e folk of this parish with the very
ideas of Right to which you have just given utterance. For truly, God
does not estimate theft by the value of the thing stolen, He looks at
the thief. That has been the gist of the parables which I have tried to
adapt to the comprehension of my parishioners."

"You have succeeded, sir," said Cambon. "I know the change you have
brought about in people's ways of looking at things, for I can compare
the Commune as it is now with the Commune as it used to be. There are
certainly very few places where the laborers are as careful as ours
are about keeping the time in their working hours. The cattle are well
looked after; any damage that they do is done by accident. There is no
pilfering in the woods, and finally you have made our peasants clearly
understand that the leisure of the rich is the reward of a thrifty and
hard-working life."

"Well, then," said Genestas, "you ought to be pretty well pleased with
your infantry, M. le Cure."

"We cannot expect to find angels anywhere here below, captain," answered
the priest. "Wherever there is poverty, there is suffering too; and
suffering and poverty are strong compelling forces which have their
abuses, just as power has. When the peasants have a couple of leagues to
walk to their work, and have to tramp back wearily in the evening, they
perhaps see sportsmen taking short cuts over ploughed land and pasture
so as to be back to dinner a little sooner, and is it to be supposed
that they will hesitate to follow the example? And of those who in
this way beat out a footpath such as these gentlemen have just been
complaining about, which are the real offenders, the workers or the
people who are simply amusing themselves? Both the rich and the poor
give us a great deal of trouble these days. Faith, like power, ought
always to descend from the heights above us, in heaven or on earth; and
certainly in our times the upper classes have less faith in them than
the mass of the people, who have God's promise of heaven hereafter as
a reward for evils patiently endured. With due submission to
ecclesiastical discipline, and deference to the views of my superiors,
I think that for some time to come we should be less exacting as to
questions of doctrine, and rather endeavor to revive the sentiment of
religion in the hearts of the intermediary classes, who debate over
the maxims of Christianity instead of putting them in practice. The
philosophism of the rich has