Life of St John Vianney.pdf - the Catholic Kingdom!

"M.""""TheCONVERSIONS. 383"The fine gentleman, who perfectly understood thegesture, hastened to explain :le Cure, I am not come for confession ; I wantto reason with you.Oh, my friend, you have made a great mistake ;I am no reasoner : but if you are in need of consolation(his finger again pointed inflexibly to the prie-Dieu),place yourself there, and be assured that many havedone so before you, and have not repented of it/But, M. le Cure, I have already done myself thehonour of telling you that I did not come for confession,and that for a reason which appears to me simple anddecisive, I have no faith ; I believe as little in confession as in any thing else." *You have no faith, my friend ! Oh, how I pityyou ! You are living in a mist. A little child of eightyears old, who has learnt his catechism, knows morethan you. I thought myself very ignorant ; but you arefar more so, for you are ignorant of the very first thingswhich we ought to know. You have no faith !Well,that is a reason for me to torment you, which I shouldnot otherwise have ventured to do. It is for your good.Place yourself there, and I will hear your confession.When you have made it, you will have travelled a longwayon the road to faith.But, M. le Cure,it is neither more nor less than acomedy that you are advising me to act with you. Ibeg of you to believe that I have no taste for it ;I amP-O comedian.*Place yourself there, I tellyou !man, overmastered by the tone of minglec?sweetness and authority in which the words were spoken,fell upon his knees in spite of himself. He made the