ve thought himself
authorized to think anything of the sort. That which enlightened this
man was his heart. His wisdom was made of the light which comes from
there.

No systems; many works. Abstruse speculations contain vertigo; no,
there is nothing to indicate that he risked his mind in apocalypses. The
apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. He would probably
have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain problems
which are, in a manner, reserved for terrible great minds. There is a
sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma; those gloomy openings
stand yawning there, but something tells you, you, a passer-by in life,
that you must not enter. Woe to him who penetrates thither!

Geniuses in the impenetrable depths of abstraction and pure speculation,
situated, so to speak, above all dogmas, propose their ideas to
God. Their prayer audaciously offers discussion. Their adoration
interrogates. This is direct religion, which is full of anxiety and
responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs.

Human meditation has no limits. At his own risk and peril, it analyzes
and digs deep into its own bedazzlement. One might almost say, that by
a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature; the mysterious
world which surrounds us renders back what it has received; it is
probable that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may be,
there are on earth men who--are they men?--perceive distinctly at the
verge of the horizons of revery the heights of the absolute, and who
have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome
was one of these men; Monseigneur Welcome was not a genius. He would
have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like
Swedenborg and Pascal, have slipped into insanity. Certainly, these
powerful reveries have their moral utility, and by these arduous paths
one approaches to ideal perfection. As for him, he took the path which
shortens,--the Gospel's.

He did not attempt to impart to his chasuble the folds of Elijah's
mantle; he projected no ray of future upon the dark groundswell of
events; he did not seek to condense in flame the light of things; he
had nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician about him. This
humble soul loved, and that was all.

That he carried prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration is
probable: but one can no more pray too much than one can love too much;
and if it is a heresy to pray