the tact to translate
quickly into French, he continues:

"What is it to abstain? Why should we abstain? How should we abstain?
Those are the three points, ladies, I shall proceed to discuss."

He blows his nose, coughs; a holy thrill stirs every heart. How will he
treat this magnificent subject? Let us listen.

Is it not true, Madame, that your heart is piously stirred, and that at
this moment you feel an actual thirst for abstinence and mortification?

The holy precincts are bathed in a soft obscurity, similar to that of
your boudoir, and inducing revery.

I know not how much of the ineffable and of the vaguely exhilarating
penetrates your being. But the voice of this handsome and venerated old
man has, amidst the deep silence, something deliciously heavenly about
it. Mysterious echoes repeat from the far end of the temple each of his
words, and in the dim light of the sanctuary the golden candlesticks
glitter like precious stones. The old stained-glass windows with their
symbolic figures become suddenly illuminated, a flood of light and
sunshine spreads through the church like a sheet of fire. Are the
heavens opening? Is the Spirit from on high descending among us?

While lost in pious revery, which soothes and lulls, one gazes with
ecstasy on the fanciful details of the sculptures which vanish in
the groined roof above, and on the quaint pipes of the organ with its
hundred voices. The beliefs of childhood piously inculcated in your
heart suddenly reawaken; a vague perfume of incense again penetrates
the air. The stone pillars shoot up to infinite heights, and from these
celestial arches depends the golden lamp which sways to and fro in
space, diffusing its eternal light. Truly, God is great.

By degrees the sweet tones of the preacher enrapture one more and more,
and the sense of his words are lost; and, listening to the divine murmur
of that saint-like voice, your eyes, like those of a child falling
asleep in the bosom of the Creator, close.

You do not go to sleep, but your head inclines forward, the ethereal
light surrounds you, and your soul, delighting in the uncertain, plunges
into celestial space, and loses itself in infinity.

What a sweet and holily intoxicating sensation, a delicious
ecstasy! Nevertheless, there are those who smile at this religious
raise-en-scene, these pomps and splendors, this celestial music, which
soothes the nerves and thrills the brain! Pity on these scoffers who do
not co