pious temper page 19which marked him from the first. But as yet religion had not taken hold of him with an absorbing enthusiasm. It had its place in his thoughts, and this a deeply respectful place; but now, about his twenty-third year, in communication with the two friends we have mentioned, and under the same influence which had moved them so deeply, it began to lay hold of him more powerfully. He and his father and sisters read eagerly the books of St Cyran, and of Jansen, the Bishop of Ypres, whose name became so conspicuous in connection with Port Royal. A discourse by the latter on “The Reformation of the Inward Man,” and also Arnauld’s “Manual on Frequent Communion,” are supposed to have specially impressed him. In the language of his sister—
“Providence led him to the study of such pious writings while he was not yet twenty-four years of age; and God so enlightened him by this course of reading, that he came to realise that the Christian religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other object besides Him. So clear and necessary appeared this truth to him, that he gave up for a time all his researches, renounced all other knowledge, and applied himself alone to the ‘one thing needful’ spoken of by our Lord.”
This event is spoken of by Pascal’s biographers as his “first conversion,” and it appears to have been attended not only with a zealous consecration of his own powers to the service of religion, but moreover, as often happens in the case of youthful enthusiasm, with a warm determination against all who seemed to him to be acting at variance with the true faith. “Although,” as his sister says, “he had made no special study of scholastic page 20theology, he was not ignorant of the judgments of the Church against the heresies invented by human subtlety. All indications of heretical opinion excited his indignation, and God gave him at this time an opportunity of testifying his zeal on behalf of religion.” She then adds in illustration the following story:—