Confession may possibly be productive of evil in
some countries, but I never saw anything of the sort during my
ecclesiastical experience. The old-fashioned book which I used for
making my examinations of conscience was innocence itself. There was
only one sin which excited my curiosity and made me feel uneasy. I
was afraid that I might have been guilty of it unawares. I mustered
up courage enough, one day, to ask my confessor what was meant by the
phrase: "To be guilty of simony in the collation of benefices." The
good priest reassured me and told me that I could not have committed
that sin.
Persuaded by my teachers of two absolute truths, the first, that no
one who has any respect for himself can engage in any work that is not
ideal--and that all the rest is secondary, of no importance, not to
say shameful, _ignominia seculi_--and the second, that Christianity
embodies everything which is ideal, I could not do otherwise than
regard myself as destined for the priesthood. This thought was not the
result of reflection, impulse, or reasoning. It came so to speak, of
itself. The possibility of a lay career never so much as occurred
to me. Having adopted with the utmost seriousness and docility the
principles of my teachers, and having brought myself to consider all
commercial and mercenary pursuits as inferior and degrading, and only
fit for those who had failed in their studies, it was only natural
that I should wish to be what they were. They were my patterns in
life, and my sole ambition was to be like them, professor at the
College of Treguier, poor, exempt from all material cares, esteemed
and respected like them.
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