I say that in order to make religion lovely in the eyes of the people, you should exhibit it under its most attractive aspect. Point out the good which it does on all sides, to orphans, to children and their parents, to the forsaken, to the people themselves, their wives, their daughters, and their fathers. Appeal to their good sense and to their heart. Ask: "Is it not true? I refer the decision to your own judgment." Say to the people, but with overflowing affection:--"My dear friends, do what you will, you will never find a better resource than religion; religion will always be your best stay. ... When you have spent your all, when the world will have nothing more to do with you, when your bodies shall be worn out by old age and sickness, when from dread of you men will flee from you as from a contagion, you will still find by your bedside a priest or a sister of charity to care for you and to bless you." [Footnote 11] [Footnote 11: _Le Manuel de Charité_.] But in order to make religion beloved, you must secure some love for the priest also; for the people confound our cause with that of God. In their estimation, religion is what the priest is; and if they do not love the one, they will hardly entertain any love for the other. {75} The priest, then, should appear to them surrounded with a halo of charity. He must make himself known; he will always gain by being known. He has been depicted in such dark colors that a true view of him will effectually remove many prejudices, and give occasion to the oft-recurring remark:--"Would that all priests were like this one." But if the people no longer come to us, we must go to them. We don't mind going after the heathen of America and Asia; we cross the seas to get at them; whereas there are in our midst--in our workshops, our cottages, and throughout the country--tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of practical pagans. We know this well, we confess it, we deplore it, and yet we hesitate to cross the distance which separates us from them! Poor French souls! Can it, indeed, be that you are not of so much value as the souls of Chinese? To come to us the people must know the value, the necessity of religion. But do they entertain any such idea? Surrounded as they have been with so many passions and prejudices, is it surprising that they are now insensible and mistrustful? Should we be better than they if we had breathed the same pestiferous atmosphere? If they are weak in the faith, it is our duty to pity them, according to the apostolic injunction:--"We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves." {76}