"
"Good heavens! Have you too become a freethinker? Shoemaker, stick
to your last! If you are a priest, then be a priest, but don't try
to make a botch of my work. And don't think you need to flatter me
for an increase of wages. But let us return to Frederick:"
"'History rolls on like an avalanche; the race improves, the
conditions of life become easier, but men are still the same
--faithless, unthankful, criminal; and he just as well as the unjust
go to hell. I do not dare to put down on paper the conclusions to be
drawn from this observation, for that would be to acquit Lazarus,
and to crucify Christ.... Great men have little weaknesses or
rather great weaknesses. We, Monsieur, have been no angels, but
Providence has used us for great objects. Is it a matter of
indifference to Providence whom it takes in hand, or how we live in
the flesh, provided we keep the spirit uppermost? _Sursum corda!_'"
"What do you say to that, Abbe?"
"The Law cannot be fulfilled, says St. Paul, but the Law rouses the
sense of guilt, and therefore it is only imposed in order to drive
us to grace."
"That was not such a stupid remark of Paul's. But I should like to
add,--in the prison of the flesh grows the longing for liberation:
'Who shall deliver me, wretched man, from this body of sin?' Yes,
Abbe, _Vanitas vanitatum! Vanitas!_ You are young, but you must not
despise the old man when he turns round and spits behind him all the
unpleasantness of his past life.
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