COUNT DE MAISTRE ON PURGATORY.
You have heard, in countries separated from the Roman Church, the doctors of the law deny at once Hell and Purgatory. You might well have taken the denial of a word for that of a thing. An enormous power is that of words! The minister who would be angry at that of Purgatory will readily grant us a place of expiation, or an intermediate state, or perhaps even stations, who knows? without thinking it in the least ridiculous. One of the great motives of the sixteenth century revolt was precisely Purgatory. The insurgents would have nothing less than Hell, pure and simple. Nevertheless, when they became philosophers, they set about denying the eternity of punishment, allowing, nevertheless, a hell for a time, only through good policy and for fear of putting into heaven at one stroke Nero and Messalina side by side with St. Louis and St. Teresa. But a temporary hell is nothing else than Purgatory; so that having broken with us because they did not want Purgatory, they broke with us anew because they wanted Purgatory only.