be indifferent in matters of belief by another
voice no less eloquent than his own. The conference had been put off to
a later hour on account of Melmoth's funeral, so Castanier arrived just
as the great preacher was epitomizing the proofs of a future existence
of happiness with all the charm of eloquence and force of expression
which have made him famous. The seeds of divine doctrine fell into
a soil prepared for them in the old dragoon, into whom the Devil had
glided. Indeed, if there is a phenomenon well attested by experience,
is it not the spiritual phenomenon commonly called "the faith of the
peasant"? The strength of belief varies inversely with the amount of
use that a man has made of his reasoning faculties. Simple people and
soldiers belong to the unreasoning class. Those who have marched through
life beneath the banner of instinct are far more ready to receive the
light than minds and hearts overwearied with the world's sophistries.

Castanier had the southern temperament; he had joined the army as a lad
of sixteen, and had followed the French flag till he was nearly forty
years old. As a common trooper, he had fought day and night, and day
after day, and, as in duty bound, had thought of his horse first, and
of himself afterwards. While he served his military apprenticeship,
therefore, he had but little leisure in which to reflect on the destiny
of man, and when he became an officer he had his men to think of. He had
been swept from battlefield to battlefield, but he had never thought of
what comes after death. A soldier's life does not demand much thinking.
Those who cannot understand the lofty political ends involved and the
interests of nation and nation; who cannot grasp political schemes as
well as plans of campaign, and combine the science of the tactician with
that of the administrator, are bound to live in a state of ignorance;
the most boorish peasant in the most backward district in France is
scarcely in a worse case. Such men as these bear the brunt of war, yield
passive obedience to the brain that directs them, and strike down
the men opposed to them as the woodcutter fells timber in the forest.
Violent physical exertion is succeeded by times of inertia, when they
repair the waste. They fight and drink, fight and eat, fight and sleep,
that they may the better deal hard blows; the powers of the mind are
not greatly exercised in this turbulent round of existence, and the
character is as simple as h