uman nature, and everywhere on his path sprang up good
works in response to his appeals; the foundation of Mission-priests or
Lazarists, designed originally to spread about in the rural districts the
knowledge of God, still testifies in the East, whither they carry at one
and the same time the Gospel and the name of France, to that great
awakening of Christian charity which signalized the reign of Louis XIII.
The same inspiration created the seminary of St. Sulpice, by means of
M. Olier's solicitude, the brethren of Christian Doctrine and the
Ursulines, devoted to the education of childhood, and so many other
charitable or pious establishments, noble fruits of devoutness and
Christian sacrifice.

Nowhere was this fructuating idea of the sacrifice, the immolation of man
for God and of the present in prospect of eternity, more rigorously
understood and practised than amongst the disciples of John du Vergier de
Hauranne, Abbot of St. Cyran. More bold in his conceptions than Cardinal
Berulle and St. Vincent de Paul, of a nature more austere and at the same
time more ardent, he had early devoted himself to the study of theology.
Connected in his youth with a Fleming, Jansen, known under the name of
Jansenius and afterwards created Bishop of Ypres, he adopted with fervor
the doctrines as to the grace of God which his friend had imbibed in the
school of St. Augustin, and employing in the direction of souls that
zealous ardor which makes conquerors, he set himself to work to
regenerate the church by penance, sanctity, and sacrifice; God supreme,
reigning over hearts subdued, that was his ultimate object, and he
marched towards it without troubling himself about revolts and
sufferings, certain that he would be triumphant with God and for Him.

[Illustration: The Abbot of St. Cyran----234]

Victories gained over souls are from their very nature of a silent sort:
but M. de St. Cyran was not content with them. He wrote also, and his
book "Petrus Aurelius," published under the veil of the anonymous,
excited a great stir by its defence of the rights of the bishops against
the monks, and even against the pope. The Gallican bishops welcomed at
that time with lively satisfaction, its eloquent pleadings in favor of
their cause. But, at a later period, the French clergy discovered in
St. Cyran's book free-thinking concealed under dogmatic forms. "In case
of heresy any Christian may become judge," said Petrus Aurelius. Who,
then, s