a director in good faith: but one cannot pardon the rogues who direct
them, who abuse their ignorance, who establish the throne of their pride
on the credulity of the sex. They resolve themselves into a little
mystic seraglio composed of seven or eight aged beauties, subdued by the
weight of their lack of occupation, and almost always do these persons
pay tribute to their new masters. No young woman without a lover, no
aged devout woman without a director. Oh! the Orientals are wiser than
we are! Never does a pasha say: "We supped yesterday with the Aga of the
Janissaries who is my sister's lover, and the vicar of the mosque who is
my wife's director."




_THE ECCLESIASTICAL MINISTRY_


The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to
make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a
religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered
foreign or dangerous.

Instruction, exhortation, menaces of pains to come, promises of immortal
beatitude, prayers, counsels, spiritual help are the only means
ecclesiastics may use to try to make men virtuous here below, and happy
for eternity.

All other means are repugnant to the liberty of the reason, to the
nature of the soul, to the inalterable rights of the conscience, to the
essence of religion and of the ecclesiastical ministry, to all the