He continued: "Of course if one thought of death as annihilation in the dark, if one thought that nothing, nothing would survive of this substance, that one was--Ah! How dream of that without terror! I can understand shutting one's eyes to it then. And, on the other hand, it seems to me that to live without thinking of death, and without thinking of it often, is to blind oneself, to renounce all broad and free judgment. How well religion provides for all that! What courage it gives to the dying, as well as to the living! And is not all wisdom resumed in this: to give courage to man?--I was talking to you of my fiancée yesterday; she believes. Otherwise would she have continued to be engaged to me when she knew I was ill, and would she have let me go, expecting that I should not come back?" He smiled. "I don't want to preach to you, Dreher, but as you once were one of us, let me remind you that the God in whom we hope is just. Because our people's hope, throughout the ages, has been in Him; because our nation has been the elder daughter of His Church, I believe that His hand is upon us. Will He allow us to succumb? No. Listen! This miracle I was talking about--at heart you expect it just as I do--if I have entire confidence in it, it is because I believe in the existence of an order superior to man; in a Providence, if you will, that will not allow the accomplishment of such iniquity. Our country will be saved because she will deserve to go on living. How good it is to fight, when one does not feel that one is fighting amidst the cold concatenation of phenomena, but in the conviction that a supreme tutelary force upholds and directs our efforts." I considered him as he sat there with his chin in his hands and black lines under his eyes. So he had been through the deep waters at the beginning, when he had had to tear himself away from the hope of human happiness. Now he was resigned to it. He was not lying when he said that he looked forward to his certain end, which was so near at hand, without horror. His glorious smile retained confidence in the future beyond the grave. It was only a relative end, a transition whose anguish was attenuated since he was sure of living again with those whom he loved. Oh, the consolation in religion! This association of well-worn words recovered its full meaning in my eyes. Nothing but faith could raise man to such abnegation. The profound and primitive instinct, an instinct comparable to love in its folly and grandeur!