cepted in advance as a post obit on paradise.

The taking of the veil or the frock is a suicide paid for with eternity.

It does not seem to us, that on such a subject mockery is permissible.
All about it is serious, the good as well as the bad.

The just man frowns, but never smiles with a malicious sneer. We
understand wrath, but not malice.

CHAPTER VIII--FAITH, LAW

A few words more.

We blame the church when she is saturated with intrigues, we despise the
spiritual which is harsh toward the temporal; but we everywhere honor
the thoughtful man.

We salute the man who kneels.

A faith; this is a necessity for man. Woe to him who believes nothing.

One is not unoccupied because one is absorbed. There is visible labor
and invisible labor.

To contemplate is to labor, to think is to act.

Folded arms toil, clasped hands work. A gaze fixed on heaven is a work.

Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy.

In our opinion, cenobites are not lazy men, and recluses are not idlers.

To meditate on the Shadow is a serious thing.

Without invalidating anything that we have just said, we believe that
a perpetual memory of the tomb is proper for the living. On this point,
the priest and the philosopher agree. We must die. The Abbe de la Trappe
replies to Horace.

To mingle with one's life a certain presence of the sepulchre,--this is
the law of the sage; and it is the law of the ascetic. In this respect,
the ascetic and the sage converge. There is a material growth; we
admit it. There is a moral grandeur; we hold to that. Thoughtless and
vivacious spirits say:--

"What is the good of those motionless figures on the side of mystery?
What purpose do they serve? What do they do?"

Alas! In the presence of the darkness which environs us, and which
awaits us, in our ignorance of what the immense dispersion will make of
us, we reply: "There is probably no work more divine than that performed
by these souls." And we add: "There is probably no work which is more
useful."

There certainly must be some who pray constantly for those who never
pray at all.

In our opinion the whole question lies in the amount of thought that is
mingled with prayer.

Leibnitz praying is grand, Voltaire adoring is fine. Deo erexit
Voltaire.

We are for religion as against religions.

We are of the number who believe in the wretchedness of orisons, and the
sublimity of prayer.

Moreover, at this minute