I have seen it preserve, in age, a virgin innocence which the storms of passion must else have blighted. Repentance is assuredly commendable, and I, more than most men, had need rely on its efficacy; but repeated penitence wearies the soul; it is a sentiment that can but once regenerate us. Redemption accomplished, cannot be renewed; accustomed to the attempt, we lose the strength of love; for it requires strength of mind to love God constantly. I object to the splendid forms which here act so powerfully on the fancy, because I would have imagination modest and retiring, like the heart: emotions extorted from it, are always less forcible than those that spring spontaneously. In the Cevennes, I heard a Protestant minister preach one eve among the mountains: he addressed the tombs of the Frenchmen, banished by their brothers, and promised their friends that they should meet them in a better world: a virtuous life, he said, would secure that blessing, adding, 'Do good to man, that God may heal the wounds within your breasts!' He wondered at the inflexibility with which the creature of a day dared treat his fellow-worm; and spoke of that terrible death, which all conceive, but none fully expound. In short, he said naught that was not touching, true, and perfectly in harmony with nature. The distant cataract, the sparkling starlight, seemed expressing the same thoughts in other ways. There was the magnificence of nature, the only one whose spectacles offend not the unfortunate; and this imposing simplicity affected the soul as it was never affected by the most brilliant of ceremonies." On Easter Sunday, Oswald and Corinne went to the Place of St. Peter's, to see the Pope, from the highest balcony of the church, call down Heaven's blessing on the earth: as he pronounced _Urbi et orbi_--on the city and the world--the people knelt, and our lovers felt all creeds alike. Religion links men with each other, unless self-love and fanaticism render it a cause of jealousy and hate. To pray together, in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that men can contract in this life. CHAPTER VI.