stle, St. John, resting from his labors, amused himself in childish
play with a bird. Such were these men; severe toward themselves, mild
to others, uncompromising with the base and mean. They were all
abstinent and simple, allowing themselves only the necessary
enjoyments. They concealed from observation their severe mode of life,
and smiled while their shoulders bled from the discipline. Pride,
avarice, envy, voluptuousness, and all the bad passions, were strangers
to them; not because they had not the inclinations to these passions,
but because they restrained and overcame their lower nature.

"I ask you, now, which men deserve our admiration--those who are
governed by unbounded selfishness, who are slaves to their passions,
who deny themselves no enjoyment, and who boast of their degrading
licentiousness; or those who, by reason of a pure life, are strong in
the government of their passions, and self-sacrificing in their charity
for their fellowmen?"

"The preference cannot be doubtful," said Frank. "For the saints have
accomplished the greatest, they have obtained the highest thing,
self-control. But, doctor, I must condemn that saint-worship as it is
practised now. Human greatness always remains human, and can make no
claims to divine honor."

The doctor swung his arms violently. "What does this reproach amount
to? Where are men deified? In the Catholic Church? I am a Protestant,
but I know that your church condemns the deification of men."

"Doctor," said Frank, "my religious ignorance deserves this rebuke."

"I meant no rebuke. I would only give conclusions. Catholicism is
precisely that power that combats with success against the deifying of
men. You have in the course of your studies read the Roman classics.
You know that divine worship was offered to the Roman emperors. So far
did heathen flattery go, that the emperors were honored as the sons of
the highest divinity--Jupiter. Apotheosis is a fruit of heathen growth;
of old heathenism and of new heathenism. When Voltaire, that idol of
modern heathen worship, was returning to Paris in 1778, he was in all
earnestness promoted to the position of a deity. This remarkable play
took place in the theatre. Voltaire himself went there. Modern
fanaticism so far lost all shame that the people kissed the horse on
which the philosopher rode to the theatre. Voltaire was scarcely able
to press through the crowd of his worshippers. They touched his
clothes--touched hand