h them is patience. Their souls are like
new earth, which waits only culture to produce a quadruple. They are
flexible plants, which take the form and direction given to them. Their
hearts, pure from criminal affections, are susceptible of happy
impressions and tendencies. They believe in authority. A religious
instinct leads them to the priest. They adopt with confidence the faith
and the sentiments of those who instruct them. Oh, how easy to soften
that age, in speaking of a God Who has made Himself a child, and Who
died for us! to awaken the fear of the Lord, compassion for those who
suffer, gratitude, divine love, in souls predisposed, by the grace of
baptism, to all the Christian virtues! Ask the most zealous pastors, and
all will tell you that no part of their ministry is more consoling than
that which is exercised for youth, because the fruits are incomparably
more abundant. Although all my efforts for the sanctification of an old
man, ever unfaithful to his duties, should be crowned with success, they
could not help his long life being frightfully void of merits, and a
permanent revolt against heaven. But if there be a child in question, my
zeal sanctifies his whole life; I deposit in his soul the germ of all
the good that he will do, and I shall participate in all the good works
with which his career will be filled. All believers have come out of one
single Abraham. From one child, well brought up, a whole generation of
true Christians can proceed. In this little flock that surrounds me, God
sees, perhaps, elect souls on whom His Providence has formed great
designs--pious instructors, holy priests, who will carry far the
knowledge of His name, and aid Him in saving millions of souls. In what
astonishment would the first catechists of a St. Vincent de Paul, of a
Francis Xavier, be thrown, had they been told what would become of those
children, and what they would one day accomplish! But even supposing
that all those confided to me follow the common way, I have in them the
surest means of renewing my parish. To-day they receive the movement, in
fifteen years they will give it. They will transmit good principles,
happy inclinations to their own children, who will transmit them in
their turn. Behold, it is thus that holy traditions are established, and
a chain of solid virtues perpetuated; ages will reap what I have sown in
a few days. It is by these considerations that the greatest saints, and
the finest geniuses of