Happy are those who are able to pray. It is thus that Christians
solicit grace.
It is easy to fall on one’s knees; but to be able to pray one must
already possess that grace which one implores. It is so great a gift,
the gift of prayer, that it is almost indelicate to desire anything
else from it.
To drink is a small matter. To be thirsty is everything.
Why do the Christians, who counsel us to pray in order to obtain
grace, never tell us what we must do in order to be able to pray? It
is not for nothing, nevertheless, that they arrange the play of light
and shade through their stained-glass windows, the odor of stones and
incense, the silence of the vaults and the propitiatory sights of the
organ, all those harmonious snares set for the wandering prayer.
As for me, I shall take a staff and go out seeking the solitude of the
world. If this world is a city street at dawn,--that will do! A misty
dock, its outline broken by rails and masts,--that will do! A sunken
road, lighted by the flowering broom,--that will do! The court of a
barrack, the muddy enclosure of a prison-camp, oh! pitiful as it may
seem to me, may it still seem good!
If I can walk, straight before me or far and wide, I can pray. If I can
see a scrap of the sky, I can pray. And with all nature offered to my
soul, I can pray, I can pray in spite of everything and as if without
willing it. I must see that osier-bed, or the radiant awning of that
wagon, or the image of the bridge in the water. I must hear the moaning
of those interlaced branches; then I am able to feel myself bathed in
grace.
Grace! It is indeed the fleeting consciousness man has of his divinity.
And now, now especially, and more than ever, we say to ourselves, man
must have faith in his divinity!
IX
APOSTLESHIP
I
The beautiful legend of the multiplication of the loaves of bread is
miraculous only in the material order to which we try to confine it.
But the infinite multiplication of moral nourishment is our daily
spectacle, our joy, our encouragement.
We know that the possession of material goods inclines us to
exclusiveness, solitary satisfaction: if I wish to share with you this
beautiful apple I hold in my hand, I must make up my mind to enjoy only
half of it myself. And if there are four of us the part each one has
will be proportionally reduced. Ah! blessed would be the wonder-worker
who could refresh us all with a single glass of water, stay us all with
a single mouthful of bread.
That miracle flashes forth every day before our eyes. All moral wealth
seems to increase by being possessed in common. The more a truth is
spread abroad the more its beauty, its prestige, and in a way its
efficacy, grows. The veneration a hundred peoples throw round a
painting of da Vinci’s, a song of Glück’s, or a saying of Spinoza’s
has not partitioned these lovely treasures but has added to their
importance and their glory, has developed and opened up the whole
sum of joy that lies latent in them. Great ideas have such radiant
strength! They cross space and time like avalanches: they carry along
with them whatever they touch. They are the only riches that one shares
without ever dividing them.
This fact invites each one of us to make himself the modest and
persevering apostle of his own truths, the propagator of his
discoveries, the dispenser of his moral riches. Our own interest
demands it imperatively, no less than the interest of others. We shall
never be really happy until we have admitted and converted to our joy
those whom we love; and we shall love them all the better for having
brought them some joy, for being among the causes of their comfort.
The journeys we have made alone without companions leave us a memory
that is melancholy and without warmth. It is because we have had no
one to whom we could communicate our admiration, our wonder. Seated
alone before the most majestic landscapes, we have had no one to whom
we could express our enthusiasm, and deprived of this expansion it has
been stunted, it has remained, we might say, poor. Sharing it would
have enriched it.
We love solitude, indeed; it is the cold and silent fountain at which
our soul is purified and confirmed. But what would it profit us to have
amassed great riches, by the help of solitude, if we had no one to whom
to offer them?
It is because he feels this anxiety that man seeks a lasting union.
Among a thousand generosities, love offers him the opportunity to enjoy
companionship without renouncing solitude. A happy home is the solitude
of many a soul. The man who has entered into a beautiful union is sure
of at least one person to whom he can give the best that he possesses.