something of its severity, would it be in favour of those who are born to rank and to abundance? What! Would it preserve all its rigour for the poor and the unfortunate? Would it condemn to tears, to fastings, to penitence, to poverty, those unfortunate souls whose days are mingled with almost nothing but sufferance and sorrow, and whose only comfort is that of eating with temperance the bread earned with the sweat of their brow? And would it discharge from their rigorous duties the grandees of the earth? And would it exact nothing painful of those whose days are only diversified by the variety of their pleasures? And would it reserve all its indulgence for those soft and voluptuous souls, who live only for the senses, who believe they are upon the earth for the sole purpose of enjoying an iniquitous felicity, and who know no other god than themselves?
Great God! It is the blindness which thy justice sheds over human prosperities; after having corrupted the heart, they likewise extinguish all the lights of faith. It rarely happens but that the great, so enlightened upon the interests of the earth, upon the ways to fortune and to glory, upon the secret springs which give motion to courts and empires, live in a profound ignorance of the ways of salvation. They have been so much accustomed to preferences by the world, that they are persuaded they ought likewise to find them in religion. Because men do them credit for the smallest steps taken in their favour, they believe, O my God! that thou regardest them with the same eyes as men; and, that, in fulfilling some weak duties of piety, in taking some small steps for thee, they go even beyond what they owe to thee; as if their smallest religious works acquired a new merit from their rank: in place of which, they acquire it, in thy sight, only from that faith and from that charity which animate them.
It is thus that the law of God, immutable in its extent, is the same for all stations, for the great and for the people. But it is likewise immutable in all the situations of fife; and it is neither a difficult conjecture, nor perplexity, nor apparent danger, nor pretext of public good, in which to violate, or even to soften it, becomes a legitimate and necessary modification. This was to have been my last reflection; but I abridge and go on.
Yes, my brethren, every thing becomes reason and necessity against our duties, that is to say, against the law of God; situations the least dangerous, conjectures the least embarrassing, furnish us with pretexts to violate it with safety, and persuade us that the law of God would be unjust, and would exact too much of men, if, on these occasions, it were not to use indulgence with regard to us.
Thus, the law of God commands us to render to each that which is his due; to retrench, in order to pay those debts incurred through our excesses, and not to permit that our unfortunate creditors suffer by our senseless profusions. Nevertheless, the general persuasion is, that, in a grand place, it is necessary to support the eclat of a public dignity: that the honour of the master requires
