He goes about among the impure with the natural simplicity of the poor among sinners, with the natural strength of the sound man among the sick, with the natural boldness of health. On the other hand, the man who has been converted is always at the back of his mind a little troubled. A single drop of bitterness, a light shadow of impurity, a fleeting suggestion of temptation is enough to drive him back into anguish. He always feels a doubt that he may not have rid himself wholly of the old Adam, that he may not have wholly destroyed but only stunned the Other, who lived in his body. He has paid so much for his salvation, and it seems to him so precious but so frail, that he is always afraid of putting it into jeopardy or of losing it. He does not shun sinners, but he approaches them with an involuntary shudder, with a scarcely confessed fear of fresh contagion, a dread lest the sight of the vileness where he also took delight will renew unbearably the recollection of his shame, will drive him to despair of his ultimate salvation. When a servant becomes a master he is never on familiar terms with his servants. When a poor man becomes rich he is not generous with the poor. A converted sinner is not always a friend of sinners. That remnant of pride which sticks fast in the hearts even of saints mingles with his compassion. Why do sinners not do what he has done? The way is open to all, even to the wickedest, the most hardened: the prize is great, why do they remain down there, plunged in black Hell? And when the converted sinner speaks to his brothers to convert them, he cannot refrain from dwelling on his own experience, his fall, his liberation. It may be only that he wishes to be helpful, rather than to vaunt himself, but in any case he is always eager to point to himself as a living and present example of the sweetness of salvation. The past can be renounced, but not destroyed. It reveals itself almost unconsciously in the very men who begin life with a second birth of repentance. In the story of Jesus no sign of a different way of life before conversion ever shows itself in any allusion or in any implicit meaning, is not recognizable in the smallest of His acts, in the most obscure of His words. His love for sinners has nothing of the feverish obstinacy of the proselytizing penitent. It is a natural love, not a dutiful love. It is brotherly love without any implications of reproach, spontaneous friendly fraternity needing to make no effort to overcome repugnance. It is the attraction towards the impure of the pure who has no fear of being soiled and knows that He can cleanse—disinterested love—love felt by the saints in the supreme moments of their holiness—love beside which all other love seems vulgar—such love as no man saw before Jesus! Love which is rarely found again, and only in memory and in imitation of His love—love which will always be called Christian, and by any other name—never! Divine love—Christ’s love! Love!