In such a tranquil and harmonious mood, 
 nothing appeals or responds to us more perfectly 
 than those shadowy tarns hidden in the recesses of 
 the mountains, whose glassy surface is another azure 
 sky. What thought and feeling does it not awaken, 
 
 that solitary, remote, silent, nameless lake ? Pure, 
 limpid waters in a verdant cup, a single glance 
 takes in their charming unity. Living, but restrained 
 within limits which they cannot pass, they seem like 
 wisdom reconciled to necessity. Ask the lake the 
 secret of its deep inner life, and it answers by the 
 rich vegetation of its border. Life and its blessings 
 are everywhere on its banks, and in its bosom ; 
 danger, nowhere. The wave upon its surface stirs 
 not the golden sands of its bed ; it hides no ruins, 
 for it has seen no shipwreck. 
 
 ON COURTESY. 
 
 Courtesy in the world is by no means a false 
 and culpable pretence. It softens rather than dis- 
 simulates ; and, on the whole, since it deceives 
 nobody, it cannot be accused of falsehood. Incom- 
 patibility of character ; the profound and radical 
 differences which are born of principles drawn from 
 hostile sources ; the eager pursuit of conflicting ends, 
 
 all these elements of discord, brought into play by 
 
AIRELLES. 39 
 
 the lively irritability of self-love, wounded pride, or 
 opposing interests, make it hard to understand why 
 the assembling together of men is not oftener the 
 occasion of strife, invective, and bitter provocation. 
 Yet the effect, in our salons, is very far from cor- 
 responding to the universal cause. Without greatly 
 vaunting its motives, urbanity comes to our aid. 
 By the blandness of its forms, it supplies the place 
 of the justice and moderation which ought to reign 
 within. The most decided opinions are shorn of 
 all outward acerbity ; and, while they do not entirely 
 cease to manifest themselves, yet, by suppressing all 
 show of hostility, and moderating their forms of ex- 
 pression, they are enabled to inflict no mutual 
 wounds, but to pass one another, like two clouds 
 charged with electricity, near enough for recogni- 
 tion, but not for contact. This species of sordino, 
 imposed upon the sentiments, might easily have the 
 effect of hardening in error a mind trained in an in- 
 ferior civilization ; and which, accustomed to a differ- 
 ent diapason, might mistake for indifference, laxity, 
 or scepticism, the forms which are made supple to 
 avoid needless friction. For those who can read in 
 this dim light, a word, an interval of silence, an illu- 
 sion ever so remote, the slightest change of intona- 
 tion, suffice : and the result is, that, if no one 
 expresses his thought exactly as he feels it, no one 
 stops at the precise form of expression ; but the 
 clear and actual sense is discovered, and remains in 
 
40 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 the intellect only, as the nude may be distinguished 
 beneath the drapery. If we study politeness in its 
 models, we shall find that it never leads, I will not 
 say to falsehood, but to the slightest concession even ; 
 and that, to a practised eye, the genuine thought dis- 
 engages itself in perfect integrity from the forms by 
 which it is surrounded. Doubtless, a just toleration, 
 a disposition to respect the ideas and convictions of 
 every free and intelligent being, would be preferable to 
 arrangements which are but skin-deep ; but a spirit 
 of deference at once steadfast, sincere, and enlight- 
 ened, belongs to a perfection so rare that the major- 
 ity of men must remain strangers thereto. A less 
 lofty principle of action is needed ; and such a princi- 
 ple is expressed in that system of delicate calcula- 
 tions and permissions which has received the name 
 of savoir-vivre, perhaps because it is the condition 
 of all mixed, social life. 
 
THOUGHTS. 
 
 COMPILER'S DEDICATION. 
 To M. L'ABBE DE CAZALES AND COMTE JULES DE BERTON, WITH 
 
 THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS OF A. DE FALLOUX. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON HERSELF. ON GOD. ON THE SOUL. ON THE 
 
 INTELLECT. 
 
 I. 
 
 f LOVE knowledge ; I love intellect ; I love faith ; 
 simple faith yet more. I love God's shadow 
 better than man's light. 
 
 n. 
 
 It is singular, the tendency of many pious 
 minds to grant an easy entrance to all that borders 
 on the supernatural. My own disposition is the 
 very reverse of this. It is faith which preserves me 
 from credulity. 
 
42 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 III. 
 
 I love God as if he were alone in the universe. 
 I pity the human race as if there were no God. 
 There is an abyss between these two extremes, which 
 is bridged by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In the matter of good-pleasure I love none but 
 God's. That is always good. 
 
 v. 
 
 I tell thee of every thing, O my God ! I engage 
 thee in all my occupations. I invite thee to share 
 in all my interests. It is so simple, can it be over- 
 bold? 
 
 VI. 
 
 If one were to ask me the idea which I derive, 
 from my own experience, of the happiness of heaven, 
 I should answer, "Heaven is to love in peace." 
 
 VII. 
 
 I feel toward God as they say the Russian women 
 feel toward their husbands ; the more he beats me, ' 
 the better I love him. That is all the devil gains by 
 my chastisements. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 I have too often departed from God ; but 
 praised be his name ! I have never separated my- 
 self from him. 
 
THOUGHTS. 43 
 
 IX. 
 
 Eesignation is, to some extent, spoiled for me by 
 the fact that it is so entirely conformable to the laws 
 of common sense. I should like just a little more of 
 the supernatural in the practice of my favorite 
 virtue. 
 
 x. 
 
 My God, forgive me, and do what thou wilt ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 My sole defence against the natural horror which 
 death inspires, is to love beyond it. 
 
 XII. 
 
 " What ! " said some one to me during one of my 
 severe neuralgic attacks, "can you love a God who 
 tries you so?" "Ah, Madame! it is not a rare 
 thing. I love one who makes me suffer." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 My God ! cause me to do something which thou 
 canst reward ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 O God, my destiny is in thy hands ! I place it 
 there ! I would place it there if it were elsewhere ! 
 I will ever renew the act of placing it there ! 
 
44 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 XV. 
 
 God sees all. After years of accumulated suffer- 
 ing, can I wish to-day that I had never suffered? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The solemn, wonderful, majestic ocean ! It exalts, 
 but only to crush me under a sense of its grandeur, 
 boundless, everlasting, pitiless of my insignifi- 
 cance. Wherein does it differ from me? In im- 
 mensity of breadth and depth. What does it give 
 me? A sense of infinity, and of the abyss which 
 divides me from it. The ocean, in its might and 
 unresting immutability, in the proportions which 
 transcend the boldest flights of thought, is God, 
 but God without his Christ. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The inventory of my faith for this lower world is 
 soon made out. I believe in Him who made it. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 I give myself up to God as one who knows that 
 in justice God owes him nothing. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 I am my true self only in God's presence. My 
 sorrows lie so deep, so far below the surface, that I 
 have too little breath to bring them up. 
 
THOUGHTS. 45 
 
 XX. 
 
 I value time next to eternity. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 I have not another moment to lose or to waste. 
 In the last days, we put the finishing touches. 
 Thank God ! I feel that I am in the right way. The 
 banks seem to fly. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Our relations with God are such that our obsta- 
 cles are all means. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The fact that God has prohibited despair gives 
 misfortune the right to hope all things, and leaves 
 
 hope free to dare all things. 
 
 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The events of life are a sacred text on which the 
 mind may ponder and comment. How can we fail 
 to follow with attention and respect yea, often 
 with gratitude and rapture the chain of circum- 
 stances which has accomplished a thought of God. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 There can be no little things in this world, seeing 
 that God mingles in all. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 We recognize the action of God in great things : 
 
46 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 we exclude it in small. We forget that the Lord of 
 eternity is also the Lord of the hour. 
 
 XXYII. 
 
 Human life is an open book, where we read in 
 every line a justification of God's law. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 What we comprehend of God is, not what he is 
 in himself, but what he wills that we should compre- 
 hend. The treasure of divine knowledge is twofold : 
 the full, entire, and final verity, which is God 
 himself; and those minor verities eternal, in- 
 deed, but only half revealed which he enjoins, 
 that is to say, imposes, on the children of men. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 The Christian's God is a God of metamorphoses. 
 You cast grief into his bosom : you draw thence, 
 peace. You cast in despair : 'tis hope that rises to 
 the surface. It is a sinner whose heart he moves. 
 It is a saint who returns him thanks. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 My experience is, that Christianity dispels more 
 mystery than it involves. With Christianity, it is 
 twilight in the world ; without it, night. Christian- 
 ity does not finish the statue, that is heaven's 
 
THOUGHTS. 47 
 
 work ; but it " rough-hews " all things, truth, 
 the mind, the soul. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 To believe that aught can be needful which God 
 denies, is a most stupid error. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Is the patient a physician, that he should choose his 
 remedies ? 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 The obscurities of faith always permit us to see a 
 little way into the impenetrable. They are a curtain 
 which is never withdrawn, but which we are always 
 lifting. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Faith, amid the disorders of a sinful life, is like 
 the lamp burning in an ancient tomb. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Piety is the guardian of faith. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Piety softens all that courage bears. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 We must labor unceasingly to render our piety 
 reasonable, and our reason pious. 
 
48 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 The joys of religion are understood only by those 
 who partake of them. Of all kinds of happiness, 
 this is the one whose expression should be most mod- 
 erate and humble in the presence of those who do 
 not share it. " When you enter the house of a blind 
 man," says an Andalusian proverb, " shut your eyes." 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Prayer has a right to the word ineffable. It is an 
 hour of outpourings, which words cannot express, 
 of that interior speech which we do not articulate, 
 even when we employ it. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Buffon has said, " The style is the man." The 
 prayer also is the man, the inner man. It is the 
 Ecce-Homo, uttered, not to the Jews, but to God. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 We should abandon ourselves to God most entire- 
 ly when he seems to be abandoning us. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Our sins are as far transcended by the divine pity, 
 as the innumerable by the infinite. 
 
 XLIII. 
 Salvation is a dual work. As in the incarnation, 
 
THOUGHTS. 49 
 
 there is implied a God and a man, divine grace 
 and human effort. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Christians are sometimes weak ; but does any but a 
 Christian ever strive to become strong? 
 
 XLV. 
 
 There is, by God's grace, an immeasurable distance 
 between late and too late. 
 
 XLYI. 
 
 I allow the Catholic only one right ; that, namely, 
 of being a better man than others. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 The saints , though rescued from the dangers which 
 prove fatal to the majority of men, are still not ex- 
 empt from conflict. The world has stolen from the 
 interior life the law which ordains that a man can be 
 tried only by his peers. Each one of us has a for- 
 midable personal foe ; but it is much to have es- 
 caped the common Enemy. 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 I like people to be saints ; but I want them to be 
 first, and superlatively, honest men. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 The root of sanctity is sanity. A man must be 
 3 
 
50 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 healthy before he can be holy. We bathe first, and 
 then perfume. 
 
 L. 
 
 There are admirable examples which, when applied 
 by the weak and faulty to their own case, are trans- 
 formed into snares. 
 
 LI. 
 
 God has not chosen to flatter our curiosity by any 
 of his revelations. What he reveals to man is the 
 end assigned him, and the means of attaining that 
 end. Doctrine and morals constitute an essential 
 part of these means. 
 
 LII. 
 
 God has entrusted man with the raw material. He 
 creates the world, and gives it to man to finish. Man 
 originates nothing, but continues and develops all 
 things. Speech is furnished him ; and he invents 
 writing. The ocean, fresh from God's hands, puts 
 continents asunder : man makes it only the broadest 
 of highways. The earth is delivered to him rough, 
 and often sterile. He smooths and renders it pro- 
 ductive. He grafts the wild stock. And, in the 
 plan of salvation, the sufferings of believers finish 
 and perfect the passion of our Lord. 
 
 Mil. 
 
 A miracle is medicinal, but never surgical ; invis- 
 ible in its action and known only in its results. You 
 
THOUGHTS. 51 
 
 see it, you apprehend it ; but you do not find that 
 coarse evidence which precludes the slightest doubt. 
 In religion, all is on the same plan. Light is ever 
 mixed with darkness, and why? That faith may 
 be a virtue. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 If we look closely at this earth, where God seems 
 so utterly forgotten, we shall find that it is he, after 
 all, who commands the most fidelity and the most 
 love. 
 
 LV. 
 
 How good it is of God, to have said in so many 
 words in his gospel, " He that loveth father or 
 mother more than me, is not worthy of me ! " If 
 these words had not been spoken for the eternal jus- 
 tification of those who rise above their natural affec- 
 tions, to what torture would it not have exposed 
 hearts stung by the love of God ! For their trans- 
 ports would have remained the same. Equally would 
 they have been possessed by a feeling of the empti- 
 ness of all that is not God, and an impetuous and 
 exclusive ardor for all that he is. The lever would 
 have been as powerful as now ; but, with no support 
 against flesh and blood in the express word of God, 
 how much doubt and uneasiness this ruling pas- 
 sion would have excited in their minds ! They would 
 still have loved as they love now ; but they would 
 have dissimulated in their actions, and concealed the 
 living flame from all eyes, as men hide a shameful 
 
52 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 passion. God says decisively that he will be pre- 
 ferred. He does not merely permit : he enjoins it 
 upon all, just so far as this sentiment may be re- 
 conciled with their other duties ; and there are 
 those for whom all duties are summed up in the gift 
 of themselves to God. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Pantheism, which confounds divine and human 
 nature, has no more formidable enemy than the dog- 
 ma of the incarnation, which unites them ; for there 
 is nothing more utterly exclusive of identity than 
 union. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 The Church, it is an inquiry for truth upon 
 earth. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 " Who will guard the guards ? " says a Latin verse : 
 " Quis custodiet ipsos cuslodes?" I answer, The 
 enemy. It is the enemy who keeps the sentinel 
 watchful. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 We can neither soar very high, nor dive very 
 deep, without coming upon one of two regions fertile 
 in truth ; the realm of God's perfections, and that 
 of man's misery. 
 
 LX. 
 
 In religious matters, moderation has its own crim- 
 inals, the neutral. 
 
THOUGHTS. 53 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Faith is best realized in sacrifice. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 The Catholic religion is like exuberant nature, 
 lavishing its treasures in the very desert, and in 
 generous disproportion, not to the needs, but, alas ! 
 to the disposition, of those who profit by them. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Where the principle is right, God excludes noth- 
 ing and sacrifices nothing ; not the humblest virtue 
 to the loftiest, not the smallest truth to the most sub- 
 lime. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Miracles are God's coups d'etat. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 The heart of the true Christian cannot be opened 
 without there escaping thence gold, incense, and 
 alas ! myrrh also. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Nothing is exempt from the universal doom of de- 
 generation and disintegration. Evil shows its head, 
 its sharp tooth, its fang. A certain amount of evil 
 is done ; but it is limited and separable. The Re- 
 deemer is ever on the watch. 
 
54 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Defensive warfare, in the cause of religion, is the 
 most noble of all ; offensive, the most hateful. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 The Christian's cup may be brimful of sorrow ; but 
 for him the overflowing drop is never added. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 When two conflicting truths are brought face to 
 face, we must accept neither. We must tell our- 
 selves that there is a third withheld among the secrets 
 of God ; which, when it is revealed, will reconcile 
 them. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 The depths of the soul are a labyrinth, and dark 
 without the torch of religion. Left to ourselves, we 
 are like subterranean waters, we reflect only the 
 gloomy vault of human destiny. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 There are souls, of every age and every clime, 
 which are contemporaries and compatriots. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 The very might of the human intellect reveals its 
 limits. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 Our gains are proportioned to our possessions. 
 
THOUGHTS. 55 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 Writing with a pencil is like speaking in a low 
 voice. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 It is but just that we should purchase our plea- 
 sures, but the moment when we pay is a hard one. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 Every better moment deepens our regrets. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 Language itself declares the inferiority of the col- 
 lective to the singular. To begin with a Supreme 
 example, compare what we feel when we say, the 
 gods, and God ; men, and man. And so in inferior 
 matters : an assurance of regard is a promise of 
 affection ; to present one's regards is only an amen- 
 ity. One may speak of his friends, without either 
 having or giving the idea that he has a friend. Re- 
 spect is a serious thing for him who feels it, and the 
 height of honor for him who inspires the feeling ; my 
 respects are but a formula. An interest in life is all 
 we can desire. Our interests are next to nothing. 
 It is a pleasant thing to give occasion for a compli- 
 ment. My compliments run at large. Everybody 
 has enemies. To have an enemy is quite another 
 thing. One must be somebody in order to have an 
 enemy. One must be a force, before he can be re- 
 sisted by another force. 
 
56 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Immortality ! If man had it not, his soul would 
 miss not merely the future, but the past ; for these 
 two are correlative. Without God and ourselves, 
 the past would be nowhere. Nothingness would be 
 behind and before us, and memory as vain as hope. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Truth only is prolific. Error, sterile in itself, 
 produces only by means of the portion of ' truth 
 which it contains. It may have offspring, but the 
 life which it gives like that of the hybrid races 
 cannot be transmitted. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Let us never seek for truth outside the Church, 
 nor leave it torpid in her bosom. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 The trace of original sin is found in every soul, 
 like that of the deluge on the highest mountains. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 I see none but God who can reconcile us with the 
 world. 
 
THOUGHTS. 57 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE WORLD. ON THE AFFECTIONS. * ON DIFFER- 
 ENT AGES. ON POLITICS. ' 
 
 I. 
 
 LET my terrace face the East ! There is a myste- 
 rious affinity between this fancy of mine and my 
 decided taste for the dawn of excellent things. Of 
 all " rising suns " I except only that of prosperity ; 
 but I bow like a true courtier before the earliest rays 
 of piety, virtue, and talent. 
 
 II. 
 
 When society is good for me, I need everybody ; 
 when bad, nobody. 
 
 in. 
 
 I love to please those who please me, and I do 
 not hate to displease those who please me not. So 
 I am sympathetic even in my antipathies. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Man always exaggerates his own importance, and 
 underrates his own worth. 
 
 3* 
 
58 WHITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 V. 
 
 The best advice on the art of being happy is about 
 as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is 
 sick. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Providence* has hidden a charm in difficult under- 
 takings, which is appreciated only by those who 
 dare to grapple with them. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The gift of birth is a very different thing from the 
 gift of life. To be born is to have every chance of 
 a blessed immortality ; to live is too often to forfeit 
 them all. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 It is not true that heavy sorrows diminish our 
 sensibility to trifling pains. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Misfortune has few riddles for him who believes 
 that the sole design of Providence is the perfecting 
 of mankind. 
 
 x. 
 
 A great sorrow does not always contain the ruin 
 of a great joy. 
 
 XI. 
 
 In a healthy state of the organism, all wounds 
 have a tendency to heal. 
 
THOUGHTS. 59 
 
 / 
 XII. 
 
 There is that in the impetuosity of passion, which 
 precludes the idea of moral corruption. The waves 
 of the torrent are troubled, and foam, and stir up 
 the very mud of its bed ; but only immobility 
 makes water stagnant and induces that slow and 
 general decomposition which alters the very essence 
 of the element. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 I am not the one to be severe upon despair : I 
 know too well how much courage is needed to 
 resist it. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The hidden good in the soul of a sinner would 
 reconcile me to the guiltiest. The evil I encounter 
 in the virtuous repels, and renders me inexorable. 
 Do I excuse too much in the one case, and demand 
 too much in the other? 
 
 XV. 
 
 Whenever there is any thing inexplicable in the 
 conduct of estimable people, we must found our 
 hypotheses on our esteem. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Superior qualities are never conscious of them- 
 selves. Who ever thought himself humble without 
 being made proud by that very fact? Does not 
 
60 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 generosity believe that it owes all it gives ; and 
 when did innocence ever know itself to be chaste? 
 
 xvn. 
 
 I can understand contempt for actions. Contempt 
 for men I do not allow myself to feel ; and I find no 
 trace of it in holy writ. For who, let me ask, is the 
 man whom we despise to-day? One whom we may 
 be forced to admire to-morrow. In the infinite re- 
 sources which God has placed in the depths of every 
 human soul, there is a power of reaction, repara- 
 tion, and rehabilitation, which transcends the utmost 
 limits of evil. By God's grace the most abject of 
 his creatures may rise to the rank of a celestial force. 
 Only things that cannot change deserve contempt, 
 the void left by pleasures ardently pursued, the 
 honors and emoluments which the sages of this 
 world are so far from despising. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Consolation is not the business of our equals : the 
 Master reserves that to himself. But we may learn 
 the conditions which fit us to receive sovereign con- 
 solation. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 There is no place like a convent for keeping one's 
 memories fresh, and the same is true of the country, 
 though in a very inferior degree. In great cities, 
 
THOUGHTS. 61 
 
 the absent are already dead ; and the dead, as if they 
 had never been. 
 
 If we would be equal to difficult undertakings, 
 we must prepare for them long beforehand. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 There is a species of interlocutor who rides at 
 anchor. His silence follows your speech, and he 
 makes no attempt to comprehend or enter into it. 
 You feel executed without being judged. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The dilution of ideas which I love is intolerable 
 to me. I like sugar, and hate sirup. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 In the matter of criticism, I not merely respect 
 severity in the examination of serious questions, 
 I like it : I do not want the cup sweetened. Only, 
 truth upon one point necessitates the same upon 
 all others, and blame expressed implies commen- 
 dation wherever it is possible. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 He who is not allowed to blame has a right to 
 withhold his praise. 
 
62 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Where there is a question of economy, I prefer 
 privation. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 When man revolts against the gospel, he takes 
 another master, himself: one who renders all 
 inferior masters possible. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 To do nothing is not always to lose one's time. 
 To do what we do carelessly, is to lose it inevitably. 
 It is weariness without profit. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Situations are like skeins of thread or silk. To 
 make the most of them, we need only to take them 
 by the right end. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 We have no right to force the conscience of him 
 to whom we deny liberty. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 "Judge not," saith the Lord : the justice of which 
 is obvious, in a world where there are no innocent to 
 judge the guilty. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 God himself allows certain faults ; and often we 
 may say, "I have deserved to err. I have deserved 
 to be ignorant. 
 
THOUGHTS. 63 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Let us shun every thing which might tend to efface 
 the primitive lineaments of our individuality. Let 
 us reflect that each one of us is a thought of God. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 We deceive ourselves when we fancy that only 
 weakness needs support. Strength needs it far more. 
 A straw or a feather sustains itself long in the air. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 We often need to ask advice ; not always that we 
 may follow it, but always that we may obtain more 
 light. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Every one must find out for himself the key to the 
 riddle of life. It is of no use to have it told. Some 
 do not hear ; others misunderstand it. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 What we need most is often the very thing we do 
 not know. Often, also, we can make no use of what 
 we do know . 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 The best of lessons, for a good many people, would 
 be to listen at a key-hole. 'Tis a pity for such that 
 the practice is dishonorable. 
 
64 WHITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 We forgive too little forget too much. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 We must do every thing for others ; if only to di- 
 vert our minds from what they fail to do for us. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Only those faults which we encounter in ourselves 
 are insufferable to us in others. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 By entering into the thought of another, we recon- 
 cile him to our own. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Our actual wants have definite conditions and lim- 
 its. Our factitious ones obey no interior law, but 
 run wild, without rule or measure. "Now that I am 
 no longer hungry," said Mine, de Sevigne*, "I will 
 eat as much as you please." 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Good is slow : it climbs. Evil is swift : it de- 
 scends. Why should we marvel that it makes great 
 progress in a short time? 
 
 XLIV. 
 One must be a believer, to combat superstition ; 
 
THOUGHTS. 65 
 
 liberal, to contend against license ; profoundly reli- 
 gious, before he can reprove fanaticism and extol 
 tolerance. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 There are cases where a thing which is only rea- 
 sonable, ceases to be so for that very reason. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Morality is the heart's truth ; faith, that of the 
 understanding. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Consolation heals without contact ; somewhat like 
 the blessed air which we need but to breathe. 
 
 XL VIII. 
 
 One who is very variable cannot be very sincere : 
 to-day's truth is to-morrow's falsehood ; or, at least, 
 it is but a momentary sincerity. 
 
 XJLJX. 
 
 We owe the truth to all who ask it ; but, thank 
 God, we are not obliged to convince them of it. 
 
 L. 
 
 Might we not say to the confused voices which 
 sometimes arise from the depths of our being, " Mes- 
 dames, be so kind as to speak only four at a time "? 
 
66 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Situations where success is indispensable are bad. 
 Those only are good in which the peaceful conscience 
 can dispense with success, when all is done. 
 
 LII. 
 
 I once said to some one, "You represent to me 
 that degree of moral worth which one must have, in 
 order to deserve punishment." 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Philosophers say that causation plays a great part 
 in the history of our faults, especially those of habit. 
 It is in their causes that these must be attacked. We 
 need to contend, not so much against the actions 
 themselves, as the dispositions out of which they 
 spring. Go back to the fountain, if you would pu- 
 rify the stream. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 It is not so hard as people suppose, to be faithful 
 to one's engagements. The engagement which is to 
 be kept, keeps you in its turn. It cuts hesitation to 
 the quick, and protects the will with all the power of 
 a promulgated decree. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Moral or intellectual evidence has other laws than 
 physical evidence, but it is not one whit less author- 
 itative. There is a species of proposition to which 
 
THOUGHTS. 67 
 
 you must assent, as you must surrender when a hun- 
 dred bayonets are pointed at your breast. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 If you speak the truth with moderation , separ- 
 ating its substance from all alloy of human passion, 
 you are not to blame for the wrathful opposition 
 it may encounter. But, if you strain it, if you 
 wrest it from its sacred impassibility, if you do 
 not maintain it with absolute sincerity, you are 
 responsible for the revolt which it excites, and for 
 the consequences which may ensue. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 He who serves ideas rather than men is never de- 
 ceived. Ideas may triumph, or not ; but they never 
 cease to be themselves. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 That a man should enjoy publishing his writings, 
 seems to me very natural. Ideas and facts belong to 
 him. But greater reserve is, in my opinion, incum- 
 bent upon women, who have only their feelings to 
 express, for feeling loves a subdued light. When 
 a man shows himself, he accomplishes his mission : 
 to let themselves be seen is the utmost that is allow- 
 able, for the women of Europe. 
 
68 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Why did the Invincible Armada perish, despite 
 the beauty of its vessels, and the long-tried experi- 
 ence of its mariners ? Probably the very fact that it 
 called itself invincible had some share in its defeat. 
 God allows us the epithet only after the fact. 
 
 LX. 
 
 Nothing can be replaced ; for the excellent reason , 
 that no two things are alike. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 We should never sin if we kept constantly before 
 our eyes the Last Judgment, or even our own. The 
 grand assizes of the valley of Jehoshaphat begin for 
 us each day. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 We never do very well, except in those cases 
 where if we did otherwise we should not do ill. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 In this world of change, naught which comes 
 stays, and naught which goes is lost. 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Every time we have committed a fault, we must 
 aim anew at perfection, and all the more if the fault 
 be a grievous one, thus putting faith and trust in 
 
THOUGHTS. 69 
 
 God in the place marked by nature with discourage- 
 ment. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 There is a certain water in the world whose taste 
 never varies, be the hand that offers it constitutional, 
 monarchical, republican, or autocratic. It is the 
 holy water of courts. Everywhere you find it clear, 
 colorless, and insipid. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 When we see the shameful fortunes amassed in all 
 quarters of the globe, are we not impelled to exclaim 
 that Judas's thirty pieces of silver have fructified 
 across the centuries? 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 The only true method of action in this world, is to 
 be in it, but not of it. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all ; as 
 it does in a comedy. The truth is precisely the 
 reverse. It begins all. So they say of death, "It 
 is the end of all things." Yes just as much as 
 marriage. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 M. Ballanche says, that people must be of the 
 same mind in order to dispute. It is very true ; 
 just as, to strike, one must be near enough for con- 
 
70 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 tact. The cannon-ball attains a vast distance ; but, 
 one hair's breadth beyond its range, its force is nil. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 It must be conceded that, after affection, habit has 
 its peculiar value. It is a little stream, which flows 
 softly, but freshens every thing along its course. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 When two people agree upon fundamentals, even 
 if they do not suit one another they have many 
 points of contact. But this spiritual commerce is 
 never like the sailing abreast of two ships on the 
 open sea. It is a kind of coasting-trade from one 
 port to another. No progress is made, and to meet 
 is not to voyage together. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 There are minds like those Chinese ladies who 
 cripple themselves out of coquetry. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 The mysticism of the heart is of a better quality, 
 and far safer, than the mysticism of the head. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 People who are in a hurry to speak have seldom 
 any thing to say. Thought and ideas presuppose 
 an intellectual effort. 
 
THOUGHTS. 71 
 
 LXXY. 
 
 Antiquity is a species of aristocracy with which 
 it is not easy to be on visiting terms. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 The choicest of the public are not always the 
 public choice. 
 
 LXXVIT. 
 
 I have often seen pious persons very attractive 
 to those who are not so. The life of piety, the 
 unction it breathes, that interior prism radiating 
 outward, exercise a charm inexplicable even to the 
 hearts that feel it. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 It was said of Mgr. Affre, " He is hard and 
 cold." Yes, and so is marble ; but beautiful things 
 are made of it constantly. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Whenever disparagement sums up by denying the 
 existence of any given quality, you may be sure 
 that 'the quality exists in some degree. "Such a 
 one," people say, "has no mind." Yet he must have 
 a little, or they would not take pains to establish the 
 contrary. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Intolerance on the part of the philosophical and 
 indifferent, that most illogical combination, re- 
 
72 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 minds one of the jealousy of women who do not 
 love their husbands. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 How many people are like dogs who seem to be 
 looking for a master ! 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 It is under the seemingly identical influence of 
 the same passion that the diversities of individual 
 character come out. Pride leads one to what would 
 be the extreme of humiliation for another. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 Of how many people it may be said that their 
 penetration is never quite subordinated to their sense 
 of justice, save when it can promise them the pleas- 
 ure of disapproval ! 
 
 LXXXI V. 
 
 The great danger of gifted people is, that they are 
 not much better assured than others against falling 
 into error ; while they have a great many more ways 
 of rendering it harmful. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 When party-spirit, with all its passionate exag- 
 gerations, gets possession of a mediocre intellect, it 
 deals the final blow. The poor soul never had light ; 
 and now it loses liberty. It must perforce return 
 
THOUGHTS. 73 
 
 upon itself, describing ever narrower and narrower 
 circles. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 There are people whose good fortune it is, never 
 to be deceived or undeceived save when their in- 
 terest requires it. The way the right becomes dim or 
 luminous to them is always marvellously opportune. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 The great need of many is an interlocutor. They 
 have listened, and then they have spoken, but they 
 have never had an opportunity either to converse or 
 to respond. 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 Many friendships subsist on the reflection of one. 
 To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving 
 in all others. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 The old friendships, safe, genuine, and firmly 
 built, for which we take little thought, and which 
 always avail us, are like those good thick walls of 
 by-gone days ; which need no repairs and are ever 
 ready for shelter or defence. 
 
 xc. 
 
 There are hearts whose mere kindness sheds more 
 rays than the love of others, as the moon of Naples 
 shines with a softer splendor than many a sun. 
 
 4 
 
74 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHIJSE. 
 
 XCI. 
 
 To love our friends is often not enough to satisfy 
 them. We must also hate those whom they do not 
 love. 
 
 XCII. 
 
 The ideal of friendship is to feel as one while 
 remaining two. 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 Demonstrations of affection, in this world, are, for 
 the most part, payment in counterfeit money. Yet 
 some counters are better gilded than others. 
 
 xciv. 
 
 A vast number of attachments subsist on the 
 common hatred of a third person. 
 
 xcv. 
 
 What do we need to make us considerate ? Much 
 good sense, and a drop of pity in the heart. 
 
 xcvi. 
 
 We are amused through the intellect, but 'tis the 
 heart that saves us from ennui. 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 The heart has always the pardoning-power. 
 
THOUGHTS. 75 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 Youth should be a savings-bank. 
 
 xcix. 
 
 A woman who consecrates her fidelity to a sinful 
 affection is like those workmen who substitute Mon- 
 day for Sunday. 
 
 c. 
 
 While we are still young, we enhance our youth 
 coquettishly for this world's sake. When we are 
 old, we think to deceive death so. 
 
 ci. 
 
 Years do not make sages : they only make old 
 men. 
 
 en. 
 
 In youth, grief comes with a rush and overflow, 
 but it dries up, too, like the torrent. In the winter 
 of life it remains a miserable pool, resisting all evap- 
 oration. 
 
 cm. 
 
 A woman in years pleases an old man least of all. 
 
 Civ. 
 
 When we are old, we may sometimes enlighten, 
 but we can no longer persuade. 
 
76 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 CV. 
 
 Old age has nothing to expect from men, but 
 every thing from God. Its helplessness is greater 
 than that of infancy ; for infancy finds universal sym- 
 pathy with its weakness, but the only arm which 
 can support the aged is the arm of the Lord. De- 
 spite his misery, the old man is like a king, be- 
 holden to God alone. 
 
 cvi. 
 
 The void left by death is sometimes greater than 
 the place filled in life. 
 
 CVII. 
 
 Unhappily, they only whose life is secluded, seek 
 retirement. 
 
 CVIII. 
 
 The most conspicuous benefit of retirement is, that 
 we issue from it ever more satisfied with God, and 
 less satisfied with ourselves. 
 
 CIX. 
 
 Our habits, our external arrangements, our dwell- 
 ings, and the order which we observe in them, are 
 but the extension of our personality. We are all 
 more or less like spiders, stretching out a web 
 made of our own substance. 
 
 ex. 
 
 We do not sufficiently consider that the genuine, 
 
THOUGHTS. 77 
 
 undisputed blessings such as youth, strength, vir- 
 tue, talent, and health are blessings shared by all. 
 With regard to these, there is no privileged class. 
 
 CXI. 
 
 So I must remain a fixture in Paris ! What mat- 
 ters it, after all? The sky, the streams, the woods, 
 that is to say, God, his grace, and the safe asy- 
 lum where we are flooded with its joy, are not 
 these everywhere? 
 
 cxn. 
 
 Eailroads will greatly injure our dwellings ; but, 
 as to our affections, they can only harm themselves. 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 In the age in which we live, the impossible is 
 every day losing ground. 
 
 cxiv. 
 
 Our age is so evidently an age of signal frankness, 
 that even the apothecaries do not gild their pills. 
 
 cxv. 
 
 People read every thing nowadays, except books. 
 
 cxvi. 
 
 There are times when it would seem as if God 
 fished with a line, and the devil with a net. 
 
78 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 CXVII. 
 
 America has begun her career at the culminating 
 point of life ; as Adam did at the age of thirty. 
 
 CXVIII. 
 
 Revolutions use one to seeing in the vanquished 
 of to-day the victor of to-morrow. The constant 
 thought of surprises makes us instinctively provide 
 for all times in one. There is no oblivion save that 
 of eternity. We neither extol nor defend what is, 
 and we smile at what may be. 
 
 CXIX. 
 
 France is so strong that she need proscribe but 
 one thing, proscription. 
 
 cxx. 
 
 However sound and loyal one may be, it is ex- 
 tremely hard always to side with the party in the 
 midst of which one lives. 
 
 CXXI. 
 
 Those who undertake the government of a country 
 with the avowed purpose of regenerating it, seem to 
 me like women who marry in the hope of converting 
 their future lords. The rashness of the enterprise 
 would be more conspicuous, if the former did not, at 
 all events, obtain power, and the latter a husband. 
 
THOUGHTS. 79 
 
 CXXII. 
 
 The real state of a nation or a man is as hard to 
 determine as the true time. Every one goes habitu- 
 ally by his own watch, M. Arago as well as an- 
 other. 
 
 CXXIII. 
 
 God transforms, purifies, perfects. There are 
 certain schools which can only mutilate, cut off, and 
 destroy. God's mode of procedure seems to dis- 
 please them. They like exclusion better than selec- 
 tion. 
 
 cxxiv. 
 
 I love the standard, but not the uniform. 
 
 cxxv. 
 
 Liberty must be a mighty thing ; for by it God 
 punishes and rewards nations. 
 
 cxxvi. 
 
 Liberty has no actual rights which are not grafted 
 upon justice : and the chief duty of liberty is to 
 defend justice. 
 
 cxxvu. 
 
 If the wind is not in the right quarter, nothing can 
 be done. Danger itself has no threat or menace. 
 It is the same in politics as in religion, when souls 
 are to be converted. Till the hour of free grace 
 strikes, the most persuasive voice, the best of books, 
 
80 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 the greatest orators, the tenderest whisper of the 
 most ardent zeal, all are powerless with the heart, 
 which is not exactly hard, scarcely heedless, and by 
 no means corrupt. It is somewhat like love, which 
 comes when it pleases. In vain you accumulate 
 torches. The damp wood smokes, perhaps, but it 
 will not light ; but, after a while, when the wind has 
 dried it, a single match will set the whole in a blaze. 
 
 CXXVIII. 
 
 France has only repudiated incomplete and incon- 
 sequent doctrines. She awaits the signal which shall 
 permit her to breathe in her institutions an air clearer 
 than that of doubt, more strengthening than that of 
 schism, holier than that of personal interest. The 
 suitor for whom she waits is God. 
 
 CXXIX. 
 
 I see the earth tilled, but I do not see the seed. 
 
 cxxx. 
 
 France does not desire revolutions ; but whether 
 she knows it or not she desires revolution. 
 
 OXXXI. 
 
 Loyalty is patriotism simplified. 
 
THOUGHTS. 81 
 
 CXXXII. 
 
 I have never dreaded but one thing, the abso- 
 lute triumph of an individual. 
 
 CXXXIII. 
 
 I love victory, but I love not triumph. 
 
 CXXXIV. 
 
 It is difficult and I would it were impossible 
 for a statesman to defend a line of policy contrary to 
 his instincts and principles. There is a moral in a 
 man's falling with the system he has sustained. 
 
 cxxxv. 
 
 When any one tells you that he belongs to no 
 party, you may at any rate be sure that he does not 
 belong to yours. 
 
 CXXXVI. 
 
 When men attain freedom for which they are un- 
 prepared, their faults are exaggerated. The strong 
 become violent ; the weak, lax. 
 
 cxxxvu. 
 
 There are two ways of attaining an important end, 
 force and perseverance. Force falls to the lot only 
 of the privileged few, but austere and sustained per- 
 severance can be practised by the most insignificant. 
 Its silent power grows irresistible with time. 
 
 4* 
 
SOME PAGES FEOM AN ALBUM 
 
 PRESENTED BY MADAME SWETCHINE 
 ON A MARRIAGE-EVE. 
 
 A LFEED has given you, dear Mary, a book con- 
 *-^- taining your mutual vows, a joint utterance 
 which may well call down the blessings of Heaven 
 upon your union. To this sacred volume permit me 
 to add another, whose fair pages contain as yet only 
 the image of her whose name you bear, 1 and who has 
 been given you for a mother in heaven by your ex- 
 cellent mother on earth. 
 
 Thus, while under the inspiration of the Church 
 which has consecrated them, your hearts, clinging to 
 the words of Alfred's book, shall soar heavenward 
 with these, I anticipate for my little album a des- 
 tiny humbler, but not less sweet. Let it receive the 
 confession of your spontaneous and inmost emotions, 
 of the pious thoughts which your very happiness 
 shall suggest ; for, if pleasure is rarely Christian, 
 nothing is so justly dependent upon conscience as 
 happiness. 
 
 1 The Album opens with a picture of the Virgin. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM AN ALBUM. 83 
 
 My dear friends, I love to think that these leaves 
 will " receive " your thoughts and feelings commin- 
 gled, and that what is traced by the hand of each in 
 turn will find a swift and sure echo in the heart of 
 the other. What need of more than one word to ex- 
 press the thought of two hearts really united ? From 
 one and the same cup you are to drink the life that 
 God has appointed you. Sat una duabus. The same 
 page will yield you its reflections. Some day, long 
 hence, these little records will assist you to go back 
 the way you have come ; and to retrace the duties you 
 have accomplished, and the efforts you have made, 
 together ; many a joy turned to profit ; many a 
 rapture concealed in sorrow, even, if sorrow has been 
 freely shared ; and all by means of living souvenirs 
 and dates understood by you alone. And I, too, shall 
 sometimes be associated with the little book which is 
 to pass from my hands into yours. You must call to 
 mind that, when I gave it you, I blessed you a thou- 
 sand times ; that, even before I knew you, dear 
 Mary, I loved you, and that you had a share in my 
 hopes before you crowned those of the heart that has 
 chosen you. 
 
 Come quickly, then, and take your part, and dou- 
 ble mine, in the sweets of a deeply cherished affec- 
 tion, and let me believe that some memory of me 
 will always live in the fond and faithful hearts of 
 you both. 
 
 MAY 12, 1841. 
 
ON THE 
 
 REPROACH OF EXCLUSIVENESS 
 
 INCURRED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 "V\ 7HAT shall we say to the accusation of reli- 
 * * gious exclusiveness, which they bring against 
 the Catholic Church ? If it is to be understood in the 
 sense of philosophical and logical intolerance, it may 
 be remarked that the Church has this in common 
 with every positive system ; which by affirming truth 
 on the one hand, necessarily implies error as its con- 
 tradictory. The very existence of any given sect de- 
 pends upon its preferring itself to all others ; because 
 the propositions to which, individually and collective- 
 ly, it yields adherence, represent, for that sect, abso- 
 lute truth. The sciences are no less positive in 
 reference to the subjects of which they treat. How, 
 then, is the Catholic Church peculiarly exclusive? 
 
 There is a religion, of which exclusiveness is the 
 most striking characteristic, the Jewish. It begins 
 by concentrating all God's promises upon a single 
 nation. It is exclusive ; not because it believes itself 
 in sole possession of the truth, but because it consid- 
 
ON THE REPROACH OF EXCLUSIVENESS. 85 
 
 ers that the promises were designed for one particular 
 race, for men with the same blood in their veins, 
 not for kindred spirits. Here, then, is actual exclu- 
 sion ; for it is plain that by no voluntary exercise, 
 either of human or divine power, can a man be made 
 to belong to a race, a tribe, a nation other than his 
 own. Consequently, the religion of the Hebrews is 
 less proselyting than any other. Confining all the 
 promises to the children of Abraham, they cannot 
 give foreigners a share therein. Moreover, the Jews 
 live in the hope of the most incommunicable of all 
 blessings ; that, namely, of seeing the Redeemer born 
 among them, fruit of the womb of a daughter 
 of David. Here all is fixed and unalterable, and has 
 received the sanction of God himself. Prophecy is 
 clear. Even if they wished to attract strangers to 
 their faith, they could not impart the unrivalled glory 
 promised them from the beginning of time. Here, 
 truly, is exclusion, actual and authorized ; actual 
 through the very genius of the people, authorized by 
 the promise that Christ should be born of the line of 
 David. 
 
 But, if this epithet, exclusive, is eminently suited 
 to the Hebrew faith, what applicability can it have to 
 that religion which is, of all others, most opposed to 
 its spirit? Opposed, not in the sense of hostility, but 
 of contrast ; opposed by the very spread of the truth, 
 by the immense distance it has traversed, differing 
 from it, in short, as the oak differs from the acorn. 
 
86 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Look at the very words, an exclusive and uni- 
 versal religion ; what an absurdity ! Exclusive and 
 proselyting ! and so pre-eminently proselyting that 
 the word, in its present sense, has been fully compre- 
 hended and applied by the Catholic Church alone ! 
 Exclusive ! while she calls Greek and Scythian, Bar- 
 barian, Jew, and Mahometan; nor calls them only, 
 but goes to them, opening her arms to all, ready to 
 clasp and press them to her maternal breast. 
 
ON THE CHURCH AND HEE FOEM. 
 
 " Jerusalem quae aediflcatur ut civitas ; cujus participatio ejus 
 in ipsidum. Illuc enim ascenderunt tribus, tribus Domini, testimo- 
 nium Israel ad confitendum nomini Domini." Ps. cxxii. 3, 4. 
 
 , in its general and absolute sense, is never 
 arbitrary. It is the strictest expression of the 
 idea, its first and last answer; the characteristic of its 
 substance ; its utterance, also, in the sense of its man- 
 ifestation. Determined in the realm of nature, by the 
 quality and power of the internal principle, we be- 
 hold the form ever faithful to the idea, as well in the 
 intelligent as in the merely animate creation ; both in 
 the vegetable organism and in the mineral kingdom. 
 Everywhere a primitive type ; everywhere the crea- 
 ture rising in the scale of being in proportion as its 
 form is more complete. 
 
 In painting and sculpture, whenever an artist 
 would realize an idea, is he not bound to use every 
 possible effort to preserve its peculiar character and 
 give us a living manifestation of the thought ? When 
 marble and canvas glow under the might of an idea, 
 what do they but materialize it ? and is not the artist, 
 though a free agent, constrained to bring it to our 
 
88 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 notice, to render it appreciable to our senses, to iden- 
 tify himself with it? Even in architecture, the most 
 materialistic of the arts, is there not a necessary corre- 
 spondence between the plan of the building and the 
 use to be made of it ; between the original design 
 and the richness and variety of the material ? Does 
 not lyric poetry impress its own movement, accent, 
 and rhythm on the music which accompanies it? and, 
 in the drama, is not the music, which is the form, 
 brought into almost servile subjection to the words? 
 and are not the different human emotions always ex- 
 pressed in tones that are sad or sweet, solemn or joy- 
 ous, as the case may be? 
 
 And, in purely speculative work, where thought 
 confines its activity to its own peculiar sphere, is not 
 the character of the expression regulated by that 
 thought ; and is not the merit of any creation deter- 
 mined primarily by the close and exact correspond- 
 ence between the idea and its incarnation? The 
 original choice, that of the idea, is entirely free ; but, 
 that choice once made, the elements which co-operate 
 in its execution are, for the most part, given. The 
 idea carries them, so to speak, within itself, and re- 
 quires, in the expression, a true and faithful adherence 
 to its nature. 
 
 If, then, it holds true in the arena of visible things, 
 that persistent laws and unvarying conditions govern 
 the realization and vivification of any thought or feel- 
 ing, why may we not transfer these principles to the 
 
ON THE CHURCH AND HER FORM. 89 
 
 realm of religion, and conclude that there must be a 
 fixed, unchangeable, absolute form, appertaining to 
 a system of ideas unique, homogeneous, perfectly co- 
 herent, and without analogue upon earth? a system 
 able to impose its authority upon the intellect, to 
 conquer, to contend, to endure through ages ; to en- 
 dure, nay, more, ^ to make war and to subdue. And 
 if this order of ideas is God's revelation, can we suppose 
 that the divine thought while offering itself for the 
 light, the guidance, and the support of humanity 
 would carelessly have abandoned to the caprice, the 
 vain discussions, the fantastic choice, and the incessant 
 unrest of that same humanity, the form whereby 
 truth was to make herself known and impose upon 
 the world her all-penetrating and all-embracing 
 authority? By so doing, Providence would have 
 accomplished but half his work ; for, in lieu of dow- 
 ering it with the conditions of durability, as he has 
 done with his other works, he would thus have aban- 
 doned the loftiest and most necessary of them all to 
 chance and the uncertainty of foreign aid. He 
 would, indeed, have given man all, and at what a 
 price? but so given that man must lose the fruit 
 thereof. These same verities if subjected to the 
 fickleness and extravagance of the individual mind, 
 without the defence of a sacred form, precise laws, 
 and that aureole which marks and crowns the centre 
 of power could not have failed to become ob- 
 scured, separated, and lost. 
 
90 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 In an institution destined to last till the ages are 
 consummated, all should be arranged with a view to 
 unlimited self-support and self-defence. Even those 
 who see in Christianity only a human invention, 
 acknowledge that the strength of the church system, 
 its internal administration, and the skill with which 
 all the channels have been prepared through which 
 its life circulates, explain, in part, its power of resist- 
 ance. Those, on the other hand, who look at this 
 wonderful institution from God's side, merely put 
 divine wisdom in the place of human ingenuity, and 
 see that, here as elsewhere, Providence has provided 
 that the means should be adapted to the end. 
 
 In this choice and arrangement of constituent 
 elements, what was involved? All Christianity. 
 What would have become of its dogmas, without 
 indefectibility to recognize them, unity to combine, 
 and authority to insure them reverence? Only the 
 Coenaculum could be the continuation of Calvary. 
 
 I cannot forget, in this connection, an avowal wrung 
 from one of the most powerful intellects I ever 
 met, a man who, born a Protestant, had become 
 a Pantheist, and was wasting in the service of that 
 system all the treasures of a rich and fertile imagi- 
 nation. This man, as commonly happens, rejected or 
 distorted every aspect of Christianity ; but he hated 
 only Catholicism, one of whose glories it has ever 
 been to receive the homage of hatred in default of 
 that of love. In the midst of a long discussion, 
 
ON THE CHURCH AND HER FORM. 91 
 
 during which all the prejudices of his old error had 
 cropped out from beneath the more recent stratum 
 of his Pantheism, I arrested him with the question, 
 whether he honestly believed that if the Catholic 
 form had not existed in the world there would have 
 remained of Christianity, after eighteen centuries of 
 conflict, any thing more than a system of morals, 
 - like Stoicism. After a few moments of silence, 
 during which the face of my interlocutor assumed 
 an expression which I seejjven now, he answered, 
 " No : Christianity could not have lasted as a reli- 
 gion. It would have kept its place simply as a 
 system of philosophic morality." Durability is the 
 surest sign of strength, its characteristic and its 
 gage ; and both strength and durability have their 
 full development only in unity. Unity and per- 
 petuity are nearly synonymous. "If man were one," 
 said Hippocrates, tr he would not die." The Church 
 is one ; and she will survive the earth. And what 
 a magnificent thing is unity in plurality, collect- 
 ive unity, unity which does not preclude univer- 
 sality ! Neither on the sword, nor on coercive force, 
 does that union depend which is, in the language of a 
 celebrated author, " exalted even to unity." All is 
 free in the kingdom of mind, and obedience and love 
 are one. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 
 
 COMPILER'S DEDICATION. 
 
 To COUNT PAUL RESSEGUIER, WITH THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDG- 
 MENTS OF A. DE FALLOUX. 
 
 I. 
 
 to 
 
 thoughts turn frequently to old age. Dif- 
 ferent moralists have made it the object of 
 more or less protracted and elaborate reflection, but 
 scarcely one has failed to touch upon it, and several 
 have consecrated entire treatises to the subject. In- 
 duced, less by my growing years than by the feeling 
 of gratitude that grows with them, to meditate upon 
 old age, I find myself but seldom treading in the 
 footsteps of others ; and my wish is, to study this 
 period of life in its connection with God and the life 
 to come ; to show that age is full of grandeur and 
 consolation ; that its activity is all the more intense 
 for being brought to a focus ; that no other situation 
 can compare in dignity and beauty with this, in 
 which the life of the soul is all ; and that, in short, 
 if the old man as they say of the priest is the 
 unhappiest of men, he is the happiest of Christians, 
 best prepared for the future, and, if he will, best com- 
 forted in the present. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 93 
 
 Cicero amused his old age by making it a study ; 
 and this labor rendered the season smooth and pleas- 
 ant to him. We are more fortunate than Cicero. 
 With the eyes of Jesus Christ upon us, we feel that 
 the sun has not wholly withdrawn his brightening, 
 cheering, warming rays from the evening of our life. 
 
 Every age has its characteristic quality. Docility 
 is that of childhood, whose whole moral code, like 
 that of the world in its infancy, is comprehended in 
 the precept of obedience. Youth is distinguished by 
 self-devotion, maturity by strength, old age by 
 dignity. Here are the full statistics of human life. 
 Thou hast not, O my God, disinherited any age. 
 Thou art lord of the day and the night. THUS est 
 dies et tua est nox. 
 
 At the first glance, childhood, youth, and middle 
 life seem to have all sorts of advantages over old 
 age ; but, like the phantasmagoria of wealth and 
 rank, these disappear on a nearer view. Childhood 
 of course has the advantage in time ; but it knows 
 not what precious germs it bears within, what 
 blessings are by it attainable. It is not in the secret 
 of its own advantages, and has no realization of its 
 own blessedness. It understands not the why and 
 wherefore of its enforced actions, knows nothing of 
 ends, or of means in their relation to ends. It sub- 
 mits to reason as to force. Its joys are keen ; but so 
 are its sorrows. It is gay and free from care ; but 
 it is never happy. 
 
94 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 The old man knows; and it is a great thing to 
 know ! And to have seen, through a long life, God 
 always right ; to be able to declare one's self perfectly 
 "content 1 with him," and to admire the universal 
 justification of his law ; to have measured the nothing- 
 ness of what we are leaving, weighed our own dust, 
 and had a sure glimpse of the good that awaits us, 
 is not this also something? 
 
 n. 
 
 The old man is the pontiff of the past ; nor does 
 this prevent him from being the seer of the future. 
 The clergyman represents the priesthood of eternity ; 
 the old man that of time. In him, experience de- 
 livers oracles and prophecies ; and repeatedly, in those 
 imperfect states of society where the offices of priest 
 and magistrate are combined, it has rested with the 
 ancients of the people to maintain and perpetuate 
 the beneficent and saving conceptions of right and 
 of eternity. 
 
 The aged are Christ's poor : their wrinkles are 
 their rags ; they warm themselves in the sunbeams ; 
 they beg their daily bread. 
 
 The gods ordained the blindness of Tiresias, that 
 he might live more with themselves than with men. 
 Old age is a species of blindness with reference to 
 the outward world. It would seem as if the eye 
 
 1 Bourdaloue. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 95 
 
 grew dim and the ear less sensitive to earthly sounds, 
 that the contemplation might be more profound and 
 the attention .more fully given to the voice within. 
 God succeeds to all the relinquished desires and sup- 
 pressed transports of the old, and opens to them more 
 and more of the interior life. 
 
 The silence which pervades the being renders the 
 slightest sound audible. The eye is quick and prac- 
 tised ; for experience is a second sight, showing what 
 shall be in what has been. 
 
 The old man is like a sentinel on the outpost of 
 life. Sleep flies his eyelids. The watch he keeps is 
 solemn as a knight's vigil. 
 
 With singular goodness, God has rendered a dis- 
 position to sleeplessness nearly universal with the 
 old. Life is worth more than sleep. God would 
 fain multiply the attainments of the aged ; and, since 
 time presses, He gives them an increasing share in 
 that watchfulness which the Scripture places between 
 prayer and alms. "Watch and pray," saith our 
 Lord. This means of sanctification is easy to the 
 old, but little suited to the young. 
 
 " Youth is the loveliest flower on earth," says an 
 old Breton song. 1 Old age, let me add, is the most 
 savory fruit. 
 
 The ripe fruit is sweeter than the green. 
 
 1 See the " Chants Populaires de la Bretagne," translated by 
 Count de la Villemarque, of the Institute. Vol. ii. p. 391. 
 
96 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Misfortune discovers to youth the nothingness of 
 life ; it reveals to age the happiness of heaven. 
 
 The coldest Christians consecrate the morning and 
 the evening to God. So infancy and old age are 
 especially under his patronage. 
 
 The old man, like the husbandman of St. James, 
 "waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath 
 patience for it, till he receive the early and the latter 
 rain." 
 
 Thus, like the cross of Calvary, the old man is 
 midway between heaven and earth, held to the 
 one by his duties, to the other by his hopes. He 
 believes ; because he has proved all things, and only 
 the truth of the gospel has remained at the bottom 
 of the crucible. 
 
 Old age is life on its holy Saturday, the eve 
 of the glorious resurrection, the morrow of all 
 the distractions of earth and the sufferings of the 
 cross. 
 
 The God of eternity, who comprehends all times 
 in one, seems to have willed that the three grand 
 divisions of time should exist and be represented 
 simultaneously in creation. Age is the past, infancy 
 the future, youth the present. Experience a vir- 
 tue drawn from the past has to clarify youth's 
 force of conception and vigor of action. 
 
 Old age, with its wisdom, is to the peremptory 
 and positive notions of youth what tradition is to 
 written doctrine. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 97 
 
 Age no longer moulds the bronze or "rough- 
 hews" the marble; but it perfects, it finishes, it 
 does that patient and assiduous work, which, through 
 life, is the justification of God's law. An aged and 
 illustrious savant once said : " The more I study, 
 and the more I observe, the less I can explain," 
 a remark full of philosophy in the mouth of a philos- 
 opher, but incomprehensible in that of a Christian. 
 Each day, the Christian comprehends better the des- 
 tiny which God has appointed him, and the reason 
 of the weights with which he has charged it. 
 
 in. 
 
 By reason of sin, old age is the twilight of death, 
 but God can extract from all the elements of our 
 fallen nature harmonies full of beauty. He employs 
 the old, the ancients, to bear witness to his past 
 mercies, among the rising generations. 
 
 Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but 
 it is one of its harmonies. The law of contrasts is 
 one of the laws of beauty. Under the conditions of 
 our climate, shadow gives light its worth ; sternness 
 enhances mildness ; solemnity, splendor. Varying 
 proportions of size support and subserve one another. 
 Different flavors give zest to one another. Nothing 
 could vanish from the earth without leaving a void. 
 Hierarchy even in age is one of God's beauti- 
 ful and harmonious thoughts, and he loses no oppor- 
 tunity of illustrating it in his works. 
 
 5 
 
93 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 God deigns to provide by his care for all that has 
 served himself or his purposes. This old age 
 though one of the effects of the fell is far from 
 expressing punishment alone ; and the most diverse 
 of evils have their compensations. Side by side with 
 infirmities and privations, we have fewer occasions 
 of strife, deep and strong consolations, secrets of 
 infinite tenderness, and a thousand revelations from 
 the Husband 1 of our souls, which have rendered for 
 many a one the end of life far sweeter th'an its 
 beginning. 
 
 Nothing gives rise to so many contradictions in the 
 human mind as old age. It is a phantom in which 
 youth has no faith ; a scarecrow to virile complacen- 
 cy. Yet no sooner have we attained the apogee of 
 life, no sooner have we taken our first downward 
 step upon the opposite slope, than we cease, at 
 heart, to dread old age, but anticipate it, all of us, 
 and make the best terms possible with its inconven- 
 iences. 
 
 In the pride of its strength, youth claims long life 
 as a right, and rejects the idea of growing old. 
 Strange to say, it is not horror that old age excites : 
 it is contempt. Does the feeling attach to old age 
 itself, or to the manner of growing old ? " In our 
 day," said M. de Chateaubriand, " people are old, 
 but they are no longer venerable." This remark, 
 
 i "Thy Maker is thy husband/' ISAIAH Ixiv. 5. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 99 
 
 perhaps, contains the whole secret of the slight re- 
 spect of youth for age. 
 
 When I say that youth does not believe in age for 
 itself, I have no fear of exaggerating. Positively, 
 its treats the idea as a superstition, and passes it by 
 with disdain ; does it not even the honor of treating 
 it as a necessary evil, and accepting it as it accepts 
 death. It promises itself some escape, and glories 
 in being unwilling to prolong life at the price of so 
 much ignominy. But this does not last long. Time 
 slips away, the attention is given to other things, 
 youth loses itself in mature life, and soon gray hairs 
 are announcing the approach of the great hoar-frost. 
 And now we no longer think of old age as a thing 
 to be shunned, but begin, by way of neutralizing its 
 severity, to parley with it, to question it ; even ad- 
 mitting that, after all, there may be some advantage 
 to be derived therefrom. We devour our years some- 
 what as a schoolboy does the cherries in his basket, 
 taking first the finest, then the good, then the tol- 
 erable, and finally enjoying those which we at first 
 refused. 
 
 Why should not old age be the ninth book of the 
 sibyl, for which we pay the price of the nine, and 
 which is worth them all ? 
 
 Time is the shower of Danae. Each drop is 
 golden. 
 
 Youth lives in abundance with respect to time ; but 
 what is wealth whose value we do not know, and 
 
100 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 which we lavish without forethought and without re- 
 gret? Old age teaches the value of time, and ap- 
 prises us that our most precious treasure is its raw 
 material. The man who avails most is he who best 
 employs his time ; the wisest, he who turns it to the 
 greatest advantage. Time is the representative of 
 all moral, intellectual, and even spiritual worth. The 
 wealthiest man is he whose wide horizon is bounded 
 by God. It is the old man, above all, who can say 
 with Young, in his admirable verse, " Time is eter- 
 nity, pregnant with all eternity can give." 
 
 Knowing the value of time, we aspire to save and 
 employ it. In our eagerness to improve the mo- 
 ments, the soul outstrips the organs, and we are like 
 that Ariadne of Dannecker, 1 who plainly moves 
 faster than the panther that bears her. On the one 
 hand, her desire springs to the pursuit of Theseus ; 
 on the other, she must needs submit to the pace of 
 the beast she rides, her only means of rapid locomo- 
 tion. It is a fine image of old age, of the ardent 
 soul which hurries onward, straining for the goal, but 
 which, being dependent on matter for the means of 
 progress here below, is hindered by those very means. 
 How should it not travel faster than the poor body, 
 a panting panther shorn of its strength and agil- 
 ity? It is the heart that supplies swiftness. Old 
 
 1 The masterpiece of the sculptor Dannecker, in the gallery of 
 M. Bethmann, at Frankfort. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 101 
 
 age is seen to be great at heart, despite all its signs 
 of weakness. 
 
 IV. 
 
 As far as the natural man is concerned, youth has 
 the advantage in every respect ; even in moral quali- 
 ties. Thus, generosity, self-devotion, noble and 
 disinterested sentiments, belong eminently to youth. 
 If the love of God does not keep the heart warm, 
 the action of time and contact with men tend only 
 too surely to relax and chill its generous transports. 
 Youth is a sort of temporary divinity ; impressing on 
 its creatures brilliant virtues, that last during its own 
 stay. For the mind and the character, there is a 
 beaute du (liable, a charm of freshness, sponta- 
 neity, and bloom, which supplies the place of regular 
 beauty and solid qualities. With the spiritual man 
 it is not so. He is born later, and under harder con- 
 ditions, which ordain that he shall be helped by his 
 very hindrances. While youth is but a vehicle for the 
 natural man, age profits by every trial. The same 
 force is differently directed. That which, when 
 young, we did for ourselves, when old we do for 
 God. Then, all is purified and nothing weakened. 
 It is the same flame ; but subtler, more vivid, be- 
 cause nourished by rarer elements. 
 
 For the natural man, I must repeat, youth is* the 
 best, perhaps the only good, time. Its absence of 
 calculation, the fulness and spontaneousness of its 
 good actions, its easier forgiven faults, lift it above 
 
102 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 that age which abstains from certain vices, indeed, 
 but shrinks from many a good work. Nature, then, 
 has done every thing for youth ; but religion is dia- 
 metrically opposed to nature, and, by its divine coun- 
 terpoises, more than restores the equilibrium between 
 the seasons of life. And so, for the freshness, the 
 grace, the splendor of natural qualities, it substitutes 
 the massiveness, the height, the worth of virtues ; 
 like the drop of wax, which, as it condenses, gains in 
 solidity what it loses in brightness. The ship of 
 youth crowds sail ; but, if the wind forsakes it, the 
 canvas hangs motionless, awaiting a friendly breath; 
 and too often illusions are summoned to its aid : 
 while the old man never ceases, though tired, to 
 wield the oar and guide the helm. 
 
 The poor ship of age is battered. Once it strove 
 with a storm of flowers, but now with a storm of 
 snow. Its keel has grazed so often ! Its sails are 
 torn. Its helm only still resists the waves. 
 
 v. 
 
 If truth is all-important ; if reality has its resources 
 as well as its sorrows, and a strength that compen- 
 sates for lost illusions, then advanced age is superior 
 to the epoch of falsehood and optical delusions. It 
 is less exacting with regard to life ; for it takes it at 
 a lower rate, and so is more apt to be satisfied. 
 " Happiness is something which we attain most easily 
 when we have renounced it," says Mme. de Stael. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 103 
 
 In such a mood as this, old age generally finds us. 
 Suffer as we may, from the loss of illusions, I am 
 unable to comprehend how he who is honored by 
 the possession of truth can ever regret them. 
 
 Old age is the last word of truth on this earth, 
 the realization of all which is revealed to us concern- 
 ing the nothingness of its prosperities, and of all 
 which is not connected, nearly or remotely, with the 
 eternal promises. It declares the wisdom of the di- 
 vine teachings, and that God alone is all. Old age 
 is truly the period of the grand council, the mere 
 sight of which pleads and invites to the right way. 
 
 -vi. 
 
 Christianity apart, I admit that the old man 
 
 u De son age a tout le malheur." 
 
 But why consider any season of life without reference 
 to the thought that embraces them all? God has 
 willed that we should find many things established by 
 himself; but, when we depart from his order, on what 
 recompense or indemnification can we rely? What 
 right could we offset against the indefeasible right we 
 disregard ? 
 
 Christianity came into the world to aid weakness 
 of every kind. It has taught us to respect childhood, 
 which it called to its embrace. Hitherto, woman had 
 been but the slave of man. Christianity made her 
 his companion, and, as a crowning grace, placed her 
 under the sheltering care of him to whose rank she 
 
104 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 was raised. Old age is despoiled by nature and the 
 world alike. Antiquity merely amused it with out- 
 ward marks of respect. Its wisdom and experience 
 were consulted, but its individual life was over, its 
 future destroyed, its gaze fixed on the past, its sole 
 possession the blessings that were slipping from its 
 grasp. Christianity has done more for old age than 
 for any other period of life ; for it shows how to face 
 an inglorious death without shrinking. Not merely 
 has courage in view of death no glory for the old 
 man, who seems to be forsaken by life rather than to 
 quit it ; but virtue in him seems so entirely the neces- 
 sary fruit of experience and satiety, that there ap- 
 pears to be no merit in its practice. Nevertheless, 
 this season has its special and often inextricable diffi- 
 culties. God sees the worth which is encouraged by 
 no human approbation, and the All- seeing Eye 
 watches the old man as closely as the young. 
 
 All conditions and all ages have been studied from 
 the Christian point of view ; except, perhaps, old age. 
 And let no one offer, as an excuse, that it is a stran- 
 ger to the affections that vivify life, and has lost its 
 warmth and its sap. Truly, it breathes an air less 
 bright and burning than of yore : its thermometer is 
 placed in the shade, but its warmth is that of the at- 
 mosphere at large, not that of the sun blazing down 
 on a single point. 
 
 Christianity has been applied as a palliative to all 
 ills ; but there is one on which its transforming power 
 
ON OLD AGE. 105 
 
 has very seldom been tried ; and that is old age. 
 Alms-houses have been built for the old, and pains 
 taken to provide them shelter and lodging ; but some 
 effort is also needed to reconcile them to their condi- 
 tion, and reveal to them its resources. 
 
 Would God have left without consolation precisely 
 the last stage of the journey we are making to his 
 home? God prolongs our life, and fills it with bit- 
 terness. What ground of perfect trust is here ! 
 Only that which is to be used is purified ; only the 
 iron which is to be wrought is beaten ; only the 
 wound which we would heal is probed. 
 
 Life grows darker as we go on, till only one pure 
 light is left shining on it ; and that is faith. Old age, 
 like solitude and sorrow, has its revelations. 
 
 There is a Scripture word which saith, "Quand tu 
 auras fini, tu commenceras." Toward the close of 
 our career, many an idea and word of wisdom, which 
 previously had been but an empty sound, receives a 
 soul, and is informed with unguessed life. How beau- 
 tiful and grand a thing it is, to grow old under the 
 eyes of God ! The reason why w r e fear old age so 
 much, is because we separate it from him. Mine has 
 outlived its dreams ; but, if it had them still, rest 
 would be the least seductive of them all. Peace? 
 Yes ; but not rest. There is none in this world ; nor 
 should there be. In Armand's last illness, some one 
 urged him to rest. " Rest ! " replied the poor dying 
 creature ; " I shall have all eternity for that." 
 
 5* 
 
106 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Of course, our activity changes its nature, and its 
 sphere is circumscribed. The decline of our bodily 
 strength necessarily retards our steps ; but it draws 
 its principle from the soul and its instincts, and its 
 aims remain unchanged. The notes are the same, 
 only struck a few octaves lower. But I understand 
 we ll an d better and better each day that a 
 struggle is inaugurated between the persistent will 
 and the failing vitality ; and I must confess that, 
 of all the vagaries of the Roman emperors, the most 
 comprehensible to me is that of the emperor who de- 
 termined to die standing. 
 
 VII. 
 
 It is evident that the epoch of life into which are 
 crowded the greatest number of trials is old age. 
 The universal feeling proves it. "People are no 
 longer happy at our age," said Louis XIV. to Mar- 
 shal Villeroy. After the raising of the siege of 
 Metz, the same thought was expressed by Charles V. ; 
 and it was he, too, who made that remark, as bril- 
 liant as it was profound : " Fortune loves only the 
 young." 
 
 Yet, dull as they are, the days of advanced life are 
 precious. Whether we consider them as days of 
 expiation, or days of grace, their place is among the 
 most spiritual of God's providences. Just as, in 
 those unlooked-for events which are generally at- 
 tributed to chance, we see God's hand all the plainer 
 
ON OLD AGE. 107 
 
 for being less sensible of human action", so these 
 divinely prolonged years are more necessary the more 
 useless they appear. It is the hour in which the 
 chrysalis awakes. The new life it is to assume 
 within leaves the outside barer than ever of beauty 
 and of life. 
 
 Yes, save in the exceptional cases of a few pre- 
 destined individuals, old age is a blessing ; for, 
 who would dare say with Tobit, "It is profitable 
 for me to die, rather than to live"? Each day ac- 
 corded to the old man is, not a reprieve, a delay 
 sterile if not agonizing, but a useful season in 
 which he may modify or atone for the sins of the 
 past, diminish, and perhaps liquidate, his debt, move 
 and soften his judge, and convert his sentence into 
 an acquittal. 
 
 And what a benediction is a Christian old age ! 
 How many developments it presents, unattainable 
 either by youth or by maturity ! This halt at the 
 journey's end permits the traveller to wipe the sweat 
 from his brow, and to shake off the dust that soils 
 him, before entering his Father's festal hall. "Up- 
 borne by supernatural power, he quits the last 
 summits he had climbed. His look has been up- 
 ward ; and he sees, face to face. He aspired to 
 reunion ; and reunion is effected." l He despises not 
 
 1 Du Mariage au Point de Vue Chretien. Bj Mme. de Gasparin. 
 Vol. iii. p. 178. 
 
108 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 the world nor the goods that he abandons ; but 
 he sees them from another hemisphere, and their 
 proportions are changed. 
 
 All is sad for the old man ; but may we not dis- 
 cover, in this very absence of sweet and pleasing 
 impressions, the hidden sense, the key to the rid- 
 dle, the meaning of the moment of life the sphinx 
 allows us? 
 
 " II n'a plus en mourant a perdre que la vie." 
 
 He who penned this verse hardly suspected to what 
 order of truth its melancholy beauty belongs. Sad 
 state indeed from the human point of view, for him 
 who, living on external goods alone, outlives himself 
 necessarily if these are taken away. But, on the other 
 hand, do we not really take possession of the best 
 part of ourselves when all those things which crushed 
 and weighed us down have successively disappeared? 
 Is there no dignity in the renunciation profoundly 
 submissive, if not voluntary of all which flattered 
 cupidity or ambition, in the celestial peace which 
 consoles us a thousand-fold for the loss of happiness, 
 which plants the smile upon our lips, and removes 
 the lightest cloud from the brow ? No : life has not 
 conquered the old man : it is he who rises superior 
 to life. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 From a worldly point of view, old age is a misfor- 
 tune ; and, like all misfortunes, should be borne with 
 
ON OLD AGE. 109 
 
 dignity. It asks a staff, but not a crutch. Hu- 
 manly speaking, old age is a disgrace ; for a certain 
 sense of shame undoubtedly accompanies it. It has 
 a kind of inferiority, for it is timid. According to 
 the world, it is a series of degradations. Time is its 
 direct and natural enemy ; and those who acknowl- 
 edge the supreme authority of time become the 
 executors of its judgment against age. In God, on 
 the contrary, time is no more ; and, since eternity has 
 already begun for old age, its last foe is slain. Age 
 would indeed be humiliating if, as the body decays, 
 the soul did not gain in dignity ; but, as princes rise 
 in rank as they approach the throne, so the old man 
 mounts the steps of eternity by successive promo- 
 tions. 
 
 It has been remarked, with great justice, that 
 morality in. individuals is grander, in proportion as 
 they are able to sacrifice the present to the future. 
 Thus, the sensualist, blinded by passion, is carried 
 away by the impulse of the moment. He yields to 
 his fierce appetites as thoughtlessly as the Caribbean, 
 who abandons his couch in the morning without re- 
 flecting that he will need it at night ; while the moral 
 man forms and develops his plans, and, by his own 
 laborious effort, attains the proposed end. 
 
 When the end is worthy, the enlightened man 
 makes no account of time. He can trade on long 
 credit; and, sometimes, without even knowing that 
 he is eternal, he can be patient. 
 
110 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 When we see a man undertaking a work whose ac- 
 complishment he will not witness, are we not touched 
 by such devotion to the well-being of posterity ? 
 
 When a young man even plants an oaken forest, 
 or lays the first stone of an edifice which will be 
 generations in building, is it not affecting to think 
 of his self-sacrifice for those whom he knows not, 
 and who will never know him? Ah, well ! the old 
 man's life is well-nigh filled with such disinterested 
 deeds. All his beginnings are acorns, and of none 
 of his hopes will he see the full-grown oak. He 
 may finish what he begins, but others will enjoy it. 
 
 The world enters with marvellous readiness into 
 this view of the old man, and assumes the responsi- 
 bility of all its consequences ; and so, acts of which 
 the world makes no account, acquire, in the eyes of 
 God, the magnanimity and purity of intention which 
 make them pleasing to Him. 
 
 And so it is that, entering unconsciously into the 
 designs of Providence, the world hastens the perfec- 
 tion of the aged by purifying their virtue from all 
 human leaven, and leaving undiminished the reward 
 that awaits them. Well does the gospel say 'that 
 man is not rewarded twice. The virtues formed, 
 developed, and practised under the eyes of God alone, 
 in the secrecy of solitude, rank next in merit to those 
 deeds of the right hand which the left hand knoweth 
 not. Human observation and eulogium have not tar- 
 nished them, and none of their virtue is wasted. 
 
ON OLD AGE. Ill 
 
 To reap the full fruit of the good deeds we have 
 done is rarer than we think ; and to the observation 
 and flattery of the world is probably due nearly all 
 the waste they must necessarily undergo. 
 
 The uninterrupted practice of virtue at this age be- 
 comes, in reference to the world, something resem- 
 bling what is called, in the interior life, the state of 
 pure faith, wherein the soul, smitten with barren- 
 ness, finds no consolation in its belief. We but 
 vegetate in the eyes of the world which tolerates us, 
 as though we were of the nature of that idol of 
 which the prophet spoke, without eyes, mouth, 
 ears, or voice : a condition as wonderful as the 
 death we die, that we may henceforth live to God ; 
 live silent and watchful, hearing only his words, 
 partaking only of his spirit. 
 
 IX. 
 
 An ingenious writer has said that "fifty is the 
 youth of old age. It is a brief youth." Local rava- 
 ges soon begin, and are promptly followed by general 
 decrepitude. The charity of the world dares not 
 say, with the American savage, that the aged must 
 be slain ; but, while leaving them alive, it ceases 
 greatly to regard them. If they retain the dignity 
 suited to their years, people avoid them for fear of 
 imposing constraint or inconvenience upon them- 
 selves. If they condescend voluntarily to renounce 
 themselves, and wear another uniform, contempt and 
 
112 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 ridicule await them. Their exterior is scanned with 
 ill-natured curiosity. They are pronounced to have 
 either too much or too little self-respect. Do they 
 endeavor to 
 
 " Reparer des ans Pirreparable outrage/' 
 
 the world laughs in its sleeve, at their futile efforts. 
 If, on the contrary, there are any signs of careless- 
 ness, the world, indignant at all lack of consideration 
 for itself, protests against the cynicism of these gray 
 hairs and toothless gums ; this ugliness, in short, 
 enhanced to the last degree. " After all," 'tis said, 
 " society deserves some respect, and if people appear 
 therein it must be on certain conditions." 
 
 If you would appreciate the worth of an aged 
 person, notice how many times old age is adduced 
 as a plea in bar. Is the old man pious ? You will 
 be told that it is a makeshift. Does he strive to be 
 burdensome to none, and to show that he is easy to 
 please ? 'Tis because his heart has grown old like his 
 body, rest has become his chief good, and his dis- 
 interestedness is only indifference. Does a sacred 
 charm invite him to solitude? He has merely calcu- 
 lated the best means of concealing his regret for lost 
 privileges, and his envy of those whom he sees in 
 possession around him. Are the bounties of the old 
 man large? What merit have they since he is in- 
 sensible to privation, and only gives what he is soon 
 to leave; besides, what use is there in having a sou 
 
ON OLD AGE. 113 
 
 after sixty? If he is mild, it is because the blood 
 in his veins is iced ; if he is patient in sickness, it 
 is but rational to remember the conditions of his 
 age ; if he is resigned to death, has he not lived 
 long? In short, he has not a single virtue, but the 
 world must needs question it. 
 
 I admit that there is some truth in these accusa- 
 tions, and therefore something avoidable; for a just 
 reproach almost always implies the capability of 
 amendment. But the exquisite tact which enables 
 one to choose his way amid impediments is rare, 
 rare as all perfection, and in one way or another there 
 is always something for the critic to lay hold of. 
 
 x. 
 
 What is true of old men is yet truer of old women. 
 Of all human beings, they have the least credit. The 
 old woman, as the world goes, is something that does 
 not even have, like the old man, a name in the 
 elevated style. She is such rubbish that even those 
 who would do her honor must avoid her name, and 
 have recourse to a circumlocution. 
 
 There is no sadder sight than that of an aged 
 woman, stripped of the consideration and respect that 
 belong to the dignity of a serious life. The poor old 
 woman, and her trial begins early, is a being who has 
 positively no place beneath the sun. Even by the 
 domestic hearth , her right is precarious and disputed ; 
 and, outside of actual life, her portion is no better. 
 
114 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 She is, with a few rare exceptions, excluded from 
 the creations of the artist and the poet ; and the 
 thought of her hardly ever occurs to the moralist, 
 who leaves her to work out her own salvation as 
 best she may. Our priests themselves, many of 
 them starting, it may be, from the natural point 
 of view, are too much in the habit of regarding even 
 old men only as persons whose end is at hand. The 
 chrysalis makes them forget the butterfly. But who 
 cares for an old woman after her life has ceased to 
 be scandalous ? Who allows her progress in virtue ? 
 Who comes to her aid in spiritual ways ? Men are 
 of some account, even in advanced years. We are 
 proud of a conquest if that conquest be a man, and 
 take good care to preserve it ; but it is far otherwise 
 with women, whose pettiness and chatter, doubtless, 
 furnish occasions against them. Are we not sure 
 of retaining these ; and who is not rendered cold and 
 careless by security? Yes, often the priest himself, 
 bound to the service of weakness and infirmity ; the 
 priest, of all other men, turns his back upon the aged 
 woman, or passes her by. His is the arm and mind 
 of youth, when he would contend with youth or 
 strengthen it in combat. Ripe age, as a regnant, gov- 
 erning force, has his sympathies, and his good will. 
 He has zeal for the child, encouragement for the 
 adult, reverence for the old man. For the old woman, 
 what has he but neglect or abandonment? And, 
 however slight her attempt at virtue, he feels as sure 
 
ON OLD AGE. 115 
 
 of her salvation as of the health of those uninterest- 
 ing persons who are always well. But is not a soul 
 a soul to whatever body bound? Have we any 
 rule for the transports of religious emotion? Are 
 not people converted at all ages ; and is conversion 
 ever complete till God has obtained all his will? 
 
 Let an aged woman obliterate herself; let her re- 
 mind the world of her existence only by the favors 
 and pleasures she bestows on others ; and the world 
 graciously allows her to live, recognizes her for an 
 inoffensive being, and all goes smoothly. 
 
 The single social virtue of the old woman the vir- 
 tue which is exactly in keeping with the part she plays 
 in the world is self-abnegation. In her it is at once 
 an obligatory virtue and a spontaneous grace. The 
 uselessness to which society, as well as nature, con- 
 demns her, is a sure index of providential design. 
 Let the old woman have every imaginable virtue, but 
 all in self-denial. She must die to herself sincerely 
 and entirely ; the public would be as hard to deceive 
 as God himself in this respect. Would she examine 
 or correct herself in any one point, prompt and con- 
 spicuous justice is executed on her at once. The 
 essence of her virtue is the being useful to those who 
 come in contact with her ; her kindness is a univer- 
 sal balm ; her wise prudence is security ; her humble 
 sweetness is often the peace of the house where she 
 dwells ; her generosity, the wealth of those about 
 her. Self-renunciation so fruitful in a man has, 
 
116 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 in the case of a woman, results which are less lofty, 
 doubtless, but neither less appreciable nor less gen- 
 erally appreciated ; and so the old woman becomes 
 convenient, which is, just now, no despicable quality. 
 She is one who requires nothing, and gives all ; who 
 is of no more account than if she were absent, and 
 who is disposed of as if she were always present ; 
 whom we do not feel bound to seek, but whom we are 
 always sure of finding ; and, on the whole, a rather 
 good piece of furniture. 
 
 XI. 
 
 It is well for old age to suffer, it is, in fact, its 
 normal condition, but it must not weep: tears 
 solace youth alone. When they flow over the wrinkles 
 of age, sympathy is no longer by to wipe them away, 
 nor glowing love to dry these last autumnal dews* 
 
 f? When thou wast young," said our Lord to St. 
 Peter, w thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither 
 thou wouldst ; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt 
 stretch forth thy hand, and another shall gird thee, 
 and carry thee whither thou wouldst not." The old 
 are clogged and fettered on every side. Dependence 
 and a hard servitude weigh heavily on their enfeebled 
 organs. But, as their chains grow heavier and are 
 more closely riveted, as their supports fail and their 
 ties are silently loosened, what new liberties break 
 their shells and try their wings ! What unchecked 
 aspirations, what a sense of deliverance, what free- 
 
ON OLD AGE. 117 
 
 dom of motion through the enlarged space ! Is not 
 the aged Christian the freest of Jesus Christ's free- 
 men ? What is external dependence compared to the 
 perfect liberty within ? 
 
 This perfect liberty of the old man 
 
 " Lui permet la franchise, attribut des vieux ans." 
 This frankness may rise even to boldness ; for, while 
 redoubling its care and caution for others, old age 
 makes free use of absolute independence for itself. 
 Youth has present, living interests to care for, and 
 a long future unfolding before it ; but age can brave 
 all with a moral good in view. The pearl of great 
 price is always before the eyes of the aged. They 
 would seek it in the depths of the sea. 
 
 In youth, we need external help in all matters per- 
 taining to salvation. In age, every thing conduces to 
 it ; and that which was against us is for us. And so 
 those faults and propensities, which were but ill- 
 directed forces, are all turned to good account in the 
 new application which is made of them, and from 
 the moment when God takes them into his own 
 hands. 
 
 How well it is, if God prolongs life, to have its 
 too external activities interrupted ; and to employ it 
 in a higher, a deeper, a more spiritual service ! The 
 influence exerted upon ourselves and others loses 
 nothing of its power thereby ; but, if its radius is 
 shorter, its strength is more concentrated ; the good 
 we effect changes its sphere, but is not abated ; and. 
 
118 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 nothing, it seems to me, is so reasonable as a transi- 
 tion which puts in more direct communication our 
 means and end of action. Old age is a kind of no- 
 vitiate in spirituality. The outside world is slipping 
 away, it rests less upon itself; it is becoming less fit 
 to subserve material interests, but the others remain. 
 Old age is the novitiate of death, but of that 
 death, pregnant with life, which is promised to the 
 Christian. The novitiate partakes of the character 
 of the succeeding state ; and death, which is the veil 
 of immortality on this side the solemn passage, is 
 tinged by the fires that are to come. 
 
 People are always talking of the darkness of the 
 grave. I am far more impressed by the beams that 
 issue, from it. Old age is on the best plane to receive 
 them. Death is the justification of all the Chris- 
 tian's ways ; the conclusive reason for all his sacri- 
 fices ; that touch of the great Master that completes 
 the picture. 
 
 XII. 
 
 One great cause of regret for old age is, that our 
 Lord has not sanctified this period of life by passing 
 through it. It is the sole age to which he has not 
 bequeathed his example. The teachings of his child- 
 hood, silent though they be, are none the less instruc- 
 tive. Still the gospel develops them but slightly. 
 Only his middle life is, as one may say, in light ; as 
 if to teach us that, as children, we must hasten to 
 become men, and, later, to become saints. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 119 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Old age is the majestic and imposing dome of hu- 
 man life. God makes it the sanctuary of all wisdom 
 and justice ; the tabernacle of the purest virtues. 
 Experience has taught the old man all things ; and 
 his personal endeavors have reduced his acquirements 
 to that simple state, that perfect unity, where 
 each conviction has its proof and counter-proof. His 
 are the treasures of tradition, and those of acquired 
 knowledge, ancient lore and modern facts, in their 
 order, practical truth, and eternal verity, the relative 
 and the absolute, that which helps our conduct in 
 this world, and that which leads us to another. If 
 death were only the blossoming of life, the sublime 
 flower of that plant whose spreading roots underlie 
 the earth, if, as saith the apostle, death merely 
 clothed us with immortality : old age would be the 
 apogee of life, its culminating point, its epoch of 
 wealth and power. But it must not be forgotten that 
 death is the wages of sin ; and, as such, it causes the 
 weight of our condemnation to fall heavily upon old 
 age. Old age is the term of grace sometimes a lit- 
 tle protracted when all accounts must be audited, 
 all allowances confirmed, and when the invisible 
 Creditor exacts his dues. Of all the seasons of life, 
 old age is that in w^hich the sentence with which 
 man is weighted is most keenly felt. The forecast 
 shadow of death overspreads the close of life. But 
 
120 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 death has been redeemed, like all things else. Old 
 age is the central point. Night is on one side, and 
 dawn on the other. Ransomed death permits a pas- 
 sage to the beams of the true life, and our last twi- 
 lights are nearer than any others to the eternal 
 light. 
 
 We can understand why pagan antiquity should 
 have been as little able as scepticism itself to grasp 
 these changeful glimmerings of old age, deep dark- 
 ness or growing light, according to the side from 
 which we view them, or the point where we stand ; 
 according as we hope or deny. 
 
 Horace called death " in ceternum exilium : " a 
 going away into eternal exile. The Christian calls 
 it a return to his everlasting fatherland. Here is all 
 the difference between the two points of view. 
 
 There is, in Russia, an old and very touching 
 custom, which our ancestors used faithfully to ob- 
 serve. In the hour of departure, when the prepara- 
 tions are complete, all seat themselves, travellers 
 and by-standers, making a solemn halt, as if to 
 collect their thoughts for the last time, before the 
 supreme moment of separation. Is it not a striking 
 type of old age, which is itself a halt before depart- 
 ure, 
 
 " Voyageurs d'un moment aux terres etrangeres, 
 Consolez-vous, vous etes immortels " ! 
 
 All question of the old man's well-being becomes 
 a question of immortality, according as the point of 
 
ON OLD AGE. 121 
 
 departure is a life which is passing away, or a life 
 for which he is momently preparing. If the thoughts 
 of faith are deeply impressed upon his soul, what a 
 sight must he not see in this vanquished world, 
 the raw material of all the changes which have taken 
 place within himself! 
 
 We say " declining years ; " but, if heaven be our 
 true centre, the decline of our twofold being is con- 
 temporaneous with its ascent. Soul and body are in 
 almost perpetual contradiction. In the failing of 
 nature, it is not merely destruction which is hasten- 
 ing on, but liberty and glory, the perfection of a 
 soul which grows ever more radiant as the spiritual 
 principle absorbs all others. As the body sinks into 
 decrepitude, the soul is tempered ; and, by the simul- 
 taneous acceleration of these two processes, the frame 
 returns to the dust, and the spirit to heaven. Death 
 for the one is immortal youth for the other. David 
 was old when he called upon the God of his youth : 
 but it was not the God of his past whom he invoked, 
 any more than the God of Jacob is the God of the 
 dead. It was the God of the present to whom David 
 appealed, the God of that youth which he felt 
 flourishing and blossoming in the depths of his being. 
 For if the children of light enjoy day in the midst of 
 night, the children of immortality keep their youth 
 amid the snows of age. 
 
122 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Old age is not denied fertility. Behold how the 
 aged tree clothes itself with a foliage as young as 
 that of the shrub ; bearing flowers and fruit while its 
 life lasts, whatever be the number of the years that 
 have left their date on the bark of its aged stem. 
 While the tree lives, it produces leafage ; and, in 
 default of fruit, yields shelter and shade. And, 
 in the spiritual order, God has willed that man 
 should always have the power to conceive and bring 
 forth the new man ; not miraculously, like Sarah 
 and Elizabeth, but regularly and of right. 
 
 While all created things, our bodies included, 
 speedily attain their last degree of development and 
 perfection, then pause, and turn, so to speak, 
 rounding the circle of their organism or their in- 
 stinct, to where weakness and decadence take them 
 back to their original state ; man, on the contrary, 
 the human intelligence, grows and develops un- 
 ceasingly in all his faculties. He pursues an unlim- 
 ited career, a perpetually ascending line of knowledge 
 and virtue. 
 
 The error which consists in believing that the 
 Church can have an era of decrepitude, is one with 
 that which allows a similar failure of the immaterial 
 principle in man. These opinions go hand in hand, 
 because there is in both cases a question of assimilat- 
 ing the law which governs mind to that which 
 governs matter. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 123 
 
 Observe, by the way, that our celebrated prose- 
 writers preserve their superiority till the decline of 
 life; while our poets, save in cases of extraordinary 
 genius, fall with the winter. Thought with the 
 former dwells constantly on the sober realities of 
 the Christian life : with the latter, it is but a pastime. 
 But this playfulness demands a sensuous rapture, of 
 which the old have ceased to be capable ; and 'tis a 
 glorious impotence, for which they should not grieve. 
 What laments over bright days gone we find in the 
 votaries of the Muses ! What contempt of youth in 
 Bossuet ! The great bishop dates life only by white 
 hairs. 1 
 
 Yet the true poets, like the great artists, have 
 scarcely any childhood, and no old age. 
 
 XV. 
 
 It is said that old age freezes the activity of man 
 in the performance of spiritual duty. What matters 
 this, O my God! if thou dost provide therefor? 
 Already hath the gospel taught us, that, before thy 
 tribunal, there is neither Greek, Barbarian, nor 
 Scythian. Even so, its divine spirit further instructs 
 us that, in thy eyes, souls have neither age nor sex. 
 I know it : faith, like virtue, is independent of the 
 number of one's years ; yet who believes that the im- 
 
 1 Moreau, " Considerations sur la Vraie Doctrine." 1844. 8vo. 
 pp. 198, 199. 
 
124 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 mediate approach of the inevitable end has not, after 
 all, a significance and an effect peculiar to itself? The 
 venerable Abbd Desjardins said, two or three years 
 before his death, that it was barely eighteen months 
 since he first saw the things of this world in their 
 true light relative to those of eternity. The approach 
 of the formidable moment perfected his intellect ; and, 
 from being a pious, learned, and always irreproach- 
 able Christian, he became a saint. 
 
 " O faces of the saints ; sweet and firm lips, accus- 
 tomed to name the name of God, and to kiss the 
 cross of his Son ; dear glances, which discern a bro- 
 ther in the poorest creature ; hairs blanched by med- 
 itations on eternity, sacred colors of the soul shining 
 in age and death, blessed are they who have seen 
 you ; more blessed they who have understood, and 
 who have received from your transfigured contours 
 lessons of wisdom and immortality." l 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Has aught in nature been utterly disinherited? 
 When was God known wholly to abandon the work 
 of his hands ? Has not winter its beauties ? Do not 
 its rigors set off its charms ? In our harsh climate 
 is not the sky deep and blue? Does not the sun 
 cover the hoar-frost with diamonds, and draw sparkles 
 from the jewelled snow? Have we not, in stern 
 
 1 Father Lacordaire, 48th Sermon. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 125 
 
 winter, by way of contrast to the roaring storm and 
 the icy cold without, the gathering about the fire- 
 side, where the covered fire retains a warmth amid 
 the ashes, which fitly symbolizes the constant temper- 
 ate heat of the old man's heart, a mild, soft glow, 
 ever the same amid all the vagaries and devasta- 
 tions of the changeful human seasons? 
 
 In my long winter journeys, I have often been 
 struck by remarkable effects of form and light, attest- 
 ing that nature no more than man undergoes that 
 passive condition of anticipated death to which the 
 world would fain condemn old age. Ah ! in the 
 works of God, and in our hearts, there is always life 
 and power enough for love and blessing ; always 
 space for us to cry with the prophets, 
 
 " O ye fire and heat, bless ye the Lord ! O ye 
 winter and summer, bless ye the Lord ! O ye dews 
 and storms of snow, bless ye the Lord ! O ye ice 
 and cold, bless ye the Lord ! O ye frost and snow, 
 bless ye the Lord ! O ye nights and days, bless ye 
 the Lord I" 1 
 
 " Bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, 
 which by night stand in the house of the Lord ! " 
 
 * c Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless 
 the Lord." 2 
 
 Old age is the night of life, and night the old age 
 
 1 The Song of the Three Holy Children, chap. v. 44-50. 
 
 2 Ps. cxxxiv. 
 
126 WHITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 of the day ; yet is the night full of magnificence, and, 
 for many, more brilliant than the day. With many, 
 night is the place for thought ; as God is the place 
 of the soul, and space that of the body. There re- 
 flection holds audience, and meditation seeks an asy- 
 lum. There it is that we best hear and comprehend 
 that silence which is, in the words of Philo, the voice 
 of God. To old age has been accorded the nearest and 
 plainest manifestation of God, as it has been given 
 to the night to be the witness of Christ's birth and 
 resurrection ; shining nights, which have been hon- 
 ored by the name of blessed. 
 
 Infinite are the analogies between age and night ! 
 We must contemplate the one in God, as we must 
 study the other in the heavens. Think whether there 
 are seasons for the dear stars in the firmament ; then 
 look at the night of age. That, too, is sown with 
 stars ; and the old man, like the sky, has naught to 
 do with seasons. The changeful world sways and 
 tosses at his feet, but the impassibility of the firma- 
 ment is already his. Let him retire into the realm 
 of his own pious thoughts. He has room enough 
 there ; and, whether winter or summer smite the lower 
 regions, the upper air is always blue, and every dia- 
 mond is a world. 
 
 Sometimes, in the long polar nights, there comes 
 a glimmer like that of dawn, which, for a moment, 
 dispels the shadows ; so, in the night of advanced 
 age, instinctive illuminations greet the gaze, which 
 
ON OLD AGE. 127 
 
 seem to belong to a coming day. The night hours 
 have been good to me ; and it is rare, indeed, that 
 these beloved companions fail to bring me a blessing 
 in the guise of some holy thought or emotion. 
 
 "Day is for man," an old writer has said, "and 
 night is for the gods." Yes : the day, with its noise 
 and activity, belongs to man and his affairs, as do 
 youth, and the strength of manhood ; while the 
 night, with its silence and meditation, is God's, 
 like age, wherein the thought of heaven predominates 
 over all the interests of life. Is not this period like 
 the rest which follows the last hour of daylight, the 
 rest which comes when our duties are all done ? And 
 are not the last years of the old man's life, which 
 correspond to these late hours, peculiarly his own, 
 more so than any other ? Has he not discharged all 
 his debts, this veteran of the earth, and, it may 
 be, in the words of the psalmist, " paid that which 
 he owed not." What remains is his own, all 
 his own. And this, his possession, what is it but 
 God? 
 
 "The Lord commandeth his loving-kindness in 
 the day-time, and our songs of thanksgiving in the 
 night." 1 
 
 The higher we mount, the later comes the night. 
 Age is the hill " whence cometh our help." When 
 all around is folded and lost in shadow, that peak, 
 
 i Ps. xliii. 
 
128 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 visited by the sunbeams, shines with the gathered 
 brightness of a long life, and shows from afar like a 
 watch-tower. 
 
 What was Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, but a 
 lamp burning in the temple? And does not the 
 gospel teach us, by the example of this saintly widow, 
 that age may pass its night without ever quitting the 
 temple ; serving God in fasting and prayer, fasting 
 from all human joys, unceasing prayer to him for 
 whose coming it waits ? 1 
 
 What is it to wait for God on the strength of his 
 word, but to taste at once the charm of mystery and 
 the great joy of certainty ; to discern across a golden 
 twilight the brightness of the uncreated light ; to 
 have, at the same time, the rapture of learning and 
 knowing ; to collect our thoughts for happiness ; to 
 prepare ourselves for joy ; to call, and feel that we 
 are answered ? 
 
 "If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I 
 will come in with him and sup with him, and he 
 with me." 2 Happy old age ! It is for supper, and 
 not for a mid-day feast, where noise and tumult 
 reign ; it is to sup with us that our Lord will come : 
 at the close of the dull, weary, toilsome day ; at the 
 hour of long, sweet, friendly talks, when intimacy 
 grows deepest, and confidence flows with a full 
 stream ; at night-fall, when hearts approach and 
 
 l Luke ii. 4. 2 R e v. xi. 20. 
 
ON OLD AGE. 129 
 
 mingle, and think of naught save how to bless and 
 sanctify the sleep which is to follow. 
 
 I collect myself, O my God ! at the close of life, 
 as at the close of day, and bring to thee my thoughts 
 and my love. The last thoughts of a heart that 
 loves thee, are like those last, deepest, ruddiest rays 
 of the setting sun. Thou hast willed, O my God ! 
 that life should be beautiful even to the end. Make 
 me to grow and keep my green, and climb like the 
 plant which lifts its head to thee for the last time 
 before it drops its seed and dies. 
 
NUNC DIMITTIS. 
 
 A STEEPER slope, a stronger impulse, hurry 
 ^ me to the tomb. Each hour, as it passes, 
 
 strips me of something, and carries me a few steps 
 farther down. The grains of dust at the bottom of 
 the clepsydra are few ; and I count them without 
 terror. How imposing are these remaining years of 
 ours, these years which may be but a day ! The 
 eve of any great day has a character of solemnity, 
 and the greatest of all dawns in eternity. 
 
 Nunc dimittis. Now lettest thou thy servant 
 depart in peace, O Lord ! His load is lightened. 
 The weakest of thy angels could carry it under his 
 wing. His swelling pride is humbled. The ego 
 has lost its substance. The world has withdrawn its 
 stupid favors. The weight of sin has been removed 
 by forgiveness and tears ; and beneath thy light and 
 easy yoke all his limbs move freely. 
 
CHRISTIANITY, 
 PROGRESS, AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 TF man were not a perpetual recipient ; if he had 
 * created, discovered, or chanced upon aught that he 
 possesses ; if all germs were native within him, and 
 brought to light by some unassisted creative virtue 
 of his own, I could understand how, in conse- 
 quence of such a beginning, so unlike his actual origin, 
 it \vould be impossible for him ever to pause or to 
 end. On this hypothesis, the very fact that he had 
 grasped primary truths would make it inevitable 
 that the infinite order to which they belong should 
 reveal to him its inexhaustible treasures. 
 
 But in reality it is not so. By the association of 
 matter with the undying soul, human power and 
 activity have been circumscribed on every side. God 
 has selected, from the infinite store-house of his wis- 
 dom, certain notions which he has made the patri- 
 mony and common groundwork of humanity ; he has 
 limited their number, so to speak, as he has that of 
 colors and sounds. All the rest of the eternal 
 
132 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Father's domain is inaccessible to man. He explores 
 only the sphere in which he is shut up ; his ex- 
 ploits are confined to a given corner of the earth ; 
 for to him, as to the ocean, have been set bounds 
 that he cannot pass over. Do we say, then, that 
 time has been doomed to impotence, and man to 
 inaction ? 
 
 No. Time presides over the successive develop- 
 ment and gradual progress of masses, but its years 
 and its ages are alike powerless to make the human 
 species attain its culminating point of intellectual or 
 moral grandeur. What time necessarily perfects, 
 are methods and classifications. What it creates are 
 instruments, and this is quite glory enough. Look 
 at letters, science, and philosophy ! 
 
 Disputes have sometimes been raised about the 
 comparative literary eminence of the ancients and 
 the "moderns. If we are to believe Fontenelle, for 
 example, in his famous polemic against his adversary 
 Lamotte, chronology suffices to mark the advance of 
 the human mind. Given, the numbers of any two 
 centuries, and we know at once which surpasses 
 the other. No doubt the general level of science 
 or human attainment rises, like the soil of our cities, 
 by the simple action of time ; but has the gifted man 
 of our day more talent than the gifted man of a 
 thousand years ago? Do we reckon many savans 
 in our academies of Paris, London, or Berlin, who 
 transcend the proportions of Pythagoras, Plato, or 
 
CHRISTIANITY, PROGRESS, AND CIVILIZATION. 133 
 
 Aristotle ? many architects who can outdo the 
 Parthenon, many sculptors who eclipse Phidias or 
 Praxiteles ? 
 
 It is from the hands of the Creator that genius 
 issues, full-armed like Minerva, without regard to 
 date. Great men are but a result of the divine abso- 
 lutism. Without revelation, which came to apprise 
 us of a heaven which, alas ! we know not how to 
 conquer nor even to desire, what change could have 
 been wrought in human destiny by the unassisted 
 act of man? 
 
 The Christian is often confronted with the prog- 
 ress and the blessings attributed to the Reforma- 
 tion of the sixteenth, and the philosophy of the 
 eighteenth, centuries. Now, in my opinion, what 
 Christians should dare acknowledge to themselves, 
 and reply to others, is this : 
 
 Yes : in the long-run there have been few more 
 severe and humiliating punishments inflicted upon 
 Christians than the collective events which were 
 consummated under the name of reform, and which 
 all arose from hatred or contempt of the Catholics. 
 
 A second test, less rigorous in its character, though 
 equally accusatory, is the philosophy of the eighteenth 
 century, a period during which the enemies of Chris- 
 tianity were left to deduce the corollary of those 
 social truths, strongly entrenched, like truths of every 
 sort, in the heart of the Church. The humani- 
 tarian theories of the last century made an outlet 
 
134 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 for a part only of what was latent in Christianity, 
 and the philosophers did but attempt to extend to 
 society what had hitherto been applied exclusively 
 to the individual. They endeavored to enlarge the 
 circle, and widen the application of the precept; but, 
 in reality, every truth they ever promulgated was 
 drawn from the fount of Christianity, and bore the 
 mark of its spirit. But how was it that Christian 
 society allowed itself to be outstripped by those who, 
 at the same time, were stabbing the breast that had 
 nourished them? What shall we say of those heed- 
 less and ungrateful sons who leave their father's 
 estate to be pillaged by those who offer him insult? 
 Let us be generous and indulgent to our enemies ; 
 but to the brothers whom we respect and cherish, 
 our severity is due. Do not the faults of the Catho- 
 lics touch us far more nearly than the heinous in- 
 justice of their foes? In reform and encyclopedist 
 philosophy, therefore, for how much do the laxity 
 and the abuses which induced them count? 
 
 The philosophers, on the other hand, cannot deny 
 the identity of their maxims with the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. What they took or gave for original views 
 were generally only deductions from principles depos- 
 ited in their hearts by early education. What they 
 came to announce corresponded with that which it 
 has ever been the mission of Christianity to introduce 
 into the world, as the notes whose origin and larceny 
 we are attempting to prove, are found upon trial to 
 
CHRISTIANITY, PROGRESS, AND CIVILIZATION. 135 
 
 correspond with the counterparts from which they 
 were cut off. 
 
 That the eighteenth century was animated by a 
 sincere affection for humanity is possible ; but, after 
 all, what did it say, what did it do or, rather, what 
 did it desire to do which Christianity has not com- 
 prehended within itself from all time? Christianity 
 claims the same end and tendency, only it would have 
 manifested a different spirit, and employed other 
 means. 
 
 For, in short, despite those who do not shrink 
 from employing in the meanest service the sacred 
 majesty of the gospel, the mission of Christianity has 
 ever been to act upon society ; while holding itself 
 utterly aloof from definite temporal contests, and 
 taking care to impose no political regimen, properly 
 so called. Without being unfaithful to the word of 
 its divine Founder, " My kingdom is not of this 
 world," without proposing as the immediate ob- 
 ject of its teaching the modification of States, insti- 
 tutions, or laws, bearing sway in a loftier sphere 
 than that of the forum or the senate, Christianity 
 has transformed the world by transforming the con- 
 science. It penetrates into the most secret recesses 
 of the human heart ; it strives but for the salvation 
 of souls; yet, by a wonderful concatenation, by an 
 indirect but infallible method, that which operates 
 upon the individual reacts upon society at large. 
 
 Thus it is that Christianity, without affecting poli- 
 tics, has never failed to show itself a civilizer. 
 
136 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 We need but to ask ourselves in what direction 
 civilization is going or should go. It is not Chris- 
 tianity that will falter at this question. From what- 
 ever quarter the wind of human thought may blow, 
 Christianity pursues its own course. It is the princi-' 
 pie of all development ; the moving force, the prime 
 motor, in a certain sense ; like steam, which serves 
 all purposes, instead of being applicable only to a 
 limited number of ends. 
 
 Christianity is identified with no political regime : 
 its character of universality forbids this. It is the es- 
 sence of progress, but it must be able to go along 
 with all degrees of civilization. It does not wait till 
 a people has arrived at such or such a level, but re- 
 sponds to all actual conditions. Indifferent to tem- 
 porary accidents, it attacks the wrong principle. 
 Wherever it encounters that, it labors to undermine 
 it ; indiscriminately aiming only at the extirpation of 
 that evil which it came to earth to withstand. Injus- 
 tice, denial of right or contempt of humanity, 
 wherever found, it refers to the same source. 
 
 The social tendency of Christianity, then, is sim- 
 ply toward the maintenance or the establishment of 
 God's kingdom in society, a kingdom which is in- 
 compatible neither with a monarchy, the most per- 
 fect image of the family ; nor with an oligarchy, the 
 government of sages ; nor with an aristocracy, the 
 representative of national traditions, and the collec- 
 tive force of wealth and intellect ; nor with a demo- 
 
CHRISTIANITY, PROGRESS, AND CIVILIZATION. 137 
 
 cracy, if the latter be well-disciplined and strong in 
 its self-possession. 
 
 Transgressions of the divine law constitute not 
 merely the sin and sorrow of the individual, but the 
 sin and sorrow of nations. Outside of Christianity, 
 neither prosperity nor freedom will ever be lasting. 
 History, recording in its annals the long course of 
 deception practised both by peoples and by kings, 
 demonstrates the fact that, if nations and their chiefs 
 had been more docile to the teachings of Christianity, 
 the political condition of the world would have been 
 far other than it is to-day. 
 
 The divine element alone can vanquish the two 
 great powers of evil, pride and sensual desire. Pride 
 for the mind, concupiscence for the body ; these are 
 man's two poles. They are all. Who, in his own 
 strength, shall contend with them? The mere at- 
 tempt to do so requires God. 
 
 Christianity concerns itself neither with the branches 
 of the tree to influence their bent, nor with its foliage, 
 nor with its trunk even : but it keeps watch of 
 the sap whence all the rest emanate ; and branches, 
 trunk, and foliage profit by its care. 
 
 Do right implicitly, without accepting any political 
 system, and the political system becomes the sincere 
 representative of that cause of truth and right which 
 will profit by such action. In this world we must 
 know how to wait, and had far better sow than aspire 
 to reap. Only violence moves with rapidity ; but the 
 
138 WHITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 traces of its passage may as quickly disappear. Use- 
 ful action is slow. Its toil is long unnoticed, but its 
 effects never fail to make themselves felt afar. If 
 you remove from the realm of circumstance and hu- 
 man seduction the ideas which you know to be indis- 
 putably right, and devote yourself to these, your 
 conscience is satisfied. Attach yourself, then, to this 
 certain good ; opposing to all else a moral resistance, 
 whereby society may count an activity the less, but 
 never a danger the more. 
 
 And let us not lightly brave the possible peril of 
 missing God's thought in the region of the un- 
 known. How sad to have given your heart to some- 
 thing that God has not willed, which he did not 
 will even at the moment of your unreserved surren- 
 der ! Let us keep the passion of our souls for causes 
 whose triumph is not doubtful ; and, with each 
 of us, let the object of ambition be to deserve suc- 
 cess, rather than to obtain it. 
 
 He who works with any other end than this, may 
 regret his efforts even if he succeed. He, on the 
 contrary, who works independently of all partial, 
 possible, contingent aims, in a general way, doing 
 each hour the good whidi comes to hand, expressing 
 only what he feels to be true, supporting only what 
 he believes to be just, such an one seems to take 
 thought but for to-day ; but, in reality, he is working 
 for eternity. Schiller says, in a noble verse, " He 
 who does good in his own time, has wrought for the 
 
CHRISTIANITY, PROGRESS, AND CIVILIZATION. 139 
 
 ages." Few things in this world are accomplished 
 after a direct and absolute fashion. More people are 
 hit by ricochet than by direct aim ; and a random 
 shot finds its mark. Let truth, justice, and charity 
 pervade the heart, and the atmosphere will be per- 
 fumed far and wide. 
 
 We take great thought for others, if we but watch 
 over our own rectitude, fortify the soul, and purify 
 it of all venom, all weakness, all irritation, all inter- 
 nal susceptibility, and all fear of man. Under these 
 conditions the good work is in danger of being its 
 own reward ; but what matter ? Of the seeds that 
 are flung to the winds, are there not many which will 
 germinate far, very far, from the stem that bore 
 them? 
 
 Slavery, for example. Christianity has no need to 
 ordain its abolition, it inspires it ; and that is enough 
 for the man who would be governed by the spirit of 
 Christ. It is the imperfect reception of Christianity 
 in the soul which allows slavery to continue ; and 
 truth has made no progress unless human bondage 
 has been rendered impossible by its advance. To 
 combat slavery solely from a philanthropic point of 
 view, is too often to lose one's labor, for lust and cu- 
 pidity mount guard over the system ; but to encour- 
 age, develop, and stimulate the moral element most 
 antagonistic to human bondage, is to accelerate the 
 chances of emancipation, and to multiply them a 
 hundred-fold. 
 
140 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 The fact is, that civilization lives, and has lived, 
 only on Christianity ; follows it afar off, and one day, 
 perhaps, will be shaped upon its model : but weak- 
 ness, poverty, and obscurity cannot hasten that day, 
 save by the sacred hope they cherish , and by repeated 
 acts in conformity with the Christian spirit. Ele- 
 mentary notions of faith have often sufficed to raise 
 man to the highest moral dignity ; and what faith 
 does in this respect, faith alone can do. All that ap- 
 pears without, has had its beginning within us ; and, 
 virtually, nothing can change in human institutions, 
 if our hearts be not changed. 
 
 Another and equal benefit of Christianity is, that it 
 achieves nothing by shocks, nor ever advances but to 
 retire. All that it has dictated or established in this 
 world has been done without violence. The true 
 need of a people or an individual is deeply rooted ; 
 and progress is slow in proportion to the inherent 
 force. Progress, however vast, when not provoked 
 by human passion, is never cruel in its advent, nor 
 destructive in its advance. Every thing bends to 
 it : resistance is gradually weakened ; and it adapts 
 itself naturally to those great events which have 
 become necessary and opportune. It is only when 
 the will of man is rashly and prematurely inter- 
 posed, that commotion and ravage begin. 
 
 Nature, too, like all else here below, is subjected 
 to the law of death ; and has her revolutions, her de- 
 cadence, her progress. When it becomes necessary 
 
CHRISTIANITY, PROGRESS, AND CIVILIZATION. 141 
 
 for her to pronounce a final sentence, she initiates a 
 process of gradual decay. Under her watchful and 
 provident hand, the traces of ravage disappear ; birth 
 arises from death ; and, even when she makes ruins, 
 she makes no rubbish. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 
 
 COMPILER'S DEDICATION. 
 To COUNT ALBERT DE RESSEGUIER AND PRINCE AGUSTAN GALIT- 
 
 ZIN, WITH THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 OF A. DE FALLOUX. 
 
 COMPILER'S PREFACE. 
 
 reader is already aware that no part of 
 * what Madame Swetchine wrote was destined 
 for publicity, but I think the statement should be 
 repeated to those who are about to commence the 
 perusal of this genuine Treatise on Resignation. 
 
 Nowhere has that incomparable soul revealed itself 
 more fully than in the majority of the ensuing pages. 
 The finest observation of earthly things here shines 
 side by side with the anticipated peace of heaven ; 
 and strokes worthy of La Bruyre abound together 
 with flights worthy of St. Augustine. The faculty 
 of living at once the life of the world and the life of 
 God, and the power of passing without effort from 
 one sphere to the other, was never displayed in a 
 form more affecting and original, more fascinating 
 and more instructive. One may say, in a word, to 
 
COMPILER'S PREFACE. 143 
 
 those who knew Madame Swetchine, that here they 
 will find the whole of her. 
 
 Unfortunately this work is but a fragment. None 
 may attempt to finish it in its author's stead. Certain 
 transitions are wanting ; some highly spiritual points 
 will seem, it may be, imperfectly elaborated or illus- 
 trated. It is therefore important to remember that 
 Madame Swetchine, who gave vent to her thoughts 
 and emotions merely for the sake of satisfying and 
 enlightening her conscience, gave herself no uneasi- 
 ness about introducing the minds of others gradually 
 to her own point of view. 
 
 We read awhile ago, that w writing in pencil is 
 like speaking in a low voice." l It will convey a just 
 idea of the strictly private purpose of this work to 
 state, that more than half the unfinished manuscript 
 is written with a pencil. 
 
 ALFRED DE FALLOUX. 
 
 Chap. 1, No. 74, of the " Thoughts." 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 
 
 " In voluntate tua, Domine, universa sunt posita, et non est qui 
 possit resistere voluntati tua3, tu enim fecisti omnia, ccelum et terram 
 et universa quae coeli ambitu continental*. Dominus universorum 
 tu es." ESTHER ix. 11. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON RESIGNATION APART FROM CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 RESIGNATION is one of the virtues with which 
 Christianity has endowed the world, not that the 
 human soul did not contain it from the beginning, 
 along with all good and^ evil principles ; but it is 
 only by the light of revelation that it displays the 
 impress of that character of freedom, love, persua- 
 siveness, and power, which the saints, the sages of 
 Christendom, have shown us it can wear. 
 
 Man has always suffered, always seen his wishes 
 crossed, always fought Destiny with forces more 
 or less unequal. Yet, though necessarily vanquished 
 in many cases, in respect of having to yield to some 
 external pressure, man remains, at the bottom of 
 his heart, master of the conditions of his defeat, and, 
 by that law of moral freedom which governs his 
 interior life, he is sure of being able to escape any 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 145 
 
 volition but his own. To yield or to defy, to resist 
 or to submit, to adore or to deny, are so many ways 
 which remain open to him. What decides his choice 
 is simply the idea that he forms of the power that 
 governs him, according as he conceives it intelligent 
 or blind, friendly or hostile, implacable or impassi- 
 ble. An instinctive feeling warns us that mere force 
 has no moral element, and that none but a spiritual 
 law can be authoritative to us ; and the will within 
 us follows the modifications which our opinions and 
 beliefs undergo, and reacts at the same time upon 
 the impressions it receives ; resisting them even when 
 they are rooted doubly and how strongly ! in 
 nature and in habit. 
 
 The first religious system which presents itself 
 to our thought is that of Greece, so ingenious in 
 its fables, with whose mythology we are familiar- 
 ized by our earliest studies. 
 
 In examining the influence exerted by that system 
 upon the human will, we are first struck by that 
 sombre deity which, hovering in sovereign might 
 above the personified passions who peopled Olympus, 
 revealed itself only by arbitrary and irrevocable judg- 
 ments. The true god, the Master of the gods, even 
 of him who usurped the name of the supreme god, 
 was Fate, Fate in its profound blindness, and in 
 all the cynicism of its capricious and tyrannical de- 
 crees. Jupiter, who shaped and regulated a world 
 
 7 
 
146 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 which he had not created, and who realized no 
 scheme that we can grasp, presented himself to 
 man neither as a legislator nor as a judge. He had 
 set in motion the elements extracted from chaos, 
 with a careless hand ; and evil, whose nature and 
 origin remained insoluble problems, incurred no an- 
 imadversions from him. The action of Jove on the 
 events of the world was no more free than his intent 
 in its formation had been a moral one. His very 
 will obeyed the irrevocable decrees emanating from 
 a power whose essence was wrapped in profound 
 mystery. Blind force was everywhere ; the author- 
 ity which God exercises over man by direct and 
 explicit commandments, nowhere. 
 
 Under the law of a brilliant Polytheism, which 
 forgot nothing but reverence for the gods, and pity 
 for human nature, we see the most advanced and 
 intellectual people on earth, in whom the yearning 
 for right and justice should have been stimulated 
 afresh by its very development, persisting in a system 
 which banished even wisdom and freedom from the 
 heavens. And when such gods, in perpetual war- 
 fare with the conscience of mankind, bowed before 
 that Fate whose blindness drove reason to despair, 
 the desire of man could discover nothing above it, 
 neither law nor light nor help. He beheld himself 
 from that moment helplessly given over to the al- 
 ternative of an insensate struggle or a bitter and 
 abject despondency. Thus in the pictures which 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 147 
 
 antiquity has left us of man contending with mis- 
 fortune, we see, with a few illustrious exceptions, only 
 the rigidity of pride, or the intoxication born of 
 sensual pleasure. Ajax or Epicurus, these are the 
 two extremes, to one of which grief could hardly 
 help but lead, according as man aimed at fortitude 
 or insensibility. 
 
 As religious beliefs were weakened among the 
 Greeks, they began to resolve themselves into sys- 
 tems of philosophy. That of the Porch exalted 
 more than any other the might of the will, striving 
 to show it triumphant even in its useless resistance 
 to the decrees of Destiny ; a vain pretence, which 
 resulted only in a show of chimerical impassibility 
 and a lying negation of sorrow. 
 
 Mahometan fatalism which, like all Islamism, 
 was a corruption of true principles perverted resig- 
 nation. The world, in the eyes of the followers of 
 Mahomet, was not, as to the pagan, governed by a 
 blind divinity. But, while recognizing a free and 
 intelligent First Cause, a spiritual God, by whom 
 all things were made, they conceived all events to 
 be so irrevocably determined in his breast, that, on 
 the one hand, God fettered his own movements, and 
 lost even the right to relent ; and, on the other, he 
 stripped mankind of every vestige of moral freedom. 
 
 From this point of view, God effaces no sentence of 
 his to make room for a new ; and the word of Pilate 
 
148 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 is of constant and universal force, " What I have 
 written, I have written." 
 
 A supple instrument in the hands of an ardent and 
 able chief, Islamism seized on the passive instincts of 
 the orient, gave to the principle of blind submission all 
 that activity which was withdrawn from the mind and 
 the heart, and turned that subrnissiveness in the direc- 
 tion of warlike fanaticism. The belief in a sentence 
 which had fixed beforehand the unknown future, ren- 
 dering all precautions useless, armed the Mussulmans 
 with an indomitable courage, which was still further 
 stimulated by the doctrine that all who met death, 
 sword in hand, obtained salvation. 
 
 This belief, and all the indulgences offered to the 
 sensual nature, were the principal elements in that 
 success of Islamism, which had well nigh been 
 crowned by the material conquest of the world. Ev- 
 erywhere, save where warlike fanaticism had to shield 
 religious fanaticism, Mahometanism bore its proper 
 fruit. It extinguished moral activity in the double 
 sleep of idleness and license ; and, beginning with 
 improvidence and ending with indifference, it plunged 
 the soul into a lethargic torpor. 
 
 The quietism of India another and equally dis- 
 torted form of resignation takes its rise in a subtle 
 and fundamental error, in a Pantheism which con- 
 founds all substances and confuses all relations. The 
 human soul is there considered, not as a creation of 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 149 
 
 the Most High, but as a part of him, as the spark is 
 a part of the fire whence it issues. We can under- 
 stand how, upon this hypothesis, man becomes the 
 legitimate end of his own being ; and that a state 
 of imbecile satisfaction, of internal and external im- 
 mobility, would be the one consequence of his absorp- 
 tion into the divine unity. 
 
 Since every error, in its transition from the realm 
 of speculation to real life, becomes morally danger- 
 ous, the logical result of this Indian dogma of ab- 
 sorption is to restrain action and dispel the notion of 
 duty ; attacking human energy in the twofold end, it 
 should pursue, devotion to others and detachment 
 from self. Instead of walking by the light of vivi- 
 fying precepts, resignation, with the Hindu, borders 
 upon indolence, and seems to follow the dark and 
 downward proclivity of natural tendencies. It an- 
 nuls intelligence, and exhausts its strength in vain 
 speculations and imaginings, which have no applica- 
 tion save to the useless practice of the most fantastic 
 puerilities. Even in regard to the gymnosophists of 
 India, it would be outrageous to reproduce the trite 
 accusations of falsehood and hypocrisy ; but, while 
 rejecting these, at the bidding of good sense and ex- 
 perience, the astonishing aberrations of these men do 
 yet prove how poor a defence against the most sense- 
 less conclusions are principles independently just, 
 righteous intentions, and an undeniable power of 
 inertia, when one is outside the truth. 
 
150 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHENE. 
 
 If, then, a blind cause cannot incite to respectful 
 and loving submission ; if to deny the fact of suffer- 
 ing is quite a different thing from teaching ourselves 
 to bear it; if it is equally true that submission, un- 
 der the conditions which make it a virtue, springs 
 neither from a fatalism which stereotypes God and 
 the world ; nor from a quietism which volatilizes all 
 the truth it grasps > are we not forced to conclude 
 that resignation, as we conceive it, depends on re- 
 vealed truth? 
 
 Were God and man not understood as they are, 
 by the double light of history and doctrine, the 
 power which disposes of our destiny would always 
 have lacked the moral character of authority, and 
 servile fear would never have yielded its place to filial 
 reverence. The single fact of redemption, in its 
 double aspect of love and power, gives us a deeper 
 insight into justice, fitness, merit, and the real mean- 
 ing of absolute submission, than all human induc- 
 tions, all prudent calculations, and all the abstract 
 demonstrations and vague apperceptions of a hollow 
 theosophy. 
 
 No vague, impersonal God whatever, who wills to 
 reign unknown beyond the suns, can exercise any 
 authority over man abandoned to himself, and igno- 
 rant at once of his greatness and his nothingness. To 
 create within us a steady, tender, patient submis- 
 sion, it is needful that the prayer addressed to God 
 by a distinguished saint " Noveriin te, noverim 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 151 
 
 me " should already have been heard in the depths 
 of our being. It is needful that God, so distorted 
 and misunderstood by ignorance and unbelief, should 
 be actually present to the eyes of man, as the living 
 God who evoked ourselves, and all things else, from 
 naught, and stooped to repair his work after the fall. 
 It is needful that man should go back through the 
 ages, and see unrolled the magnificent panorama of 
 most impressive mercies, and God never forsaking 
 his own, even when he seems to have 'abandoned 
 them. It is needful, above all things, that faith 
 should show us in the heavens the God who has 
 spoken to our souls ; the good God, the divine Son of 
 Man, that slain Emanuel, who came to teach us 
 all things, to live, to die, to remain with us. 
 
 In default of this divine succor, we may doubtless 
 make our courage a point of honor, and present a 
 calm front to the blows of Fate ; but Christian 
 resignation is not confined to apparent fortitude, an 
 unaltered countenance, and isolated acts : it should 
 penetrate all the emotions before they are externally 
 betrayed. This resignation is rather the free expres- 
 sion of a regenerated and victorious will, than an 
 effort of virtue : it is far more a situation of the 
 soul, than the adherence to a course of action con- 
 sidered and adopted on the spur of the moment. It 
 cannot be too often repeated that the permanence of 
 such effects presupposes, as an essential element, a 
 living, enlightened, active faith, such a faith as 
 
152 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Christianity alone can produce, because it alone, 
 by its admirable distribution of light and shade, 
 shows itself armed equally with justice and with mer- 
 cy, and marvellously watchful of all that passes on 
 the earth. It belongs to the wisdom which preceded 
 and prepared all things, to draw us to itself while 
 leaving our desires all free ; and, if our God did not 
 bear the name of Providence, our hearts could never 
 have conceived of true and lasting resignation. 
 
 
 No system of religion has proclaimed more loudly 
 than Christianity the freedom of man. Implied even 
 in that word of the Almighty, " Let us make man in 
 our image," it is equally attested by the oldest 
 human fact to which we can recur, original sin, 
 which is, alas ! only a vast and criminal exercise 
 of our freedom. 
 
 If man had not a distinct personality, an individ- 
 ual existence, the mind to know and the faculty to 
 choose, if he had not a sphere of action, and a 
 safe asylum in his own conscience, where would be 
 his resemblance to God? 
 
 If man were not free, how could he be guilty? 
 how could he have crossed the designs of God and 
 consummated his own misfortune? Without liberty, 
 there is no responsibility : without responsibility, 
 no act would bear a moral impress ; and conse- 
 quently justice in the administration of reward and 
 punishment would be impossible. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 153 
 
 The very fact that liberty is the characteristic of 
 his nature distinguishes man from the rest of crea- 
 
 o 
 
 tion, and invests him with a special, personal life, 
 which renders him, under grace, the master and 
 artist of his own destiny. It is by his free will that 
 man, placed midway between good and evil, can 
 become guilty or meritorious. It is because the will 
 of man can protest, and resist even while yielding to 
 the law which internally it rejects, that his adhe- 
 rence has a meaning and his consent a value, and 
 that his choice, whatever it be, has weight in the 
 balance. 
 
 But this freedom, which in God is absolute, has 
 merely been munificently conceded to man. The 
 primal attribute of his kingship over the world can 
 be but a primal servitude so far as he, from whom he 
 holds it, is concerned. God has placed man at the 
 summit of creation, that he might bring its rays to 
 a focus, and that his worship might thence acquire 
 more unity and value. He created man free, so as 
 to elevate the character of his dependence, and make 
 it a merit in him to confess it. However great man 
 may be, he has received all ; and each one of his 
 privileges creates a perpetual obligation. 
 
 To the sense of this freedom, which is common to 
 all men, the Christian adds the knowledge of its uses. 
 His eye measures the chasm opened by the fall. He 
 sees the utter impossibility of filling it without grace. 
 
 7* 
 
154 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 These two terms, man created free and man fallen, 
 form the original groundwork of one and the same 
 story : their revelation shows us all the mind of God 
 and all our own weakness ; and from them spring 
 two virtues, which belong peculiarly to the Christian, 
 humility, whereof the ancient world never heard; 
 and submission, never to be recognized under the 
 disguises of error. 
 
 Since pride caused the fall of man, ought not 
 humility to reinstate him? There exists a correla- 
 tion, secret and strong, between that freedom which 
 compromised all our rights, and that resignation, 
 which, trusting to the means of reparation, restores 
 man to the rank whence he should never have fallen. 
 All Christian morality is the logical expression of 
 the state in which freedom and the fall have placed 
 mankind. This ethical system is a vast network, 
 which embraces the whole of human nature. All 
 its parts are identical, despite diverse proportions : 
 they bear the same impress, down even to those re- 
 mote deductions, in which we can hardly recognize 
 the substance of the precept, under the ethereal and 
 sublimated form of the decree. 
 
 Among these deductions, nevertheless, there are 
 some which issue more immediately from the womb 
 of the Christian doctrine, and are, as it were, its 
 first-born ; and humility and resignation claim these 
 honors of primogeniture. These two virtues, in short, 
 not only place in a strong light the most salient char- 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 155 
 
 acteristics of Christian morality, but they initiate us 
 into its deepest and most secret essence ; and are also 
 the effective methods whereby its highest and most 
 explicit teachings receive their full realization . Thus , 
 while humility became man's highest virtue, as pride 
 had been the principle of his fall, resignation volun- 
 tarily bound itself to expiate the sins of freedom. 
 
 Kedemption, the work of adorable and infinite 
 pity, all whose power is concentrated in the self- 
 abasement of obedience, shows us, next in order 
 to the three divine virtues, humility and resigna- 
 tion. Humiliation and suffering, this is the royal 
 way in which our Lord precedes us. Humiliation 
 and suffering constitute, under grace, all the joy 
 of innocence, and all the confidence of sinful man. 
 From them those lowly flowers which grow at the 
 foot of the cross derive all their sweetness. 
 
 Born in the first dawning of light upon the world, 
 and resting on the truths which Scripture and tra- 
 dition have transmitted to us, resignation, as the 
 thought of the Christian conceives it, has nothing in 
 common with the paths trodden by the wisdom of 
 paganism. How could Christianity fail to pronounce 
 Stoicism false and self-contradictory in its true, ra- 
 tional, inmost meaning? How could it fail to find 
 the denial of sorrow specially absurd, in a system 
 which gives us no advantage over grief, because it 
 offsets no hope against it. 
 
156 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Christianity, the work of Him who made nature, 
 does not thus contravene nature's laws, not even by 
 the introduction of a supernatural element. Chris- 
 tianity does not claim to suppress grief, but it puri- 
 fies and consoles by sanctifying it ; justifies it in 
 our eyes by showing us its profound relations with 
 our actual needs ; and softens it, as nothing else can, 
 by allowing glimpses of the bliss of which it may one 
 day make us worthy. Truth, alas ! can never dis- 
 avow sorrow, she who came to sound its depths 
 and show its purpose, and who also knows so well 
 the dignity to which it lifts the soul of man, 
 and the fruit it should bear therein. In lieu of 
 childishly denying its existence, she strips it of all 
 that could mislead or corrupt, and transforms it by 
 the secret of a divine alchemy. To man, working 
 in God's name, belongs transformation, but not 
 creation or annihilation. 
 
 In that system, which recognizes a fatal linking 
 of all effects to their causes, the Christian sees a 
 guilty blow aimed at the power and freedom of the 
 Supreme Being. The shapeless notion of a Creator 
 who is yet absent from his work, of an incomprehen- 
 sible decree, promulgated once for all, and entailing- 
 endless and inflexible consequences, is fit to para- 
 lyze man with terror, and strip him not merely of 
 hope, but of faith in the celestial pity. 
 
 Descending into the realm of action, the doctrine 
 of fatalism makes ravages no less deadly, by depriv- 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 157 
 
 ing human activity of all real stimulus. For why, 
 indeed, should we act, why struggle with sloth, in- 
 ertia, and levity, if our efforts are vain, and nothing 
 within or without us can be modified ; if God expects 
 nothing of us ; if it is not true that, free and rational 
 agents as we are, God, by giving us his law in our 
 hearts, has revealed his thought to us, and deigned 
 to take us for his co-laborers ; if it is not true, in 
 short, that, upon this vast stage of the present, 
 which projects its shadow upon eternity, we have 
 God's work to carry on, our own talent to improve, 
 a reward to have earned at the close of every day ? 
 
 Hypocritical attempts to liken Christian resigna- 
 tion to Mussulman fatalism will never succeed, do 
 what men will in the way of confounding dispositions 
 marked by the most distinctive symptoms. The 
 Turk takes the eve for the morrow. With him inert 
 submission precedes action in lieu of following it, and 
 weakens, if it does not suppress it. The will, in its 
 imbecile adolescence, would shrink from attaining 
 virility. Outside of truth, the will is a suspected 
 force, and is enchained or imbruted, in default of the 
 power to control it. The Christian is less timid. His 
 resignation, active and intelligent to the end, is but 
 the last term of his very activity, the final conse- 
 quent of all the attempts he has made and relin- 
 quished. It is only after having displayed all his 
 resources, and brought all his powers into play, that 
 the Christian enters upon the rest of perfect submis- 
 
158 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 sion ; a conqueror, whatever be the issue of the strife, 
 since the victory of conscience is the accomplishment 
 of duty, the completion of the entire task. 
 
 It would be equally unjust to attempt to discover 
 aught of Christian resignation in the false pretences 
 of Indian quietism. Despite all, that tender abandon- 
 ment to the divine will which Christianity bears with- 
 in, that propensity to unite itself thereto, that joy 
 in self-denial, the sentiments to which it gives birth 
 have naught in common with the absorption of all 
 personality and the haughty pretence to a blasphe- 
 mous identity. Christianity perfects human virtue 
 by the action of its divine principle ; subjugates mat- 
 ter and resists its usurpations, and yet causes it 
 to participate in the sanctification of the soul. Its 
 reverence for realities guards it against puerile 
 dreams ; against the pious chimeras with which the 
 imagination teems ; against all illusions, however holy 
 their source may appear, and however innocent their 
 effects. It clothes the most subtile thoughts in sen- 
 sible symbols, ever forcing us, like new Antajuses, to 
 recruit our strength by touching the substance of 
 Deity. 
 
 The perfect rectitude of Christian resignation has 
 been quite as strongly menaced in the very bosom of 
 the Catholic Church. First, by determinism, a 
 system which derives its name from the succession of 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 159 
 
 determining causes, an obscure and inconspicuous 
 error, though it dares not go as far in predestination 
 as certain modern sects. . . . The fate of the seven- 
 teenth century quietism is much better known. It 
 came clothed in fair colors, under the imposing and 
 persuasive authority of dear and reverend names. 
 But the brightest vesture cannot hide error from the 
 vigilance of Israel's sentinels ; and for them to signal 
 the reef is to preserve therefrom all that deserve the 
 name of faithful. . . . 
 
 We have seen what Christian resignation is not. 
 Let us now attempt to tell something of what it is. 
 
 The definitions of faith are not the only ones over 
 which the Church exercises her sovereign dictation. 
 She is equally authoritative in morals ; and doc- 
 trine comprises both. The Church, then, is at once 
 orthodoxy in belief and infallible rectitude in moral 
 ideas. The creed, translated and transferred to the 
 domain of action, gives moral precepts their value 
 and meaning ; guarding the truths it teaches alike 
 from narrow interpretation and undue extension, and 
 from every deviation and misplacement, whereby the 
 order of their importance might be reversed. God, 
 who excludes nothing because he embraces all, causes 
 all simultaneities to march abreast. He has made 
 space for every thing, in nature, in the duality of 
 man, and in that spiritual world also, where all vir- 
 tues, as well as all verities, are reconciled one with 
 another. Religion presents them to us in the light 
 
160 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 of sisters, who have an equal right to the paternal 
 inheritance, who are destined always to support, and 
 never to injure one another ; no one of whom can 
 lawfully enlarge her sphere to the prejudice of the 
 others, the integrity of each having been placed in 
 safe keeping of all. 
 
 Thus does Christian resignation pursue her way 
 over the reefs of brute fatalism and Indian quietism, 
 favoring no excess, and defending virtue from all 
 encroachment even, as well as from all irregularity. 
 Fair enough to desire only her own proper beauty ; 
 strong enough to confine herself to her own limits ; 
 at once lofty and lowly enough to treat directly with 
 God; free, living, strong, generous, calm, serene, 
 and incomparably worthy, Resignation wears all these 
 characters in succession, or presents them mingled in 
 one sublime reflection. 
 
 Yes : she is proud and worthy, this Resignation, 
 of the bowed head and bended knee. We may not 
 deprive her of the lofty place which voluntary obe- 
 dience assures to freedom. That cry of the Archangel 
 Michael, "The Lord rebuke thee," is to quote an 
 eloquent writer the noblest wish that one creature 
 may form in favor of another. " The Lord rebuke 
 thee ; " and tenderness and power shall accompany 
 the rebuke, and his yoke shall free thee from every 
 other. 
 
 Yes : resignation is free ; for there is no more sov- 
 ereign act than that whereby we resign our freedom I 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 161 
 
 Resignation is living and glorious : living, for there 
 is more life in the death of him who , according to the 
 gospel, dies to himself, than in the majority of those 
 shadowy, ghostlike beings, whom conflict, devotion, 
 and sacrifice have never ennobled ; glorious, for the 
 Christian resigns himself as Abraham obeyed. The 
 revealed word has taught him all things ; and its 
 teaching, either in the form of speech or tradition, 
 encounters him again and quite as intelligibly, in the 
 events which God, never rejecting the aid of our 
 weakness, chooses for the manifestation of his will. 
 The conducting wire, which the faithful holds in his 
 hands, is too brightly illumined for him to be troubled 
 by doubts on questions of duty ; and as he is not 
 required to give an account of the chances of success, 
 but merely of the rectitude of his every step, when- 
 ever action is constrained to pause, submission comes 
 in its stead. 
 
 Finally, resignation is calm and serene, with that 
 visible serenity, whose flame is within and which 
 constitutes the joy of virtue. Resignation lives on 
 reverence and on trust ; but it has also a keen and 
 loving glance, by virtue of which the adorable strata- 
 gems which a pitying God employs to reconcile men 
 to his purposes, are rendered clear to its eyes. 
 
 Thus the night of our exile has shades, but it has 
 no darkness. While its action goes on and its issue 
 is undecided, strength and moral activity receive their 
 complete development ; but as soon as the conflict 
 
162 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 ceases, and an aspect of irrevocability proclaims the 
 divine permission or sanction, the Christian bows to 
 these ; and his will, uniting with the Supreme Will, 
 takes its place, to use the magnificent words of Bos- 
 suet, among the powers of God. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE JUSTICE AND PROPRIETY OF RESIGNATION. ITS 
 
 DIFFERENT DEGREES. 
 
 GOD has willed that nothing on this earth should 
 be either guilty or meritorious, except the human 
 will. That only assumes responsibility by living for 
 good or evil ends. We may even say, with no lack 
 of precision, that there are but two powers in the 
 world, God and human volition. Where they are 
 in unison, it is a glorious and blessed thing for this 
 earth. When they are at variance, a state of revolt 
 ensues, with all its accompanying chastisements, con- 
 stituting the height of misfortune for the creature. 
 But, in either case, God is glorified. 
 
 From the moment in which man was made ac- 
 quainted with the abyss into which the founder of 
 the race has plunged his descendants ; from the 
 moment when he felt the fatal germ of evil growing 
 within him, and comprehended that this germ was 
 overtopping his own will, it became his duty to 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 163 
 
 embrace that expiation which had become his sole 
 means of rehabilitation, and the pledge of his recon- 
 cilement with God. 
 
 The rapidity with which he is borne onward, 
 blinds and deafens the sinner, and what reasonable 
 man does not feel himself to be such? but the 
 moment he has recovered his self-possession, pun- 
 ishment becomes, in his eyes, the indefeasible right 
 of offended justice, and begets in him a pious 
 hope. 
 
 God has but one method of punishing, abandon- 
 ment. He meditates in silence on his severities ; 
 when he speaks, it is to offer pardon after chastise- 
 ment, and his most formidable threats are warnings. 
 God chastises, therefore, only that he may give free 
 course to his mercy ; and also, that he may reduce 
 and make ready the hearts on which he will act. 
 " Because they have broken this treaty, I have made 
 them feel my power," saith the Lord ; but after this 
 severe and cruel trial, he adds, "I will put my law 
 in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and 
 I will be their God and they shall be my people." 
 
 Is it not evident that the hearts that are softened 
 and subdued by affliction are destined to receive a 
 yet deeper impress of those sacred characters traced 
 by the divine hand? 
 
 Chastisement, under the name of sorrow, compre- 
 hends all the countless trials inflicted upon human 
 nature. Suffering is unavoidable. Weakness might 
 
164 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 have been redeemed by strength, ignorance by wisdom, 
 poverty by riches, but only sorrow could be the ran- 
 som of sin. The details of the passion, the agony 
 and death of a God, which form the salient points in 
 the great drama of redemption, show us the nature 
 of the means applicable to the accomplishment of 
 
 our regeneration. 
 
 Yet if suffering had been only a punishment in 
 the hands of God our Saviour, he could not have 
 assumed it in his own person once and for all. He 
 would have kept it in reserve for his judgments ; and, 
 preceding us in a shining and serene path, he would 
 have caused us to describe a complete circle of bril- 
 liant and useful developments. But the remedy in 
 this case would not have reached the root of the evil : 
 the sting would not have been extracted, the red-hot 
 iron would not have been applied to the wound. 
 Therefore did Christ open the royal way of the cross. 
 He entered it before us, sparing himself in no re- 
 spect, undergoing in his own person all forms of 
 suffering and ignominy, draining them to their dregs, 
 and yet transmitting them in their full strength to us. 
 Expiation ! How dear should it be to us ! It is 
 our Master's blood, the living trace of his footsteps 
 in the dust through which we follow him, the pledge 
 of our restoration to the paternal inheritance, our 
 rank lost and regained, the turning-point of our 
 sorrowful history. It is Calvary, without which 
 there would have been no resurrection. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 165 
 
 The acceptance of suffering that is to say, sub- 
 mission to the will of God partakes so entirely of 
 the nature of that piety to which have been promised 
 the good things of this life as well as those of the 
 life to come, that it harmonizes with all the instincts 
 of a lofty nature. Thus an instinct deeply engraven 
 upon the soul is solidarity. But to rebel against the 
 sorrows of the race is to isolate one's self from 
 the rest of humanity ; to refuse to bear one's part 
 of the heavy sentence under which it labors, to 
 separate one's self from one's brethren, to be in- 
 sensible to the blows which fall on them ; to choose 
 not to be smitten when they are so, in short to lose 
 the power even of saying with the poet, " Humani 
 nihil a me alienum puto ; " for we have but a lip- 
 sympathy with the lot which we will not share. 
 
 This multiplied echo of all hearts that have ever 
 beat in the heart that is beating still ; this burning 
 conviction that each one of us might have committed 
 the crimes committed by all ; this solidarity which 
 causes the heart to leap unceasingly in sympathy, 
 in exultation, in wrath or in pity ; this sentiment, 
 so strong when it is merely natural, receives from 
 Christianity a loftier life and a very different aim. 
 
 What ! when Abraham obeys, when Job suffers 
 himself to be despoiled, when David bathes his sin 
 in his tears, and the new Isaac consummates his 
 sacrifice upon Calvary, shall we sinners revolt against 
 obedience, poverty, tears, or death? The mother of 
 
166 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Christ survived her divine Son, and shall we not 
 endure to have Christ pierce us with the same sword 
 of sorrow? Ah ! were such our disposition, what a 
 threatening contradiction would it not receive from 
 the innumerable throng of martyrs and saints, whose 
 lives were but a paraphrase of that sublime word of 
 Saint Theresa, " To suffer and to die " ! 
 
 If events are fortuitous, it is plain that they entail 
 no obligation upon us ; and it becomes allowable for 
 us to obey the humor of the moment and yield to 
 those transports of childish rage which endow brute 
 matter with sensibility, and return blow for blow 
 upon an offending object or turn away from it in 
 fickle caprice. 
 
 If God does not reign, it is quite evident that man 
 becomes the master of all his acts, personifying law 
 in himself, and rejecting all that interferes with his 
 own good pleasure, as beyond the pale thereof. 
 Therefore, to repulse what incommodes himself; to 
 deny or calumniate what surpasses ; to avert what 
 wounds, opposes, or afflicts ; to crush what is in- 
 ferior, all these things we may much the more 
 reasonably expect that man will do, as man is more 
 consistent with himself. But if, on the other hand, 
 the heart, while yet wrapped in its thick veil of flesh, 
 begins to catch glimpses, under the gross exterior of 
 things, of the mind which created them ; if it per- 
 ceives the ruling Power which preserves only because 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 107 
 
 it rules them ; if, especially, the evil days whereof 
 man's earthly pilgrimage is composed begin to seem 
 like the prelude to an unending life, what conse- 
 quences ensue, what teachings flow from these pri- 
 mary truths ! Then do things begin to share the 
 importance, and, so to speak, the intelligence of per- 
 sons ; for they cease to be in our eyes aught save 
 what the eternal Wisdom willed them to be in the 
 order of our salvation. While, if this Wisdom be 
 once eliminated from the government of the world, 
 it is men that are assimilated to things, becoming 
 like these the puppets of blind combinations, whose 
 original impulse is lost in deep, thick darkness. 
 
 Eevelation alone teaches us to know God and 
 ourselves. Revelation alone discovers the direction 
 of the destinies of humanity in general, and our 
 own in particular ; a double movement, magnificently 
 symbolized by the annual and diurnal revolutions of 
 the earth. 
 
 After following the finger of God in history, and 
 in the sensible prodigies of each one of our lives ; 
 after receiving the sublime promise that not a hair of 
 our heads shall fall without his notice, what more 
 do we need ? Has not God at once calmed all our 
 fears, and irrevocably changed the objects of our 
 regard and aversion? Does not an infallible word 
 like this make us feel that we are watched, guarded, 
 protected by the great sleepless eye of our Father? 
 
168 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Within the horizon illuminated by its brightness, 
 what perplexity is hopeless, what sadness too poig- 
 nant, what restraint annoying, what sorrow greater 
 than we can bear? Does not God himself take 
 measures to secure our endurance, by giving us the 
 certainty of escaping annihilation, the hope of avoid- 
 ing condemnation, and I know not what delicious and 
 undeserved presentiment of heaven, as the reward of 
 our languid efforts, and the sufferings we have so 
 justly incurred? 
 
 In respect of that eternity which we are to win, 
 nothing is evil save what diverts us from our supreme 
 end ; nothing good save what conducts us to it, were 
 it even anxiety or affliction. When the immortality 
 offered to man impresses itself vividly upon his con- 
 victions, all the conditions of his earthly existence 
 are changed ; and the events it brings forth, cease 
 to be in any sense important, I had almost said real, 
 save in their relation to that end. 
 
 Thus, then, man may resist, protest, deny his in- 
 most convictions ; but, if demons have not suggested 
 to him a hideous blasphemy, if he believe, he must 
 submit; if he yield, he must fall prostrate. There 
 is no medium. To choose his objects of submission ; 
 to check or to suspend it, is but a kind of neutrality 
 between rebellion and assent, a kind of compromise 
 between the fear which checks complaint, and that 
 other weakness which cannot choose but endure ; a 
 mere external attitude, which keeps the soul on 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 169 
 
 sufficiently good terms with what it reveres, but 
 none the less leaves the will diseased, smitten with 
 that moral impoverishment which, under the name 
 of lukewarmness, God has so severely condemned. 
 
 Yet let us not exaggerate, nor even here anticipate 
 the progress of that grace which in its invisible and 
 ascendant march reveals to us new horizons in suc- 
 cession, and enables us to accomplish with ease the 
 most difficult undertakings. Let us not forget that, 
 in the celestial kingdom, there is more than one in- 
 habited region, and more than one resting-place on 
 the holy mountain ; and that, though the landmarks 
 from base to summit have been immutably placed by 
 the very hands of God, he does not require the entire 
 route of all his children. Virtue has its degrees ; 
 and, as far as man is concerned, its hierarchy also. 
 
 An artificial human morality betrays its origin as 
 much by its exaggerations as by its hiatuses. Arbi- 
 trary in its demands, it either exalts or neglects the 
 precept, and almost always extemporizes it ; now 
 imposing heroism by an imperious formula, and again 
 corrupting the moral law by an impure alloy. The 
 Catholic religion, on the contrary, taught by its 
 divine Founder to distinguish the precept which is 
 universally binding, from the advice which may be 
 followed at option, puts its children on their guard 
 not only against laxity, but against those extrava- 
 gances in the theory of right which have often been 
 
 8 
 
170 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 but a noble and attractive aspect of its decay. Res- 
 ignation, at its point of departure, is far distant from 
 that lofty height which it may attain. Like the other 
 Christian virtues, it resembles a pyramid, whose broad 
 base is the precept, but which rises and contracts by 
 degrees into a mere point ; an image of the perfection 
 and consummation of counsel. 
 
 The first degree of submission is reverent acqui- 
 escence in the divine will. Afterwards, this sentiment 
 is transformed into a pious and sincere acceptance, 
 whereof trust is the prime motor. The soul now 
 yields more than she reasons ; seeing in Him who 
 imposes the trial, less the Creator who has a right 
 to exact the whole, than the adorable Saviour who 
 preaches submission by his own obedience. In her 
 eyes, God has ceased to be any thing but the Wisdom 
 who can neither deceive nor be deceived, and yet that 
 loving Wisdom who sees in man the masterpiece of 
 his own power, and has prepared all things so as to 
 insure his salvation. . . . 
 
 Soon we see the struggle, which is not incompatible 
 with this condition, fail, and fade away in slighter and 
 slighter oscillations, in a twilight impenetrable, yet 
 a thousand times penetrated. Once started in the 
 way of self-abnegation, trust, from respectful, be- 
 comes filial; and the acquiescence in all that God 
 sends, passes, as it were, into a holy habit. 
 
 The will, which acts only as far as it sees, and 
 which sees clearer and farther in proportion to its 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 171 
 
 activity, cannot be enlightened without having its 
 strength doubled by the enlargement of its compre- 
 hension. It surmounts all obstacles, and frees itself 
 from all shackles successively and finally : as the last 
 term of its efforts, it is delivered from itself. Light- 
 ened of its load, more intelligent because more inde- 
 pendent, fed by so many mercies, feeling that its re- 
 volt has been weak from the first, conquered even 
 then, and now expiring, it reaches that blessed point 
 where we cease to see aught save what God wills, or 
 to desire aught that he has not desired. Then only 
 it is, after having thus overcome the world within 
 himself, that the Christian Christ's noble free man 
 lays intact at the feet of his Master the power 
 which he has regained, and presents, in the inextrica- 
 ble interweaving of grace and free-will, the truest 
 assimilation of human nature to God. 
 
 Thus, in these different and variously illumined ele- 
 vations, we have successively the inclination of rever- 
 ential faith, the submission of pious faith, and the 
 unity of victorious faith, but always faith; since 
 faith is made the soul of resignation for the precise 
 purpose of rendering it, in its principle and effects, a 
 supernatural virtue, which, perchance, comprehends 
 all others. 
 
 God has done so much to diminish the number of 
 the guilty ! He desires, smiles upon, and aids our 
 progress, yet does not need it. But when once, 
 
172 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 through the blessing of a fulfilled precept, we have dis- 
 cerned somewhat of the fair order of God's purposes ; 
 when our first initiation has acquainted us with the 
 nature of his views, how can we stop at the letter of 
 the law, how fail to respond to those most affecting 
 solicitations of his love, which plead for our full sur- 
 render? When we have taken the step of quitting 
 the ways of nature, ways which, after all, 'tis 
 often easy and sweet to follow ; when we have 
 schooled ourselves to silence, and conquered ourselves 
 at a thousand appreciable points, is it worth while 
 to pause in the region of a doubtful and debatable 
 obedience, and, after having renounced the world 
 and its fascinations, to miss, when thus despoiled, 
 even the true liberty of the children of God ? 
 
 A constellation of virtues watches over this resig- 
 nation ; and shall not the Christian, who reads each 
 day, "The just shall live by faith," add, if his heart 
 suffers, by faith and by resignation ? 
 
 Faith renders resignation reasonable. 
 
 Hope renders it easy ; charming our griefs by giv- 
 ing us a foretaste of actual joys, and lightening all 
 burdens by the power of that attraction which urges 
 us on towards the unseen good. 
 
 Charity, the all-powerful, communicates its spirit 
 to resignation. 
 
 The love of God, after turning us aside from the 
 long-cherished love of ourselves, levels the hills, that 
 naught may interrupt our view of the divine horizon ; 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 173 
 
 and fills the valleys, that our march may not be hin- 
 dered. 
 
 Patience touches resignation so closely that they 
 seem almost identical. It is in patience that we pos- 
 sess our souls, patience, a delicious fruit when 
 gathered ripe, whose root only is bitter, as an ancient 
 writer says. 
 
 Humility is the true torch which illumines our sor- 
 rows. Insolvents that we are, what can we suffer 
 that we have not deserved, if not in detail, at least 
 on the whole? Humility, gentle and tender, plucks 
 out the dart and heals the wound, cicatrized by resig- 
 nation. 
 
 Sacrifice ! We must not forget that the Christian 
 altar is a tomb, and that the adorable Victim invites us 
 to immolate ourselves along with him upon the bones 
 of confessors and martyrs. The spirit of sacrifice is 
 meet for all ; and, while heroic deeds are demanded 
 of some, there remains for the rest an obscure and 
 perpetual immolation. 
 
 Passing fancies, incomplete sacrifices, the many 
 things which compromise the free and full ideal, can- 
 not, of themselves, bear blessed fruit or effectual 
 consolation. When one has gone so far as to wish 
 to turn away from self, he must turn to God irrevo- 
 cably and entirely. He must become that inhabitant 
 of the holy city, who "bears," as St. Augustine says, 
 "in the depths of his heart, a perpetual fiat and 
 amen ; " who wants all the pains he endures, and 
 
174 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 none of the consolations which are denied him. Ask 
 him what he desires, and he will tell you, exactly 
 what he has. God's will, in the present moment, is 
 the daily bread which transcends all substance. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE ADVANTAGES OF SUBMISSION. 
 
 THAT submission which God seems to require for 
 his own sake, he, in reality, desires for ours. It 
 is wholly for our interest, and answers our most 
 pressing need. 
 
 If our nature were not so deeply degraded, if sin 
 did not dim our vision by incessantly deepening the 
 shadows around us, internal and external motives for 
 resignation would still arise from the very nature 
 of things. How could weakness help confiding in 
 strength, darkness in light, deep ignorance in the 
 wisdom from which nothing is hid? 
 
 And that which the holy Scriptures most clearly 
 reveal to us, is the goodness of God and the love he 
 bears to man. He created man to know, serve, and 
 love him, and thereby to merit a blessed eternity. 
 He makes him responsible only that he may crown 
 him. Can we suspect that Providence, after tracing 
 so sublime a programme for his creatures, demands 
 aught from them but obedience, as the means of 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 175 
 
 realizing it? Liberty, in a created being, is inti- 
 mately correlated with obedience. Without a re- 
 straining law, liberty would be a fatal gift, a kind 
 of shirt of Nessus. All equilibrium would be de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 Of all the traits which go to make up the grand 
 and divine figure of Christ, none is more marked 
 than obedience. Not merely his acts, of which the 
 last and sublimest conducted him to death, and 
 death on the cross ! but all his words express 
 simply the immolation of his will. "I came down 
 from heaven," says he, " not to do mine own will, 
 but the will of Him that sent me." Thus it was not 
 enough for Christ, that, by the consubstantiality of 
 his divine nature, his will was identical with that of 
 the Father. The Son of God, God himself, he 
 came down to earth, both to teach us how to love 
 God's will better, and to introduce us to all the 
 blessings of submission. 
 
 o 
 
 Faith, which shows us our own destiny, reveals 
 at the same time the whole economy of the divine 
 plans ; shows that each and every one of us is as 
 much the object of providential solicitude, as if he 
 were its single centre ; and declares, not merely 
 that God wills our salvation, but that, relatively to 
 us, it is the only thing he wills. On the one hand, 
 he imposes on man the obligation of striving to 
 secure his own happiness. On the other, he pledges 
 
176 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 himself to render infallible, in some sort, the means 
 of success. 
 
 The poor human creature, whose life is but a day, 
 whose soul may be lost or required of him at any 
 moment, should find in life, under a God who is 
 faithful to his promises, only a divine preparation, 
 most meet to develop, strengthen, correct, and purify 
 the spiritual germ, and raise it to the level of that 
 destiny which the Eternal is preparing for him. 
 Man fails in his vocation, but God cannot fail in his 
 promises. All the heedlessness and ingratitude of 
 his creatures cannot alter the Tact, that, at each 
 moment of their earthly course, all the means of 
 perfection are given or offered them. These means 
 may be disguised ; but, in whatever shape they appear, 
 they never lose their essence, nor, if man so wills, 
 their mighty virtue. 
 
 Hence it follows, that all the situations in which 
 God places us, all the dangers even to which we are 
 exposed, if they be not the punishment of the rash 
 provocations we have offered, may be turned to our 
 advantage ; and that what is 9 for the very reason 
 that it is, conduces to our highest interests. 
 
 It cannot be otherwise, from the moment that you 
 acknowledge a sovereign Ruler in heaven, and a 
 dependent creature on the earth. The Creator, who 
 is truth and power itself, cannot be mistaken about 
 the end which the poor creature, so benevolently 
 summoned into existence, ought to attain, any more 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 177 
 
 than in the nature of the aid which is indispensable 
 to him. God, as Christianity represents him, the 
 only true Father of his children, is working for 
 their happiness every instant of that time which he 
 has summoned from his own eternity. Man, in the 
 words of St. Paul, is at once the field that he culti- 
 vates and the edifice that he builds. Nature, man, 
 the very elements ; the earth ploughed, sown, and 
 weeded by the divine Laborer, all these are God's 
 means. All irregularities contribute to the beauty 
 of the harvest, and the north wind and snows of 
 winter are as needful as the sun to cause the pre- 
 cious seed to fructify. Hence, every vicissitude in 
 its season. 
 
 On the other hand, the Saviour says to us, " There 
 shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth ; " 
 " Put off the old man ; " " Verily I say unto you, 
 except a man be born again, he shall not see the 
 kingdom of God." What, then, do we find? Two 
 terms, divided by an abyss, but an abyss which 
 the selfsame word assures us can be bridged by in- 
 finite pity and human desire : firstly, a God who 
 so loved men that he came to live, suffer, and die 
 among them ; secondly, a nature weak and imper- 
 fect, but endowed with moral faculties, which render 
 it susceptible of progress, and able to respond to the 
 sublimity of its vocation. 
 
 Hence, joy and sorrow, as understood by the world, 
 are capable of a deeper and truer interpretation, which 
 
 8* 
 
178 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 acquaints us with the secret of the Creator's merciful 
 designs in reference to his creatures. 
 
 For the very reason that the Master is benevolent 
 and mighty, and the creature capable of education, 
 this world assumes the aspect of a vast school, where 
 all within and without us is destined to become con- 
 ducive to our advancement. We need not merely to 
 be taught, but to be healed, human nature being 
 "that great invalid," so called by the pious Augus- 
 tine, who understood it so well. And the great 
 invalid appeals to the great Physician. Redemption 
 is the pledge of cure. Resignation is naught but 
 the will to seize all offered remedies. 
 
 Divine wisdom, embracing all of man in the 
 law it gives him, embraces no less the totality of 
 his destiny. God makes no virtue obligatory upon 
 man, which does not greatly subserve his temporal 
 welfare. But he considers this transitory being only 
 in his relations with immortality ; and if he arms 
 him as a warrior for time, it is only to enable him 
 to conquer that kingdom of heaven that "suffereth 
 violence." 
 
 Earthly happiness mixed, brief, uncertain, al- 
 ways so near annihilation could not have been 
 the final end which Providence proposed in our 
 creation. His greatness disavows so low an aim. 
 His love reserves for man, greater liberality and 
 magnificence. But taking us so low, and raising 
 our hopes to so high a pitch, what a variety and 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 179 
 
 abundance of care, help, and invention, has he not 
 found needful, to help us to mount the ladder of res- 
 toration ! How can we comprehend both the osten- 
 sible and secret resources that were requisite to move 
 our so stupid and rebellious human nature, to re- 
 store, raise, attract, instruct, guide without compul- 
 sion, bend and enlighten it, and, as it were, prevent 
 its falls without its knowledge ? " What have I not 
 done for thee, O my people ! " says Christ to each 
 one of us. "What could I have done that I have 
 not done?" The Father of the great human family, 
 he yearns over his children, dispensing to them 
 the bread of Christian knowledge, and pouring for 
 them, though with a trembling hand, the wine of 
 tribulation. 
 
 Human events are but a succession of remedies, 
 appropriate to our variously diseased state, a suc- 
 cession of lessons applicable to the different forms of 
 our ignorance ; and the world is the theatre of that 
 divine experiment, where the Restorer shows himself 
 as great as the Creator, and more merciful than he. 
 All things work together for good to them that love 
 God. 
 
 The greatest of earthly ills are entirely out of pro- 
 portion with that eternal weight of glory which, if we 
 will, is one day to reward us. Who of us would not 
 a thousand times rather have salvation than the world, 
 even though he be not entirely weaned from the latter ? 
 
180 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Therefore, let us fairly and sincerely review in mem- 
 ory those human pangs and griefs which have isolat- 
 ed or transfixed our hearts, and acknowledge that the 
 cruellest severities in the order of nature have been 
 salutary ; that we owe much of what we are to what 
 we have missed ; and that in our sharpest sorrows 
 the help was found which snatched us from the abyss. 
 God's children receive blessings only from his liberal 
 hands, blessings unrecognized in the language of 
 men, but which our guardian angels know how to 
 call by their true names. "The chastisements of the 
 Almighty are blessings in disguise." 
 
 Observe, first of all, that this Will, before which 
 we are required to bow, asks of us nothing impos- 
 sible, unreasonable, or humiliating. In no ase does 
 Christian perfection demand acquiescence in a culpa- 
 ble or dangerous position, or indifference to God's 
 sentence of disgrace, or to the deprivation of his 
 sacraments, and of the uncounted wealth with which 
 he has dowered his church. Resignation is applicable 
 only to things that pass away. Neither has it ever 
 denied the rights of human sensibility ; nor can it be 
 too often repeated, that it is not so much excess 
 of grief that resignation resists, as its revolt. God 
 brings such beautiful results out of grief, when it is 
 simple and deep, that it always finds grace ; and there 
 is indulgence for our tears, even when weakness has 
 made them flow. 
 
 But when, irritated by pain and given over to a 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 181 
 
 prideful bitterness, we take a haughty attitude before 
 the Most High, and seem to require of him an 
 account of our trials, and to treat with him on equal 
 terms, do we do well to exult in the plenitude of our 
 reason, and to mark the distance between our noth- 
 ingness and the might and wisdom of the Infinite? 
 
 Ah ! if, rather, we are docile to the voices of hu- 
 mility and justice, and assume before God that atti- 
 tude of sinners which belongs to us, what truths will 
 be revealed to us by our sufferings, what mysteries 
 will be explained ! Suffering, that divine messen- 
 ger, Der gottliche Bote, das JElend," will then 
 appear to us the messenger of reconciliation. 
 
 The sacred Scripture calls him most miserable to 
 whom it has not been given to dread the supreme 
 sentence. In short, while this fear lives in us, how 
 can the justice of our own hearts help saying that 
 God's justice demands satisfaction ; and, if the con- 
 ditions of this satisfaction were left to our own sole 
 choice, how could we feel confident of their fitness or 
 efficiency? If we dread the position of insolvent 
 debtors, resignation offers us the means of acquittal ; 
 and these means are precisely that grief and bitter- 
 ness and loathing which we are invariably obliged to 
 undergo. 
 
 The selection of our expiatory and purifying suf- 
 ferings is made by a master hand, the selfsame hand 
 that traces the way wherein we must walk. Our 
 task is greatly lightened by this fact ; and we feel as- 
 
182 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 sured that our trials, being divinely shaped upon our 
 needs, adapted to our stature and proportioned to 
 our strength, are calculated to produce all the in- 
 tended effects. Are we then so sure of what we 
 need? Our constantly disappointed conjectures, our 
 views daily convicted of error, ought, of themselves, 
 to wean us from our own judgment. For who has 
 ever been able to arrange the slightest detail of his 
 life to his own satisfaction ; to calculate accurately 
 within the narrowest circle of interests the effects of 
 a given resolution, enumerate its chances, or prevent 
 the inconveniences it may entail ; in short, to provide 
 against the uncertainties of any future? 
 
 Moreover, the very realization of our wishes must 
 often have sufficed to deprive our prudence of the 
 courage to form new ; for, if we have all suffered 
 from cheated hopes, have we not also to deplore the 
 fulfilment of some few? Antiquity illustrated, under 
 a multitude of forms, the ignorant rashness of our 
 passionate desires ; and the fable of Semele underlies 
 the experience of every age. It is against the suc- 
 cess of our own plans that the Christian's God defends 
 us, he who refuses to hear, just as he wounds, 
 to heal. " We ask in folly, but we are answered in 
 wisdom." God has from all eternity replied to these 
 cries of ours blinder than they are helpless by 
 the words, "Your thoughts are not as my thoughts, 
 neither are my ways your ways." It is precisely be- 
 cause his ear is attentive to our insatiable need of 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 183 
 
 faithfulness, that he so often rejects the vain chimeras 
 in which that need finds expression. "All is done 
 for the elect," but done by means of the sorrows they 
 pass through and dwell among ; and I ask, in the 
 words of Bildad, that hypocritical friend of Job, 
 who was not worthy of the truth upon his lips, 
 " Can the rush grow up without mire ? Can the flag 
 grow without water ? " 
 
 You complain of terrible and unexpected blows ; 
 but how can one blast the rock or temper the iron, 
 save by fire and anvil? And you who groan over 
 the crashing continuity of your woes, is it not be- 
 cause you have not yet divined their last secret? 
 " Trouble never comes alone," according to a popular 
 proverb. Trouble, like that demon of the Scriptures, 
 is named Legion. " These things," says the book of 
 Job, "doth God twice and thrice upon the children 
 of men." This, in order that virtue, like knowledge, 
 may be acquired only by a sequence of experiences, 
 and by lessons, the first condition of whose utility is 
 their repetition. 
 
 If the winds of prosperity did not blow some por- 
 tion of the time, how could we feel sure that our 
 virtue was not a thing of chance, and that our hearts 
 were really purified of the leaven that pufteth up, and 
 all the pride of life? So, if our trials and tempta- 
 tions came only at long intervals, and yielded too 
 readily to consolation, where would be the novitiate 
 
184 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 of patience, and the employment of our energies? 
 How could the divine germ, whose very irregularities 
 are specially conducive to its growth, strike those 
 deep roots which are to bear its branches upward to 
 eternal life ? It is by redoubled blows that our re- 
 bellious nature is fashioned, and in the persistence of 
 God his will is to be read. It is not merely a ques- 
 tion of tempering the iron, but of transforming it 
 into steel ; and we know that what demands the last 
 perfection of the workman's skill is that final polish 
 so difficult to obtain. 
 
 " Et fons de domo Domini egredietur et irrigabit 
 torrentem spinarum." Who knows whether the liv- 
 ing waters of that fountain would have flowed as 
 clearly and swiftly over any other bed ? l . . . 
 
 Is it not our Lord himself who has taught us to 
 say, "Thy will be done"? It is the tenderest and 
 fondest word that love ever pronounced, whereby we 
 salute and bless in advance a will as yet unknown. 
 And that kingdom of God, whose coming we each 
 day invoke, what is it but his will regnant within us, 
 sovereign by virtue of our resignation ? Is it not 
 
 1 A friend furnishes the following note : 
 
 Joel iii. 18. In the English version, "A fountain shall come 
 forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of 
 Shittim." The word Shittim, sifcjp, is the plural of Shittah, 
 DtSlZlij the Hebrew name of the acacia, or spina ^gijptiaca. Hence, 
 
 T ' 
 
 Nahal Hashshittim, fcifsEJn JriD, The Valley of Acacias ; in the Latin 
 version, torrentem spinarum. TR. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 185 
 
 also that peace that the Saviour promised to his dis- 
 ciples, " La sua volonte e nostra pace " ? 
 
 For who ever yet resisted God and lived in peace ? 
 Let us, therefore, say with the apostle, " We are 
 troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are 
 perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not 
 forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed." 
 
 Resignation is a generous profession of our faith in 
 the kindness of God's purposes towards us. The 
 more searchingly we are tested, the greater should be 
 our courage, and the more plainly we should perceive 
 the thought of Providence. Against chance, we can 
 have neither strength nor courage. But the moment 
 we begin to suspect a divine intention, we are, I 
 think, almost ready to accord wisdom, pity, and 
 foresight to that word of the enigma which is still 
 undeciphered. The less modifiable events appear to 
 be, the less possible it is for us to assign human 
 causes for them ; and the greater the opportunity for 
 the exercise of our faith, because God's share in them 
 is more clearly revealed. The more impenetrable his 
 will is, the more goodness and mercy it hides. The 
 pruning of his adorable hand is ever profitable to the 
 tree. Let us be watchful for the slightest summons 
 to action ; and, in those hard times when action is 
 impossible, let us imitate the valor of those troops 
 who, by the order of their chiefs, stand motionless, 
 like a living wall, arms in their hands, and exposed 
 
186 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 to the full fire of the enemy, and are adjudged none 
 the less worthy of the victor's crown when victory is 
 won. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON RESIGNATION TO SO-CALLED IRREPARABLE ILLS. 
 
 THE hardest test of resignation is found, no doubt, 
 in sorrows that have no cure. Irrevocability adds 
 one degree to grief. It puts the finishing touch. 
 
 The most trifling evil grows and spreads, if judged 
 utterly irremediable. It is of the essence of irre- 
 parable misfortune to check the development of the 
 powers and paralyze all action. It renders our strug- 
 gles insensate ; yet immobility, in the presence of 
 suifering, is, from a human point of view, one of 
 the severest of tortures ; no genuine consolation 
 being possible for cureless ills. The natural life 
 offers no hope of solace for what will endure while 
 life endures. 
 
 Faith alone can change and widen our horizon. 
 Faith alone enables us to catch glimpses of that region 
 where what was ended on the earth is renewed and 
 recommenced, where he who dropped down wound- 
 ed, arises healed ; so that already from that upper 
 sphere, where solemn and complete restitution is 
 accomplished, reflections fall upon us that soothe 
 our heavy hearts. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 187 
 
 A famous writer has said that the Christian, like 
 Alexander, reserves nothing to himself but hope ; a 
 magnificent share, for which the boundaries of the 
 universe are too narrow. 
 
 Among all the events which bear the terrible char- 
 acter of irremediability, the death of those we love 
 doubtless stands foremost. To see a part of our 
 being snatched away ; to survive, through grief, the 
 affections which constituted our glory, our strength, 
 our joy, or our security, and perhaps all of these, 
 this is to feel ourselves broken, impoverished, trans- 
 fixed* These legitimate regrets are more than 
 permitted : it is our dignity to cherish them ; and 
 Christianity merely arms us against their excess. 
 Only here as elsewhere, by changing our point of 
 view, Christianity gives us a deep insight into the 
 nature of our affections, in order to sanctify and 
 purify them from all that might irritate or envenom. 
 
 Christianity is always ready to admit to us the 
 justice, poignancy, and severity of our griefs ; always 
 ready to acknowledge that a void in the joys we have 
 tasted may become an abyss, that the vanishing of a 
 single being may make the world a desert, and that 
 the cruel bereavement may lade every moment with 
 a heavy and heart-rending weight. But, after all 
 these concessions, it demands of us, whether, on 
 the other hand, it is quite right for an immortal 
 creature to pause at any one gloomy point in space, 
 
188 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 and allow its darkness to overspread his whole career ; 
 whether that irrevocability of death, undeniable on 
 this side the grave, preserves its character beyond 
 it ; whether faith has ever named eternal separation ; 
 whether the friends we mourn, are lost, or only absent ; 
 whether, in short, since we have the hope of regain- 
 ing them one day, we ought not to force ourselves 
 to restrain our impatience, and hasten by prayer 
 our common deliverance. 
 
 And can we forget our own death, that death 
 which has been called the middle of a long life, 
 and which at all events, how long soever our days 
 may be, only strikes, at the outset, an unending ex- 
 istence? When we reflect what man's life under 
 present conditions would be if there were no death, 
 we are abundantly reconciled to the fact. At once 
 a punishment, and a most expressive token of the 
 fall of man and the vengeance of God, it none 
 the less resembles that lance of the poet's fancy 
 which healed the very wounds it made. 
 
 Death lavishes useful lessons along the route we 
 have to travel, guiding our steps also, illuminating 
 the horizon before us with most celestial brightness, 
 and causing to pale those unsteady fires and deceit- 
 ful glimmers which arise out of the sinful earth to 
 seduce and lead us astray. Death teaches us at 
 once the vanity of all that with which it sports, 
 and the grandeur of all that which it respects. The 
 thought thereof is our enlightened judge and infalli- 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 189 
 
 ble counsellor ; and if we were not continually mis- 
 taking the twilight for the day, we should see how 
 serviceable are Death's living lessons to the one brief 
 morning which makes up our life. 
 
 Old age, also, is an irreparable evil. Nothing 
 can make us re-live our years ; but, like all obscure 
 situations, it brings with it strong consolations, and 
 a secret charm known only to those who experi- 
 ence its enjoyment. If the life of the old man has 
 been virtuous, the long look he bends upon the 
 past is full of sweetness. He contemplates all its 
 elements, all its pledges of a happy and eternal 
 future. Pausing on the height whence the land 
 looks broadest and richest, he follows the course of 
 the streams he has been able to subdue ; he recog- 
 nizes his favorite places of shade and shelter, the 
 fields tilled in the sweat of his brow, the oaks which 
 have grown from the acorns he planted. The self- 
 same sun still illumines with his oblique and always 
 friendly rays the long way he has come, and the 
 mysterious paths whereby a good Providence has 
 led him to himself. 
 
 If, on the contrary, the old man's days have been 
 evil in the twofold respect of the sins and sorrows 
 they have brought with them, and if, nevertheless, 
 he has not obstinately closed his heart, he assists at 
 the living verification of the divine precepts, at the 
 noble spectacle of God justified in all his ways, and 
 
190 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 the law avenged at all points by the consequences 
 of his transgressions. He distinguishes clearly amid 
 the sufferings he has undergone, those which God 
 and nature did not prepare for him, and discerns 
 that long chain of invitations by which he has been 
 summoned, and of which, perhaps, it has sufficed 
 that one only has not been refused. 
 
 Ah ! it enters not into the plan of Providence to 
 disinherit any of his creatures. If latent forces and 
 veiled graces did not lurk beneath the ashes of age, 
 life would never be prolonged so far. God has 
 provided for the duration of all his insensible creat- 
 ures and for the consolation of all who are not so. 
 In this world, where trial is everywhere and final 
 chastisement nowhere, the real equality between the 
 different conditions of life is greater than would be 
 supposed from the apparent diversity. Situations 
 are to be judged, not from without, but from within. 
 "Taste and see," saith the Psalmist. Taste that you 
 may see. Compensation never fails. 
 
 One of the privileges of old age is the possession of 
 truth par excellence , truth stripped of all prestige 
 by the presentation of the naked reality. And shall 
 we make no account of the dangers vanquished, the 
 more immediate divine consolations, the thousand 
 palliatives ingeniously arranged by the Master for 
 his degraded servant? Shall we make no account 
 of the slackened but surer pace, the dignity, the 
 calm, which make old age what God intended it 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 191 
 
 should be, a sublime halt between a conquered 
 world and eternity? 
 
 And see how these bodily infirmities, the slightest 
 one of which would spoil the most marvellously pros- 
 perous lot, react upon the heart that accepts them ! 
 They do indeed place us in a position of physical 
 inferiority, impose upon us constraint and depend- 
 ence, break down and overthrow what is haughty 
 within us ; but they need not, unless we will, en- 
 croach upon the charities of life, or its pious, humble, 
 secret consolations. So far from this, it would seem 
 as if these infirmities enabled us to live in the very 
 atmosphere of the gospel beatitudes. If they make 
 us timid before the eyes of men, they place us more 
 directly under those of God. We are then, by 
 nature, what St. Francis d'Assisi became by cir- 
 cumstances and by virtue, poverelli di Christo" 
 poor, and the real poor ; since poverty being the lack 
 of what is needful, we have become, so to speak, its 
 impersonation. 
 
 One must needs have tried corporeal infirmity, 
 parted with his keenest repugnance, and afterwards 
 become reconciled thereto, if he would know on what 
 peaceful terms one may live with humiliation, habit- 
 ual suffering, and constant inconvenience. The prog- 
 ress that is made by the long-continued exercise of 
 submission in a single matter, surpasses all anticipa- 
 tion, and can only be equalled by the tender rever- 
 
192 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 ence we are capable of conceiving for an infirmity 
 whose irksomeness has been conquered by patience 
 and by love. 
 
 Our sense of honor would be alike wounded, 
 whether we were actually found in conditions which 
 the laws of the world pronounce disgraceful, or 
 whether appearances only were against us. Honor, 
 that steep and rocky isle, whose shore is no more to 
 be seen a second time than that of death, honor 
 decrees that all stains should be indelible, and that 
 every wound should keep its scar. The spirit of this 
 world framed the code of honor, marked it with its 
 own incisive impress, and imparted thereto its own 
 implacability. 
 
 The world, it is true, sometimes forgets ; but it 
 expunges nothing, and never forgives. It cannot 
 forgive : nor is this strange ; for, dispensing no actual 
 good or real recompense, it has no means of self- 
 defence, save inexorable punishment. But precisely 
 because this harsh, capricious, impotent master has 
 nothing better to offer us, we are invited to seek in 
 the free space above us, a refuge from the irrevocable 
 judgments that are pronounced here below. If we 
 rate the world truly, who shall say how much its 
 castigations have had to do with the tardy justice we 
 render? Is it likely that, if a shining approbation had 
 always accompanied us, we should have sought God 
 with as much zeal and as much perseverance as now ? 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 193 
 
 Honor may be compromised, and virtue none 
 the less intact or recovered ; and virtue is always 
 ready and able to protect us. Nothing can prevent 
 conscience from offering its testimony, and placing 
 us under the law, either of innocence or repent- 
 ance. 
 
 If there is a misfortune to which the word irrepar- 
 able may strictly be applied, and which we cannot 
 mention without a shudder, it is final impenitence, 
 death in sin and enmity to God. This misfortune 
 carries no great sorrow, save to the heart of the 
 observer. When it is personal, the perverted will is 
 itself stupefied, and, as in desperate and mortal 
 diseases, renders the patient ignorant of his malady, 
 and without apprehension of his danger. But what 
 a sight for the beholder is the impious consummation 
 of all the sinner's revolts, the heUvy tombstone 
 sealing up his crimes, the Saviour denied or defied 
 at the very threshold of eternity ! Ah ! if Providence 
 has willed that the only misfortune which is without 
 hope should also be without consolation, he has at 
 least spared no precautions to avert from us the 
 execution of that sentence : there is no curious care 
 which his goodness has not taken to reserve its 
 secret to himself, as if in order to secure the greater 
 freedom of his own action. 
 
 Unable to cast aside his justice, one would say 
 that it had pleased God to veil it on the one hand, 
 
 9 
 
194 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 and elude it on the other. He admits so many signs 
 of repentance with which he shows himself ready to 
 be satisfied. The Church, our holy mother, wills 
 that all amendment should be hopeful. Even in 
 the dying man, who tries the faith of all about him, 
 a word, a look, a regret, an almost imperceptible 
 gleam, suffice to give a little confidence. If his hand 
 have clasped the crucifix, if his lips have pressed it 
 for the first and last time, if he have responded by 
 one feeble sign to the sacramental words, the Su- 
 preme Judge is softened, and ready to revoke his 
 sentence. 
 
 Even these extreme limits of mercy the Church 
 finds means to pass. She does more than reduce 
 the number of our anxieties and welcome all that 
 can reassure us. When the misfortune is consum- 
 mated, however desperate and absolute its conditions 
 may be, she raises her voice and imperiously forbids 
 us to individualize our fears, glad to proclaim that 
 there are no proper names in Hell. 
 
 This eminently Christian reserve is extended with 
 yet better reason to those who are still drinking from 
 the poisoned cisterns. All living beings are capable 
 of improvement, and may, by haste, overtake the 
 most advanced. This is the very reason why God 
 lets men live. Not only are we ignorant of what 
 passes between God and the soul of the impenitent 
 sinner who appears before his tribunal, but a dense 
 cloud hides from our eyes our own individual state. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 195 
 
 What human being has ever yet known whether he 
 was adjudged worthy of love or of hatred, and how 
 long he was to persevere ! It is a mystery which 
 even the angels cannot penetrate, and which will 
 remain till the judgment-day sunk in the depths of 
 the unfathomable Trinity. 
 
 No, and this is the weightiest of those consid- 
 erations which ought to reconcile us to irreparable 
 misfortunes, we could not, in our deeply fallen 
 state, dispense with their terrible teaching, or that 
 influence of theirs which tends constantly to our 
 deliverance. If there were no irremediable evils, 
 evils, that is, that are present in their completeness 
 in the depths of our own being, nothing could 
 successfully withstand our vicious instincts. Evil, 
 with a fatal fertility, would propagate itself unceas- 
 ingly ; and there would be no influence strong enough 
 to fix our inconstant thoughts and fickle hearts. 
 
 Ah, let us not be always forgetting the things that 
 we believe we always remember ! Nothing shows us 
 the vanity of life so clearly, as those poignant ills 
 which stifle and rend us, and are momentarily ap- 
 peased only to reappear and seize their prey. How 
 plainly they say to us that joy is a trivial thing in 
 comparison with the sway that sorrow may usurp ! 
 How clearly they show that the balance is disturbed 
 between loss and possession, between the things 
 that cause us to die daily, and those which give us 
 an illusive sense of life ! 
 
196 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 All thoughts which God, in his goodness, can 
 desire to suggest to his creatures, seem to be con- 
 tained in our struggle with the irreparable. It is 
 the divine diapason with which all just and fail- 
 estimates are in harmony. Temporary ills may 
 reveal the Almighty, enable us to attain a partial 
 end, determine to some brilliant sacrifice, or incite to 
 virtuous acts ; but the cases are rare in which they 
 produce effects that are integral and profound. Slow- 
 ly the valleys are filled, the mountains levelled, the 
 oceans change their beds, and the configurations of 
 the earth are determined ; and slowly, also, is regen- 
 eration accomplished in the human soul. It is this 
 very grief of yours, which, freeing you from the 
 bonds of self, will become the soul of your devotion, 
 and render your piety more firm and your course 
 more straight, which is already bearing you instinc- 
 tively to the realms of peace and freedom, and has 
 become at once the ballast, the sail, and the rudder 
 of your voyage toward the new heavens and the new 
 earth. This suffering that follows you everywhere, 
 which you no longer resist, knowing too well that it 
 cannot leave you, hearken unto it as to the voice of a 
 friend and guide, for ever calling to you in the depths 
 of your being. Translate the impressions it gives, 
 penetrate its spirit, trust its inspirations, and you 
 will presently know by experience that nothing con- 
 duces more powerfully to the formation of the new 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 197 
 
 and inner man, than the clutch of a sad and inexo- 
 rable reality. 
 
 We will not review the whole list of hopeless ills. 
 Who does not know them to be infinite in number 
 and susceptible of a thousand unexpected and terrible 
 combinations ? Suffice it to say that a spirit of genu- 
 ine submission can reach, soften, and subdue them all. 
 The lever only requires for a fulcrum a steadfast and 
 childlike confidence in the divine pity. 
 
 Our misfortunes, of whatever nature, may, after 
 all, be summed up in the impression that they leave 
 on us ; and it is precisely in the character of this 
 impression that all merit of our own must consist, 
 because this is the only point where it is given us to 
 act. External events furnish us sorrow in the rough, 
 and we must labor to transform it as we would any 
 other raw material. A great physician 1 has said, 
 " The soul makes her own body." We may say with 
 equal truth, The soul makes her own sorrow. She 
 modifies it, causes it to wear her own colors, or 
 rather imprints upon it the character of her own 
 guiding law. 
 
 Not to mention exceptional faults and their con- 
 sequences, the share which our own shortcomings 
 and imperfections have in the bitterness of our more 
 real afflictions is prodigious. Their unendurable 
 element is almost always one which God did not 
 
 l Stalil. 
 
198 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 supply ; and frequently a pain which is legitimate, 
 and in itself cruelly intense, requires for its mitiga- 
 tion, if not for its exorcisement, only one more per- 
 sonal effort, or act of self-examination, or one more 
 step towards God. 
 
 The Lord can bring the greatest good out of the 
 greatest evil. Let us walk in his footsteps, and 
 by the light of his precepts. Let us transmute, by 
 means of a true and deep submission, our griefs 
 into graces, our trials into virtues, our every sacri- 
 fice into an offering, till we ourselves cease to be 
 aught but a hearty and free oblation. "Ah," says 
 a voice most dear to the Catholic faith, "if we did 
 but know how to conform our own to the eternal 
 mind, in lieu of being only patients, we might at 
 least be victims ! " l 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE DIFFICULTY OF RESIGNATION TO SORROWS 
 CAUSED BY OUR FELLOW-BEINGS. 
 
 FAR more than we are disposed to believe, we feel 
 as we think ; and it would be hard to estimate how 
 much we increase the power and intensity of our 
 own troubles by interesting ourselves in them, in- 
 sisting that we do well to bewail them, feeding them 
 
 l Count de Maistre, on the death of Eugene de Costa. 
 
ON KESIGNATION. 199 
 
 by the imagination and indulging them through the 
 refinement and susceptibility of our hearts ; nor how 
 much, on the other hand, the genuineness of the 
 most sincere impression is impaired by the judgment 
 which shows it to be exaggerated or puerile. 
 
 Let us be watchful ; for the active hunger of our 
 hearts will find aliment in any thing : we are capable 
 of seeking; excitement in what irritates and wounds, 
 
 o 
 
 as well as in what flatters and fascinates. Since sin 
 has caused us to live in ourselves, through that 
 ardent and guilty personality which substitutes its 
 own false and passionate unity ; for the true unity 
 for which we were created, bitterness and irritation 
 influence us as powerfully as the charm of the ten- 
 derest sentiments. 
 
 Each human instinct has become, since the orig- 
 inal fall, a two-edged sword. By its power of an- 
 tagonism, it perpetually engenders its opposite ; and 
 so we constantly see a quenchless thirst for what is 
 sharp and bitter, proceeding out of a great need of 
 happiness, and hatred born of love. 
 
 People of lofty intelligence, who look at things 
 from a human point of view, generally make their 
 philosophy to consist in bravely bearing the reverses 
 brought about by circumstance ; and their honor, in 
 keenly resenting the pains which come to them 
 through human agency. Whether the pride or the 
 heart suffers thereby, we exalt this excessive sensi- 
 bility of ours ; and while dissimulating our weakness 
 
200 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 at all other points, we should be almost disposed to 
 exaggerate it in this respect. 
 
 This natural estimate is not wholly unjust. Nothing 
 on this earth has received so high a place as man. 
 Nothing can concern us more nearly than our kind, 
 nothing affect us more closely than our neighbor. 
 Nothing can be worth more to a human heart than 
 another heart. Nothing is more imposing than com- 
 mon opinion. In reverses which are merely circum- 
 stantial, events seem to follow their own passive 
 course, innocent of the complications they may 
 entail. It seems as if they could not have been 
 other than they are. But, on the other hand, in 
 those griefs which have been brought upon us by 
 individuals, every thing assumes an intentional char- 
 acter. It is an intelligence which rises up against 
 us, a will which takes an attitude of special hostil- 
 ity to ourselves. The interests that cross our own, 
 the difficulties and oppositions that arise, the springs 
 that are touched, all these things are managed by 
 a hand whose every motion we can follow and calcu- 
 late. Here, of course, is the illusion ; for these men, 
 though masters of their intentions, and never losing 
 their responsibility, are as much the instruments of 
 divine justice as inanimate and unreasoning objects. 
 It is an optical delusion which causes us to believe 
 the contrary, but one which cannot be resolved and 
 dispelled, save by eyes accustomed to the sacred 
 and visible darkness of faith. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 201 
 
 The ways are infinite in which we suffer by others' 
 means ; and, firstly, by their faults. Some of these 
 I admit are very trying ; and yet does not the really 
 keen and often intolerable part of this kind of suffer- 
 ing come from ourselves, and may it not be our own 
 faults which cause us to suffer so much by those of 
 others? We should be more at ease if we were 
 unmoved by the wrongs we suffer, and this is the 
 only element of trouble which puts us at the mercy 
 of the aggressor. If this is so, let us turn our at- 
 tention to those accomplices in evil who make us 
 enemies to ourselves. We can act efficiently only 
 upon ourselves ; and, after all, it is easier and more 
 desirable to reform ourselves than others. Let us 
 redouble our indulgence toward those whose defec- 
 tion is, we feel, likely to engender our aversion. 
 Let us endeavor to temper with compassion the 
 sentence of justice, reflecting that the individuals 
 who have engaged and been vanquished in this sad 
 struggle, inflict upon themselves far more torture 
 then they cause. 
 
 And let iis not stop here. Those defects that we 
 recognize and note, let us take care that they do not 
 bring forth faults. Let us watch kindly over others, 
 to shield them from themselves, to remove their occa- 
 sions of falling, to prevent the outbreaks to which 
 they yield and whereby God is so easily offended. 
 But, instead of this, how many times our ill-humor 
 
 9* 
 
202 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 has excited these transgressions ! What malicious 
 allusions it has made, what harsh reproaches uttered, 
 taking as a personal affront that which belonged only 
 to the conditions of character ! 
 
 One of our most common and irrational propensi- 
 ties is to seek for an offensive intention in a general 
 disposition, which exposes to suffering all who come 
 in contact with it ; and to desire to enforce the duty 
 of amendment in others, for the sake of our own 
 personal comfort. But have we reflected on this 
 thing? What? the faults which a man does not 
 overcome in the interest of his own conscience, and 
 his eternal safety, for the sake of his own soul, which, 
 even on this earth, demands their conquest in the 
 name of peace ; for God's, who unceasingly ex- 
 horts him thereto, shall he correct these because 
 they inconvenience you? Do we not see him con- 
 stantly wielding them against himself with an indis- 
 putable capability of self-injury? 
 
 It has often been said that self-interest governs the 
 world. This is only true with many reservations. 
 The free but perverted will, when cool, would gladly 
 resolve to listen only to the voice of self-interest ; 
 but in evil, as in good, we must submit to our 
 master. The freaks and vagaries of the passions 
 soon defeat our purposes. If we look closely, we 
 shall see that it is not so much interest as passion 
 that governs men ; and that passion almost always 
 holds its ground. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 203 
 
 Is there a scandal or an irregularity which has not 
 its lesson? What does perfidy teach us? That 
 God alone cannot lie ! And ingratitude ? That God 
 only assumes the debts of those who have themselves 
 forgotten them. 
 
 And for those griefs above all griefs, which have 
 belied and destroyed every hope of happiness, and, 
 gnawing into the heart, would have blighted and 
 perhaps ruined it had not the divine sap lent its 
 own life to the renewal of the nobler instincts, 
 why should any degree of wonderment mingle 
 with a sorrow that is only too comprehensible? Do 
 we not know that the human being is to find his 
 centre, his true refuge, nowhere on this earth ; and 
 that, crossing like a dove the sphere of the affections, 
 and finding his true end in none, he must needs 
 mount ever higher before he can find rest? Volabo 
 ct requiescam. 
 
 " We seek to live in what we love." 1 
 
 But when we perceive that, of so many lovers, 
 there are so few whom their love has rendered happy, 
 is it difficult to understand the scope of that law 
 which brands, as sinfully and unlawfully employed, 
 all strength which is wasted in glowing desires, in 
 fixed and absolute preconceptions, and in what has 
 been so well defined as "the envious poverty of an 
 exclusive love " ? 2 
 
 1 St. Augustine. 2 M. Sainte-Beuve. 
 
204 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 The sufferings of genuine sensibility, purified from 
 the leaven of egotism, are of another sort; but the 
 dangers of deception, the heavy blows, the sad 
 and sudden revelations, the wounds inflicted on a 
 trust that can never be restored, these, it is by no 
 means spared. Reason may have controlled these 
 sentiments ; imagination may have but the slightest 
 share in them ; 'tis enough to have opened one's 
 heart, to have rested on that of another, to have 
 expected, to have hoped ; and we lay ourselves open 
 to those voluntary or involuntary wrongs, which 
 reveal the weakness much more than the malignity 
 of our nature. If it be true that all suffering origi- 
 nates in love of some kind, it is equally true that no 
 love is free from suffering ; and hence, if we abandon 
 ourselves to it, do we not pave the way for our own 
 mistakes, and make ourselves accomplices in our own 
 deception, when what is infinite within us demands 
 of one weak heart all the affection needed by our own ? 
 
 Man would fain change the conditions of this 
 mutable and perishable world, which is wrought out 
 of vanity. This instinct of happiness, left to man 
 with so wise and lofty a purpose, as a souvenir of the 
 state whence he has fallen, and to which he aspires, 
 this very instinct, misunderstood as it is, tends 
 incessantly toward making a heaven of earth, and a 
 possession of what God merely lends us. The 
 natural man is not exactly impious, but he is essen- 
 tially idolatrous. His worship is always ready for 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 205 
 
 the object of his taste or predilection. Instead of 
 earning the happiness of heaven by effort, as a 
 favor and compensation, he would gladly obtain it 
 in this world by the haughty and imperious methods 
 of an indomitable will. He deifies all that he loves, 
 and will be all in all to what loves him ; and if the 
 end of it all be not some deadliest mistake, decep- 
 tion or imbitterment, yet the griefs which enervate 
 and slowly consume, do not fail him. 
 
 This same instinct shows itself in those Utopian 
 schemes, brilliant and impracticable, which deny 
 at the outset, that sin is the point of departure for 
 the human race, or its destination heaven. And so, 
 building upon error, they arrive at absurd con- 
 clusions ; as if the lot of man could be essentially 
 changed while his heart remains the same ! 
 
 Man is urged on by an insatiable desire for happi- 
 ne.ss. The social Utopia turned the world upside 
 down, decreeing with criminal indifference the ruin, 
 and even death, of the present generation, in view of 
 a golden age> which it could only see in imagination 
 across destruction and debris. Alas ! even in the 
 fruitful fields of high Christian hope, Faith, elsewhere 
 submissive, allows the thread whereby the Church 
 guides all her children through every labyrinth, to 
 hang too loosely in the hands ; and dreams at times 
 of a new garment for this earth, preferring the 
 transformation of the gloomy, shadowy dungeon to 
 
206 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 the joy of quitting it. Always this earth ! Both 
 with the millenarian who would make it the theatre 
 of heavenly glories, and with the chimerical reformer 
 who pursues the senseless dream of impossible equal- 
 ity and well-being. But this earth, which they would 
 fain make a permanent abode, and the ultimate end 
 of man's destiny, is but a temporary place of trial. 
 It allows of no joy, save that of practical virtue ; and 
 of that foretaste of happiness that is given us that we 
 may realize its insufficiency. 
 
 While we move in the world of impressions, and 
 engage in the melee with all the blindness of im- 
 providence, all appearances seem real : we close with 
 the first comer, and self-possession deserts us in the 
 storm of blows. But as the tumult subsides, the 
 rapt thought regains its freedom. We observe, and 
 by and by ask ourselves the reason why feelings are 
 often so surely balked by facts ; why so many joys 
 are shipwrecked without storm or reef ; why attempts 
 of the most opposite nature are alike foiled by the 
 results ; what mean these perfectly natural causes, 
 supernaturally employed ; and, in short, the reason 
 of the manifest impossibility of explaining any thing 
 on human grounds. Thus are we put on the track 
 of that Supreme Will, which acts at once conspicu- 
 ously and mysteriously, stamping all its lessons 
 with a twofold character, just as, in the words of 
 Scripture, there is always an historical sense, and a 
 mystical sense, which is its soul. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 207 
 
 If, to these first revelations, succeed formidable 
 and repeated trials ; if these seemingly universal pains 
 have a thousand keen and jagged points, whose 
 existence we never suspect till their ordinary propor- 
 tions receive a gigantic development, by this or that 
 secret coincidence with the dispositions which render 
 them special, incisive, and poignant ; if these marvel- 
 lous sorrows seem to have eyes which enable them to 
 aim at the most vulnerable point, ears to detect each 
 moan, lips wherewith to render their language more 
 intelligible ; if they find out sensitive spots in your 
 nature, which you yourself had never perceived ; if 
 their action, in short, is at once all-torturing and all- 
 illuminating ; and if, approaching you in ever nar- 
 rower and narrower circles, they leave you at last 
 only space for sacrifice and self-abnegation, and air 
 enough to breathe at God's side, are you not con- 
 strained to identify their author? Human nature is 
 doubtless very sagacious, its arm is mighty to wound, 
 but it strikes heavily in lieu of striking home ; and 
 how different is the intelligence which directs its blows 
 from the firm, sure hand of the great Archer ! . . . 
 
 At the culminating point of trial this consoling 
 clairvoyance begins ; for it is here that God reveals 
 himself, beneath the mask of human dispositions 
 which he moves, works, and directs to his own pur- 
 poses. Here it is that all rebellion and impatience 
 against the external agent seem to border on sacri- 
 lege ; and the divine intervention becomes so manifest 
 
208 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 that, even in the form of chastisement, it strengthens 
 our confidence, as once the monarch's presence suf- 
 ficed to insure the pardon of the condemned. 
 
 While occupied with those who suffer, we come too 
 close to those who cause suffering, not to address a 
 few words to these also. If God knows how to ex- 
 tract good from evil ; if relative good, with its richest 
 consequences, may result from the sorrows we en- 
 dure, there is naught among all the marvellous 
 transmutations, possible and providentially foreseen, 
 which can reassure those who inflict suffering. They 
 assume and keep the responsibility of their acts. 
 The victim has often owed to the executioner the 
 lofty rank he occupies, but the role of the executioner 
 does not, therefore, become more enviable. 
 
 Here, then, is the miracle of resignation. It 
 makes the sorrows we owe to personal agency trans- 
 parent, and shows us God behind them. From the 
 moment when we catch a glimpse of the Saviour 
 through the light veil of men and events, the most 
 intentional and direct offences and injuries are but 
 the divine finger, indicating the way which leads to 
 future bliss. Our griefs still cause us to suffer, but 
 they have lost their sting. From the rank of mas- 
 ters our enemies have descended to that of instru- 
 ments, and we see those obeying who dream that they 
 command. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 209 
 
 Yet, let us pause at that word enemies, nor allow 
 it to have, in the pious heart, its too easy and com- 
 mon acceptation. An enemy? Of all accidents, this 
 is the rarest. A restless and susceptible personality 
 renders us hard and suspicious toward all with whom 
 we come in contact. What is not humane appears 
 hostile: we see a grim opposition in all unflattering 
 impressions ; and one needs but to overstep the 
 bounds of equity to exhibit in our eyes a revolting 
 severity. " Oh, my friends/' cried Plato, " there are 
 no friends ! " " Oh, you who suppose yourselves my 
 enemies," I would rather say, " you are not my en- 
 emies." You wound me and you rend me, and, it 
 may be, you will kill me ; but you see not, you know 
 not, the evil that you do. Human levity, far more 
 than human malignity, is the cause of all those sinis- 
 ter effects which we think to explain by hatred only. 
 What enemy has ever done us more harm than we 
 have done ourselves? and it is not exactly self-love 
 that we lack. 
 
 The idleness and weakness which allow us to judge 
 by deceitful appearances ; the prejudice against which 
 we will take no precautions ; a failure in kindness 
 and justice, such as the best and fairest-minded are 
 not secure against, what incentives to wrong, what 
 snares to the feet of justice they are ! And, among 
 those who exercise influence or authority over others, 
 there is but one step from a false judgment to the 
 most appalling consequences. 
 
210 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 We explain all things by malevolence ; but to 
 measure this malevolence by the magnitude of the 
 evil we endure, is another of the illusions caused 
 by our preoccupation with self. We always arm 
 with wrath or hate the hand that strikes us ; and, 
 if the truth were unveiled, how would it surprise 
 us to find that the arrows which pierce us were 
 shot at random, and that not merely no remorse, but 
 almost no thought, has been given to the moment 
 which has caused us to undergo a thousand torments ! 
 Ah, how much light is spared to evil-doers, that they 
 may not be as culpable as they are senseless ! 
 
 Where is the man who is so unhappy as to know 
 all the harm he has done ? That the powerful should 
 be thus ignorant, is but natural ; but the least, the 
 obscurest, have they this knowledge? Do I, O my 
 God ! pitiful and utterly insignificant I, do I 
 know all the ills I have caused, the burdens I have 
 made heavy, the hopes I have deceived, the abundance 
 and bitterness of the tears I have caused to flow ? Of 
 all the mysteries of this life, the deepest is the entan- 
 glement of destinies. The possible range, the imme- 
 diate effect, the remote consequences and the reaction 
 of our faults, our example, our course of life ; the 
 countless times, and the thousand and one ways, in 
 which we have injured interests, minds, souls, and 
 who knows? perhaps even hearts that loved us, 
 and were more deserving than we, - of all these 
 things we are profoundly ignorant. 
 
 AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Aug 22, 1842. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 211 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW, IN THE WORLD AND OUT OF IT, EVERY THING AND 
 EVERY BEING, EXCEPT MAN, ACCOMPLISHES GOD*S 
 WILL, AND KEEPS IN THE PLACE ASSIGNED IT. 
 
 To walk in God's ways, to belong to him, to be 
 what he has willed we should be, and one day to lose 
 ourselves in him, these are our only reasonable de- 
 sires. All others, though natural, are only legitimate 
 and permitted. If we cast an eye over the visible 
 and invisible universe, on the spiritual beings who 
 occupy the space above us which separates earth from 
 heaven, and on the animate creatures which move on 
 its surface or in its bosom, we behold an innumer- 
 able throng of creatures, differing among themselves 
 in rank, right, and privilege, but all faithfully realiz- 
 ing the thought they represent, and content with the 
 place assigned them. 
 
 Enclosed within their appointed spheres, they run 
 their course ; and the inherent power of each is dis- 
 played in due order and measure, by the regularity 
 of its movements in relation to those harmonies which 
 constitute the beauty and majesty of nature. Thus, 
 the countless tribes of the celestial hierarchy the 
 happy immortals who have each their banner and 
 their name never dispute among themselves for 
 glory and precedence. The direct tie which binds 
 them to their Master suffices for their felicity ; and 
 they seek not to measure it by any jealous compari- 
 
212 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 son. Each sacred phalanx chants the Creator's 
 praises with as much ardor as if it alone were called 
 to celebrate them ; and the angel choirs who glorify 
 the everlasting beatitudes, and reveal the transports 
 thereof, add to the number of their joys the adoration 
 which they would fain infuse into all the universe. 
 
 Love in heaven seeks diffusion as much as the 
 tender passion on earth desires to be exclusive. The 
 children of light are true to its essence, which is lav- 
 ished without loss, and enriched by accumulation. 
 The souls of men, after they pass into celestial beati- 
 tude, abjure all rivalry, all ambitious instincts. Let 
 us listen to the secrets of those happy souls, as re- 
 vealed by their inspired song. 1 
 
 1 Dante, Paradise, Canto III. 
 
 " Ma dimmi ; noi che siete qui felici " Yet inform me, ye who here 
 
 Desiderate voi piu alto loco Are happy, long ye for a higher place, 
 
 Per piii vedere, o per piu forvi amice. More to behold and more in love to 
 
 dwell? 
 Con quell' altr' ombre pria sorrise un She, with those other spirits, gently 
 
 poco smiled ; 
 
 Da indi mi ripose tanto lieta Then answered with such gladness, 
 
 Ch' arder parea a' amor nel primo foco ; that she seemed 
 
 With love's first flame to glow: Bro- 
 
 ther, our will 
 
 Fratre, la nostra volonta quieta Is in composure settled by the power 
 
 Virtu di carita che fa volerne Of charity, who makes us will alone 
 
 Sol quel ch' anemo et a' altro non a That we possess, and naught beyond 
 asseta. desire. 
 
 If we should wish to be exalted more, 
 
 Se disiassimo esser piu superne Then must our wishes jar with the 
 
 Foran discordi gli nostri desideri high will 
 
 Dal voler di colui che qui ne cerne Of Him who sets us here, which, in 
 
 these orbs, 
 Che vedrai non capere in questi giri." Thou wilt confess not possible." 
 
 Gary's Translation. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 213 
 
 As we descend from higher to lower things, nature 
 reiterates the same profound and positive teachings 
 at each step of the scale. Every kingdom and every 
 species, and every individual of such kingdom or 
 species, remains within its own limits, without altera- 
 tion or encroachment ; and the different orders of na- 
 ture touch, but do not mingle. Nowhere in nature do 
 we find a tendency to quit the conditions on which 
 existence has been received, in search of others, or to 
 depopulate the lower ranks by an upward movement. 
 Star, ocean, flower, and bird, all desire to be what 
 they are, and proclaim their universal acquiescence in 
 solemn and affecting language. 
 
 In truth, it is only by a fiction that we attribute 
 will to the elements of which our universe is com- 
 posed ; but the order and regularity which they main- 
 tain, betray the ruling plan. And does not this plan 
 give us the idea of God ? The world and all that it 
 contains being the expression of one thought and 
 stamped with one seal, does it not say, as each 
 planet moves in its orbit, as the ocean obeys its 
 bounds, as flower and bird everywhere reproduce 
 the same spectacle of submission, that God pursues 
 the same course in the moral as in the physical 
 world, and defines for nations, as for individuals, the 
 limits, the duties, and the services that he imposes 
 on them ? 
 
 A submissive universe is assuredly a noble specta- 
 cle : but the universe has no will, or, rather, its 
 
214 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 will, if it had one, would be chained ; and God waits 
 to be glorified by a free consent. And shall man 
 alone interrupt, by his revolt and his impatience, 
 a concert so sublime? . . . 
 
 When God speaks to us, and we choose rather to 
 listen to the father of lies; when, instead of the 
 beatitudes of the gospel, we value and pursue only 
 those forms of prosperity which it disdains and 
 teaches us to dread ; when, instead of desiring that 
 God's will may be done, we strive passionately to 
 secure our own, our instincts may be genuine, but 
 they are perverted. 
 
 Man is not wrong to aim at happiness, but he errs 
 in the means he employs to attain it. And nations 
 fall into the selfsame snare, when they take ambition 
 for their motive, and glory for their end, and trust in 
 force, or in Utopian dreams. 
 
 And so, sometimes, we see revolt provoked, by 
 intentions that are generous and upright, only too 
 human, when nothing is ripe for the combat, nor 
 for the consequences of victory, if it be won. The 
 result is, that men do not know what to do with their 
 own success, and turn against those who have se- 
 cured it ; or, on the supposition of a defeat, fatigue, 
 humiliation, that brute force, which is confessedly 
 weak, and the absence of that principle of duty, 
 which alone can sustain, plunge them, first into dis- 
 couragement, then, and soon, into dependence and 
 slavery. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 215 
 
 Doubtless some people are more to be pitied than 
 others. There are those whose condition wounds 
 the most indefeasible rights of conscience and reason, 
 whose misfortunes are immoral, in that they entail 
 consequences most deadly to the character ; but time 
 alone can lawfully right such wrongs. No true 
 estimate has yet been made of what is needful to 
 insure some sort of redress for the greatest excesses. 
 Equity, as regards flagrant injustice, makes its way 
 blindly in the mind of the masses, like a slow and 
 gradual gestation ; but its day will come. 
 
 Do not, therefore, construct an earthly Jerusalem, 
 whence all ills are to be banished, and where all bliss 
 as well as all goodness is to remain fixed for ever. 
 It is an impious mistake to stifle the thought of 
 heaven by striving to bring heaven down to earth. 
 If we would lighten our exile, let us render our 
 prison endurable : embellish it if we can, make it 
 wholesome at all events, but let us not dream of 
 transforming it into a palace and a tabernacle of 
 cloudless happiness. No : that happiness awaits for 
 its development new heavens and a new earth. 
 
 The attempt to realize any Utopia has almost 
 always been a work of destruction. All ardent 
 desires for happiness, pursued in defiance of duty or 
 prudence, invariably become sources of calamity. 
 All alike imply misapplied power, ignorance of size 
 and proportion, and a blind encroachment of our 
 
216 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 present on our future lot. God has made the soul 
 of man so large and deep, that it feels cramped, if 
 we give it no opening to the infinite ; and, be the 
 case that of a nation or an individual, an explosion 
 will ensue, after the deplorable fashion of all long- 
 repressed power. 
 
 It cannot be too often repeated that we here repre- 
 sent the problem of living in one world, with the 
 instincts of another ; and the question to be solved 
 is, how the child of eternity shall find the way to his 
 royal home. All else is secondary. 
 
 In our own age especially, that desire to rise, 
 which has never deserted human nature, has received 
 an alarming development, the result of the multi- 
 plied chances of elevation, which all perturbed epochs 
 present. The craving to do something other than 
 they are doing, and to rise above the condition of 
 their fathers, is so general among men, that, if the 
 power of action equalled the audacity of desire, 
 the whole social hierarchy would be subverted, and 
 the lower ranks would be utterly vacated. 
 
 To these incentives of pride is joined a vague 
 unrest, a longing like the sick man's, not to be 
 better, but to be different. All that we have not, 
 and all to which we aspire, becomes, along with the 
 regrets to which we yield, the object of actual wor- 
 ship. Our will in such a case is an exact coun- 
 terpoise to the destiny which God has appointed 
 us. ... Thus man starting from a point, firm 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 217 
 
 and indisputable, because it is within him, and is re- 
 produced without exception in all his kind misses 
 his way, and fails of his end, or strays from it, 
 because he neglects the star which might have guided 
 him safely. The horizon toward which he steers, 
 is a moving one, and conspires with all things else to 
 beguile him. 
 
 Truth is one ; but when it falls under the condi- 
 tions of our complex nature, it is translated into 
 mixed instincts, which fail to render its inspirations, 
 and are misled by lying mirages. In what trifles do 
 we make the happiness for which we were created 
 to consist I How we degrade it ! And the ever- 
 insatiate ambition of new rank and honor, and that 
 other ambition, less coarse, but quite as unchris- 
 tian, of influence, success, and consideration ; that 
 longing to act upon minds, when it is not to God 
 that we would lead them, have we not here the 
 rough sketch of that zeal for God's house, which 
 devoured the prophet? 
 
 We want to be free, rich, happy, beloved, learned. 
 These are perfectly legitimate desires ; but the greater 
 part of the time we cheat ourselves of freedom, 
 wealth, happiness, love, and knowledge. What we 
 seek in vain on earth, we should infallibly find in 
 God. He spares no pains, surely, to put us again 
 and again in the right way. He speaks to us as 
 clearly by the aching void at our hearts, by the pro- 
 
 10 
 
218 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 found ennui which pursues us, by the blunders which 
 we make for ourselves, and the deceptions which we 
 owe to others, as by the unspeakable attractiveness 
 of his grace. Unwilling either to comprehend heaven 
 clearly, or to desire it strongly, we travesty it, in 
 obedience to all the lures of passion. 
 
 Ah ! believe me, it is best to have confidence in 
 what is. What is has the force of law. What is 
 has, if not the sanction of God, at least his permis- 
 sion. And what would we substitute for it? Our 
 own ideas, which have deceived us a thousand times, 
 and of whose range and consequences we are alike 
 ignorant. If by chance we are actually left to 
 choose, we hesitate and inquire in vain, and cannot 
 compass the most trivial arrangement ; and ever 
 afterward our desire is for clear and sure views, 
 when there is a question of any of those myriad 
 combinations, whereby the throng of beings who 
 describe the same orbit, fulfil, unconsciously to them- 
 selves, the designs of Providence. 
 
 We arrive, however unexpectedly, at a rigorous 
 demonstration of the fact, that the object of our 
 repugnance is almost always the very thing which 
 is most indispensably and indubitably necessary to 
 us. In these bonds, which seem to constrain too 
 much your faculties, your instincts and your talents, 
 you may be sure of moving easily, if they are imposed 
 by duty. That devouring unrest of yours shall 
 be a lamp to your feet. That affliction it was which 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 219 
 
 alone could have made you break with the world, 
 and enticed you from its influence. 
 
 We are thoroughly acquainted only with the an- 
 noyances of the part which we ourselves bear, the 
 situation where we are, and the evil which oppresses 
 us; but do not wisdom and good sense consist 
 in the reflection that every lot has its trials, every 
 situation its annoyances, and that every organiza- 
 tion bears in its own breast the destructive princi- 
 ple? When you think of the obstacles in your path, 
 and the griefs which cause you to suffer, and tell 
 their number, however great it may be, can you 
 not offset against them the infinitude of contrary 
 chances ? 
 
 Can you say, that if this grief, this anxiety, whose 
 gnawing fixity absorbs you, were removed, you 
 would be left for ever, or even for any great length 
 of time, in entire satisfaction and profound security? 
 And if, on the other hand, your suffering is to be 
 continued or renewed in one way or another, since 
 suffering is the inevitable law, of what consequence, 
 after all, are the manner and way? 
 
 When you undertake to work out your own destiny, 
 you confide to your own single strength the care of 
 softening its severity. God puts consolation only 
 where he has first put pain, and causes his mercies 
 to abound nowhere, save in the furrow traced by 
 penitence and laborious effort. You are at once too 
 poor and too great : too poor in your views, for they 
 
220 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 do not reach the true horizon ; too great to be able 
 to be your own reward. 
 
 Let us eliminate from our lives all that is not 
 marked with the seal of the divine will. "Every 
 man," says St. Gregory, of Nyssa, "is the painter 
 and the sculptor of his own life." In the midst of 
 the original endowments of destiny, over which we 
 have apparently no control, we do not realize weak, 
 fettered, and clogged as we are how great our power 
 still is. 
 
 Man resisting God, is Satan in his colossal de- 
 formity. Man obedient, aids God in his work. 
 Nature, when she issued from the hands of the 
 Creator, obeyed once for all. Man's true glory is 
 to obey God each moment and for ever. 
 
 Doubtless, it belongs to man to grow and mount 
 unceasingly. The desire of development, but of an 
 internal, purely moral, regular, and peaceful devel- 
 opment, which is but the law that summons him to 
 perfect his being, is in the front rank of his attributes. 
 Observe it is only the inner man who can grow 
 unceasingly, and has an indefinite capability of ad- 
 vancemnt. With the carnal man the case is exactly 
 reversed. The confines of life and of matter ham- 
 per him on all sides. 
 
 Between these two contrary attractions, there is 
 but one ambition worthy of us ; that, namely, which 
 insures our progress in the spiritual life. And even 
 here we must consult the will of God, learn what 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 221 
 
 lie wants of us, and to what place he assigns us. 
 Wherever it may be, we must be content therein. 
 How dare we choose among the mansions of the 
 heavenly Father? To be a worm of the dust in 
 obedience to God's designs is better in the eyes of 
 wisdom, than to have the lofty nature of angels, and 
 be abandoned to one's self. 
 
 Humility is as becoming in sacred things as in all 
 others. Let us check the vehemence of our desires, 
 even when they take the form of a legitimate wish 
 for greater perfection. Let us joyfully acquiesce in 
 seeing the spirituality of our brethren surpass our 
 own ; and, without dwelling upon ourselves, let us be 
 sensitive only about what honors God. He knows 
 what we need, and to what he calls us ; and he alone 
 knows it. Thus, like any other master, he chooses 
 his servant, and intends to be heard and served as 
 pleases him, not as pleases the servant. 
 
 There is no method which the Scripture does not 
 try to turn us from proud thoughts, even of good 
 things ; proud, not because they soar so high, but 
 relatively to our own strength, which we ought to 
 have been able to estimate more truly. 
 
 We are reminded of our powerlessness by every 
 invitation which is given us to advance ; and humility 
 is always set before us as the palladium of our best 
 intentions. A thousand passages of Holy Writ at- 
 test it. 
 
222 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 One of the titles to the celestial pity adduced by 
 the Royal Prophet is this : 
 
 " Lord, my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty : 
 neither do I exercise myself in great matters, nor in 
 things too high for me." 
 
 " Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a 
 child that is weaned of its mother : my soul is even 
 as a weaned child." 
 
 And it is because he feels that God bears witness 
 to that humility which he makes his sole claim, that 
 he cries, in a transport of joy, 
 
 "Let Israel hope in the Lord henceforth and 
 for ever." 
 
 And does not the gospel in its turn admonish us 
 that not one of us can add a cubit to his stature ? 
 
 Happy dependence of our earthly condition, which, 
 through the very need we have of blessing, renders 
 the Benefactor more present and more dear ! Blessed 
 temporary indigence which enables us to say with 
 St. Ignatius, " We lack much that we may not lack 
 God." 
 
 Let the part which has been assigned us in this 
 world be held very precious, even in its most insig- 
 nificant details. Let us prefer, though we may not 
 have chosen it, all that we must accept. Let the 
 intellect be more and more reconciled to the lot of 
 those little ones who have received such merciful 
 promises ; and let us shrink from envying the lot 
 of the great to which such formidable menaces are 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 223 
 
 attached. All may rise. All may fall. And what 
 signifies being first or last in the eyes, or on the 
 breast, of Him who is himself the beginning and end 
 of all things. 
 
 O my God, I desire not the glory of heaven ! I 
 ask not to reign there, but only there to serve thee.- 
 Ah, i there were but lay-sisters in heaven, and I 
 might be one ! 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THAT THERE IS AN EXCESS OF GRIEF WHICH BELIES 
 THE WORDS OF SUBMISSION. 
 
 WE must not dissimulate the fact, that to abandon 
 one's self utterly to excessive grief, and to consent 
 to that excess, renders illusory all the words and 
 deeds whereby we think to express resignation. What 
 signifies submission on the lips, if resistance is alive 
 in the depths of the heart, if God is but a God 
 who pronounces judgments, and our trust, reverential 
 though it be, remains inert and sterile ! Suffering is 
 like death ; it must be whether we will or no : but the 
 distinguishing mark of the Christian is that he brings 
 to necessity what transfigures and annihilates it. 
 
 Doubtless the Christian suffers. He suffers deeply ; 
 for there is dignity in suffering, and all dignities are 
 his : nay, more, he suffers perpetually ; for God, who 
 
224 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 made consolation, did not make oblivion. Yet while 
 we acknowledge the suffering to which man is con- 
 demned by sin, the words of the holy books are 
 explicit and unanimous in proclaiming the reign of 
 joy in this vale of tears. " He that is of a merry 
 heart," saith the preacher, "hath a continual feast." 
 And does not the apostle command us to "rejoice 
 evermore"? The saints speak the same language, 
 "Let piety weep," said St. Paulinus, "but let faith 
 rejoice evermore." 
 
 But would not the Scriptures, which reconcile all 
 contradictions, here assert the most flagrant of all, 
 were there not joys in piety which predominate over 
 all afflictions, enveloping and clothing them anew, 
 like that garment of immortality which, in the words 
 of St. Paul, the mortal is to put on? Faith, in its 
 various degrees, is also a tree which may be known 
 by its fruits ; so that we no longer sorrow " as 
 those who have no hope," neither are disquieted 
 like those who have no Father in heaven. 
 
 What changes are wrought in the mind by a single 
 thought of Providence and immortality ! What be- 
 comes of the present, when a single hope arises? 
 God enters by means of his inspirations into the 
 heart of the faithful, and graciously admits him to 
 the closest familiarity with himself. And out of the 
 heart of such a life, mingled in some sort with that 
 of God, how can we fail to form judgments very 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 225 
 
 different from those dictated by our abandoned and 
 self-abandoning nature ! 
 
 The sudden shock and sorrowful overthrow have, 
 no doubt, great claims on the divine indulgence ; 
 yet, if piety is deep and mature, and that which con- 
 stitutes spiritual age has naught to do with the num- 
 ber of the years, it should have insured the blessing 
 and produced the effects peculiar to itself; gained in 
 velocity so to speak, and even in spontaneity, and 
 reduced, at least considerably, the number of our ter- 
 rible surprises. It is well said that impressions do 
 not reason ; and what seals the true Christian with 
 peculiar distinctness is not merely the way in which 
 he resists grief, but the way in which it affects him. 
 
 The habit of pious moderation shapes the whole 
 man anew, and insures the triumph of the power of 
 Christianity ; the latter being supernatural not only 
 in the truth it teaches, but also in the effects to which 
 it gives rise. If, in souls subdued and shaped to the 
 sacred yoke of faith, the very first impulse may be 
 loyal and submissive, has not God the right to de- 
 mand as much when space for reflection has inter- 
 vened, when some sort of order has succeeded to the 
 perturbation, when, in a word, time, that mighty 
 auxiliary of virtue, has been able to act? 
 
 What shall we say, then, of those deep ravages 
 which men allow to be wrought within them ? of 
 those violent transports, those wasting and consuming 
 
 10* 
 
226 WHITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 regrets, those sorrows which are suitably borne exter- 
 nally, but carry on, all the same, a work of destruc- 
 tion at which the will either renders a kind of passive 
 assistance, or calculates and applauds its effects with 
 a sombre inner joy ? 
 
 When excessive suffering causes death, even in the 
 form of annihilation, to seem a deliverance, does not 
 the fact reveal the guilty character of a grief which 
 makes us abjure all our hopes? And is not that 
 negative suicide, which is almost as grave a thing 
 as the other, which is consequent upon sorrow long- 
 continued, enervating, and wearing to the springs of 
 life, is it not a foe whom we should resist with all 
 our might, if it plainly shortens or trenches on the 
 days wherein God has doubtless planted a thousand 
 germs of salvation? 
 
 Do we reflect how impious a death it may be to die 
 of grief ? Did any saint ever die so ? 
 
 Men are peculiarly affected by this sort of death. 
 They admire it with a pious idolatry, deeming it the 
 apotheosis of human sensibility. But why not rather 
 say with Saint Bridget, "The fools who cry, ' We 
 would sooner die than yield our will ! ' ' In vain do 
 they say, with bowed heads, yet unwilling to lift up 
 the prostrate soul, " We adore the ways of God, and 
 he alone is master." Ah, however reverent their 
 silence or their speech, conscience owns that this 
 abandonment to sorrow, this uncontrolled anguish, 
 has but one true name, and that is murmur ! 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 227 
 
 And this murmur is not merely a plaint ; it is, 
 though inarticulate, an accusation. For do we not 
 accuse God of being an unjust Master, when we in- 
 timate that he lays on his servants burdens too heavy 
 to be borne, burdens which their virtue may indeed 
 support, nor suffer the escape of a groan, but which 
 crush them none the less ? Do we not accuse God of 
 ingratitude when we allow it to be supposed that he 
 does that of which many, even corrupt men, are in- 
 capable, and that he suffers those to fail who have 
 given themselves to him ? 
 
 And when the enemies of that God of justice and 
 also of meekness laugh at his thunderbolts, dispute 
 his benefits, proclaim his supreme indifference, you, 
 his believers, his servants, his friends, know not how 
 to defend him. You leave the impression that, in 
 truth, he can neither love his own, nor provide a se- 
 cret counterpoise to their visible afflictions ; that he 
 deigns neither to strengthen nor to sustain ; that, 
 consequently, we can feel sure of nothing but his 
 blows ; that, powerless or faithless, he either cannot 
 or will not comfort us ; and, finally, that the consid- 
 erations of which faith is born, endowed, perchance, 
 with a feeble and limited action, cannot cope with 
 cruel events and severe wounds. God will justify 
 himself one day, but we must justify him here. 
 
 And that prostration which succeeds acute suffer- 
 ing, that melancholy depression, no longer charac- 
 
228 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 terized either by the startling signs or the dull 
 mutterings of the storm, but which resolves itself 
 into a condition in which the soul seems overspread 
 with a mourning veil, is that more legitimate in the 
 Christian's eyes ? What ! you attempt to set forth the 
 shining truths of the divine word, the magnificence of 
 its revelations, the mercy of its designs ; and, at the 
 same time, you allow the suspicion that God cannot 
 console, that he has no treasure in reserve wherewith 
 to soften his sternness, and that the sincerest piety is, 
 after all, as ineffective as the vainest philosophy. 
 
 This permitted depression, submissive as it may 
 appear, is none the less a guilty defection, and a silent 
 protest against God's decrees. Ah ! you who love 
 him, and desire his glory and triumph, reflect that, 
 when sadness overpowers you, you become the place, 
 the occasion, the accomplices of his defeat ; that it is 
 the very God who is vanquished in your persons as 
 often as your love and faith fail to rise above your 
 grief! Ah! how can we help overcoming sorrow, 
 when God is for us and against sorrow ? Does not our 
 weakness betray a languishing faith, and prove that, 
 though there may be resignation in the conscience, it 
 has not yet penetrated to the heart ; that is to say, 
 that the self-immolated victim has so much of life 
 left, that rebellion still ferments within him? 
 
 Let, then, the soul that has been touched by grace 
 make haste to overcome these failings ; and, more 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 229 
 
 faithful than Ananias, yield up that secret, smart- 
 ing grief which the instinct of a passionate bitterness 
 would fain make the heart's last idol. 
 
 When the wind of earthly lust still fans the face ; 
 when we turn our eyes on perishable things ; when 
 we sit down at the feast of the impious, and lend 
 our ears to the accents of the doubter ; when, in 
 short, we seek "the happiness of men," then it is 
 that we know sorrow. But for him who loves and 
 follows thee, O my God ! grief, a phantom of man's 
 raising, does not exist. There is naught for him but 
 love, hope, joy, submission, and sacrifice. Grief is 
 vanquished as well as death. 
 
 Or, rather, this grief changes its character, and 
 recalls the sweet and sad solemnity which the Church 
 throws around the funeral rites of little children. It 
 is death ; but the words and the chants express the 
 assurance of a blessed life, from which a light veil 
 only divides us. The chants are sad ; the exile knows 
 no other ; but there is nothing woful or heart-rending 
 in them. Sin is not there. We shed many tears, 
 but there is no mourning ; and, for prayers, there are 
 canticles of joy. 
 
 Even so, it seems to me, we find in the innocent 
 little one, lying motionless in his coffin, embalmed 
 in flowers, a fitting emblem of the Christian's grief. 
 For the child, there is the possession of God ; for the 
 Christian's sorrow, there is the certainty of one day 
 possessing Him. The child has gone to God; God 
 
230 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 will come to the expectant sorrow. Sorrow knows 
 that he will come ; and, though he delay awhile, still 
 it waits, for he will surely come. Veniet et non tar- 
 dabit. And, like the Church, who gives her voice 
 for these sinless souls, who form the milky way of 
 the heaven of souls, Christian sorrow patient of 
 suffering, impatient of deserving to suffer is more 
 ready with ascription than with invocation. 
 
 The effects of faith are not strictly confined to the 
 realization of its threatenings and promises concern- 
 ing a future life. In this world, also, faith bears 
 blessed fruit ; and the earthly happiness of the true 
 Christian, however inferior in dignity, enters quite as 
 much into the plan of the divine Legislator. . . . 
 
 This religion of self-denial protects all that it reg- 
 ulates, confirms all that it approves, and fortifies all 
 that it restrains or limits. The less we aim at happi- 
 ness, the more it causes us to encounter in the world ; 
 and this happiness is increased in proportion as we 
 strive to lift the heart rather than to satisfy it. Chris- 
 tianity treats happiness precisely as it treats the body. 
 It forbids man to give more than a secondary place 
 to either. Knowing their dubious fidelity, it wills 
 that he should watch them both, always subjugate 
 and sometimes sacrifice them ; and, in a word, that, 
 in his relations with them, he should continue to be 
 lord and master. 
 
 Christianity, which seems to despise happiness, and 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 231 
 
 treat the body as an enemy, honors the one and de- 
 fends the other, more than any other cultus or system 
 was ever known to do. 
 
 What a divine character Christianity imparts to 
 earthly happiness ! What a fond sanction it gives 
 to all the heart's lawful affections ! How many in- 
 centives its words supply to constant and ever-grow- 
 ing love ! 
 
 And this poor human body, which, one would 
 think, Christianity cared only to subdue, what sys- 
 tem, even of those who deified it, has ever awarded 
 it such true honor as the Word, who associated it with 
 his own divinity, who promises it resurrection, and 
 who summons it by those sacraments, whereof the 
 nature is always twofold, to a share in the most mar- 
 vellous blessings which can descend upon the earth ? 
 
 God neither hates nor despises aught that he has 
 created. Nothing is too little or abject for him to 
 raise and purify. In his severities, it is not vengeance 
 which is expressed here below, nor even justice : it 
 is always his love. It is ever by a less degree of suf- 
 fering, that the sinner is indemnified for the deserved 
 suffering which he undergoes. 
 
 The whole Catholic system has been so arranged 
 as to come to the aid of the human creature, in the 
 twofold aspect of his life here and his life beyond. 
 Its ethics, its precepts, its counsels, have no other 
 end than this. 
 
232 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE; 
 
 Those virtues which have been exalted above the 
 rest, and called the three divine virtues, because of 
 their regenerative power, contain the principle of the 
 greatest help and comfort that man can receive. 
 
 Faith! to trust, in a word, to lean, to act 
 under an ever-open eye, and an arm always ready to 
 lift you up. To feel yourself summoned within by a 
 voice whose accents never fail to move you in the 
 tempest or the calm, in joy or in tears ; to have a 
 witness who attends you, a defender who shields you, 
 a confidant who hears you ; a friend never absent, 
 never dull, never mute, who not merely listens but 
 answers, who can never be either ignorant or ab- 
 stracted, and who shows you in the world a fleeting 
 vision, and reveals that eternity where joy awaits you. 
 
 From the sweet and smiling picture which even 
 Error has drawn of Hope ; from the undeniable ben- 
 efits of her merely natural action ; from the flowers 
 with which she can strew the saddest life ; from her 
 prism so rich in hues ; from that fidelity to her vo- 
 cation which renders her the constant and unfailing 
 companion of man from the cradle to the grave, 
 it is easy to imagine what Christian hope must be : 
 holy hope with the terrestrial element gloriously 
 transfigured. No illusions does she invoke. She 
 requires only truth, that truth which is ever fruit- 
 ful and inexhaustible. Placed between Faith and 
 Charity, Christian Hope is the reward of the one 
 and the prelude to the other ; or, rather, these three 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 233 
 
 heavenly sisters mingle their rays, and borrow splen- 
 dor from one another. 
 
 If God had but permitted man to love him, it 
 would have been much. But, though he has every- 
 where deposited the germ of this love, he develops, 
 trains, and feeds it with peculiar care in the hearts of 
 the children of his Church. Who does not know 
 that the child learns to love only at its mother's knee ? 
 There only are those chaste pleasures prepared which 
 insure unfailing happiness and love. 
 
 And of these three forms of human felicity, 
 faith, hope, and charity, Christianity makes duties, 
 that none may fail thereof save by his own fault. 
 And, in the practical life of piety, what pains are 
 taken to warn us, to shield us from ourselves, to 
 apprise us of our dangers, to defend us at the tribu- 
 nal of pardon, to intoxicate our souls at the sacred 
 table, to ravish the imagination, to please the senses, 
 to speak to the intellect, and console the heart ! 
 
 And, if the lyre within accords ever so imperfectly 
 with the divine diapason, what a delicious calm there 
 is in self-possession, in the feeling of a harmonious 
 equilibrium between all the powers of our being ! 
 What freedom within us thenceforth, and how rich 
 and beautiful the world appears to our serene and 
 unembarrassed gaze ! 
 
 When the heart is fervid and full of pious ecstasy, 
 how enchanting are the aspects of nature, which re- 
 veal God so sweetly, in his wonderful works ! 
 
234 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 What resources in labor ! What varied treasures 
 offered by art, science, and, above all, by study, 
 which responds so perfectly to our active curios- 
 ity, revealing, moreover, that heaven where the bliss 
 of knowledge comes next to that of love ! 
 
 And this for all, without exception or privilege, 
 for peculiarly favored situations ! This is our share 
 in the universal patrimony ; the common fund, the 
 heritage of all, and especially of those who, though 
 they share largely in so many blessings, are often 
 most disposed to slight them ! 
 
 The instinct which causes us to pursue happiness 
 is a proof of the reality of happiness. It is hardly 
 to be supposed that we imagine something which 
 neither has been nor ever will be. It would be 
 creation outside of nature. If the iron moves and 
 is strongly attracted, it is because the magnet exists. 
 
 That problem of the supreme good, which absorbed 
 the attention of antiquity, is wonderfully solved by 
 Christianity, which reveals to us at once a perfectly 
 beautiful life, and a perfectly desirable death. It 
 would seem, at first sight, that if the aspect of life 
 were fair, we should dread death, which is its term ; 
 and that, on the other hand, the desire of death must 
 discourage and disenchant us in respect of life. From 
 the stand-point of humanity, whose esteem centres in 
 transitory good, it could not be otherwise : it would 
 certainly be an attempt to reconcile incompatibilities. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 235 
 
 But under the Christian system, glowing aspira- 
 tions can have but one legitimate object, eternal 
 bliss. The happiness we hope in death, and that 
 which we receive from life, without being identical, 
 are not strangers to each other, for the possession of 
 God is the foundation of them both. 
 
 Death desirable outside of Christianity ? Only the 
 unfortunate can admit the thought, and that under 
 inconceivable conditions of trouble and despair ! 
 They look upon it as an end ; but for the Christian 
 it is at once the beginning and the fulfilment of all 
 the hopes which cross the realm of time. 
 
 To render death perfectly desirable, it must needs 
 be that, as with the many saintly souls whose pas- 
 sage from this world to the next has been one song* 
 of deliverance, our wealth should be laid up else- 
 where than here below, and our hearts following 
 our treasure. And, that life may be always and 
 supremely beautiful, devotion and self-sacrifice must 
 be of the number of our joys ; the vastness of our 
 aim must react, at every step, upon the distance to be 
 traversed ; and our personal efforts, the miracles of 
 grace, illusions destroyed and true blessings truly ap- 
 preciated, must concur to form a reality of blessed- 
 ness, whereof the world is profoundly ignorant, and 
 which has been enjoyed only by that multitude, that 
 no man can number, who people the celestial city. 
 
 " The angels," said St. Gregory the Great, " carry 
 their paradise with them wherever they are sent by 
 
236 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 God, because they never cease to be united to him." 
 This is the secret of lasting joy. 
 
 Christianity is not a barren, speculative theory. 
 Every one of its dogmas implies a virtue, which 
 is commanded to manifest itself by results. 
 
 In the language of men, whatever is not flagrant 
 rebellion is denominated resignation ; but, in sober 
 Christian speech, the words used to express ideas 
 should, as in the sacramental formulas, effect what 
 they signify. Here, then, what is required is not 
 merely internal acquiescence, but that living accept- 
 ance which shall produce its proper effects of light 
 and love. 
 
 Nothing can come, without your consent, between 
 the thought of the mind and the wish of the heart. 
 
 In that spiritual realm, that domain which none 
 but yourself can penetrate, you have only yourself 
 to conquer : you are king because you are free. 
 Nought can hinder you from conforming or degrad- 
 ing your sentiments, or raising them to the height of 
 your guiding principles. 
 
 Your outward behavior is susceptible of a thou- 
 sand interpretations which may serve as your excuse ; 
 but, in the depths of your being, you are entirely 
 responsible for the impulses you obey. There, the 
 slightest discord between what you say and what 
 you feel constitutes a lie ; the least weakness, a pre- 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 237 
 
 varication ; the least demur to one of God's com- 
 mands, a denial of his providence. 
 
 And if a wish long since formed, or an engagement 
 undertaken, already bind you ; if, moved by a sacred 
 charm, you have employed those words, so tender 
 and sweet to the lips, of entire conformity, of sur- 
 rendered will, and irrevocable abandonment to the 
 divine wishes ; What do I say, if you have ever 
 declared to God that his will was yours, and that, 
 having yielded once for all, your heaviest punishment 
 would be to resume guidance of yourself ; if these 
 unreserved, unconditioned, unalterable words have 
 been uttered, believe me, that to give, and yet with- 
 hold, will avail with God least of all. 
 
 With ability, it may be possible to prevent men 
 from suspecting aught but what we show them ; but 
 a jealous God sees what we withhold from him most 
 clearly in what we offer. 
 
 And where your submission is judged sufficient at 
 all points, are you not inclined and impelled to do 
 more than is required of you, to clear the distance 
 which separates precept from counsel, the obligatory 
 from the optional? The precept is only strict justice, 
 as we conceive it from its accomplishment under the 
 ancient law ; but counsel with its free spaces is the 
 new law, whereby we receive the adoption of sons. 
 
 All science has its definitive experiments, which 
 give it the force of law. 
 
238 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 In the science of Christianity, it is perhaps the 
 Christian's happiness which furnishes the most in- 
 contestable evidence of the fidelity of God to his 
 promises. Reflection shows us that there is a uni- 
 versal argument in favor of the truth, accessible to 
 all men at all times, but which belongs exclusively 
 to the servants of that adorable truth ; displaying 
 all its beneficence and profoundly logical power, 
 defying all contradiction ; the irresistible homage 
 rendered by the servant to his master ; and that 
 argument is the internal but visible bliss enjoyed by 
 the true Christian. 
 
 Outside of Christianity, happiness cannot be abso- 
 lute, for nowhere else is there a sufficient counter- 
 poise for the immense weight of human misery. 
 Here only, there is a lever powerful enough to lift 
 our fallen nature to those immeasurable heights where 
 the world's true proportions are revealed. 
 
 A free spirit, a sweet and even temper, a counte- 
 nance of content, express order without and peace 
 within. This steady and sustained bearing which 
 is not merely the effort of a few moments, but the 
 reality of all, since it cannot come by nature, which 
 is ever full of vicissitudes must be attributed to 
 grace ; or at least to some superior principle, which 
 the most prejudiced are forced to acknowledge. 
 
 Happiness is a thing so uncommon, and so highly 
 esteemed, that it cannot be seen without causing 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 239 
 
 remark, without raising the question whence it comes 
 and whither it goes. The most uncultivated as well 
 as the most refined minds, those whose nature is 
 most serious as well as those least inclined to trouble 
 their heads about abstract truth, are forced to seek 
 for the source of so rare a prodigy. 
 
 Observe that, in consequence of social degeneracy, 
 the other means which truth has at command have 
 acquired an infirm, intermittent, questionable charac- 
 ter. Speech ? How it has been abused ! Does it 
 not often add to the difficulty of comprehension ? 
 Acts ? It so happens that they excite equal distrust, 
 so nicely can' they be calculated to conceal personal 
 interest. Beliefs? They too can be feigned in the 
 interest of order and public peace. The imagina- 
 tion may be enthralled by the beauties of religion 
 as well as by many others. Large and bold openings 
 may be made into all the realms of the sublime, with- 
 out carrying to the mind the conviction of a single, 
 focal centre, burning and blessing at the same time. 
 
 In speculative statements, every thing may be con- 
 troverted and rendered debatable ; but when, to the 
 eyes of this greedy or prosperity -laden world, which 
 is, none the less, sad, unquiet, weary, accustomed 
 to see in every rule an insupportable yoke, and in 
 the life of duty only a fastidious monotony ; when 
 you, the representative of all that world rejects and 
 despises, show that you at least possess the happi- 
 ness which it seeks and from which it flies, imagine 
 
240 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 the impression you produce ! What sight like that 
 of the flower of peace, the bright serenity of the 
 Christian under the pressure of calamity, privation, 
 age, illness, and the sombre elements which go to 
 make up the life of man ! 
 
 A joy which is rooted within, which neither dis- 
 plays itself nor hides itself, but merely suffers obser- 
 vation, whose permanence has already something of 
 celestial immutability, bewilders men, yet causes 
 them to reflect. They find themselves at a loss how 
 to explain, on human grounds, so strange a phe- 
 nomenon. They begin to comprehend that it must 
 have some mysterious and divine element ; and the 
 hidden agent of these marvellous effects comes near 
 revealing his deity, as Jesus did to the centurion at 
 the crucifixion. 
 
 Yes : there is, in this world, a silent apostolate, a 
 living, legible creed, an incessant and persuasive 
 preaching ; and it is the natural irradiation of a deep 
 and genuine content. Christians and children of the 
 Church, the joy which we taste in her service is, of 
 all our acts of homage, the least open to suspicion, 
 the most just, the most grateful. Never will the 
 immortal hopes to which we offer the sacrifice of 
 our piety be so clearly announced by our speech, 
 as by the contrast between our known sufferings, 
 and the radiant tranquillity of that repose which 
 passes from the heart into the face. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 241 
 
 Whatever trials we may undergo, however we 
 may be stripped of consolation, support, and desert, 
 is there not left us the lot of those stars of which the 
 Prophet speaks, "which, being bright, and sent to 
 do their offices, are obedient." l Let us ever be 
 ready to say with Bourdaloue, "I know not, O my 
 God ! whether Thou art content with me : I acknowl- 
 edge freely that Thou hast reason to be otherwise ; 
 but as for me, O my God ! I must confess to Thy 
 glory, that I am content with Thee, and that per- 
 fectly. It matters little to Thee whether I am this or 
 no ; but, after all, it is the most glorious testimony 
 that I can render, for to say that I am content with 
 Thee is to say that Thou art my God, since none 
 but a God could content me." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IS RESIGNATION COMPATIBLE WITH PRAYER THAT 
 GOD WILL REMOVE THE EVIL WHICH AFFLICTS OR 
 THREATENS US ? 
 
 SUCH a doubt could only occur to those who, 
 with lofty intent, should essay to walk in the way 
 of the perfect. It is akin to those generous illu- 
 sions which have misled many souls, and caused 
 them to miss their mark by overshooting it. 
 
 1 Baruch. 
 11 
 
242 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 Motionless and speechless, renunciation often 
 becomes a snare, like disinterestedness, to ardent 
 love. But Christianity is not a series of initiations, 
 in which, keeping no account of progress made, 
 we cast aside, like useless scaffolding, all the meth- 
 ods which we employed to arrive at the point last 
 gained. 
 
 All the teachings of Christianity, like its dogmas 
 and its duties, have, so to speak, the simultaneity 
 of God himself. The greatest virtues will never 
 excuse the lack of the least : martyrdom, gloriously 
 met, would not exempt from obedience to the Church's 
 lightest law; and, if you had climbed to the third 
 heaven, its ecstatic orisons would not enable you to 
 dispense with the prayer of the humble. Every 
 day, morning and evening, you would still need to 
 say, "Forgive me my debts as I forgive my debtors. 
 Lead me not into temptation ; " still beginning anew 
 where all the world begins in your obedience to God's 
 commands, though, by his goodness, you may have 
 been called upon to speak, and to feel better than 
 any other. 
 
 But, aside from the moral, intellectual, and phi- 
 losophical considerations which run parallel with the 
 route which faith alone can discover to our eyes, we 
 must remember that, in Christianity, whose teach- 
 ings are essentially historical, authoritative example 
 constitutes law. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 243 
 
 So when we see Jesus pleading with his Father- 
 to remove the cup from his lips, or crying out upon 
 the cross with a groan of despair, "My God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me," can the Christian doubt that 
 his adorable Master has sanctioned prayer even as a 
 plaint, an inarticulate wish, or a cry for help by 
 human sensibility? 
 
 We see the Church praying for the deliverance of 
 Peter, as erewhile she prayed in the upper chamber 
 for purely spiritual blessings ; and it seems as if 
 prayer were an act so excellent that God blesses it 
 even when he will not hear. 
 
 It is not, of course, to rebellion that God says, 
 "Ask, and ye shall receive," but to submission 
 "Knock!" He says, moreover, And if the door at 
 which you knock resists, your words, your entreaties 
 will none the less be reckoned in the supply of other 
 needs, which you, perchance, do not see so clearly. 
 Prayer fructified by 'grace is the mediator between 
 man and Christ, as Christ himself is the mediator 
 between God and the world. 
 
 God has appointed honors and rewards for the 
 exercise of the virtues. He has invested these with 
 prerogatives, but prayer he has treated more muni- 
 ficently. Visibly modifying under its influence the 
 severity of his decrees, allowing himself to be swayed 
 by intercession, he gives it, we may venture to say, 
 a claim upon himself. Thus, not only does prayer 
 move and shake God in his designs, and induce him 
 
244 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 to suspend their execution, but human prayer is also 
 at the bottom of almost every miracle. It would 
 seem as if God, after creating the obedience of the 
 saints, longed to taste its delights. 
 
 For how has he shown himself to us ? " Obedient 
 unto the death of the cross." And since then? At 
 the voice of the priest, he descends to the altar. 
 At the voice of man, he heals and makes amends. 
 
 "When I see," said St. Catherine of Genoa, "how 
 lovingly and carefully he makes all possible provision 
 for leading us to his own country, I am, as it were, 
 constrained to say, that this good God seems to be 
 our servant." 
 
 In cases of extraordinary favor and marked predi- 
 lection, we can hardly suppose that God, in whom 
 there is always a union of knowledge and foreknowl- 
 edge, is not influenced by the merit of him who is 
 their object, and that the latter does not prevail, up 
 to a certain point, by prayer. 
 
 Miracles are earthly in their nature. We have no 
 reason to suppose that there are any in heaven. 
 Miracle enters into the number of our prerogatives, 
 our chances, and, consequently, of our hopes. Let 
 us try to deserve to have this divine force pause at 
 us, that God should permit us to be its conduc- 
 tors ; and as, under the ancient law, all who belonged 
 to the numerous and royal house of David, might 
 hope to give birth to the Messiah, let us strive to 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 245 
 
 render less impure the channels through which the 
 divine pity may flow, either to stop with us or to 
 pass on. 
 
 Moreover, how can prayer ever be qualified as 
 inopportune? Is it not always the highest glorifica- 
 tion of God's power? 
 
 It would be a false spirituality, indeed, which should 
 lead us to consider, in the light of an imperfection, a 
 recourse to prayer in the case of those preferences 
 which pertain to the world of sense. Human things, 
 aside from those which must be rejected as bad or 
 suspicious in themselves, are divided into superior 
 and inferior, into interests which affect the heart, 
 and such as appeal only to the vanity. 
 
 Earthly prosperity excites this vanity ; not so the 
 profound and legitimate sentiments of the heart. 
 Why, then, should we not intercede for the objects of 
 our pure and lively affection, with regard not merely 
 to their spiritual, but to their human interests ; not 
 merely that we may win for them immortal life, but 
 that we may protect and prolong their days upon 
 the earth. 
 
 And, as we pray for others, why should it not be 
 lawful to pray for ourselves? to ask of God to 
 avert the misfortune which we dread, and continue 
 us the comfort to which we cling? 
 
 The God of the Christian is not the passionless, 
 pantheistic God of nature ; nor must the Christian 
 
246 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 incur the risk of mistaking insensibility for virtue. 
 He is greater than the world, but he shrinks not from 
 contact with it ; and, following the example of his 
 Master, he loves it, that he may bless, and, if pos- 
 sible, save it. In the midst of his most glowing 
 ardors, the Christian acknowledges that the interests 
 which touch us most nearly are the most salient and 
 clearest to our eyes ; he perceives, moreover, the 
 worth which resides in inferior blessings, when 'we 
 possess them lawfully, and enjoy them discreetly, 
 and does not invent a gratuitous incompatibility 
 between our salvation, and what God gives us for 
 our happiness. 
 
 So true is this, that often we may safely say 
 that the loftiest purposes have been effectually sub- 
 served by temporal goods. Thus, the life of one is a 
 powerful aid ; the health vouchsafed another has 
 been the means of many a worthy deed ; and the 
 fortune well employed has covered more than one 
 transgression. 
 
 Prayer, which is both spiritual and emotional, is 
 the manifestation of the two men, whom the best of 
 us bear within. The one represents too often the 
 unweakened opposition of nature ; the other springs 
 to the eternal spaces. The one still clings to his 
 possessions, and reviews his past as a part of him- 
 self; the other, self-emancipated, betakes himself to 
 hope, rather than memory. The one is accessible on 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 247 
 
 all sides, and impressible at all points ; the other, 
 self-collected, living a life of profound and inex- 
 haustible spiritual intensity, and integrity. 
 
 These two men are not always at ease with one 
 another ; nor are we at ease with them. Yet, how- 
 ever great the apparent difference in their centres of 
 gravity, they both pray, and God hears them. The 
 prayer of the first is always articulate : that of the 
 second is voiceless and speechless ; and, while the 
 former grows weary of what it calls its useless 
 desires, the latter never wearies, for its desire is 
 eternity, eternity, whose inspirations bring with 
 them the patience of the saints ! If we do not 
 already belong too clearly and decidedly to one or 
 the other of these two men, let us attempt to con- 
 ciliate and make them live in harmony. Let the one 
 elevate and purify the other, while the latter insures, 
 by slightly retarding, his brother's progress. 
 
 God desires us to speak to him without reserve. 
 Those goods which are capable of becoming objects 
 of sacrifice, need none the less have been, originally, 
 objects of perfectly lawful desire. If we have smoth- 
 ered longings, let them not be such as we have con- 
 cealed, but such as we have renounced. We ought 
 to be able to bring all that is within us to God, and 
 surrender it to his influence, either for opposition or 
 consecration. 
 
 He not only permits, but commands, us to reveal 
 
248 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 to him our needs, our desires, our aversions, our 
 sorrows. He even goes so far as to allow us to tell 
 him our most fugitive and idle thoughts. 'Yea, even 
 dreams and chimeras we may unfold, nor fear the 
 accusation of audacity. 
 
 If it is true that w God punishes unwise prayers by 
 hearing them," as the Scripture says, it is not 
 the prayer itself, nor its imperfection, nor even our 
 error, which can produce such an effect ; for God in 
 his goodness often allows us to be innocently mis- 
 taken ; and if the fulfilment of our wishes comes in 
 the form of punishment, it comes as the consequence 
 of faults and errors far other than those of imperfect, 
 familiar, and inconsiderate prayer. 
 
 If we reveal our hearts to him, we make sure of 
 the strongest claim on his indulgence. We may do 
 this unreservedly. God lays no snares for our feet. 
 It is a beautiful and affecting miracle of the divine 
 economy, that, spite of the immeasurable distance 
 that divides us, God can act on us, and we on 
 him. 
 
 The sweetest charm of human relations is doubt- 
 less the twofold influence mutually exercised by those 
 who love ; the solicitude and affection constantly 
 expressed by a movement of action and reaction. 
 And when we reflect that the spiritual life is nothing 
 else than this ; that it is all comprised in the grace 
 which descends, and the love which ascends with cor- 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 249 
 
 responding fidelity ; that God has so arranged the 
 affairs of this world, that his intercourse with his 
 creatures may have all the tenderness and intimacy 
 of two hearts that meet and mingle, we know not 
 in what words to depict our gratitude. 
 
 God first loved us. He came to dwell with us. 
 He is still in our midst. It is his delight to converse 
 with man. "DelicicB mece esse cum filiis hominum." 
 He takes pleasure in intercourse with his children, 
 whom he is ever returning to seek. Not only does 
 he say Ephpheta, not merely does he open their ears : 
 he loosens the tongue, and applies his redemptive 
 virtue to every infirmity. What, then, is there to 
 hinder so sacred a familiarity? 
 
 God would be swayed, God would be sued : it is 
 due to his justice, and his original designs for man. 
 God wills that Moses, and the man who was born 
 blind, Nineveh, and the woman of Canaan, the town, 
 the world, all ages, and all tongues, should pray. 
 The Scriptures reproduce this truth under every 
 variety of aspect, because prayer may assume any 
 form and any voice, and be translated into any and 
 all the acts which emanate from the heart of man. 
 Thus almsgiving is prayer; penitence is prayer; 
 sacrifice, endurance, submission, all alike pray. 
 Every conscientious meditation on our faults, every 
 effort at amendment, every conquest over self, is 
 prayer, and avails as such. 
 11* 
 
250 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 We aspire through prayer; we respire through 
 resignation. Let us pray with all the intensity of 
 which we are capable, with no fear that our trust 
 will be belied. God regulates, directs, and purifies 
 our ardor, but never checks, in order to perfect it. 
 Only let us be watchful of our most urgent entrea- 
 ties and eager desires, lest they interfere with our 
 submission. 
 
 Prayer, with the Christian, is the calm and con- 
 fident gaze of the child upon his father ; of the sick 
 man who discloses his malady, and interrogates his 
 physician ; of the friend who invokes his friend's 
 presence : because all help is therein implied. When 
 our desires are of a mixed nature, we must see to it 
 that the void of our longings is not filled with the 
 debris of partially consumed passions ; and that a 
 blind and persistent wish for success does not in- 
 duce, in the course of its conflict with obstacles, 
 those violent internal oscillations, which seem to 
 threaten us at once with conflagration, and with 
 darkness. 
 
 Let us pray ; but let us pray according to the will 
 of God, and in his spirit. To reveal our wishes, to 
 hope, and to trust, is holy, pious, filial ; but to reckon 
 on the fulfilment of those wishes, and expect it as if 
 that fulfilment were our due, is quite another thing. 
 It is to pass from the love which believeth all things, 
 and hopeth all things, to an irreverent and exacting 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 251 
 
 mood, in which we show no proper sense of divine 
 things. To expect is to demand God's coming ; it is 
 to give him our time, instead of accepting his. 
 Adorable, even in his merciful tardiness, his good- 
 ness defers what it seems to refuse. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 . . . Suffering is profitable unto all things. Suf- 
 fering teaches us how to suffer, to live, and to 
 die. . . . Even if we could enter heaven by any 
 other door than that of tribulation, our very love 
 for God should deprive us of all thought or desire 
 of so doing ; for it is thus that our divine Master, 
 and, after him, all the saints, have entered, bearing 
 the cross, and treading a way strewn with thorns. 
 
 What examples are they, which the Scripture pro- 
 poses for our imitation ? Are they not those of hearts 
 ready for every species of heroic sacrifice and self- 
 immolation? Could suffering impose a check on 
 Abraham or on Job ? Did not grief wrino* from 
 
 o c? 
 
 David his most magnificent utterances ; and have 
 not all the martyrs of the new law had one and the 
 same experience of trial ? 
 
 Is it not suffering, which, more than all other 
 agents, tends to identify the feelings of the Saviour, 
 and those of his ransomed creature, which enables 
 us to realize the miracle of assimilation? In what 
 other aspect could our lives resemble that of Christ ? 
 
252 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 How else could our souls be identified with his, and 
 attain to a comprehension of it? What have we of 
 the sanctity, the profound condescension, the burning 
 love of Jesus? And what has he of our pride, our 
 laxity, our ingratitude, our rebellion? 
 
 Apart from grace, nothing, save suffering and its 
 mighty plenitude, can fill the abyss between the God- 
 man and his imitators. It is through suffering that 
 God is most human. It is through suffering that 
 man comes nearest to God. 
 
 Ask of the earthly affections, whether the dread 
 of suffering ever hindered a generous soul in its 
 love, and whether an infallible sign of the heart's 
 interest be not the utter contempt of obstacles and 
 sacrifices. 
 
 And then it would be vain to deny that there is in 
 our nature a certain inclination towards suffering, 
 a kind of stray echo, as it were, of that primordial 
 justice, which devotes us to expiation. 
 
 And so, despite our greed of happiness, despite 
 our repugnance toward trials that are only too need- 
 ful, all our joys end in satiety ; and there is not a 
 lofty, d^ep, or pure sentiment of our nature, which 
 pleasure does not affect with a sacred sadness. 
 
 This secret charm of ineffable unrest mingles with 
 the affections of all rare spirits. The elements of 
 gladness and of melancholy exist in the same heart, 
 and often side by side. They mingle with its sub- 
 stance ; and, if mutually contradictory, so much the 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 253 
 
 better do they symbolize the blessed inconsequence 
 of our twofold nature. 
 
 In the midst of all the pursuits of pleasure and 
 ambition ; in the midst of every variety of vain and 
 false estimate, it is those who run the career of the 
 prosperous, who are surest to be devoured by disgust 
 of the same, under the very eyes of the giddy and 
 envious public. 
 
 But question the pious souls, and they will tell 
 you of the wealth, the life, the peace borne on the 
 breast of that river of God, whose stream is always 
 full. Oh why is not love more beloved? Desolation 
 and sterility would vanish from the earth I ... 
 
 Doubtless there would be found an astonishing 
 number of minds ready to proclaim the beauty of the 
 divine law, and the magnificent authority of its pur- 
 poses, if the splendors which enchant the poet, and 
 the speculative truths which fascinate the philosopher, 
 were not accompanied by a severe code of morals, 
 and the duty of self-renunciation and humility. 
 When man is in the truth, the leadings of the heart's 
 inclinations coincide with those of reason, as con- 
 sulted by an unbiassed mind. 
 
 Ah, how happy and how great would humanity 
 be, if able to translate into persevering action its 
 vague instincts, its fleeting emotions, its passing 
 aspirations towards the heavenly country ! What a 
 
254 WRITINGS OF MADAME SWETCHINE. 
 
 sight would not this earth present, if all who waste 
 themselves in fruitless labor were striving to com- 
 prehend God ! to impart the joy he gives, to gather 
 in from all quarters his children, his worshippers, 
 and his elect ; and to reveal to so many unconscious 
 hearts that they have what they seek ! 
 
 How full of rapture would be this noble destiny, 
 this so natural and powerful manifestation of the 
 inner life ! It would be the soul's hosanna sung in 
 every metre ; it would be a living and sublime lyric, 
 a new hymn, a universal language, in which the suc- 
 cession of our deeds would unceasingly express the 
 glory of God. 
 
 f? Do you not feel," said Saint Madeleine, of Pazzi, 
 " the infinite sweetness that is contained in those 
 dear words, f the divine will'?" 
 
 How easy it is to understand that holy bishop who, 
 forgetting, or abdicating his own individuality, de- 
 sired men to call him by no other name than this, 
 Quod Dem vult. . . . Is there in all the world a 
 tenderer prayer, or one more impressed with divine 
 sympathy, than this, "My Father, thy will be 
 done " ? A prayer which God himself has taught us, 
 a talisman which enables us to banish his justice 
 and summon his love. " Thy will be done " ! Inces- 
 sant miracle of a God who deigns to will, and a 
 rebellious creature rising to the height of obedience ! 
 A sovereign prayer in its seeming self-annihilation. 
 
ON RESIGNATION. 255 
 
 O will of Him we love, which is always known, 
 though not always understood ; will, whose justice 
 we may confide in, whose mysteries we adore; will 
 which, to gain heaven, we would not intercept ; ador- 
 able will, law of all beings, beatitude of the elect ; 
 will which constitutes the glory of the place which 
 it assigns, and the power of the sacrifices it com- 
 mands, will of my God, involve mine own, more 
 swiftly than the world issued from chaos, or the 
 light sprang forth at thy voice, or than the joys of 
 heaven cause the saints to forget the gloom of the 
 passage thither. Will of my God, be mine, and 
 continue till my latest breath to initiate me into the 
 secret of thy growing delights ! 
 
 Cambridge : Press of John Wilson and Son. 
 
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