Filial love had grown in proportion as
so many other affections were crushed out. Well, it is in this part
of my being that duty exacts from me the most painful sacrifice. My
leaving the seminary will be an inexplicable enigma to my mother; she
will believe that I have killed her out of sheer caprice.
"Truly may I say that when I envisage the inextricable mesh in which
God has ensnared me while my reason and freedom were asleep, while I
was following with docile steps the path He had Himself traced out for
me, distracting thoughts crowd themselves upon me. God knows that I
was simple-minded and pure; I took nothing upon myself; I walked with
free and unflagging steps in the path which He disclosed before me,
and behold this path has led me to the brink of a precipice! God has
betrayed me! I never doubted but that a wise and merciful Providence
governed the universe and governed me in the course which I was to
take. It is not, however, without considerable effort that I have been
able to apply so formal a contradiction to apparent facts. I often say
to myself that vulgar common sense is little capable of appreciating
the providential government whether of humanity, of the universe, or
of the individual. The isolated consideration of facts would scarcely
tend to optimism. It requires a strong dose of optimism to credit God
with this generosity in spite of experience. I hope that I shall never
feel any hesitation upon this point, and that whatever may be the ills
which Providence yet has in store for me I shall ever believe that it
is guiding me to the highest possible good through the least possible
evil.
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