origins of the war itself. In such a
situation, David (to whom indeed it would have been inconceivable)
would have accepted the taunt of his enemies as well deserved, when
they asked him: "Where is now thy God?" "We have lost God" would have
been a fitting lamentation. But to celebrate His festival
indifferently under such conditions is to be unconscious of having
lost Him. How long ago did the soul die, and when did the building up
on death begin? What a terrible episode of madness is this monstrous
slaughter, upon which the tree of peace was planted in honor of the
Savior!

Far indeed are we from the delicate sensibility to evil of Santa
Teresa, or the keenness of spiritual vision which enabled the man of
God to see the white dove beneath the soiled feathers of the sinful
woman. The difference is not as that between the taste of a peasant
and that of an artist, but as that between a corpse and a living man.
It is evident that we have suffered death, albeit we are unconscious
of having died.

Here, then, and not in hygiene, must we find the secret of our life.
We have something more corruptible than our bodies, a life more
fragile than our physical life; and the peril of darkness hangs over
us. This is the secret of man.

If man loses the light that leads him on towards a better world, he
falls into an abyss far below all created animals.

He who loves, therefore, will bestow all his care on these
wellsprings of life; how frail are the lungs of a new-born infant, how
easily can an unnatural mother deprive him of air and so suffocate
him! Yet what is this easily accomplished act, which nevertheless
destroys a life, in comparison with the infinitely easier and more
deadly act by which we may procure the death of the soul?

The death of the soul, like that of the body, may be readily
distinguished from a state of insensibility; in vain do we apply a
red-hot iron to a corpse; there is no response.

He who is alive, however, is not only capable of reacting to a
stimulus very much less intense than a red-hot iron; he who lives and
feels may perfect himself--and this is life.

It is enough that souls should "feel." How, then, could they live
quietly amidst evil? If under the windows of our house people were
piling up refuse until we felt that the air was being vitiated, could
we bear this without protesting, and insisting on the removal of that
which was causing us to suffer? If, moreover, we had a child, we
should