appreciate everything; and that our Company imposes the task of reading
this Compendium, as a classical work, upon young deacons seminarists, and
priests, who are destined to be confessors."

"I believed you, father. In me the habit of inert obedience was so
powerful, and I was so unaccustomed to independent reflection, that,
notwithstanding my horror (with which I now reproached myself as with a
crime), I took the volume back into my chamber, and read. Oh, father!
what a dreadful revelation of criminal fancies, guilty of guiltiest in
their refinement!"

"You speak of this book in blamable terms," skid Father d'Aigrigny,
severely; "you were the victim of a too lively imagination. It is to it
that you must attribute this fatal impression, and not to an excellent
work, irreproachable for its special purpose, and duly authorized by the
Church. You are not able to judge of such a production."

"I will speak of it no more, father," said Gabriel: and he thus resumed:
"A long illness followed that terrible night. Many times, they feared for
my reason. When I recovered, the past appeared to me like a painful
dream. You told me, then, father, that I was not yet ripe for certain
functions; and it was then that I earnestly entreated you to be allowed
to go on the American missions. After having long refused my prayer, you
at length consented. From my childhood, I had always lived in the college
or seminary, to a state of continual restraint and subjection. By
constantly holding down my head and eyes, I had lost the habit of
contemplating the heavens and the splendors of nature. But, oh! what
deep, religious happiness I felt, when I found myself suddenly
transported to the centre of the imposing grandeur of the seas-half-way
between the ocean and the sky!--I seemed to come forth from a place of