n, of every sect, nationality, &c., agree in
their account of their subjective experience; so as to this there can be
no question. The only question is as to whether they are all deceived.

PEU DE CHOSE.

'La vie est vaine:
Un peu d'amour,
Un peu de haine ...
Et puis--bon jour!

La vie est breve:
Un peu d'espoir,
Un peu de reve ...
Et puis--bon soir!'

The above is a terse and true criticism of this life without hope of a
future one. Is it satisfactory? But Christian faith, as a matter of
fact, changes it entirely.

'The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of a whole world dies
With the setting sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.'

Love is known to be all this. How great, then, is Christianity, as being
the religion of love, and causing men to believe both in the cause of
love's supremacy and the infinity of God's love to man.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Cf. Pascal, _Pensees_. 'For we must not mistake ourselves, we have
as much that is automatic in us as intellectual, and hence it comes that
the instrument by which persuasion is brought about is not demonstration
alone. How few things are demonstrated! Proofs can only convince the
mind; custom makes our strongest proofs and those which we hold most
firmly, it sways the automaton, which draws the unconscious intellect
after it.... It is then custom that makes so many men Christians, custom
that makes them Turks, heathen, artisans, soldiers, &c. Lastly, we must
resort to custom when once the mind has seen where truth is, in order to
slake our thirst and steep ourselves in that belief which escapes us at
every hour, for to have proofs always at hand were too onerous. We must
acquire a more easy belief, that of custom, which without violence,
without art, without argument, causes our assent and inclines all our
powers to this belief, so that our soul naturally falls into it....

'It is not enough to believe only by force of conviction if the
automaton is inclined to believe the contrary. Both parts of us then
must be obliged to believe, the intellect by arguments which it is
enough to have admitted once in our lives, the automaton by custom, and
by not allowing it to incline in the contrary direction. _Inclina cor
meum Deus_.' See also Newman's _Grammar of Assent_, chap