“It is of great use indeed,” he replied; “but we must be brief. Let me only give you the following specimen of our famous Molina in favor of monks who are expelled from their convents for irregularities. Escobar quotes him thus: ‘Molina asserts that a monk expelled from his monastery is not obliged to reform in order to get back again, and that he is no longer bound by his vow of obedience.’” “Well, father,” cried I, “this is all very comfortable for the clergy. Your casuists, I perceive, have been very indulgent to them, and no wonder—they were legislating, so to speak, for themselves. I am afraid people of other conditions are not so liberally treated. Every one for himself in this world.” “There you do us wrong,” returned the monk; “they could not have been kinder to themselves than we have been to them. We treat all, from the highest to the lowest, with an even-handed charity, sir. And to prove this, you tempt me to tell you our maxims for servants. In reference to this class, we have taken into consideration the difficulty they must experience, when they are men of conscience, in serving profligate masters. For if they refuse to perform all the errands in which they are employed, they lose their places; and if they yield obedience, they have their scruples. To relieve them from these, our four-and-twenty fathers have specified the services which they may render with a safe conscience; such as, ‘carrying letters and presents, opening doors and windows, helping their master to reach the window, holding the ladder which he is mounting. All this,’ say they, ‘is allowable and indifferent; it is true that, as to holding the ladder, they must be threatened, more than usually, with being punished for refusing; for it is doing an injury to the master of a house to enter it by the window.’ You perceive the judiciousness of that observation, of course?” “I expected nothing less,” said I, “from a book edited by four-and-twenty Jesuits.”