“What I desire, my good woman,” said Mathéus, gravely—“what I desire you cannot give me. He alone who sees and governs us from the high heavens, He whose immutable will is the law of the universe, can alone accord to me, in this supreme moment, the inspiration which I ask of Him. I tell you truly—truly, great events are preparing. Let those who feel themselves guilty, either through weakness or ignorance, humiliate themselves!—let them see their faults, and they shall be forgiven them! But let sophists, people full of pride, profane and incapable of noble and generous feelings, and, I say, even of any sort of justice—let sophists and sensualists, who, plunging deeper and deeper in materialism, go so far even as to deny the immortal soul, the principle of human morality and of human society—let them tremble: there is for ever a deep gulf between us!” Mother Jacob, who reproached herself for not having joined the procession for the last three years, thought that Maître Frantz was reading her heart. “Good gracious!” she cried in alarm, “I see my faults; I know well I ought to have gone in the procession, but our house can’t be left to itself. I’m obliged to see to it myself, and particularly to look after the kitchen.” “The kitchen!” cried Mathéus. “Is it for the kitchen you neglect the great question of the transformation of bodies and the peregrination of souls? Oh! my good woman, you are much to be pitied! Why do you amass vain riches at the price of your immortal soul? For your children?—you have none. For yourself, then?—Alas! life endures but an instant, and you can scarcely enjoy it. For your heirs?—Is there any need for developing in them a love of the worthless goods of the earth, from which spring cupidity, avarice, and covetousness, which too often draw us to wish for the death of those nearest to us?” “This man knows everything,” thought Mother Jacob. “He knows that I have no children; he knows that my rascal of a nephew, who has left the Carabineers, only waits till I am dead to inherit all that I possess; and he knows that for three years I have not attended the procession. He’s a prophet!”