ole
thoughts; I was like a man holding his breath. My director, to whom
I confided my difficulties, replied in just the same terms as M.
Gosselin at Issy: "Inroads upon your faith! Pay no heed to that; keep
straight on your way." One day he got me to read the letter which St.
Francois de Sales wrote to Madame de Chantal: "These temptations are
but afflictions like unto others. I may tell you that I have known but
few persons who have achieved any progress without going through this
ordeal; patience is the only remedy. You must not make any reply, nor
appear to hear what the enemy says. Let him make as much noise at the
door as he likes without so much as exclaiming, 'Who is there?'"

The general practice of ecclesiastical directors is, in fact, to
advise those who confess to feeling doubts concerning the faith not
to dwell upon them. Instead of postponing the engagements on
this account, they rather hurry them forward, thinking that these
difficulties will disappear when it is too late to give practical
effect to them, and that the cares of an active clerical career will
ultimately dispel these speculative-doubts. In this regard, I must
confess that I found my godly directors rather deficient in wisdom. My
director in Paris, a very enlightened man withal, was anxious that I
should be at once ordained a sub-deacon, the first of the holy orders
which constitutes an irrevocable tie. I refused point-blank. So far
as regarded the first steps of the ecclesiastical state, I had obeyed
him. It was he himself who pointed out to me that, the exact form of
the engagement which they imply is contained in the words of the Psalm
which are repeated: "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and
of my cup; thou maintainest my lot." Well, I can honestly declare
that I have never been untrue to that engagement. I have never had any
other interest than that of the truth, and I have made many sacrifices
for it. An elevated idea has always sustained me in the conduct of
my life, so much so that I am ready to forego the inheritance which,
according to our reciprocal arrangement, God ought to restore to me:
"_The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly
inheritance_"

My friend in the seminary of St. Brieuc[2] had decided, after much
hesitation, to take holy orders. I have found the letter which I
wrote to him on the 26th of March, 1844, at a time when my doubts with
regard to religion were not disturbing my peace