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 champion in the Provincial Letters in 1656. The Provincial Letters marked an epoch in theological disputes and in literature. His friends, when put on their defence, had entangled themselves in hopelessly intricate controversies, devoid apparently of all human interest. Pascal put the point so clearly and with such dexterous irony, that not only the religious world but the world of laughers and of sensible men—rightly powerful in France—came to his side. When he had finished, the great Society of Jesus was stamped with an opprobrium from which it has never been able to free itself, and Pascal had created, once for all, so the highest authorities assure us, a model of admirable French prose. He showed for the first time what we all now know, the unrivalled fitness of his language for clear, logical, convincing statement; and in his hands the perfect form was the more impressive because it everywhere indicates, and is yet never perturbed by, profound conviction and a deep glow of moral indignation. From controversy with the Jesuits he turned to controversy with the Rationalists. The Pensées, as we have them now, are but a fragment of an intended vindication of Christianity. As we had them till lately, they were a fragment distorted by the labours of pious