Also the following passage, which is quite to the purpose here: "You are to me in the place of father, mother, brothers and children. You are every thing to me, and no joy or sorrow can affect me in comparison with that which concerns you. Even though I may not have to answer for your souls, I should not be the less inconsolable were you to perish; just as a father is not consoled for the loss of his son, although he may have done all in his power to save him. That I may some day be found guilty, or that I may be justified before the awful tribunal, is not the most pressing object of my solicitude and of my fear; but that you may all, without exception, be saved, all made happy forever, that is enough: that is also necessary to my personal happiness, even if the divine justice should have to reprove me for not having discharged my ministry as I ought; although, in that respect, my conscience does not upbraid me. But what matters it by whom you are saved, provided that you are saved? And if any one is surprised to hear me speak in this manner, it is because he knows not what it is to be a father." [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: Homily iii. on the Acts.]
On the other hand, if men ever ought to be loved, if, above all, the heart of the Christian priest ought to be touched, moved even to tears with deep compassion for humanity, this is preëminently the time. Doubtless, humanity is deserving of blame, but it is also most worthy of pity. Who, indeed, can be bold enough to hate it? Let us rather grieve for it: grieve for the men of the world who are truly miserable. … What truths can they lay hold of to resist themselves, to fill the void in their souls, to control themselves under the trials of life? All have been assailed, shaken, denied, overturned. What are they to do in the midst of this conflict of affirmations and negations? Hardly has a powerful and divine truth been presented to them, than one of those so-called talented men has come forward to sully it by his gainsaying or scornful derision.
Above all, the rising generation calls for our pity, because it has so long been famished. The half of its sustenance has been withheld from it by the cruelty of the age.
But let us do it justice: youth appreciates sincerity and candor above every thing. It is straightforward, and hates nothing so much as duplicity and hypocrisy. Well, when a young man awakens into life, what does he see around him? Contradiction and inconsistency, a very Babel of tongues: a discordant, a hellish concert. One bawls out to him, "Reason!" another "Faith!" here some bid him "Suffer!" there others tell him to "Rejoice!" but soon all join in the chorus, "Money, my son, money!" What, we ask, is a youth of eighteen, with all his besetting passions, to do in the midst of confusion like this?
It were well if even the domestic hearth afforded an asylum from this turmoil; but, unhappily, it assumes there its most flagrant form in father and mother. There we find one building up, and the other destroying. The mother prays, the father is prayerless; the mother is a communicant, the father is not; the mother confesses, the father does not; the mother speaks well of religion, the father derides it. … What, we ask again, is a youth to do with his affections under circumstances like these? Reason tells him that if there is a truth, it must be the same for all; if there is a rule of morals, it should apply to all; that if there is a religion, it should be the religion of all. Next, he is tempted to believe that he is being made sport of, and that the words vice, truth, and virtue are nothing but bare words after all. Such is the aspect of things presented to the rising generation; and were it not that there is something naturally good and generous in the hearts of the young, how much would they despise their predecessors in life! …
They are told of the existence of duties, laws, and other subjects of vast importance, and yet they see men who ought to be serious spending their time in material pursuits, in hoarding money, or in sensual gratifications.