The Jesuits alone formerly worked thus in concert; but it is not the fault of the leaders of the clergy, in these days, if the whole of this body, with trembling obedience, do not play at this villanous game. By their all communicating together, their secret revelations might produce a vast mysterious science, which would arm ecclesiastical policy with a power a hundred times stronger than that of the state can possibly be.
Whatever might be wanting in the confession of the master, would easily be supplied by that of his servants and valets. The association of the Blandines of Lyons, imitated in Brittany, Paris, and elsewhere, would alone be sufficient to throw a light upon the whole household of every family. It is in vain they are known, they are nevertheless employed; for they are gentle and docile, serve their masters very well, and know how to see and listen.
Happy the father of a family who has so virtuous a wife, and such gentle, humble, honest, pious servants. What the ancient sighed for, namely, to live in a glass dwelling, where he might be seen by every one, this happy man enjoys without even the expression of a wish. Not a syllable of his is lost. He may speak lower and lower, but a fine ear has caught every word. If he writes down his secret thoughts, not wishing to utter them, they are read:—by whom? No one knows. What he dreams upon his pillow, the next morning, to his great astonishment, he hears in the street.
[[1]] St. François de Sales, the best of them all, takes compassion on the poor husband. He removes certain scruples of the wife, &c. Even this kindness is singularly humiliating. (See ed. 1833, vol. viii. pp. 254, 312, 347, 348.) Marriage, though one of the sacraments, appears here as a suppliant on its knees before the direction, seems to ask pardon, and suffer penance.
[[2]] For the insulated state of a father of a family in Catholic countries, see M. BOUVET'S Du Catholicisme, p. 175. (ed. 1840). An English gentleman, whose wife goes to Confession, said to me one day, "I am a lodger in my own house—I come to my meals."—ED.
[[3]] The name is rare in our days, but the thing is common; he who confesses for a length of time becomes director. Several persons have, at the same time, a confessor, an extraordinary confessor, and a director.
CHAPTER IV.
HABIT.—ITS POWER.—ITS INSENSIBLE BEGINNING.—ITS PROGRESS.—SECOND NATURE.—OFTEN FATAL.—A MAN MAKING THE MOST OF THE POWER OF HABIT.—CAN WE GET CLEAR OF IT?
If spiritual dominion be really of the spirit, if the empire over thought be obtained by thought itself, by a superiority of character and mind, we must give way; we have only to be resigned. Our family may protest, but it will be in vain.