which are the envenomed sources of all the crimes men perpetrate, and of all the evils they suffer, and which have hitherto banished from the world innocence and peace, and with them all true happiness. To these precepts so holy and so salutary, Jesus Christ has moreover added some counsels which may be reduced to the number of four, and of which I shall show the wisdom and usefulness after having explained them.

CCII. Counsels of Jesus Christ.

Against pride. Counsel of forsaking all honours and the glory of the world to embrace obscurity, humiliation and abjection. I find this counsel clearly expressed by the words of Christ, Luke xiv. 8. "When thou art invited to a wedding, sit not down in the highest place, but go and sit down in the lowest place." "Learn from me that I am meck and humble

there are not a hundred that have come to our knowledge. The remembrance not of the chiefs only, but also of the battles and of the victories themselves is buried in oblivion; do we imagine that at every firing of the gun or at every hazard we run, a clerk is suddenly at our side to register it? Hundreds of clerks, however, may set it down in writing, whose commentaries will not last three days, and will be seen by nobody. The judgment of posterity varies according to the predominant maxims of the age. The same man, the same action is successively eulogized and censured according as new ideas, new principles, new foundations of public esteem prevail. We have seen in our days the Constantines, the Theodosiuses, the Charlemagnes treated as rogues and fools; whilst praises were prostituted to the Sardanapals, the Julians, the Cromwels. What reliance after that can you make on the glory which men hold forth to virtue? But what says on this subject the christian legislator to his disciples? Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad, because your reward is very great in heaven." Math. v. 11, 12.

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The spirit of the pagan morality is so different from that of the Son of God, that I feel no difficulty to advance that the most boasted virtues of paganism are more incompatible with, and more opposite to the spirit and views of Jesus Christ than its very vices. Why? Because the false glory which accompanied those real crimes, considered by them as virtues, precluded every return to conscience and repentance; whilst on the other side the libertine and miscreant carries at least in his soul a monitor, which at times brings him back to his right senses, vi: the remorse which follows crime considered as such,

of heart and you shall find rest for your souls." Math. xi. 29. and John xiii. 12. "He said to them: know you what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord: and you say well, for so I am. If I, then, being Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet."

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Against sensuality. Counsel to renounce marriage, to consecrate oneself to the state of absolute and perpetual continency. We find in St. Math. xix. 12. this counsel proposed in figurative and enigmatical, but at the same time very intelligible language. St. Paul has explained it likewise, 1 Corvii. 25. Concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give counsel, as having obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful: I think, therefore, that it is good for a man so to be," and v. 38. "Therefore both he that gives his virgin in marriage, doeth well: and he that giveth her not, doeth better."

Against Covetousness or the love of Riches. Counsel to renounce all property and all possessions in this world, to live, conformably to the example of Jesus Christ, in a state of strict poverty. I find this counsel in the reply which Jesus Christ made to a young man, who after having assured him, that he had always faithfully observed the commandments of God, asked him what was still wanting to him, "If thou wilt be perfect," said our Lord to him, "go, sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have a treasure in Heaven; and come and follow me." Math. xix. 21.

Finally. Against Anger. Counsel not to defend ourselves against the violence and unjust undertakings of our fellowcreatures. "You have heard, Jesus Christ says, Math. v. 38, that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, not to resist evil, but if any man strike thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any man will go to law with thee and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall force thee to go one mile, go with him other two."

CCIII. Wisdom of the Counsels of Jesus Christ.

At first sight, I must confess, the counsels of Jesus Christ appear to me not a little harsh and frightful. What, say I to myself, must I then, in order to be a christian, renounce all joy, all pleasure, all satisfaction, divest myself of the most na tural feelings, cease to be a man, and die as it were before death?

Such are the first thoughts that strike my mind at the sight of the counsels of Jesus Christ. But when, after having hushed the murmur of pride and of the passions, I come to examine these counsels with coolness and with an entire impartiality, I discover in them the most profound wisdom, and I am forced to look upon them as the most beautiful part of the law of Jesus Christ.

For I observe first, that these four great means to combat the four principal passions, in order to acquire the perfection of the opposite virtues, are by no means commanded, but only counselled.

My second observation is that these counsels, even in the intention of Christ himself, are not designed but for a comparatively small number of persons. Why then, will you ask, did Christ give them? To answer this question, I examine first, what was the principal end which Christ proposed to himself in giving these counsels, and I see that it was to check more efficaciously the four passions of which we have spoken above. I then pass on to consider the genius of these passions, and I discover from what passes within me, from what takes place without me, and from what has happened in the world since it is inhabited by men, that these passions have two principal characteristics; they are at once seducing and tyrannical; they have an infinity of wiles, windings and subtleties to introduce themselves into the hearts of men, they have an infinity of means to maintain themselves in it; it is most easy to become their slave, and very difficult to shake of their yoke. I know that there is a medium between the extremity of vice and that of virtue; for example, modesty in elevation keeps No. VII.

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the medium between ambition and the love of abjection and contempt, sobriety between fasting and abstinence, and excess in eating and drinking, &c. &c.; but I know, likewise, that it is difficult for man to hit that medium in practice, and more difficult still to attach himself constantly to it. It is, if I am allowed to use the comparison, like pretending to put himself and to keep himself in equilibrium upon one single point; it is not impossible, but he may try it a thousand times without

success.

These principles being once supposed, it is self-evident to me that Christ, who no doubt knew as well as we the genius of these passions, intended to make the supreme virtue of man to consist in extreme humility, in extreme self-denial of the senses, in extreme disengagement from riches, in extreme patience, and extreme meekness. Why? Because it is only by throwing himself into the extremes of virtue, if I may speak so, that man can infallibly shun the extremes of the opposite vices, of extreme pride, extreme sensuality, extreme covetuousness, extreme anger.

It is more than clear to me that Christ in giving these counsels to men, showed to them the surest and most infallible means to secure their salvation, which, in the main, is their great and only affair, and for the success of which they can never undertake too much.

It is evident to me that these counsels, although but few persons, nay although nobody were to practise them, would be still beneficial to all men, because the sight of these counsels causes the force and importance of the precepts to be better felt, impresses with a greater fear to violate them, and with a greater zeal to fulfil them, and keeps in humble sentiments those whose virtue is too feeble to go beyond the fulfil ment of the precepts.

It is, in fine, obvious to me, that the consideration of the counsels of Jesus Christ is a source of courage and comfort to those who, either through misfortune of their birth or by other causes, are under the necessity of practising the works which are the objects of such counsels, for the poor, for those

that spend their lives in obscurity and subjection, for those who see themselves reduced to suffer injustice and vexation without daring to complain, and the number of them is infinite.

All this is clearer than noon-day, and by a necessary inference from this it is likewise undeniable that the counsels of Jesus Christ are fraught with the deepest wisdom which we can never sufficiently admire.

CCIV. Reflections on the Legislation or the Moral Law of Jesus Christ.

Such is the faithful picture of the moral law of Jesus Christ. The more we study that law, the more we shall be convinced that it is a master piece of reason, of equity, of wisdom. This law forms a body of legislation so perfect that nothing can be added to it, nothing retrenched from it. It shows to man all his duties towards God, his Creator and Sovereign Master, towards his fellow-men and towards himself: it suits men considered in a body and as forming different societies among themselves, and each one in particular, in all situations in which they can possibly find themselves; it is appropriate to all countries and to all times. He that examines this law closely, is compelled to acknowledge, that he who is the author of it must have had a most profound knowledge of the whole man, of his mind, of his heart, of his passions, of his weaknesses, of all his evils, and of the remedies which were to be applied to them, of the true end of man, and of the means by which he was to be led to its attainment. It is manifest, that when men shall live up to that law, they will be as good and as happy in this world as they can possibly be according to the condition of their nature.

And, indeed, figure to yourself a people of true christians, that is to say, a people composed of men who all love God as their Father, and men as their brethren; who are all “ one heart and one soul," who have but one and the same interest, and who all, in concert, tend to one and the same end, which is everlasting life, and who march all with one common movement