Morning journal and courier., 1883-01-22

nan, it is easy to understand how every mar
 belonging to the Roman Catholic priesthood
 seems cast in uniform mold, physical and
 mental; and it is almost possible to compre'
 hend that robust and critical mind, once
 that it shook of the pressure of that disci
 pl1ne, would scrutinize moral or religious
 dogmas with searching but possibly some
 what partial, severity. M. Renan's descrip-
 tion of his early training enables one to un- derstand the process by which great and powerful intellects, in which the critical pre- dominated over the emotional element, have gradually seeded from faith to doubt, and l in some cases from doubt to infdelity. For M. Renans happiness, it fortunately hap pened that his conviction became settled be- | fore he had taken the irretrievable step of
 receiving orders. At twenty three, a mine
 of erudition and scholarship, but utterly un- | versed in the world and it's ways he left the 1 Seminary of St. Sulpice, and was glad to ac- cept position as repetiteur, or assistant mas ter, at a school in the Quarter Latin. He | received no wages, but was fed and lodged. 'I had small room to myself Che writes) I ] had my meals with the pupils, and was occu- pied hardly more than two hours day, which gave me plenty of time for my own l studies. I was quite happy" As to the state of his mind at the time, he describes it I in terms too touching and forcible not to be quoted:
 stWith my faculty of deriving my happi- ness from myself and my consequent love of ! solitude, the little school in the Rue des Deux Eglises would have been a paradise but for l the terrible crisis my conscience had then to go through and the complete change had l to effect in the very foundations of my life. The fish in Lake Baikal, we are told, took several thousand years to be transformed from salt into fresh water fish. I was com pelled to effect my transformation in a few weeks. Catholicism, like magic circle, em braces the whole of ones life with so much force that to one deprived of 1t everything seems sad and insipid. I felt terribly for lorn. The universe appeared to me cold and arid desert. Since Christianity was not truth, all appeared to me indifferent, frivo- lous and barely worthy of notice My sadness was increased by the grief had been compelled to cause my mother. To ar range matters so as to give her as little pain as possible I had recourse to some artifce, and was perhaps wrong in doing so. Ses Lettres nae GeclairGie1t Le cCsuT. She imagined my position more doleful one than 1t really was, and as in spite of our poverty she had spoiled me, and thus made me very delicate, she thought should never be able to rough it. She used to write, sWhat are you ever to do, you who cannot sleep if you hear poor little mouse in the room p"
 Poverty, however, thanks to his ecclesias- tical training, had no terrors for M. Renan, and the only foe he dreaded was spiritual distress How he gradually made himself happy, what friendships he made, and how he modestly boasts that he has realized what the great majority of mankind have pursued in vain-true happiness-must be read in h1s own pages. It is to be noted that he is not Democrat nor Republican, and that he pro- fesses he would be only too glad, ''si Pocca- sion sen presentait, Ge dois dire qu'elle s'eloigne de jour en jour), servir pour le plus grand bien de Ia pauvre humanite, Pheure quill est si desemparee, un tyran phi lanthrepe, instruit, intelligent, ct iberal.'' The moral teaching imparted to him by his pious tutor inculcated the practice of four virtues namely, disinterestedness or poverty, modesty, politeness and pure mor- als. Of all these, poverty, or rather 1ndlf- ference to worldly wealth, is that which M. Renan claims to have most faithfully prac- ticed. My dream,'' he says, "would be to be lodged, fed, clothed and warmed, without having to bestow 8 thought about it, by somebody who would take me by contract and leave me free to do what l pleased.S The modest competence he now enjoys he acquired only late in life, and, as he says, al- most in spite of himself, and he still clings to the principle hGbena1ts naG7aeRtea cs0itG tenn to such an extent that he has never been able to make up his mind to buy land. As to securities, he adds with possibly not un- conscious irony, they are ''ch0ses plus 1eqereS, plus etderees, plus .taagizes,' '' more liable to loss, and, therefore less objectionable to M. Renan's phiIosophic instincts. He graphical ly describes his surprise when one day he re- ceived the visit of Michel Levy, the publish CT, who offered him handsome sum for the privilege of publishing his works, and re- vealed to him the unsuspected fact that the pen might be an instrument of fortune as well as fame. He claims and justly, never to have courted an unwholesome popularity, and therefore asserts that he has been true to the lesson of modesty taught him in the days of his youth. He laments that perhaps he is has always been, too polite. He has never elbowed himself to the front In om- nibuses he has been constantly ''sat upon'' that the conductors have ceased to regard him as u11 U0;yGgeotr Se11eeGC, and his extreme politeness always secures him the very worst seat in railway carriage. That sturdy self reliance which nature has implanted in the breasts of Anglo-Saxons and which their training is calculated to develop, is evidently not the idea of French clerical education.
 AS to morality, M. Renan states that in the heart of Paris he led the life which he led at the seminary. A Freethinker, he contends, must have well ordered morals and he adds q know Protestant parsons who entertain very broad views, and whose immaculate waite ties gain them absolution for extreme opinions. In the same way, obtained cur rency for what human mediocrity regards as very bold ideas by means of regular morals and @ temperate style." In short, M. Renan is we'll pleased with the world and with him. self, and there are not many men having reached their fifty-ninth year who could pen the following sentence: "Everything being duly weighed, if had to begin my life over again, with the power of making changes in it, I would not avail myself of it." His greatest defect seems to be, according to his own confession, certain want of frankness in the business of life which his friends, as- cribing it to his clerical education, view with indulgence. He also admits that in early life ':je nle9atGis GSSes s0u0e7et," not from any base or interested motive, but from kindly feeling and the ''false idea which always makes me inclined to present things in the most pleasing aspect ;'' but he ayers that since 1851 he has not told single falsehood, except, of course, those social white lies
 sque toaLs les casetistes 2'e1naettent." The con- clusion of the book is M. Renan's profession of faith. Af.er stating that his life has been so singularly happy that he is sometimes tempted to believe in predestination, he then proceeds
 'Iy philosophy, according to which the world in it's aggregate is full of a divine bresth, does not admit the existence of indi- vidual will in the government of the uni verse; Individual providence, as it was for merly understood, has never been proved by 8 well established fact. But for that I would certainly bow with gratitude before con course of circumstances in which mind less swayed by general reasoning than my own would see traces of the special protection of beneficent pods My own concIu- sion is merely that the unconscious effort to ward the good and the true that exists in the universe throws cast of the dice through each of us. Everything happens, prizes in the lottery like the rest. We may upset the providential design of which we are the ob- ject, but can hardly effect anything toward it's success. Qtad hGbes qetOd non dccepist. Of all Christian dogmas the truest is the dogma of grace. My experience of life has been singularly gentle, and I do not think that there have been in the measure of con- sciousness which our planet admits of many beings happier than I. My peace of mind is perfect I have never suffered much, and, were I so disposed, might feel justified in believing that nature has provided pads to preserve me from over rough shocks Once, on the occasion of my sisters death, nature literally chloroformed me, and thus prevented my witnessing a sight which might have deeply wounded my senses and impaired the ulterior serenity of my mind. Thus, without knowing exactly whom have to thank, I feel deeply thank full. have so thoroughly enjoyed this life that really have no right to claim com pensation on the other side of the grave. It