He was at present in Paris, where the conjuncture of religious affairs was very exciting. There was much in the discussions which were going on, singularly fitted to Inglesant's state of mind, and in some degree conducive to it. The Jesuits, both in Rome and Paris, were occupied, as they had been for several years, in that great controversy with the followers of Jansenius, which, a few years afterwards, culminated in those discussions and that condemnation in the Sorbonne so graphically described by Pascal. We have only to do with it as it affected Inglesant, and it is therefore not necessary to inquire what were the real reasons which caused the Jesuits to oppose the Jansenists. The point at which the controversy had arrived, when Inglesant was in Paris, was one which touched closely upon the topics most interesting to his heart. This was the doctrine of sufficient grace. The Jesuits, on this as in all other matters, had taken that side which is undoubtedly most pleasing to the frailty of the human heart,—an invariable policy, to which they owed their supremacy over the popular mind.
When the faithful came to the theologians to inquire what was the true state of human nature since its corruption, they received St. Augustine's answer, confirmed by St. Bernard and St. Thomas Aquinas, and finally adopted by the Jansenists,—"That human nature has no more sufficient grace than God is pleased to bestow upon it, and that fresh efficacious grace must constantly be given by God, which grace God does not give to all, and without which no man can be saved." In opposition to this, the Jesuits, about the time of the Reformation, came forward with what was called a new doctrine,—that sufficient grace is given to all men, as men, but so far compliant with free-will that this latter makes the former efficacious or inefficacious at its choice, without any new supply from God. The Jansenists retorted that this doctrine rendered unnecessary the efficacious grace of Jesus Christ; but that this does not follow is plain, for this efficacious grace of God that is given to all men once for all, may be owing to the sacrifice of Christ. To many natures this universal gracious beneficent doctrine of all-pervading grace, which includes all mankind, was much more pleasing than the doctrine of the necessity of special grace, involving spiritual assumption in those who possess it or say they do, and bitter uncertainty and depression in humble, self-doubting, and thoughtful minds. It resembled also the doctrines of the Laudian School, in which Inglesant had been brought up. So attractive indeed was it, that the Benedictines were compelled to profess it, and to pretend to side with the Jesuits, while in reality hating their doctrine.
When Inglesant remembered Cressy, and remembered also that he belonged to the Benedictines, the polished and learned cultivators of the useful arts, and was told that Cressy had chosen this order that he might have leisure and books to prosecute his studies and his writings, he conceived great hope that from him he should learn the happy mean he was in search of, between the worldliness of the Jesuits on the one hand, and the narrow repulsiveness of the Mendicant orders and the Calvinists on the other. In this frame of mind he sought an interview with Cressy. The directions of the Jesuits and of the Laudian School seemed to Inglesant to have failed; to have associated himself with the Jansenists or Calvinists would have been distasteful to him, and almost impossible. He sought in the Benedictine monk that compromise which the heart of man is perpetually seeking between the things of this world and the things of God. But though for the time the influence of the training of his life was somewhat shaken, it was far from removed, and an event occurred which, even before he saw Cressy, reforged the chains upon him to some extent. One Sunday evening, the day before he was to meet Cressy, walking along the Rue St Martin from the Boulevard where he had lodgings, he turned into the Jesuits' Church just as the sermon had begun. The dim light found its way into the vast Church from the stained windows; a lamp burning before some shrine shone partially on the preacher, as he stood in the stone pulpit by a great pillar, in his white surplice and rich embroidered stole. He was a young man, thin and sad-looking, and spoke slowly, and with long pauses and intervals, but with an intense eagerness and pathos that went to every heart. The first words that Inglesant heard, as he reached the nearest unoccupied place, were these:—
"Ah! if you adored a God crowned with roses and with pearls, it were a matter nothing strange; but to prostrate yourselves daily before a crucifix, charged with nails and thorns,—you living in such excess and superfluity in the flesh, dissolved in softness,—how can that be but cruel? Ah, think of that crucifix as you lie warm in silken curtains, perfumed with eau de naffe, as you sit at dainty feasts, as you ride forth in the sunshine in gallantry. He is cold and naked; He is alone; behind Him the sky is dreary and streaked with darkening clouds, for the night cometh—the night of God. His locks are wet with the driving rain; His hair is frozen with the sleet; His beauty is departed from Him; all men have left him—all men, and God also, and the holy angels hide their faces. He is crowned with thorns, but you with garlands; He wears nothing in His hands but piercing nails; you have rubies and diamonds on yours. Ah! will you tell me you can still be faithful though in brave array? I give that answer which Tertullian gave,—'I fear this neck snared with wreaths and ropes of pearls and emeralds. I fear the sword of persecution can find no entrance there.' No! hear you not the voice of the crucifix? Follow me. We are engaged to suffer by His sufferings as we look on Him. Suffering is our vow and profession. Love which cannot suffer is unworthy of the name of love."
* * * * *
The next day, at the appointed hour, he went to the Benedictine Monastery, in the Rue de Varrennes, and sent in his name to Father de Cressy. He was shown, not into the visitors' room, but into a private parlour, where Cressy came to him immediately. Dressed in the habit of his order, with a lofty and refined expression, he was a striking and attractive man; differing from the Jesuit in that, though both were equally persuasive, the latter united more power of controlling others than the appearance of Cressy implied. He had known Inglesant slightly at Oxford, and greeted him with great cordiality.
"I am not surprised that you are come to me, Mr. Inglesant," he said, with a most winning gesture and smile; "De Guevera, who was himself both a courtier and a recluse, says that the penance of religious men was sweeter than the pleasures of courtiers. Has your experience brought you to the same conclusion?"
Inglesant thanked him for granting him an interview; and sitting down, he told him shortly the story of his life, and his early partiality for the mystical theology; of his wishes and attempts; of his desire to follow the Divine Master; and of his failures and discouragements, his studies, his Pagan sympathies; and how life and reality of every kind, and inquiry, and the truth of history, and philosophy, even while it sided with or supported religion, still seemed to hinder and oppose the heavenly walk.
"I do not know, Mr. Inglesant," said De Cressy, "whether your case is easier or more difficult than that of those who usually come to me; I have many come to me; and they usually, one and all, come with the exact words of the blessed gospel on their lips, 'Sir, we would see Jesus.' And I look them in the face often, and wonder, and often find no words to speak. See Jesus, I often think, I do not doubt it! who would not wish to see Him who is the fulness of all perfection that the heart and intellect ever conceived, in whom all creation has its centre, all the troubles and sorrows of life have their cure, all the longings of carnal men their fruition? But why come to me? Is He not walking to and fro on the earth continually, in every act of charity and self-sacrifice that is done among men? Is He not offered daily on every altar, preached continually from every pulpit? Why come to me? Old men of sixty and seventy come to me with these very words, 'Sir, we would see Jesus.' If the course of sixty years, if the troubles and confusions of a long life, if He Himself has not revealed this Beatific Vision to them,—how can I? But with you it is very different. By your own story I know that you have seen Jesus; that you know Him as you know your dearest friend. This makes our discourse at first much the easier, for I need waste no words upon a matter to enlarge upon which to you would be an insult to your heart. But it makes it more difficult afterwards, when we come to ask how it is that, with this transcendental knowledge, you are still dissatisfied, and find life so difficult a path to tread. I make no apology for speaking plainly; such would be as much an insult to you as the other. You remind me of the rich oratories I have seen of some of our Court ladies, where everything is beautiful and costly, but where a classic statue of Apollo stands by the side of a crucifix, a Venus with Our Lady, a Cupid near St. Michael, and a pair of beads on Mercury's Caduceus.
"You are like the young man who came to Jesus, and whom Jesus loved, for you have great possessions. You have been taught all that men desire to know, and are accomplished in all that makes life delightful. You have the knowledge of the past, and know the reality of men's power, and wisdom, and beauty, which they possess of themselves, and did possess in the old classic times. You have culled of the tree of knowledge, and know good and evil; yea, the good that belongs to this world, and is part of it, and the strength and wisdom and beauty of the children of this world; yea, and the evil and ignorance and folly of the children of light. Let us grant—I am willing to grant—that Plato has a purer spiritual instinct than St. Paul. I will grant that Lucretius has the wisdom of this world with him; ay, and its alluring tongue. Paul did not desire spiritual insight; he wanted Jesus. You stand as a god free to choose. On the one hand, you have the delights of reason and of intellect, the beauty of that wonderful creation which God made, yet did not keep; the charms of Divine philosophy, and the enticements of the poet's art: on the other side, Jesus. You know Him, and have seen Him. I need say no more of His perfections.