ctical duty being so necessary. Lamennais obtained a dispensation
from it, and hence his lapses and fall.[5275] Let no one object that
such a recitation soon becomes mechanical[5276]; the prayers, phrases
and words which it buries deep in the mind, even wandering, necessarily
become fixed inhabitants in it, and hence occult and stirring powers
banded together which encompass the intellect and lay siege to the will,
which, in the subterranean regions of the soul, gradually extend or
fortify their silent occupation of the place, which insensibly operate
on the man without his being aware of it, and which, at critical
moments, unexpectedly rise up to steady his footsteps or to save him
from temptation. Add to this antique custom two modern institutions
which contribute to the same end. The first one is the monthly
conference, which brings together the desservans cures at the residence
of the oldest cure in the canton; each has prepared a study on some
theme furnished by the bishopric, some question of dogma, morality or
religious history, which he reads aloud and discusses with his brethren
under the presidency and direction of the oldest cure, who gives his
final decision; this keeps theoretical knowledge and ecclesiastical
erudition fresh in the minds of both reader and hearers. The other
institution, almost universal nowadays, is the annual retreat which the
priests in the diocese pass in the large seminary of the principal town.
The plan of it was traced by Saint Ignatius; his Exercitia is still
to-day the manual in use, the text of which is literally,[5277] or very
nearly, followed.[5278] The object is to reconstitute the supernatural
world in the soul, for, in general, it evaporates, becomes effaced, and
ceases to be palpable under the pressure of the natural world. Even the
faithful pay very little attention to it, while their vague conception
of it ends in becoming a mere verbal belief; it is essential to give
them back the positive sensation, the contact and feeling. To this
end, a man retires to a suitable place, where what he does actively or
passively is hourly determined for him in advance--attendance at chapel
or at preaching, telling his beads, litanies, orisons aloud, orisons in
his own breast, repeated self-examination, confession and the rest--in
short, an uninterrupted series of diversified and convergent ceremonies
which, by calculated degrees, drive out terrestrial preoccupations
and overcome him with sp