o is appointed to fill these offices to
slaughter good and pious men; but tenfold woe to the upright man, who
from ambition, or a mistaken sense of duty, advances and sets fire to
the stake, and extends the rack still more horribly."

"It grieves me, my father," said Edmond, suppressing his anger, "I am
overwhelmed with inexpressible anguish at being compelled to feel
myself so immeasurably distant from you in all that is dearest,
holiest, most natural and nearest to my heart! From the moment that I
was capable of thinking and feeling, our ancient and holy religion has
been to me the most sacred, the most sublime, in her alone my heart
lives, all my wishes and aspirations are brightly reflected in this
clear crystal; this which love itself has proclaimed, this which is
itself love, eternal, invisible, to us lost creatures become visible by
descending in the form of a child, as our brother and nearest
neighbour, and then suffering so painful a death for our wanderings and
in this most devoted sacrifice thinking only of us, and of all our
infirmities and corruptions in life and in death:--ought I ever to
forget this, can I disdain it; my heart which this love consumes with
gratitude; ought it to suffer this transcendent miracle of love to be
annihilated, to be trampled in the dust, and all that is most holy
reduced with scornful impiety to ruins, in order to associate it with
all that is most contemptible?"

"Who requires that, my son?" exclaimed the old man; "even Turks and
Heathens would and could not demand it, still less our brethren, who
only desire to approach in plainness and simplicity that
incomprehensible being, who, notwithstanding his immensity, so
intimately and so closely connects himself with all our hearts in love
and simplicity."

"In this portrait," said the son, "it would indeed be impossible to
recognise those, who murder our priests, set fire to our sanctuaries,
rob the peasant, and if they are victorious, which God forbid, would
extend their heresy with fire and sword over the land."

"You see it thus, my son," said the old man, "because you will see it
so; we misunderstand each other in this affair, for you resist
conviction, and certainly as long as you are governed by this feeling,
you will never possess that dispassionate clearness of mind, which
according to my judgment, is necessary to render us susceptible of
religion; and this alone is the true spirit of christianity, for which,
it is tr