Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/254

264 with talents, and beloved by the world, chosen, nevertheless, the portion of poverty and lowliness. She exalts the condition of the Catholic church in France, as far superior to that of Rome.

My conversations with the Carmelite Monk, are, in comparison with those with Sœur Geneviève, as a clear, tranquil stream with a rushing cataract, and they always afford me pleasure, although they still more plainly make it evident that we shall never agree on the main points; because he adheres steadfastly to the belief that there can be no calmness and no security for such as disavow the authority of the Catholic church. I, on the contrary, maintain that that which led him to accept it, is the same inner, free choice which he disallows in me when it causes me to disavow this authority of the outward. But the difference is, that I go further than he, and that I will not ground my faith upon an authority which is contrary to my rational conscience. I believe on God in Christ, because my rational conscience bids me to do so, since I have learned in the Holy Scriptures to know Him, and the tenor of his revelation.

“Your principle,” I say to him, “condemns your spirit to a state of stagnation, nay, to a contradiction of yourself. If your reason and your conscience tell you that a certain dogma adopted at the ecclesiastical assembly of Trent is not in accordance with the doctrine of Christ, with justice and with equity—as, for example—as is contained in the catechism of the Romish church that the children which die before they have received baptism, are excluded forever from the joys of heaven, a doctrine which caused Dante to