When I reminded him that if we had this superfluity we might give alms out of it, as it is written, _Of what remaineth give to the poor_, he replied, that we knew well enough what: we ought to do; but that we did not know what we should do, and that it was always a species of presumption to imagine ourselves able to handle live coals without burning ourselves, seeing that even the Angel in the vision of the Prophet took them up with tongs! [Footnote 1: 1 Tim. vi. 6.] [Footnote 2: Job. xvii. 13.] [Footnote 3: Ps. cxxxviii. 11.] [Footnote 4: Ps. ci. 8.] [Footnote 5: Georges Roland.] [Footnote 6: Matt. v. 37.] [Footnote 7: Tim. vi. 8.] UPON THE SAME SUBJECT. Our Blessed Father was so absolutely indifferent to the goods of this world that I never heard him so much as once complain of the loss of almost all his episcopal revenue, confiscated by the city of Geneva. He used to say that it was very much with the wealth of the Church as with a man's beard, the more closely it was clipped the stronger and the thicker it grew again. When the Apostles had nothing they possessed all things, and when ecclesiastics wish to possess too much, that too much is reduced to nothing. His one hunger and thirst was for the conversion of souls, living in wilful blindness to the light of truth which shines only in the one true Church. Sometimes, he exclaimed, sighing heavily: "Give me souls, and the rest take to Thyself." Speaking of Geneva, to which city, in spite of its rebellion, he always applied terms of compassion and affection, such as "my dear Geneva," or "my poor Geneva," he said to me more than once: "Would to God that these gentlemen had taken such small remains of my revenue as they have left to me, and that we had only as small a foothold in that deplorable city as the Catholics have in La Rochelle, namely, a little chapel in which to say Mass and perform the functions of our religion! You would then soon see all these apostates come back to their senses, and we should rejoice over the return to the Church of these poor Sunamites, who are so forgetful of their duty."[1] This fond hope he always nourished in his breast. He used to say that Henry VIII. of England, who at the beginning of his reign was so zealous for the Catholic faith, and wrote so splendidly against the errors of Luther, that he acquired for that reason the glorious title of Defender of the Faith, having, by yielding to his passion, caused so great a schism in his kingdom, even had he desired at the close of his life to return to the bosom of the Church which he had so miserably abandoned, would, on setting to work to attain this most happy end, have found the impossibility of recovering for the clergy and restoring to them the property and wealth which he had divided among his nobles, a serious difficulty.