"I see future and eternal life before me as a certainty," she said; "it is like a light, and, thanks to its brilliancy, other things cannot be seen; but the light is there, and that is all I need." Her belief was, then, in the existence of God, the goodness of Providence and the immortality of the soul. George Sand was an adept in natural religion. She did not accept the idea of any revealed religion, and there was one of these revealed religions that she execrated. This was the Catholic religion. Her correspondence on this subject during the period of the Second Empire is most significant. She was a personal enemy of the Church, and spoke of the Jesuits as a subscriber to the _Siecle_ might do to-day. She feared the dagger of the Jesuits for Napoleon III, but at the same time she hoped there might be a frustrated attempt at murder, so that his eyes might be opened. The great danger of modern times, according to her, was the development of the clerical spirit. She was not an advocate for liberty of education either. "The priestly spirit has been encouraged," she wrote.(53) "France is overrun with convents, and wretched friars have been allowed to take possession of education." She considered that wherever the Church was mistress, it left its marks, which were unmistakable: stupidity and brutishness. She gave Brittany as an example. (53) _Correspondance:_ To Barbes, May 12, 1867. "There is nothing left," she writes, "when the priest and Catholic vandalism have passed by, destroying the monuments of the old world and leaving their lice for the future."(54) (54) _Ibid.:_ To Flaubert, September 21, 1860. It is no use attempting to ignore the fact. This is anti-clericalism in all its violence. Is it not curious that this passion, when once it takes possession of even the most distinguished minds, causes them to lose all sentiment of measure, of propriety and of dignity.