The new school revels in the miraculous, and seems to take
its pleasure in narrowing the ground upon which apologetics can be
defended. Upon the other hand, it would be unfair not to say that the
new school is in some respects more open and consistent, and that it
has derived, especially through its relations with Germany, elements
for discussion which have no place in the ancient treatises _De Loci's
Theologicis_. St. Sulpice has had but one representative in this
path so thickly sown with unexpected incidents and--it may perhaps
be added--with dangers; but he is unquestionably the most remarkable
member of the French clergy in the present day. I am speaking of M. Le
Hir, whom I knew very intimately, as will presently be seen. In order
to understand what follows, the reader must be very deeply versed in
the workings of the human mind, and above all in matters of faith.
M. Le Hir was in an equally eminent degree a savant and a saint. This
co-habitation in the same person, of two entities which are rarely
found together, took place in him without any kind of fraction, for
the saintly side of his character had the absolute mastery. There was
not one of the objections of rationalism which escaped his attention.
He did not make the slightest concession to any of them, for he never
felt the shadow of a doubt as to the truth of orthodoxy. This was due
rather to an act of the supreme will than to a result imposed upon
him. Holding entirely aloof from natural philosophy and the scientific
spirit, the first condition of which is to have no prior faith and to
reject that which does not come spontaneously, he remained in a state
of equilibrium which would have been fatal to convictions less urgent
than his.
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