“In good sooth,” he replied, “it requires all the support which the authority of these great names can lend it; and so does the following maxim by the same Escobar, ‘that even a wicked intention, such as that of ogling the women joined to that of hearing mass rightly, does not hinder a man from fulfilling the service.’[201] But another very convenient device, suggested by our learned brother Turrian,[202] is, that ‘one may hear the half of a mass from one priest, and the other half from another; and that it makes no difference though he should hear first the conclusion of the one, and then the commencement of the other.’ I might also mention that it has been decided by several of our doctors, to be lawful ‘to hear the two halves of a mass at the same time, from the lips of two different priests, one of whom is commencing the mass, while the other is at the elevation; it being quite possible to attend to both parties at once, and two halves of a mass making a whole—_duœ medietates unam missam constituunt_.’[203] ‘From all which,’ says Escobar, ‘I conclude, that you may hear mass in a very short period of time; if, for example, you should happen to hear four masses going on at the same time, so arranged that when the first is at the commencement, the second is at the gospel, the third at the consecration, and the last at the communion.’” “Certainly, father, according to that plan, one may hear mass any day at Notre Dame in a twinkling.” “Well,” replied he, “that just shows how admirably we have succeeded in facilitating the hearing of mass. But I am anxious now to show you how we have softened the use of the sacraments, and particularly that of penance. It is here that the benignity of our fathers shines in its truest splendor; and you will be really astonished to find that devotion, a thing which the world is so much afraid of, should have been treated by our doctors with such consummate skill, that, to use the words of Father Le Moine, in his Devotion made Easy, ‘demolishing the bugbear which the devil had placed at its threshold, they have rendered it easier than vice, and more agreeable than pleasure; so that, in fact, simply to live is incomparably more irksome than to live well.’ Is that not a marvellous change, now?” “Indeed, father, I cannot help telling you a bit of my mind: I am sadly afraid that you have overshot the mark, and that this indulgence of yours will shock more people than it will attract. The mass, for example, is a thing so grand and so holy, that, in the eyes of a great many, it would be enough to blast the credit of your doctors forever, to show them how you have spoken of it.”