"Nay, I do not dispute that religion is necessary for the vulgar," said Adelaide.
"And are the vulgar to have the highest portion? Christianity is the exaltation of the soul—paganism, the worship of the body. In that case, I would rather cast in my lot with the vulgar."
"If it were but true," said Adelaide.
"Become poor, lofty lady, and you will feel its truth. Perchance luxury is a kind of anodyne to a human being, so that he does not feel his soul when under its influence. Become poor; toil, day after day, for a scanty pittance, and you will find yourself asking if man is only a laboring animal. Become poor, and the soul will speak to you of power and aspiration, and ask why is this sense of loftiness unused. It will ask you why every faculty has its legitimate sphere in which to act, and the soul alone remain without a sphere. Perhaps we need something of this experience before we can feel the stirrings of the divinity within us—before we are prepared to comprehend the truths of religion. Certain it is that the gospel was sent peculiarly to the poor, and that the refined trifles which occupy the minds of the rich, prevent their attending to the inward voice of the spirit."
"Why, Eugene! you are qualified be a Methodist preacher. This is mere rant and cant. Religion takes no such exalted standing in the minds of the vulgar. The Methodist has some pet theory to save his soul, without troubling himself about good works at all; and the Catholic tells his beads and sets up his images in the very style of paganism. They say that at Rome the adoration of the Virgin Mary has taken the place of the worship of the goddess Venus—where is the gain there?"
"The patroness of purity in exchange for the goddess of lasciviousness! Nay, surely, sister, that exchange must be a blessed one. What I have been trying to express all along is, that all that makes us do homage to the animal nature—all that worships the merely physical—is paganism; while all that represses carnality, promotes purity, and leads us out of ourselves to unite us to God, is Christ's. The union of the saints in Christ is not idolatry; it is but an additional means of glorifying God by showing forth, in united prayer, the triumph of Christianity over death itself."
"Do hold your tongue, Eugene. Let us have no more of this. Sometimes you are a Catholic, sometimes a Methodist; but in either character you will be disowned as my father's son. The idea of your disgracing a line of philosophers by such stale trumpery!"
Eugene laughed; and as he saw no other way of closing the debate he quitted the room, which Madame de Meglior was just then entering. But the duchess, seriously annoyed, turned sharply round upon Euphrasie.
"I suppose," said she, "you have been putting these foolish notions into the boy's head. Beware, if you make a Catholic of him you will destroy the peace of a whole family; but that, I suppose, is a secondary consideration to making a convert."
"Indeed, your grace—" replied Euphrasie.