and who, notwithstanding they never arrive at that degree of piety which the faithful accomplish, never proceed to those lengths in iniquity which criminal and abandoned souls do.
I know it, my brethren, but I likewise know, that this indolence of heart defends us only from crimes which would cost us trouble; makes us avoid only those pleasures which we would be obliged to purchase at the expense of our tranquillity, and which the love of ease alone prevents us from enjoying. It leaves us virtuous only in the eyes of men, who confound the indolence which dreads embarrassment with the piety which flies from vice; but it does not defend us against ourselves, against a thousand illicit desires, a thousand criminal compliances, a thousand passions, more secret and less painful because shut up in the heart; from jealousies, which devour us; ambition, which domineers over us; pride, which corrupts us; a desire of pleasure, which engrosses us; an excess of self-love, which is the principle of all our conduct, and infects all our actions: that is to say, that this indolence delivers up our heart to all its weaknesses, at the same time that it serves as a check against the most striking and tumultuous passions, and that what appears only indolence in the eyes of men, is always before God a secret ignominy and corruption.
I know, in the second place, that this love of piety, and this unction which softens the practice of religious duties, is a gift frequently refused even to holy and faithful Christians. But there are three essential differences between the faithful soul, to whom the Lord denies the sensible consolations of piety, and the lukewarm and worldly one, whom the weight of the yoke oppresses, and who is capable of enjoying the things of God.
The first is, that a faithful Christian, in spite of his repugnances, preserving a firm and solid faith, finds his state, and the exemption from guilt in which he lives, since touched by God, a thousand times more happy than that in which he lived when delivered up to his passions; and, penetrated with horror at his former excesses, he would not change his lot, or re-engage himself in his former vices, for all the pleasures of the earth. In place of which, the lukewarm and unfaithful heart, disgusted with virtue, enviously regards the pleasures and vain happiness of the world; and his disgusts being only the consequence and sufferings of his weakness and the lukewarmness of his faith, to plunge into sin begins to appear as the only resource left him from the weariness and gloominess of piety.
The second difference is, that the faithful Christian, in the midst of his disgusts and hardships, at least bears a conscience which reproaches him not with guilt. He at least is supported by the testimony of his own heart, and by a certain degree of internal peace, which, though neither warm nor very sensible, fails not, however, to establish within us a calm which we never experienced in the paths of error. On the contrary, the lukewarm and unfaithful soul, allowing himself, against the testimony of his own con-
