it alone can enable us to escape the temptations of the sea, the storms and the monsters which are the offspring of night and the deluge. Faith in God, in a holy, merciful, fatherly God, is the divine ray which kindles this flame.

How deeply I feel the profound and terrible poetry of all these primitive terrors from which have issued the various theogonies of the world, and how it all grows clear to me, and becomes a symbol of the one great unchanging thought— the thought of God about the universe! How present and sensible to my inner sense is the unity of everything! It seems to me that I am able to pierce to the sublime motive which, in all the infinite spheres of existence, and through all the modes of space and time, every created form reproduces and sings within the bond of an eternal harmony. From the infernal shades I feel myself mounting towards the regions of light; my flight across chaos finds its rest in paradise. Heaven, hell, the world are within us. Man is the great abyss.

27th July 1855.

So life passes

away, tossed like a boat by the waves, up and down, hither and thither, drenched by

the spray, stained by the foam, now thrown upon the bank, now drawn back again aocording to the endless caprice of the water. Such, at least, is the life of the heart and the passions, the life which Spinoza and the Stoics reprove, and which is the exact opposite of that serene and contemplative life, always equable like the starlight, in which man lives at peace, and sees everything under its eternal aspect; the opposite also of the life of conscience, in which God alone speaks, and all self-will surrenders itself to His will made manifest.

I pass from one to another of these three existences, which are equally known to me; but this very mobility deprives me of the advantages of each. For my heart is worn with scruples, the soul in me cannot crush the needs of the heart, and the conscience is troubled and no longer knows how to distinguish, in the chaos of contradictory inclinations, the voice of duty or the will of God. The want of simple faith, the indecision which springs from distrust of self, tend to make all my personal life a matter of doubt and uncertainty. I am afraid of the subjective life, and recoil from every enterprise, demand, or promise which may oblige me to realise myself; I feel a terror

of action, and am only at ease in the impersonal, disinterested, and objective life of thought. The reason seems to be timidity, and the timidity springs from the excessive development of the reflective power which has almost destroyed in me all spontaneity, impulse, and instinct and therefore all boldness and confidence. Whenever I am forced to act, I see cause for error and repentance everywhere, everywhere hidden threats and masked vexations. From a child I have been liable to the disease of irony, and that it may not be altogether crushed by destiny, my nature seems to have armed itself with a caution strong enough to prevail against any of life's blandishments. It is just this strength which is my weakness. I have a horror of being duped above all, duped by myself and I would rather cut myself off from all life's joys than deceive or be deceived. Humiliation, then, is the sorrow which I fear the most, and therefore it would seem as if pride were the deepest rooted of my faults.

This may be logical, but it is not the truth it seems to me that it is really distrust, incurable doubt of the future, a sense of the justice but not of the goodness of God—in short, unbelief, which is my mi

fortune and my sin. Every act is a hostage delivered over to avenging destiny - there is the instinctive belief which chills and freezes; every act is a pledge confided to a fatherly providence — there is the belief which calms.

Pain seems to me a punishment and not a mercy, this is why I have a secret horror of it. And as I feel myself vulnerable at all points, and everywhere accessible to pain, I prefer to remain motionless, like a timid child, who, left alone in his father's laboratory, dares not touch anything for fear of springs, explosions, and catastrophes, which may burst from every corner at the least I movement of his inexperienced hands. have trust in God directly and as revealed in Nature, but I have a deep distrust of all free and evil agents. I feel or foresee evil, moral and physical, as the consequence of every error, fault, or sin, and I am ashamed of pain.

At bottom is it not a mere boundless selflove, the purism of perfection, an incapacity to accept our human condition, a tacit protest against the order of the world, which It means lies at the root of my inertia ? all or nothing, a vast ambition made inactive by disgust, a yearning that cannot be

uttered for the ideal, joined with an offended dignity and a wounded pride which will have nothing to say to what they consider beneath them. It springs from the ironical temper which refuses to take either self or reality seriously, because it is for ever comparing both with the dimly-seen infinite of its dreams. It is a state of mental reservation in which one lends oneself to circumstances for form's sake, but refuses to recognise them in one's heart because one cannot see the necessity or the divine order in them. I am disinterested because I am indifferent; I have nothing to say against what is, and yet I am never satisfied. I am too weak to conquer, and yet I will not be conquered, it is the isolation of the disenchanted soul, which has put even hope away from it.

But even this is a trial laid upon one. Its providential purpose is no doubt to lead one to that true renunciation of which charity is the sign and symbol. It is when one expects nothing more for oneself that one is able to love. To do good to men because we love them, to use every talent we have so as to please the Father from whom we hold it for His service, there is no other way of reaching and curing this