see and know everything, both the
trivial and the important, the principal and the accessory, the
essential and the indifferent, and which, not satisfied with enveloping
it outwardly, tries to reach the bottom, and probing lower and lower in
the very depth, would attain the essence. Suppose even this to be
reached, still it will cry out for--more! Alas! it may ever acquire
more, and again more; but something will ever remain beyond. Who can
measure a soul? It preserves in its recesses, unknown to itself (and
to you also), both space and depth. That soul which seemed to you
already acquired, and which you thought in your entire possession,
hides behind it, perhaps, a world of liberty which you can never reach.

This is humiliating, gloomy, nay, almost despair. Horrible suffering!
not to have all, is, for a god, to have nothing.

Then, even then, in their very pride, an ironical voice is heard,
scoffing at their pride; it is the voice of desire, which it had
silenced till now: "Poor god," says she, "you are no god; it is your
own fault; I told you so before. Come, leave off your school-divinity,
and your _distinguo_ of the corporeal and spiritual natures. To
possess, is to have all. He alone has possession who can both use and
abuse. For the soul to be really thine, one thing is still
wanting--the body."

[1] "Origen thinks that the priest must be a little God, to do an act
that is beyond the power of angels." Father Fichet (a Jesuit), "Life
of Madame de Chantal." p. 615. If you require a more serious Jesuit
than Fichet, here is Bourdaloue: "Though the priest be in this
sacrifice only the substitute of Jesus Christ, it is nevertheless
certain, that Jesus Christ _submits to him_, that He _becomes his
subject_, and renders him, every day upon our altars, _the most prompt
and exact obedience_. If faith did not teach us these truths, could we
think that a man could ever attain to such an elevation, and be
invested with a character that enables him, if I may say so, to
_command_ his sovereign Lord, and make Him descend from heaven?"

[2] One of the new priests, under the orders of St. Francois de Sales
often saw his guardian angel. Having arrived at the church-door, he
stopped. They asked him the reason: he answered ingenuously, that "he
was accustomed to see his guardian angel walk before him, and that this
prince of heaven _had then stopped and stood aside, out of respect for
his character, giving hi