, put into practice the divine words of Christ, "Love ye
one another."

"'This union would have a salutary tendency; for it seems to me that
upon union, upon the association of men together, must depend the future
happiness of mankind.

"'The Company, which so long persecuted my family, is one of the most
striking examples of the power of association, even when applied to
evil.

"'There is something so fruitful and divine in this principle, that it
sometimes forces to good the worst and most dangerous combinations.

"'Thus, the missions have thrown a scanty but pure and generous light on
the darkness of this Company of Jesus--founded with the detestable and
impious aim of destroying, by a homicidal education, all will, thought,
liberty, and intelligence, in the people, so as to deliver them,
trembling, superstitious, brutal, and helpless, to the despotism of
kings, governed in their turn by confessors belonging to the Society.'"

At this passage of the will, there was another strange look exchanged
between Gabriel and Father d'Aigrigny. The notary continued:

"'If a perverse association, based upon the degradation of humanity,
upon fear and despotism, and followed by the maledictions of the people,
has survived for centuries, and often governed the world by craft and
terror--how would it be with an association, which, taking fraternity
and evangelic love for its means, had for its end to deliver man
and woman from all degrading slavery, to invite to the enjoyment of
terrestrial happiness those who have hitherto known nothing of life but
its sorrows and miseries, and to glorify and enrich the labor that feeds
the state?--to enlighten those whom ignorance has depraved?--to favor
the free expansion of all the passions, which God, in His infinite
wisdom, and inexhaustible goodness, gave to man as so many powerful
levers?--to sanctify all the gifts of Heaven: love, maternity, strength,
intelligence, beauty, genius?--to make men truly religious, and deeply
grateful to their Creator, by making them understand the splendors of
Nature, and bestowing on them their rightful share in the treasures
which have been poured upon us?

"'Oh! if it be Heaven's will that, in a century and a half, the
descendants of my family, faithful to the last wishes of a heart that
loved humanity, meet in this sacred union!--if it be Heaven's will
that amongst them be found charitable and passionate souls, full of
commiseration for those who su