to bless the kneeling congregation. But if among them all there was
one doubting soul who raised his eyes to see if the miracle really did
take place, the saint, taking just offence at such a suspicion did not
move, and by the misconduct of this incredulous person, no benediction
was given.

The clergy of the place, disinterested and honest to the core,
contrived to steer a middle course between not doing anything to
weaken these ideas and not compromising themselves. These worthy men
were my first spiritual guides, and I have them to thank for whatever
may be good in me. Their every word was my law, and I had so much
respect for them that I never thought to doubt anything they told me
until I was sixteen years of age, when I came to Paris. Since that
time I have studied under many teachers far more brilliant and
learned, but none have inspired such feelings of veneration, and this
has often led to differences of opinion between some of my friends and
myself. It has been my good fortune to know what absolute virtue is. I
know what faith is, and though I have since discovered how deep a
fund of irony there is in the most sacred of our illusions, yet the
experience derived from the days of old is very precious to me. I feel
that in reality my existence is still governed by a faith which I
no longer possess, for one of the peculiarities of faith is that its
action does not cease with its disappearance. Grace survives by mere
force of habit the living sensation of it which we have felt. In a
mechanical kind of way we go on doing what we had before been doing
in spirit and in truth. After Orpheus, when he had lost his ideal,
was torn to pieces by the Thracian women, his lyre still repeated
Eurydice's name.

The point to which the priests attached the highest importance was