Forgive me, my dear friend, the wish which I have just expressed and which does not even come from that part in me which still believes without knowing.  You must, in order to be orthodox, believe that I am reduced to my present condition by my own fault; and that is very hard.  Nevertheless, I am quite disposed to think that it is to a great extent my own fault.  He who knows his own heart will always answer, “Yes,” when he is told, “It is your own fault.”  Nothing of all that has happened to me is easier for me to admit than that.  I will not be as obstinate as Job with regard to my own innocence.  However pure of offence I might believe myself to be, I would only pray God to have pity on me.  The perusal of the Book of Job delights me; for in this Book is to be found poetry in its most divine form.  The Book of Job renders palpable the mysteries which one feels within one’s own heart, and to which one has been painfully endeavouring to give tangible shape.

None the less do I resolutely continue to follow out my thoughts.  Nothing will induce me to abandon this, even if I should be compelled to appear to sacrifice it to the earning of my daily bread.  God had, in order to sustain me in my resolve, reserved for this critical moment an event of real significance from the intellectual and moral standpoint.  I have studied Germany, and it has seemed to me that I have been entering some holy place.  All that I have lighted upon in the course of the study is pure, elevating, moral, beautiful, and touching.  Oh!  My Soul!  Yes, it is a real treasure, and the continuation of Jesus Christ.  Their moral qualities excite my liveliest admiration.  How strong and gentle they are!  I believe that it is in this direction that we must look for the advent of Christ I regard this apparition of a new spirit as analogous to the birth of Christianity, except as to the difference of form.  But this is of little importance, for it is certain that when the event which is to renovate the world shall recur, it will not in the mode of its accomplishment resemble that which has already occurred.  I am attentively following the wave of enthusiasm which is at this moment spreading over the north.  M. Cousin has just started to study its progress for himself, I am referring to Ronge and Czerski, whose names you must have heard mentioned.  May God pardon me for liking them, even if they should not be pure:  for what I like in them, as in all others who have evoked my enthusiasm, is a certain standard of attractiveness and morality which I have assigned them; in short, I admire in them my ideal.  It may be asked whether or not they come up to this standard.  That to my mind is quite a secondary matter.