I have never lent myself to
a falsehood of this description, and I have looked upon it as
disrespectful to the faith to practise deceit with it. It is no fault
of mine if my masters taught me logic, and by their uncompromising
arguments made my mind as trenchant as a blade of steel. I took
what was taught me--scholasticism, syllogistic rules, theology, and
Hebrew--in earnest; I was an apt student; I am not to be numbered with
the lost for that.
THE ST. SULPICE SEMINARY.
PART IV.
Such were these two years of inward labour, which I cannot compare to
anything better than a violent attack of encephalitis, during which
all my other functions of life were suspended. With a certain amount
of Hebraic pedantry, I called this crisis in my life Naphtali,[1]
and I often repeated to myself the Hebrew saying: "_Napktoule elohim
niphtali_ (I have fought the fight of God)." My inward feelings were
not changed, but each day a stitch in the tissue of my faith was
broken; the immense amount of work which I had in hand prevented
me from drawing the conclusion. My Hebrew lecture absorbed my whole
thoughts; I was like a man holding his breath. My director, to whom
I confided my difficulties, replied in just the same terms as M.
Gosselin at Issy: "Inroads upon your faith! Pay no heed to that; keep
straight on your way." One day he got me to read the letter which St.
Francois de Sales wrote to Madame de Chantal: "These temptations are
but afflictions like unto others.
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