And ceasing to gaze at the Bishop, the conventionary concluded his thoughts in these tranquil words:—
“Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this fact is recognized,—that the human race has been treated harshly, but that it has progressed.”
The conventionary doubted not that he had successively conquered all the inmost intrenchments of the Bishop. One remained, however, and from this intrenchment, the last resource of Monseigneur Bienvenu’s resistance, came forth this reply, wherein appeared nearly all the harshness of the beginning:—
“Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor. He who is an atheist is but a bad leader for the human race.”
The former representative of the people made no reply. He was seized with a fit of trembling. He looked towards heaven, and in his glance a tear gathered slowly. When the eyelid was full, the tear trickled down his livid cheek, and he said, almost in a stammer, quite low, and to himself, while his eyes were plunged in the depths:—
“O thou! O ideal! Thou alone existest!”
The Bishop experienced an indescribable shock.
After a pause, the old man raised a finger heavenward and said:—
“The infinite is. He is there. If the infinite had no person, person would be without limit; it would not be infinite; in other words, it would not exist. There is, then, an I. That I of the infinite is God.”
The dying man had pronounced these last words in a loud voice, and with the shiver of ecstasy, as though he beheld some one. When he had spoken, his eyes closed. The effort had exhausted him. It was evident that he had just lived through in a moment the few hours which had been left to him. That which he had said brought him nearer to him who is in death. The supreme moment was approaching.