The heart, then, must be touched, moved, laid hold of. It is the heart which receives or rejects the truth; which says to it: "Come, I welcome you;" or, "Begone, you annoy me;" and it is love alone that can reach the heart and change it. An Arab proverb runs thus:--"The neck is bent by the sword; but heart is only bent by heart." If you love, you yourself will be loved; the truth from you will be loved; even self-sacrifice will be an act of love. ... What we most want nowadays is not additional knowledge, for nearly all of us know full well what we ought to do. What we really want is the courage to act, the energy to do what is right. {29} Truth has sadly diminished amongst us, and its characteristics also. What we need, then, is a style of preaching which enlightens and sustains, which threatens and encourages, which humbles and exalts, and which throughout speaks to individuals, saying, "I love thee." It is not by essays of reasoning, any more than by the sword, that the moral world is to be swayed. A little knowledge, much sound sense, and much more heart--that is what is requisite to raise the great mass, the people, and to cleanse and purify them. To be able to reason is human, very human, and one who is a man and nothing more may possess that ability as well as you, perhaps in a higher degree. But to love, to devote one's self, to sacrifice self, is something unearthly, divine, possessing a magic power. Self-devotion, moreover, is the only argument against which human malevolence can find no answer. ... You may employ the most splendid reasonings, clothed in the grandest phraseology, and yet the mind of man will readily find wherewith to elude them. Who knows but that French wit, by one malicious word, may not upset all at once your elaborate structure of arguments? What is required in sacred eloquence is something new, something unexpected. Ask you what it is? It is love; for loving, you will surprise, captivate: you will be irresistible. {30} For it is useless to disguise the fact that in France nowadays there is scarcely any belief in disinterestedness. Even the people are beginning to think that no one acts without a motive of self-interest; and their thought is aptly expressed in the frank and original reply of a poor devil who was brought before the correctional police for having inscribed some Legitimist sentences on a wall. The president, observing his tattered garments, and his any thing but aristocratic appearance, asked him if he was really a Legitimist. "By no means, Monsieur le President," was the answer; "I merely do as others, as you do, as all do nowadays--_I work for those who feed me_." But when the people meet with real affection, a thorough devotedness, then they are overcome at once and yield heartily.