United States or North Macedonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sulpice has a knowledge at first hand of what Christianity is; the Polytechnic School has not. But I repeat, there could be no two opinions as to the uprightness of M. Gratry, who was a very taking and highminded man. I was sorry to part company with him; but there was no help for it. I had left the first seminary in the world for one in every respect inferior to it.
He had written to Abbé Gratry, at that time director of the Collège Stanislas, and the latter offered me a place as usher in the upper division. M. Dupanloup advised me to accept it, remarking: "You may rest assured that M. Gratry is a priest of the highest distinction." I accepted, and was very kindly treated by every one, but I did not retain the place more than a fortnight.
I found that my new situation involved my making the outward profession of clericalism, the avoidance of which was my reason for leaving the seminary. Thus my relations with M. Gratry were but fleeting. He was a kindhearted man, and a rather clever writer, but there was nothing in him. His indecision of mind did not suit me at all, M. Carbon and M. Dupanloup had told him why I had left St.
And, in fact, Des Esseintes discovered that all the ecclesiastics wrote in the same manner, with a little more or a little less abandon or emphasis, and there was seldom any variations between the bodiless patterns traded by Dupanloup or Landriot, La Bouillerie or Gaume, by Dom Gueranger or Ratisbonne, by Freppel or Perraud, by Ravignan or Gratry, by Olivain or Dosithee, by Didon or Chocarne.
But the most remarkable incident in this period of my life were beyond all doubt my relations with M. Gratry, the director of the college. I shall have much to tell you about him, and I am delighted at having made his acquaintance. He is the very miniature of M. Bautain, of whom he is the pupil and friend.
While Cauchy and Père Gratry were walking in the gardens of the Luxumbourg, their conversation turned upon the happiness which those in heaven would have in knowing at last, without any obscurity or limitation, the truths which they had so long and so laboriously sought to investigate on earth.
Sulpice than from the teachings of M. Lacordaire or M. Gratry, and a fortiori, from that of M. Dupanloup, in which all its doctrines are toned down, contorted, and blunted; in which Christianity is never represented as it was conceived by the Council of Trent or the Vatican Council, but as a thing without frame or bone, and with all its essence taken from it.
In allusion to the study which Cauchy had made of the mechanistic theory of the reflection of light, Père Gratry threw out the suggestion that one on the greatest intellectual joys of the great geometrician in the future life would be to penetrate into the secret of light.
In all that did not relate to the appreciation of my condition, he was as kind as any one possibly could be. The priests of St. Sulpice and M. Gratry were not nearly so emphatic in their views and held that I must still regard myself as tempted.... I obeyed M. Dupanloup, and I shall always do so henceforth.
Word Of The Day