This was spoken in such a melancholy tone, that I really began to pity the man; not so, however, my companion. “Flatter not yourselves,” said he to the monk, “with having saved the truth; had she not found other defenders, in your feeble hands she must have perished. By admitting into the Church the name of her enemy, you have admitted the enemy himself. Names are inseparable from things. If the term sufficient grace be once established, it will be vain for you to protest that you understand by it a grace which is _not_ sufficient. Your protest will be held inadmissible. Your explanation would be scouted as odious in the world, where men speak more ingenuously about matters of infinitely less moment. The Jesuits will gain a triumph—it will be their grace, which is sufficient, in fact, and not yours, which is only so in name, that will pass as established; and the converse of your creed will become an article of faith.” “We will all suffer martyrdom first,” cried the father, “rather than consent to the establishment of _sufficient grace in the sense of the Jesuits_. St. Thomas, whom we have sworn to follow even to the death, is diametrically opposed to such doctrine.”[101] To this my friend, who took up the matter more seriously than I did, replied: “Come now, father, your fraternity has received an honor which it sadly abuses. It abandons that grace which was confided to its care, and which has never been abandoned since the creation of the world. That victorious grace, which was waited for by the patriarchs, predicted by the prophets, introduced by Jesus Christ, preached by St. Paul, explained by St. Augustine, the greatest of the fathers, embraced by his followers, confirmed by St. Bernard, the last of the fathers,[102] supported by St. Thomas, the angel of the schools,[103] transmitted by him to your order, maintained by so many of your fathers, and so nobly defended by your monks under popes Clement and Paul—that efficacious grace, which had been committed as a sacred deposit into your hands, that it might find, in a sacred and everlasting order, a succession of preachers, who might proclaim it to the end of time—is discarded and deserted for interests the most contemptible. It is high time for other hands to arm in its quarrel. It is time for God to raise up intrepid disciples of the Doctor of grace,[104] who, strangers to the entanglements of the world, will serve God for God’s sake. Grace may not, indeed, number the Dominicans among her champions, but champions she shall never want; for, by her own almighty energy, she creates them for herself. She demands hearts pure and disengaged; nay, she herself purifies and disengages them from worldly interests, incompatible with the truths of the Gospel. Reflect seriously on this, father; and take care that God does not remove this candlestick from its place, leaving you in darkness, and without the crown, as a punishment for the coldness