ing God--by dint of inquiry into the history
of man, a ray of the truth has descended on my brow, and the shadows of
the past have melted from before my eyes. I have lifted a corner of the
curtain: I have seen enough to know that my life, like that of the rest
of the human race, has been a series of necessary errors, yet, to speak
more correctly, of incomplete truths, conducting, more or less slowly
and directly, to absolute truth and ideal perfection. But when will they
rise on the face of the earth--when will they issue from the bosom of
the Divinity--those generations who shall salute the august countenance
of Truth, and proclaim the reign of the ideal on earth? I see well how
humanity marches, but I neither can see its cradle nor its apotheosis.
Man seems to me a transitory race, between the beast and the angel; but
I know not how many centuries have been required, that he might pass
from the state of brute to the state of man, and I cannot tell how many
ages are necessary that he may pass from the state of man to the state
of angel!

"Yet I hope, and I feel within me, at the approach of death, that which
warns me that great destinies await humanity. In this life all is over
for me. Much have I striven, to advance but little: I have labored
without ceasing, and have done almost nothing. Yet, after pains
immeasurable, I die content, for I know that I have done all I could,
and am sure that the little I have done will not be lost.

"What, then, have I done? this wilt thou demand of me, man of a future
age, who will seek for truth in the testaments of the past. Thou who
wilt be no more Catholic--no more Christian, thou wilt ask of the poor
monk, lying in the dust, an account of his life and death. Thou wouldst
know wherefore were his vows, why his austerities, his labors, his
retreat, his prayers?

"You who turn back to me, in order that I may guide you on your road,
and that you may arrive more quickly at the goal which it has not been
my lot to attain, pause, yet, for a moment, and look upon the past
history of humanity. You will see that its fate has been ever to choose
between the least of two evils, and ever to commit great faults in order
to avoid others still greater. You will see.... on one side, the heathen
mythology, that debased the spirit, in its efforts to deify the flesh;
on the other, the austere Christian principle, that debased the flesh
too much, in order to raise the worship of the spirit. You will