This was no sudden resolve on his part--piety had always deep root in his heart. He had never, in the most inquisitive days of his youth, applied his eager questionings and doubts to matters of faith. His father had carefully instilled principles of belief; and gave him for a maxim, that the objects of faith are not the objects of reason, much less the subject of it. This principle became deeply engraven in his heart. Logical and penetrating as his mind was, with an understanding open to conjecture with regard to natural causes, he never applied the arts of reasoning to the principles of Christianity, but was as submissive as a child to all the dicta of the church. But though the so to call it metaphysical part of religion was admitted without a doubt or a question, its moral truths met with an attention--always lively, and at last wholly absorbing; so that he spent the latter portion of his life in meditating, day and night, the law of God. This change began first to operate at the age of four-and-twenty. His zeal overflowed to, and was imbibed by, all near him. His father was not ashamed to listen to his son's exhortations, and to regulate his life hereafter by severer rules. His unmarried sister, Jaqueline--the heroine of the tale previously narrated, who possessed singular talents--listened to her brother with still greater docility and effect: an effect rather to be deplored than rejoiced in, since it caused her to renounce the cultivation of her talents, and the exercise of active duties, and to dedicate herself to the ascetic practices of Catholicism.