"unless he were first of all a philosopher. The subject chosen for the first year was accordingly a kind of Catholic philosophy of history, depicting the broad outlines of the struggle between truth and error. This idea is analogous to that which inspired the _City of God_ of St. Augustine; it was carried on in the station of 1838 by an explanation of fundamental doctrines, beginning with the personality and action of God, in opposition to the abstractions of the pantheists, the ill-defined forms of deism and fatalism; proceeding on to liberty, the immortality of the soul and the end of man, against materialism. For all this, it was necessary to go to first principles, to recall slumbering belief to life, and again to establish doctrines which had been corrupted by numberless errors. Some portion of the hearers were from this time forward led to embrace the last practical conclusions, and already F. de Ravignan had some consoling returns to the faith to report. At the end of the station of 1838, he wrote: "'The attendance has been large and remarkable for the great number of distinguished persons, members of the present and former ministries, peers, deputies, academicians, well known Protestants, foreigners of rank, and a troop of young men. "'There have been symptoms of approval, sometimes too freely manifested; conversions, a few, but not many. Moreover, no expressions of hostility, either in the newspapers or among the audience. God be praised! "'I have been forced to have some intercourse with a great many people, and some of them persons of note. M. de Chateaubriand paid me a visit; two interviews were arranged for me with M. de Lamartine; several physicians and men of science have sought to see me; some have been to confession. How many great men there are ignorant of the faith, and sick in mind and heart. "'God has supported me. I have felt his grace, his help to our society, and the benefit of the prayers offered for my work. I took care that none of the journals should employ short-hand writers, that my words might not be published in a distorted form.'" From the very outset, Father de Ravignan had contemplated the establishment of an annual retreat by way of a complement to his conferences; but wishing to give his influence time to work before he carried out this plan, he waited until 1841, and then resolved to begin in the small church of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, which with great crowding holds no more than 1000 or 1200 people. {117} Should the attendance be too large for this church, it was arranged that he should remove to St. Eustache. He describes the result of his experiment as follows: