Faith? It had fled away long ago, since the day when he had laid aside his
dress of catechumen, and, initiated in the secrets of the sanctuary, he had
laid hand on the priestly jugglings.

Then he had been filled with an infinite sorrow. But he had prudently
repressed it deep within, and in this centre of devout hypocrisy and holy
intrigue, he had covered himself again, like all the rest, with a varnish
of sanctity.

Faith! What priest is he who, amidst the religious pageants, the public
falsehoods and the private apostacies, the burlesque scenes behind the
stage preceding the solemn performance, what priest is he who has preserved
his faith?

What priest is he, upright and wishing to remain upright--there are such
lost in obscure positions--who has not said quietly to himself, in his
inmost being, all alone with his conscience, what the Curé of Althausen
often repeated to himself:

"Faith, bitter mockery! to believe by order, without examination and
without reply!

"Annihilation of the individual, murder of the thought, criminal denial of
the intelligence, the most sublime of man's gifts!

"Oh miseries of the soul! filth of the body! vileness of the spirit!
unfathomable depths of human folly! What am I and what are we, and whom do
we wish to deceive?

"What are we, we who say to others, 'Be just, humble, chaste, pitiful? Have