affairs of the mind immeasurably above the gross accidents of
matter. Indeed, man can win to heaven only through repentance, and
the initial step toward repentance is to do something to repent of.
There is no flaw in this logic, and in its clear lighting such
abrogations of parochial and transitory human laws as may be
suggested by reason and the consciousness that nobody is looking,
take on the aspect of divinely appointed duties.

Some dullard may here object that M. France--attestedly, indeed,
since he remains unjailed-cannot himself believe all this, and that
it is with an ironic glitter in his ink he has recorded these dicta.
To which the obvious answer would be that M. France (again like all
great creative writers) is an ephemeral and negligible person beside
his durable puppets; and that, moreover, to reason thus is, it may
be precipitately, to disparage the plumage of birds on the ground
that an egg has no feathers... Whatever M. France may believe, our
concern is here with the conviction of M. Coignard that his religion
is all-important and all-significant. And it is curious to observe
how unerringly the abbe's thoughts aspire, from no matter what
remote and low-lying starting-point, to the loftiest niceties of
religion and the high thin atmosphere of ethics. Sauce spilt upon
the good man's collar is but a reminder of the influence of clothes
upon our moral being, and of how terrifyingly is the destiny of each
person's soul dependent upon such trifles; a glass of light white
wine leads not, as we are nowadays taught to believe, to instant
ruin, but to edifying considerations of the life and glory of St.
Peter; and a pack of cards suggests, straightway, intransigent fine
points of martyrology. Always this churchman's thoughts deflect to
the most interesting of themes, to the relationship between God and
His children, and what familiary etiquette may be necessary to