have nevertheless experienced a change of place; without having taken a step, we are removed from what we loved.

It is to be powerful to be able to do much harm. To hate is to kill; whoever hates kills in soul; and if he imagines on one hand that there is no happiness for him unless he kills, and on the other that he has the power to kill, be sure he will do so in fact.

The broken stones with which the roads are covered are first of all an obstacle, then a help; trodden into the earth by our footsteps and carriage-wheels, they consolidate it, and we walk on it more easily and safely. A hard life is a macadamised road which always remains firm, and never becomes muddy.

To listen only to one's passions and prejudices is the saddest of weaknesses and the greatest of misfortunes.

The angle of crime is open in every man; circumstances more or less prolong the sides of this angle. An unmerited piece of praise is sometimes a lesson taught.

The worst part of bad actions is, that they make

us worse.

When a man has a settled reputation, it is always better or worse than he deserves.

A false system has for accomplice whoever spares it by silence.

Those who cannot do that which is least can do

that which is greatest; those who cannot walk, fly; and one might say that the sublime is more within the reach of humanity than the mediocre.

One would be right in so saying, provided one added, that the mediocre is not on the way to the sublime, and that we do not pass through the one to reach the other. They are on two different lines, for the false can never be the first step to the true; and in morals the sublime is the only true. In brief, all the world is not capable of being sentimental, and all the world is capable of being Christian. An intelligent and conscious communion with God, religious discernment, the choice of a belief, are within the resources of all. Here competence is not proportioned to culture and learning; every one has sense enough to save himself; in this career the ignorant themselves may serve as guides to the learned. The force exercised upon opinion is sometimes in an inverse ratio to weight.

Imitation leads us to leave natural ways to enter into artificial ones; it therefore makes slaves. But what else does singularity? This man imitates others, because he wishes to please them; that man separates himself from them, because he wishes to surprise. What difference does it make whether it be surprising or pleasing? Under one form, as under the other, both men want to excite attention, to occupy the mind; there is a want felt of others; they do not suffice to themselves; their own good opinion is not enough: without necessity, and unconsciously,

they play that part of actor, which they would shrink from under the professional form that gives it its name. They beg, either on their knees, or carrying their heads high, for the alms of admiration. Once act upon this principle, and it matters not whether you wish to please, to surprise, or even to displease. There is an end of independence. In all three cases, the man obeys those he seems to brave, rules his conduct, not according to principle, but opinion, seeks a motive out of self and out of truth. And he who in this point of view takes pains to displease his fellow-creatures, is so little above him who does all to please them, that on the whole the advantage remains with the latter. Both are alike in revolt against God, who claims to be our supreme object, and our only rule; both are servile, but the last is at least social, which the first is not. Will it be said that the best way to do right is to run counter to the multitude? It is true that the multitude goes wrong, but it does not thence follow that the spirit of contradiction is the principle of right; he does not do good who does not wish what is good; good is in the intention, the motives, the will; and the man of whom we speak has not willed nor pursued good, but vanity. He has willed what is evil; where then is his superiority over the man who has aimed at pleasing? Where then is the advantage of singularity over imitation?

Cunning, weak, and false go together.

We might construct the most exquisite morality

out of the exactions of each man as regards his neighbours, and the most lax morality out of his exactions as regards his own conduct.

Doing leads more surely to saying than saying to doing.

There are entails of moral wealth, and virtue too is a patrimony.

Facts and arguments all concur to prove that we more easily succeed in correcting a sentiment misled by a false appreciation of the object that excites it, than in giving birth in the soul to a sentiment entirely absent.

All pre-occupations that we do not share, and by which at the same time we are inconvenienced, may seem to us frivolous; but it would be frivolous above all, not to see that it is right every one should treat seriously what seems to him of serious importance.

There are a thousand things in life which we accept, and yet are determined not to see.

Indignation, too, is a grand thing; it is the explosion of the soul's most noble instinct. If the fountain gushes impetuously, the source remains the more limpid and wholesome.

II. CHRISTIAN MORALITY.

1. Its Character, its Principle; and Human Morality (Virtue, Morality of Respectable People).

The morality of Christians is not that of men of the world; so little so, indeed, that those who un

qualifiedly accept and faithfully observe it, form, in the midst of humanity at large, a race apart, a new humanity; so little so, that those who profess it are unintelligible to those who profess it not; and that the most commonplace life, provided it be Christian, never fails to reveal, in certain of its features, an extraordinary and mysterious principle, of which none know the name but such as possess it (Rev. xix. 12). However highly the capacity of the natural man be exalted, there are virtues that are only current among Christians, and sacrifices of which Christians alone are capable. Why is this? Because in their faith itself, that work of God, there is comprehended a sacrifice more profound and complete than any other, a sacrifice in which all others are by anticipation consummated. Because also the love that is born of faith is of all loves the deepest, most just, most inexhaustible, most immortal, and that for the very reason that all love finds its limits in the nature of its object: the love that has for its object God, would seek in vain for limits in its object, which has none.

While conceding to evangelical morality a decided superiority over all others, we call attention to the fact, that this superiority depends much less upon the nature of its precepts than on their basis, their motives; in other words, on the mysterious and divine facts which characterize Christianity as a positive religion. The gospel did not invent morality; some of its most beautiful maxims had been