oo, do Mrs. Sand and her brother and sister
philosophers, Templars, Saint Simonians, Fourierites, Lerouxites, or
whatever the sect may be, leave the unfortunate people who have listened
to their doctrines, and who have not the opportunity, or the fiery
versatility of belief, which carries their teachers from one creed to
another, leaving only exploded lies and useless recantations behind
them! I wish the state would make a law that one individual should not
be allowed to preach more than one doctrine in his life, or, at any
rate, should be soundly corrected for every change of creed. How many
charlatans would have been silenced,--how much conceit would have been
kept within bounds,--how many fools, who are dazzled by fine sentences,
and made drunk by declamation, would have remained, quiet and sober, in
that quiet and sober way of faith which their fathers held before them.
However, the reader will be glad to learn that, after all his doubts
and sorrows, Spiridion does discover the truth (THE truth, what a wise
Spiridion!) and some discretion with it; for, having found among his
monks, who are dissolute, superstitious--and all hate him--one only
being, Fulgentius, who is loving, candid, and pious, he says to him, "If
you were like myself, if the first want of your nature were, like
mine, to know, I would, without hesitation, lay bare to you my entire
thoughts. I would make you drink the cup of truth, which I myself have
filled with so many tears, at the risk of intoxicating you with the
draught. But it is not so, alas! you are made to love rather than to
know, and your heart is stronger than your intellect. You are attached
to Catholicism,--I believe so, at least,--by bonds of sentiment which
you could not break without pain, and which, if you were to break, the
truth which I could lay bare to you in return would not repay you for
what you had sacrificed. Instead of exalting, it would crush you, very
likely. It is a food too strong for ordinary men, and which, when
it does not revivify, smothers. I will not, then, reveal to you this
doctrine, which is the triumph of my life, and the consolation of
my last days; because it might, perhaps, be for you only a cause of
mourning and despair..... Of all the works which my long studies have
produced, there is one alone which I have not given to the flames; for
it alone is complete. In that you will find me entire, and there LIES
THE TRUTH. And, as the sage has said you must not b