If he sometimes blamed free thought,
he never showed ill will to free-thinkers. In the spirit of the
gospel--so different from the spirit of the devout party--he was "all
things to all men." He was on a very friendly footing with a priest
whom, by his logic and his sincerity, he had prevailed upon to forsake
the ecclesiastical calling.
In our discussions, which dealt with secondary subjects of various forms
of belief--for I never denied God, or the soul and its immortality, or
the freedom of the will which is the honor of the human race, or the
power of charity, provided it become social and fraternal, instead of
merely alms-giving as it has been,--in these debates, sometimes rather
lively, I would end by saying to him: "You know that I love and seek
truth; very well! if God wished me to join the ranks in which you serve,
he would certainly give me a sign; but so long as I do not receive His
summons, what have I to do with it?"
I spoke his own language, and he yielded to my reasoning. "Come," he
would say, "I prefer your frankness to the pretenses of feigned piety;"
and he would add sorrowfully: "Alas! I often encounter them!" So we
always ended by agreeing, and this truce lasted--until our next meeting.
The words which I have just quoted prove that if Delsarte clung to the
Catholic dogmas, he was particularly touched by the sincere piety and
active charity of simple, evangelic hearts.
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