Re: !#Courtesy of Benefactor# - <038`163> 671960 - yEnc "PrivateMag195-036.jpg" (2/2)

make them give an account of their opinions, and
of the reasons which they have for doubting religion, and they will say to
you things so feeble and so petty, that they persuade you of the contrary.
The following is what a person one day said to such a one very appositely:
"If you continue to talk in this manner, you will really make me religious."
And he was right, for who would not have a horror of holding opinions in
which he would have such contemptible persons as companions!

Thus those who only feign these opinions would be very unhappy, if they
restrained their natural feelings in order to make themselves the most
conceited of men. If, at the bottom of their heart, they are troubled at not
having more light, let them not disguise the fact; this avowal will not be
shameful. The only shame is to have none. Nothing reveals more an extreme
weakness of mind than not to know the misery of a godless man. Nothing is
more indicative of a bad disposition of heart than not to desire the truth
of eternal promises. Nothing is more dastardly than to act with bravado
before God. Let them then leave these impieties to those who are
sufficiently ill-bred to be really capable of them. Let them at least be
honest men, if they cannot be Christians. Finally, let them recognise that
there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God
with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all
their heart because they do not know Him.

But as for those who live without knowing Him and without seeking Him, they
judge themselves so little worthy of their own care, that they are not
worthy of the care of others; and it needs all the charity of the religion
which they despise, not to despise them even to the point of leaving them to
their folly. But because this religion obliges us always to regard them, so
long as they are in this life, as capable of the grace which can enlighten
them, and to believe that they may, in a li