They advised those who were the fortunate of this world to practise justice, goodness, charity; to apply themselves to seeking out and relieving the unhappy. To the unfortunate they recommended good conduct, moderate desires, submission to authority, resignation, and hope. They explained the destiny of man, showed all it possesses of sadness and sublimity, the compensations which are found in the different states, the pleasures which are common to all. They tried to cure, amongst the ills of men, those which men can cure; and, with regard to those which are incurable here below, they strove to raise men's eyes to the remedies in God's hands. This was the language of religion. These were the words and advice she addressed to high and low, rich and poor, to children in her catechisms, to men in her sermons, from the pulpit and from the sanctuary, by the sick bed, to all, at all seasons, and by every means.
The means of publicity and popular movement at that time belonged almost exclusively to religion. What the tribune, the press, the post--these trumpets of modern civilization--now are, the churches, the pulpit, religious instruction, pastoral superintendence formerly were Religion then addressed the masses. She never forgot the people. She was ever able to gain access there.
And while she thus interested herself for them, and strove to lighten or partly bear the burden of life, she also sympathised with men of all classes and all conditions, and with the burdens all bear, the blows which reach all, the wounds which all receive as they tread their appointed path.
To-day, while occupying ourselves much and justly with the material sufferings and fatigue which are shared by so many, we forget too much the moral fatigues and sufferings of which all partake; the trials, the agonies of the soul, the mistakes, the ennui, the anguish, in short, the universal lot of man--which are the more poignant as the mind has more freedom and life more leisure.
High or low, rich or poor, the _elite_ or the multitude, let us pity each other, let us pity every one. We are all, as we advance in our career, "weary and heavy laden"; we all deserve pity.
We deserve it now more than ever. Never, it is true, has the condition of man been more equal or better. But the desires of men have far outrun their progress. Never was ambition more impatient and widespread. Never were so many hearts a prey to the thirst for wealth and pleasure. Pleasures refined and grovelling, a thirst of material well-being and of intellectual variety, a spirit of activity and luxury, of adventure and idleness: everything appears possible, desirable, and accessible to all. It is not that passion is strong, or that man is disposed to take much trouble for the gratification of his desires. { 54} He wishes feebly, desires immoderately; and the great scope of his desire throws him into a state of uneasiness, in which all that he already possesses appears but as the drop of water forgotten as soon as swallowed, and which irritates thirst instead of quenching it. The world has never seen such a conflict of imperfect desires, fancies, pretensions, exactions; never heard such a clamour of voices demanding together as their right all they have not and all that pleases them.