Edmond looked at him searchingly. "Often, however," pursued the old man composedly, "it is only the Immortal Spirit, that collects all its present and future energies, that it may step beyond the ordinary limits of nature, and that it merely takes with it the images of folly, and the almost innocent mask, in order to announce even in the supernatural, that which is absurd and contrary to nature." "If you are right." said Edmond, "what do you counsel those, who are thus gifted? This state must be a most critical one; but how disembarrass yourself of it?" "By simplicity of conduct," replied the old man, "by estrangement from all passion and pride, and by pure prayer for the deliverance from this error, and from the deluding gift." "That signifies," answered Edmond passionately and bitterly, "I ought to entreat the Lord to withdraw from me, I ought to pray to him to remain far away from me; in order to become godly, I must commence with consummate impiety. Is it thus that a priest of the Lord can exhort and counsel? but thus they are, thus they speak, these persecutors. And if they be but consistent, they must also entirely deny the miracles of their church, nay, even censure sacred Scripture as a lie." "You have not indeed completely understood me, young man," answered the priest. "May not the ardour of love kindle so intensely, that the matter, the obscurity, the nothingness in us, may become temporally annihilated, and our speech, with the Lord's permission working in his strength may issue forth? That this may be possible, the example of the apostles teaches us, the prophets bear witness; that many great saints whom the world venerated, may have thus spoken and worked, is certainly credible.--And thus belief may move and elevate, it may be a positive crime to mock reservation,--but what can this avail true religion, or its mysteries? How weak would it be, if these supports, as I have already said, were indispensable to it! The miracle of all miracles, my young friend, is the great moment which is revealed to all sinning, hapless mortals in their limited life, when the lord himself advances to meet the penitent, the indifferent, and creates his heart anew. This metamorphosis is more wonderful incomprehensible, and more mysterious than all the overthrows of the laws of nature, which attract the eye searching for miracles, for here out of nothing something is brought forth, out of death, suddenly like a flash of lightning, life is created."