"M. l'abbé, do you remember the day I made my first communion?"
"Yes, I know, it produced a profound impression on you, but you let it stay at that, and you have never been seen at church since."
"Do you suppose the sacrament would have the same effect on me at the tenth time as on the first?"
"Ah! my God, no, certainly not. Unhappily, one gets accustomed to everything in this world."
"Very well, M. l'abbé, my other impressions would have effaced that. One must not get too used to sacred things, M. l'abbé; frequent use of them not only takes away their grandeur, but still more their efficacy. Who told you once that I should only need the consolation of the Church in great trouble, as one only requires bleeding in serious illness?" "You have a curious way of putting things...."
"Well, M. l'abbé, you said it yourself, more than once: we must treat men less according to their maladies than according to their temperaments. I am impressionability personified. I have an impulsive character, you yourself told me so. I shall commit all kinds of mistakes, all kinds of follies—never a wicked or disgraceful action. Not, indeed, because I am better than anyone else; but because bad and dishonourable actions are the result of reflection and of calculation, and when I act, it is on the spur of the moment; and this impulse is so quick, that the action springing from it is done before I have had time to consider the consequences or to calculate the results."—
"There is some truth in what you say: but come, what is the use of giving any advice to a character of your calibre?"
"Well, I did not come to ask for your advice, dear abbé; I came to beg your prayers."
"Prayers?.... You do not believe in them."
"Ah! pardon, that is another matter.... No, true, I have not always had faith in them; but do not be troubled: on the day when I shall have need to believe in them, I shall believe in them. Listen: when I took my communion, had I not read in Voltaire that it was a curious sort of God that needed to be digested? and, in Pigault-Lebrun, that the Host was nothing more than a wafer double the thickness of an ordinary wafer? Well, did that prevent me feeling a trembling that shook my whole body, when the Host touched my lips? Did it prevent the tears springing into my eyes, tears of humility, tears of thankfulness, above all, tears of love towards God? Do you not believe that God prefers a generous heart which abandons itself utterly to Him when it is too full, to a niggardly heart which only yields itself drop by drop? Should not prayer come from the depths of the soul, rather than consist of the words of one's lips? Do you believe God will be angry if I forget Him during ordinary daily life, as one forgets the beating of one's heart, so long as I return to Him at every time of trouble or of joy? No M. l'abbé, no; on the contrary, I believe God loves me, and that is why I forget Him, just as one forgets a good father whom one is always sure of."