"But order, submission and regularity are the first foundations of our Company, my dear son."
"Alas, father! it was death, not life, that I found thus organized.In the midst of this destruction of every generous principle, I devoted myself to scholastic and theological studies--gloomy studies--a wily, menacing, and hostile science which, always awake to ideas of peril, contest, and war, is opposed to all those of peace, progress, and liberty."
"Theology, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, sternly, "is at once a buckler and a sword; a buckler, to protect and cover the Catholic faith--
a sword, to attack and combat heresy."
"And yet, father, Christ and His apostles knew not this subtle science:
their simple and touching words regenerated mankind, and set freedom over slavery.Does not the divine code of the Gospel suffice to teach men to love one another? But, alas! far from speaking to us this language, our attention was too often occupied with wars of religion, and the rivers of blood that had flowed in honor of the Lord, and for the destruction of heresy.These terrible lessons made our life still more melancholy.As we grew near to manhood, our relations at the seminary assumed a growing character of bitterness, jealousy and suspicion.The habit of tale-