unanswerably assailed. Many of them were forced page 147to laugh at the picture of their own follies, and the immoral nonsense which distilled from the lips of Father Bauny and others, in explanation or defence of their practices. “Read that,” says the confidential Jesuit who expounds to Pascal their system: “it is ‘The Summary of Sins,’ by Father Bauny; the fifth edition, you see, which shows that it is a good book. ‘In order to sin,’ says Father Bauny, ‘it is necessary to know that the thing we wish to do is not good.’” “A capital commencement,” I remarked. “Yet,” said he, “only think how far envy will carry some people. It was on this very passage that M. Hallier, before he became one of our friends, quizzed Father Bauny, saying of him ‘Ecce qui tollit peccata mundi—Behold the man who taketh away the sins of the world.’”13 Then after an elaborate description of all that goes to make a sin—
“‘O my dear sir,’ cried I, ‘what a blessing this will be to some friends of my acquaintance! You have never, perhaps, in all your life met with people who have fewer sins to account for! In the first place, they never think of God at all, still less of praying to Him; so that, according to M. le Moine, they are still in a state of baptismal innocence. They have never had a thought of loving God, or of being contrite for their sins; so that, according to Father Annat, they have never committed sin through the want of charity and penitence. . . . I had always supposed that the less a man thought of God the more he sinned; but from what I see now, if one could only succeed in bringing himself not to think of God at all, everything would be peace with him in all time coming. Away with your half-and-half sinners who have some love for virtue! They will be damned every one of them. But as for your out-and-out sinners, hardened page 148and without mixture, thorough and determined in their evil courses, hell is no place for them. They have cheated the devil by stern devotion to his service!’” 14