Shall he fly, as a resource, to voluptuousness, and to other infamous pleasures? But, in changing the passion, the heart only changes the punishment. Shall he seek, in indolence and inactivity, a happiness he has never been able to find in all the fervency of hopes and pretensions? A criminal conscience may become indifferent, but it is not thereby more tranquil. One may cease to feel misfortune and digrace, but infidelities and crimes must always be felt. No, my brethren, the unhappy sinner is so without resource. Every comfort is for ever fled from the worldly soul from the moment that he is deserted by the world.
But the righteous man learns to despise the world even in the contempt which the world has for him. The injustice of men, with respect to him, only puts him in mind that he serves a more equitable Master, who can neither be influenced nor prejudiced; who sees nothing in us but what, in reality, there is; who determines our destinies upon our hearts alone, and with whom we have nothing but our own conscience to dread: consequently, that they are happy who serve him; that his ingratitude is not to be feared; that every thing done for him is faithfully recorded; that, far from concealing or neglecting our sufferings and our services, he gives us credit even for our good wishes; and that nothing is lost with him but what is not done solely for him.
Now, in these lights of faith, what a fresh fund of consolation for a believing soul! How little is the world, in this point of view, with all its scorns and ill usage, capable of affecting him! Then it is that, throwing himself into the bosom of God, and viewing, with Christian eyes, the nothingness and vanity of all human things, he feels in a moment all his inquietudes, inseparable from nature, changed into the sweetest peace; a ray of light shines in his soul, and re-establishes serenity; a trait of consolation penetrates his heart, and every sorrow is alleviated. Ah! my brethren, how sweet to serve him, who alone can render happy those who serve him! Why, O blessed condition of virtue, art thou not better known to men! And wherefore art thou held out as a disagreeable and sorrowful lot, thou who alone canst console the miseries and alleviate all the sufferings of his banishment?
Lastly, the judgments of the world, source of so many chagrins for the worldly, complete still more the consolation of the believing soul. For the torture of the lovers of the world is that of being continually exposed to the judgments, that is to say, to the censures, to the derisions, to the malignity of each other. In vain do we despise the men: we wish to be esteemed even by those we despise. In vain are we exalted above others: the more we are exalted, we are only the more exposed to the criticisms and to the observations of the multitude, and we much more poignantly feel the censures of those from whom homages alone were to have been expected. In vain may the suffrage of the public be in our favour; contempt is so much the more stinging as it is unusual and rare. In vain may we retaliate with censures yet mo^e biting and keen; resentment and revenge always suppose a sense of guilt; and, be
