steem among men, and he sees that his faults merit only their hatred
and contempt. This embarrassment in which he finds himself produces in
him the most unrighteous and criminal passion that can be imagined; for
he conceives a mortal enmity against that truth which reproves him, and
which convinces him of his faults. He would annihilate it, but, unable
to destroy it in its essence, he destroys it as far as possible in his
own knowledge and in that of others; that is to say, he devotes all his
attention to hiding his faults both from others and from himself, and he
cannot endure either that others should point them out to him, or that
they should see them.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil
to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognise them, since that is
to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion. We do not like others
to deceive us; we do not think it fair that they should be held in
higher esteem by us than they deserve; it is not then fair that we
should deceive them, and should wish them to esteem us more highly than
we deserve.

Thus, when they discover only the imperfections and vices which we
really have, it is plain they do us no wrong, since it is not they who
cause them; they rather do us good, since they help us to free ourselves
from an evil, namely, the ignorance of these imperfections. We ought not
to be angry at their knowing our faults and despising us; it is but
right that they should know us for what we are, and should despise us,
if we are contemptible.

Such are the feelings that would arise in a heart full of equity and
justice. What must we say then of our own heart, when we see in it a
wholly different disposition? For is it not true that we hate truth and
those who tell it us, and that we like them to be deceived in our
favour, and prefer to be esteemed by them as being other than what we
are in fact? One proof of this makes me shudder. The Catholic religion
does not bind us to confess our sins indiscriminately to everybody; it
allows them to remain hidden from all other men save one, to whom she
bids us reveal the innermost recesses of our heart, and show ourselves
as we are. There is only this one man in the world whom she orders us to
undeceive, and she binds him to an inviolable secrecy, which makes this
knowledge to him as if it were not. Can we imagine anything more
charitable and pleasant? And yet the corruption of man is such that he