Whoever indicated with greater distinctness the keystone in the edifice of Christianity, or ever clung to it more closely? M. Vinet occupied himself in turn with freedom of conscience and of man's thought, with the faith of Christ, and with the literature of France. These three subjects became the passions of his life, stirring his soul, though at unequal depths. But of these three only one, the passion for literature, was a source to him of tranquil and unmitigated enjoyment. In his advocacy of man's liberty and of Christianity, M. Vinet had to pass not only through the ordeal of intellectual labors and combats, but through the solicitudes and sorrows of life. The defender of the liberty of forms of worship, crowned as such by the "Societé Français de la Morale Chrétienne," lived to see this liberty attacked in his native Switzerland, at once by popular fury and by civil authority. The fervent promoter of the Christian reaction, beheld one hundred and sixty evangelical pastors of the Canton of the Vaud, his companions in this pious work, forced to quit their "Chairs" in order to preserve their faith. {181} And it was in sickness, and at the approach of death, that M. Vinet had to undergo all this. Neither his faith nor the tranquillity of his soul was disturbed. He continued, to his last hour, to be the active champion of liberty, the faithful servant of Christ, the eloquent admirer and commentator upon French literature, which he followed in all its phases, whether calm or stormy, whether pure or defiled. "After all," so he wrote in 1845, "I am not one of those who despair; God, without any violence to our freedom of action, rather by that freedom itself, conducts us to the unknown shores. The ports at which we land do not all of them afford secure mooring; we know something of that even in this little country. Our progress will be slow, and amid storms; but the circle of universal truth will be completed, and man's sense of moral right and wrong will be improved, at the same time that man's science will be enriched. {182} I should feel horror if I thought that _Some One_ is not at the center of all this movement, holding all its elements in his hand; _Some One_ to whom, whether they know him or do not know him, the aspirations of all creatures ascend in their sorrow, and whom they instinctively salute with the sweet reassuring name of 'Father.'" [Footnote 27] [Footnote 27: Notice sur M. Alexandra Vinet, par M. E. Souvestre, published in the Magazin Pittoresque de 1848, p. 81. The principal works of M. Alexandre Vinet are: 1. Traité et Polémique sur la liberté des cultes. 1826, 1852. 2. Discours sur quelques sujets religieux. 1831, 1853. 3. Essais de philosophic et de morale religieuse. 1837. 4. Essai sur la manifestation des convictions religieuses, et sur la séparation de l'Église et de État. 1842, 1858. 5. Études et méditations évangéliques. 1847, 1849, 1851.