words upon his lips, he remembered Brother Archangias’s final rebuke, as he might have remembered words of blasphemy.  The Brother often reproved him for his devotion to the Virgin, which he declared was veritable robbery of devotion due to God.  In the Brother’s opinion it enervated the soul, put religion into petticoats, created and fostered a state of sentimentalism quite unworthy of the strong.  He bore the Virgin a grudge for her womanhood, her beauty, her maternity; he was ever on his guard against her, possessed by a covert fear of feeling tempted by her gracious mien, of succumbing to her seductive sweetness.  ‘She will lead you far!’ he had cried one day to the young priest, for in her he saw the commencement of human passion.  From contemplating her one might glide to delight in lovely chestnut hair, in large bright eyes, and the mystery of garments falling from neck to toes.  His was the blunt rebellion of a saint who roughly parted the Mother from the Son, asking as He did:  ’Woman, what have we in common, thou and I?’

But Abbe Mouret thrust away such thoughts, prostrated himself, endeavoured to forget the Brother’s harsh attacks.  His rapture in the immaculate purity of Mary alone raised him from the depths of lowliness in which he sought to bury himself.  Whenever, alone before the tall golden Virgin, he so deceived himself as to imagine that he could see her bending down for him to kiss her braided locks, he once more became very young, very good, very strong, very just, full of tenderness.

Abbe Mouret’s devotion to the Virgin dated from his early youth.  Already when he was quite a child, somewhat shy and fond of shrinking into corners, he took pleasure in the thought that a lovely lady was watching over him:  that two blue eyes, so sweet, ever followed him with their smile.  When he felt at night a breath of air glide across his hair, he would often say that the Virgin had come to kiss him.  He had grown up beneath this womanly caress, in an atmosphere full of the rustle of divine robes.  From the age of seven he had satisfied the cravings of his affection by expending all the pence he received as pocket money in the purchase of pious picture-cards, which he jealously concealed that he alone might feast on them.  But never was he tempted by the pictures of Jesus and the Lamb, of Christ on the Cross, of God the Father, with a mighty beard, stooping over a bank of clouds; his preference was always for the winning portraits of Mary, with her tiny smiling mouth and delicate outstretched hands.  By degrees he had made quite a collection of them all—­of Mary between a lily and a distaff, Mary carrying her child as if she were his elder sister, Mary crowned with roses, and Mary crowned with stars.  For him they formed a family of lovely young maidens, alike in their attractiveness, in the grace, kindliness, and sweetness of their countenances, so youthful beneath their veils, that although they bore the name of ‘Mother of God,’ he had felt no awe of them as he had often felt for grown-up persons.