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taken collectively, would have refused to sanction this crime.

It is then to public conscience, enlightened by the Gospel and by the laws of nature, that we must appeal. Upon it depends the prosperity of the human race, and the forthcoming age will see arise from it the civilisation of India, and of Africa, the deliverance of the East, the abolition of castes, the marriage of priests, the emancipation of nations, and the liberty of the universe.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

RECAPITULATION.

"Maintenant leur sort est dans vos mains; dites un mot ils vivront; dites un mot et ils mourront."

SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL.

I HAVE arrived at the termination of my work, and this moment, so much wished for, appears to me, in proportion as it approaches, clouded by fears and doubts, which are but too well justified by my insufficiency. I feel that error must have introduced itself among these ephemeral pages, and this idea would be to me the worst punishment, if I could not testify to myself that in seeking for truth, I have sought it from God. Putting aside all human authorities, I have opened the great book of nature. It seemed to me that the work should express the design of the workman. Doubtless, I may have deceived myself in some interpretations of so elevated an order, but by inviting all men to the same studies, I have, if I may so say, corrected all my faults beforehand. Convinced of my own

weakness, what more could I do? I appeal from my book to the book of nature; from these feeble pages, to the bar of time and humanity.

Two things have strongly pre-occupied me while writing this book.

1. The necessity of giving to moral truths, a mathematical origin, an immutable basis.

2. The discovery of the universal agent which should possess itself of these truths, and impress their image upon us.

But there is no universal power here below, except that of women. Nature has given to them the superintendence of our childhood, and the control of our youth. As children we owe them our thoughts; as young men we lavish our sentiments upon them; and they preserve at a later period as wives, that influence which they had acquired as mothers and as mistresses. Thus the entire circle of our life rolls on beneath their influence. The mission of weakness is to regulate strength; the mission of love is to make us delight in virtue.

This truth has been so often repeated, that it has become common; and yet who thinks of making anything of it; who dreams of pouring into the soul of mothers who are all powerful, the principles which may regenerate their children?

These principles do not lead to fortune, but to happiness; they all address themselves to the soul.

It is then by the study of the faculties of the soul that our education should begin.

Until the present day, these faculties have been confounded with those of the intelligence, which are purely terrestrial; and this confusion has been the most powerful weapon of the materialists; we have now broken it in their hands; separating the grain from the chaff, the intellectual

essence from the intelligent matter; we have drawn the line which separates annihilation from immortality.

What surprise and joy have we not experienced! In proportion as we advanced in this labour, the most sublime truths have presented themselves to us, naturally and simply; and the separation having been effected, it was ascertained that the faculties of the intelligence all tended towards the earth, and that the soul, like a sun, radiated entirely towards God.

Thus each man carries within himself, not the demonstration of the existence of God, but something more powerful and more irresistible, five faculties which disclose him.

It is to the development of these five faculties of the soul, that the education of the mother should tend; the rest belongs to ordinary education, and lies in the domain of the intelligence.

The soul raises us to God; and God, as Raymond Lebon has so well said, is all that can be conceived of great, he who can do everything by himself. On this first truth all the others depend. God is, and it is because He is, that we are; the proofs of his existence are not only external to us, but also within us. He has made his thoughts evident by giving them a body, and by giving us a soul.

We have tried to decypher some lines of the great book which He has placed beneath the eyes of the human race, and we have seen all our errors disappear before this divine revelation. By its means Plato purifies himself; and the Gospel itself, stripped of all the veils with which the middle ages obscured its light, has again become the most harmonious expression of the laws of nature.

The two books correspond to each other in this truth, so simple, and yet so vast—" The unity of God"—and in this sentiment so sublime and so natural-"The love of God and of man."

Unity of God, that is to say, one only God, the Father of all men; and consequently brethren upon the whole

earth.

The equality of rights, the liberty of all, the abolition of castes, of slavery, of war, of the penalty of death, emanate from the confraternity of the human race.

The love of God and of man. Here religion assumes a moral character by uniting God to man, like the father to the child; and morality assumes a religious character by uniting man to God, like the child to the father.

In proportion as the soul becomes impressed with these divine sentiments, national hatreds become extinguished, prejudices disappear, civilisation extends itself; the universal people is constituted, and the reign of God advances from the west to the east.

The reign of God is the unity of the human race; it is the happiness of humanity in virtue.

The universe will arrive at it by the study of the laws of nature, and by their comparison with human laws. These pious studies would give to our children the continual presence of God; a sublime control, which would lead them to the discovery of physical and moral truths, since truth is but the evidence which nature gives of its author.

And in order to accomplish this prodigious revolution, to change the destinies of the world, to re-unite families, to link nations closer together, to renew all legislations, what is required? an entire generation must arise with the intelligence of these truths; a great people must receive them in its cradle.

Oh, women! could you but have a glimpse of some of the wonders promised to maternal influence; with what a noble pride would you enter upon this career, which nature has generously opened to you during so many ages! That

which is not in the power of any monarch, of any nation; it is sufficient that you should will it in order to execute it. You only upon earth dispose of the generation which is just born, and you alone can re-unite its scattered members, and impart to them the same impulse. That which I could only write upon this insensible paper, you can engrave on the heart of a whole people. Ah! when I see in our promenades and public gardens, this boisterous. crowd of little children who are playing around, my heart beats with joy from thinking that they still belong to you. Let each of you labour only for the happiness of your child; in each individual happiness, God has placed the promise of the general happiness. Young girls, young wives, young mothers, you hold the sceptre; in your souls much more than in the laws of legislators, now repose the futurity of Europe, and the destinies of the human race.

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