sm. I answer: That reason in no way contributes to
faith. Nay, in that children are destitute of reason they are all the
more fit and proper recipients of baptism. For reason is the greatest
enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things.

I always loved music. A schoolmaster ought to have skill in music, or I
would not regard him; neither should we ordain young men as preachers
unless they have been well exercised in music.

Erasmus of Rotterdam is the vilest miscreant that ever disgraced the
earth. He made several attempts to draw me into his snares, and I should
have been in danger but that God lent me special aid. Erasmus was
poisoned at Rome and at Venice with epicurean doctrines. His chief
doctrine is that we must carry ourselves according to the time, or, as
the proverb goes, hang the cloak according to the wind. I hold Erasmus
to be Christ's most bitter enemy.

I never work better than when I am inspired by anger. When I am angry I
can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is
quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and
temptations depart.

_Characteristic Sayings_

When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.

When men blaspheme we should pray and be silent, and not carry wood to
the fire.

When Jesus Christ utters a word, He opens His mouth so wide that it
embraces all heaven and earth, even though that word be but in a
whisper.

When I lay sucking at my mother's breast I had no notion how I should
afterwards eat, drink, and live. Even so we on the earth have no idea
what the life to come will be.

The two sins, hatred and pride, deck and trim themselves out as the
devil clothed himself in the Godhead. Hatred will be godlike; pride will
be truth. These two are right deadly sins; hatred is killing, pride is
lying.

A scorpion thinks that when his head lies hid under a leaf he cannot be
seen; even so the hypocrites and false saints think, when they have
hoisted up one or two good works, all their sins therewith are covered
and hid.

Luther, holding a rose in his hand, said, "'Tis a magnificent work of
God. Could a man make but one such rose as this he would be thought
worthy of all honour, but the manifold gifts of God lose their value in
our eyes from their very infinity."

* * * * *

MIRABEAU

Memoirs

Honore Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, was born at Bignon