identified him with the defence of their cause? The reputation of sour
austerity and of argumentative and tiresome prolixity which attaches to
the remembrance of all the writers of Port-Royal, save Pascal--has that
affected too the work of Augustin, enlisted in spite of himself in the
ranks of these pious schismatics? And yet, if there have ever been any
beings who do not resemble Augustin, and whom probably he would have
attacked with all his eloquence and all the force of his dialectic, they
are the Jansenists. Doubtless he would have said with contempt: "The party
of Jansen," even as in his own day, with his devotion to Catholic unity, he
said: "The party of Donatus."

It must be acknowledged also that the very sight of his works is
terrifying, whether we take the enormous folios in two columns of the
Benedictine edition, or the volumes, almost as compact, and much more
numerous, of recent editions. Behind such a rampart of printed matter he is
well defended against profane curiosity. It needs courage and perseverance
to penetrate into this labyrinth of text, all bristling with theology and
exegesis and metaphysics. But only cross the threshold of the repellent
enclosure, grow used to the order and shape of the building, and it will
not be long ere you are overcome by a warm sympathy, and then by a steadily
increasing admiration for the host who dwells there. The hieratic face
of the old bishop lights up, becomes strangely living, almost modern, in
expression. You discover under the text one of the most passionate lives,
most busy and richest in instruction, that history has to shew. What it
teaches is applicable to ourselves, answers to our interests of yesterday
and to-day. This existence, and the century in which it was passed, recall
our own century and ourselves. The return of similar circumstances has
brought similar situations and characters; it is almost our portrait. And
we feel half ready to conclude that at the present moment there is no
subject more actual than St. Augustin.