Letter V

Paris, March 20, 1656

SIR,
According to my promise, I now send you the first outlines of
the morals taught by those good fathers the Jesuits, "those men
distinguished for learning and sagacity, who are all under the
guidance of divine wisdom- a surer guide than all philosophy." You
imagine, perhaps, that I am in jest, but I am perfectly serious; or
rather, they are so when they speak thus of themselves in their book
entitied The Image of the First Century. I am only copying their own
words, and may now give you the rest of the eulogy: "They are a
society of men, or rather let us call them angels, predicted by Isaiah
in these words, 'Go, ye swift and ready angels.'" The prediction is as
clear as day, is it not? "They have the spirit of eagles they are a
flock of phoenixes (a late author having demonstrated that there are a
great many of these birds); they have changed the face of
Christendom!" Of course, we must believe all this, since they have
said it; and in one sense you will find the account amply verified
by the sequel of this communication, in which I propose to treat of
their maxims.

Determined to obtain the best possible information, I did not
trust to the representations of our friend the Jansenist, but sought
an interview with some of themselves. I found however, that he told me
nothing but the bare truth, and I am persuaded he is an honest man. Of
this you may judge from the following account of these conferences.
In the conversation I had with the Jansenist, he told me so many
strange things about these fathers that I could with difficulty
believe them, till he pointed them out to me in their writings;
after which he left me nothing more to say in their defence than
that these might be the sentiments of some individuals only, which
it was not fair to impute to the whole fraternity. And, indeed, I
assured him that I knew some of them who were as severe as those
whom he quoted to me were lax. This led him to explain to me the
spirit of the Society, which is not known to every one; and you will
perhaps have no objections to learning something about it.

"You imagine," he began, "that it would tell considerably in their
favour to show that some of their fathers are as friendly to
Evangelical maxims as others are opposed to them; and you would
conclude from that circumstance, that these loose opinions do not
belong to the whole Society. That I grant you; for had such been the
case, they would not have suffered persons among them holding
sentiments so diametrically opposed to licentiousness. But, as it is
equally true that there are among them those who hold these licentious
doctrines, you are bound also to conclude that the holy Spirit of
the Society is not that of Christian severity, for had such been the
case, they would not have suffered persons among them holding
sentiments so diametrically opposed to that severity."

"And what, then," I asked, "can be the design of the whole as a
body? Perhaps they have no fixed principle, and every one is left to
speak out at random whatever he thinks."

"That cannot be," returned my friend; "such an immense body
could not subsist in such a haphazard sort of way, or without a soul
to govern and regulate its movements; besides, it is one of their
express regulations that none shall print a page without the
approval of their superiors."

"But," said I, "how can these same superiors give their consent to
maxims so contradictory?"

"That is what you have yet to learn," he replied. "Know then
that their object is not the corruption of manners- that is not
their design. But as little is it their sole aim to reform them-
that would be bad policy. Their idea is briefly this: They have such a
good opinion of themselves as to believe that it is useful, and in
some sort essentially necessary to the good of religion, that their
influence should extend everywhere, and that they should govern all
consciences. And the Evangelical or severe maxims being best fitted
for managing some sorts of people, they avail themselves of these when
they find them favourable to their purpose. But as these maxims do not
suit the views of the great bulk of the people, they waive them in the
case of such persons, in order to keep on good terms with all the
world. Accordingly, having to deal with persons of all classes and
of all different nations, they find it necessary to have casuists
assorted to match this diversity.

"On this principle, you will easily see that, if they had none but
the looser sort of casuists, they would defeat their main design,
which is to embrace all; for those that are truly pious are fond of
a stricter discipline. But as there are not many of that stamp, they
do not require many severe directors to guide them. They have a few
for the select few; while whole multitudes of lax casuists are
provided for the multitudes that prefer laxity.

"It is in virtue of this 'obliging and accommodating, conduct,' as
Father Petau calls it, that they may be said to stretch out a
helping hand to all mankind. Should any person present himself
before them, for example, fully resolved to make restitution of some
ill-gotten gains, do not suppose that they would dissuade him from it.
By no means; on the contrary, they would applaud and confirm him in
such a holy resolution. But suppose another should come who wishes
to be absolved without restitution, and it will be a particularly hard
case indeed, if they cannot furnish him with means of evading the
duty, of one kind or another, the lawfulness of which they will be
ready to guarantee.

"By this policy they keep all their friends, and defend themselves
against all their foes; for when charged with extreme laxity, they
have nothing more to do than produce their austere directors, with
some books which they have written on the severity of the Christian
code of morals; and simple people, or those who never look below the
surface of things, are quite satisfied with these proofs of the
falsity of the accusation.

"Thus, are they prepared for all sorts of persons, and so ready
are they to suit the supply to the demand that, when they happen to be
in any part of the world where the doctrine of a crucified God is
accounted foolishness, they suppress the offence of the cross and
preach only a glorious and not a suffering Jesus Christ. This plan
they followed in the Indies and in China, where they permitted
Christians to practise idolatry itself, with the aid of the
following ingenious contrivance: they made their converts conceal
under their clothes an image of Jesus Christ, to which they taught
them to transfer mentally those adorations which they rendered
ostensibly to the idol of Cachinchoam and Keum-fucum. This charge is
brought against them by Gravina, a Dominican, and is fully established
by the Spanish memorial presented to Philip IV, king of Spain, by
the Cordeliers of the Philippine Islands, quoted by Thomas Hurtado, in
his Martyrdom of the Faith, page 427. To such a length did this
practice go that the Congregation De Propaganda were obliged expressly
to forbid the Jesuits, on pain of excommunication, to permit the
worship of idols on any pretext whatever, or to conceal the mystery of
the cross from their catechumens; strictly enjoining them to admit
none to baptism who were not thus instructed, and ordering them to
expose the image of the crucifix in their churches: all of which is
amply detailed in the decree of that Congregation, dated the 9th of
July, 1646, and signed by Cardinal Capponi.

"Such is the manner in which they have spread themselves over
the whole earth, aided by the doctrine of probable opinions, which
is at once the source and the basis of all this licentiousness. You
must get some of themselves to explain this doctrine to you. They make
no secret of it, any more than of what you have already learned;
with this difference only, that they conceal their carnal and
worldly policy under the garb of divine and Christian prudence; as
if the faith, and tradition, its ally, were not always one and the
same at all times and in all places; as if it were the part of the
rule to bend in conformity to the subject which it was meant to
regulate; and as if souls, to be purified from their pollutions, had
only to corrupt the law of the Lord, in place of the law of the
Lord, which is clean and pure, converting the soul which lieth in sin,
and bringing it into conformity with its salutary lessons!

"Go and see some of these worthy fathers, I beseech you, and I
am confident that you will soon discover, in the laxity of their moral
system, the explanation of their doctrine about grace. You will then
see the Christian virtues exhibited in such a strange aspect, so
completely stripped of the charity which is the life and soul of them,
you will see so many crimes palliated and irregularities tolerated
that you will no longer be surprised at their maintaining that 'all
men have always enough of grace' to lead a pious life, in the sense of
which they understand piety. Their morality being entirely Pagan,
nature is quite competent to its observance. When we maintain the
necessity of efficacious grace, we assign it another sort of virtue
for its object. Its office is not to cure one vice by means of
another; it is not merely to induce men to practise the external
duties of religion: it aims at a virtue higher than that propounded by
Pharisees, or the greatest sages of Heathenism. The law and reason are
'sufficient graces' for these purposes. But to disenthral the soul
from the love of the world- to tear it from what it holds most dear-
to make it die to itself- to lift it up and bind it wholly, only,
and forever, to God can be the work of none but an all-powerful
hand. And it would be as absurd to affirm that we have the full
power of achieving such objects, as it would be to allege that those
virtues, devoid of the love of God, which these fathers confound
with the virtues of Christianity, are beyond our power."

Such was the strain of my friend's discourse, which was
delivered with much feeling; for he takes these sad disorders very
much to heart. For my own part, I began to entertain a high admiration
for these fathers, simply on account of the ingenuity of their policy;
and, following his advice, I waited on a good casuist of the
Society, one of my old acquaintances, with whom I now resolved
purposely to renew my former intimacy. Having my instructions how to
manage them, I had no great difficulty in getting him afloat.
Retaining his old attachment, he received me immediately with a
profusion of kindness; and, after talking over some indifferent
matters, I took occasion from the present season to learn something
from him about fasting and, thus, slip insensibly into the main
subject. I told him, therefore, that I had difficulty in supporting
the fast. He exhorted me to do violence to my inclinations; but, as
I continued to murmur, he took pity on me and began to search out some
ground for a dispensation. In fact he suggested a number of excuses
for me, none of which happened to suit my case, till at length he
bethought himself of asking me whether I did not find it difficult
to sleep without taking supper. "Yes, my good father," said I; "and
for that reason I am obliged often to take a refreshment at mid-day
and supper at night."

"I am extremely happy," he replied, "to have found out a way of
relieving you without sin: go in peace- you are under no obligation to
fast. However, I would not have you depend on my word: step this way
to the library."

On going thither with me he took up a book, exclaiming with
great rapture, "Here is the authority for you: and, by my
conscience, such an authority! It is Escobar!"

"Who is Escobar?" I inquired.

"What! not know Escobar! " cried the monk; "the member of our
Society who compiled this Moral Theology from twenty-four of our
fathers, and on this founds an analogy, in his preface, between his
book and 'that in the Apocalypse which was sealed with seven seals,'
and states that 'Jesus presents it thus sealed to the four living
creatures, Suarez, Vasquez, Molina, and Valencia, in presence of the
four-and-twenty Jesuits who represent the four-and-twenty elders.'"

He read me, in fact, the whole of that allegory, which he
pronounced to be admirably appropriate, and which conveyed to my
mind a sublime idea of the exellence of the work. At length, having
sought out the passage of fasting, "Oh, here it is!" he said;
"treatise I, example 13, no. 67: 'If a man cannot sleep without taking
supper, is he bound to fast? Answer: By no means!' Will that not
satisfy you?"

"Not exactly," replied I; "for I might sustain the fast by
taking my refreshment in the morning, and supping at night."

"Listen, then, to what follows; they have provided for all that:
'And what is to be said, if the person might make a shift with a
refreshment in the morning and supping at night?'"

"That's my case exactly."

"'Answer: Still he is not obliged to fast; because no person is
obliged to change the order of his meals.'"

"A most excellent reason!" I exclaimed.

"But tell me, pray," continued the monk, "do you take much wine?"

"No, my dear father," I answered; "I cannot endure it."

"I merely put the question," returned he, "to apprise you that you
might, without breaking the fast, take a glass or so in the morning,
or whenever you felt inclined for a drop; and that is always something
in the way of supporting nature. Here is the decision at the same
place, no. 57: 'May one, without breaking the fast, drink wine at
any hour he pleases, and even in a large quantity? Yes, he may: and
a dram of hippocrass too.' I had no recollection of the hippocrass,"
said the monk; "I must take a note of that in my memorandum-book."

"He must be a nice man, this Escobar," observed I.

"Oh! everybody likes him," rejoined the father; "he has such
delightful questions! Only observe this one in the same place, no. 38:
'If a man doubt whether he is twenty-one years old, is he obliged to
fast? No. But suppose I were to be twenty-one to-night an hour after
midnight, and to-morrow were the fast, would I be obliged to fast
to-morrow? No; for you were at liberty to eat as much as you pleased
for an hour after midnight, not being till then fully twenty-one;
and therefore having a right to break the fast day, you are not
obliged to keep it.'"

"Well, that is vastly entertaining!" cried I.

"Oh," rejoined the father, "it is impossible to tear one's self
away from the book: I spend whole days and nights in reading it; in
fact, I do nothing else."

The worthy monk, perceiving that I was interested, was quite
delighted, and went on with his quotations. "Now," said he, "for a
taste of Filiutius, one of the four-and-twenty Jesuits: 'Is a man
who has exhausted himself any way- by profligacy, for example- obliged
to fast? By no means. But if he has exhausted himself expressly to
procure a dispensation from fasting, will he be held obliged? He
will not, even though he should have had that design.' There now!
would you have believed that?"

"Indeed, good father, I do not believe it yet," said I. "What!
is it no sin for a man not to fast when he has it in his power? And is
it allowable to court occasions of committing sin, or rather, are we
not bound to shun them? That would be easy enough, surely."

"Not always so," he replied; "that is just as it may happen."

"Happen, how?" cried I.

"Oh!" rejoined the monk, "so you think that if a person experience
some inconvenience in avoiding the occasions of sin, he is still bound
to do so? Not so thinks Father Bauny. 'Absolution,' says he, 'is not
to be refused to such as continue in the proximate occasions of sin,
if they are so situated that they cannot give them up without becoming
the common talk of the world, or subjecting themselves to personal
inconvenience.'"

"I am glad to hear it, father," I remarked; "and now that we are
not obliged to avoid the occasions of sin, nothing more remains but to
say that we may deliberately court them."

"Even that is occasionally permitted," added he; "the celebrated
casuist, Basil Ponce, has said so, and Father Bauny quotes his
sentiment with approbation in his Treatise on Penance, as follows: 'We
may seek an occasion of sin directly and designedly- primo et per
se- when our own or our neighbour's spiritual or temporal advantage
induces us to do so.'"

"Truly," said I, "it appears to be all a dream to me, when I
hear grave divines talking in this manner! Come now, my dear father,
tell me conscientiously, do you hold such a sentiment as that?"

"No, indeed," said he, "I do not."

"You are speaking, then, against your conscience," continued I.

"Not at all," he replied; "I was speaking on that point not
according to my own conscience, but according to that of Ponce and
Father Bauny, and them you may follow with the utmost safety, for I
assure you that they are able men."

"What, father! because they have put down these three lines in
their books, will it therefore become allowable to court the occasions
of sin? I always thought that we were bound to take the Scripture
and the tradition of the Church as our only rule, and not your
cauists."

"Goodness!" cried the monk, "I declare you put me in mind of these
Jansenists. Think you that Father Bauny and Basil Ponce are not able
to render their opinion probable?"

"Probable won't do for me," said I; "I must have certainty."

"I can easily see," replied the good father, "that you know
nothing about our doctrine of probable opinions. If you did, you would
speak in another strain. Ah! my dear sir, I must really give you
some instructions on this point; without knowing this, positively
you can understand nothing at all. It is the foundation- the very A,
B, C, of our whole moral philosophy."

Glad to see him come to the point to which I had been drawing
him on, I expressed my satisfaction and requested him to explain
what was meant by a probable opinion?

"That," he replied, "our authors will answer better than I can do.
The generality of them, and, among others, our four-and-twenty elders,
describe it thus: 'An opinion is called probable when it is founded
upon reasons of some consideration. Hence it may sometimes happen that
a single very grave doctor may render an opinion probable.' The reason
is added: 'For a man particularly given to study would not adhere to
an opinion unless he was drawn to it by a good and sufficient
reason.'"

"So it would appear," I observed, with a smile, "that a single
doctor may turn consciences round about and upside down as he pleases,
and yet always land them in a safe position."

"You must not laugh at it, sir," returned the monk; "nor need
you attempt to combat the doctrine. The Jansenists tried this; but
they might have saved themselves the trouble- it is too firmly
established. Hear Sanchez, one of the most famous of our fathers: 'You
may doubt, perhaps, whether the authority of a single good and learned
doctor renders an opinion probable. I answer that it does; and this is
confirmed by Angelus, Sylvester, Navarre, Emanuel Sa, &c. It is proved
thus: A probable opinion is one that has a considerable foundation.
Now the authority of a learned and pious man is entitled to very great
consideration; because (mark the reason), if the testimony of such a
man has great influence in convincing us that such and such an event
occurred, say at Rome, for example, why should it not have the same
weight in the case of a question in morals?'"

"An odd comparison this," interrupted I, "between the concerns
of the world and those of conscience!"

"Have a little patience," rejoined the monk; "Sanchez answers that
in the very next sentence: 'Nor can I assent to the qualification made
here by some writers, namely, that the authority of such a doctor,
though sufficient in matters of human right, is not so in those of
divine right. It is of vast weight in both cases.'"

"Well, father," said I, frankly, "I really cannot admire that
rule. Who can assure me, considering the freedom your doctors claim to
examine everything by reason, that what appears safe to one may seem
so to all the rest? The diversity of judgements is so great"-

"You don't understand it," said he, interrupting me; "no doubt
they are often of different sentiments, but what signifies that?
Each renders his own opinion probable and safe. We all know well
enough that they are far from being of the same mind; what is more,
there is hardly an instance in which they ever agree. There are very
few questions, indeed, in which you do not find the one saying yes and
the other saying no. Still, in all these cases, each of the contrary
opinions is probable. And hence Diana says on a certain subject:
'Ponce and Sanchez hold opposite views of it; but, as they are both
learned men, each renders his own opinion probable.'"

"But, father," I remarked, "a person must be sadly embarrassed
in choosing between them!" "Not at all," he rejoined; "he has only
to follow the opinion which suits him best." "What! if the other is
more probable?" "It does not signify," "And if the other is the
safer?" "It does not signify," repeated the monk; "this is made
quite plain by Emanuel Sa, of our Society, in his Aphorisms: 'A person
may do what he considers allowable according to a probable opinion,
though the contrary may be the safer one. The opinion of a single
grave doctor is all that is requisite.'"

"And if an opinion be at once the less probable and the less safe,
it is allowable to follow it," I asked, "even in the way of
rejecting one which we believe to be more probable and safe?"

"Once more, I say yes," replied the monk. "Hear what Filiutius,
that great Jesuit of Rome, says: 'It is allowable to follow the less
probable opinion, even though it be the less safe one. That is the
common judgement of modern authors.' Is not that quite clear?"

"Well, reverend father," said I, "you have given us elbowroom,
at all events! Thanks to your probable opinions, we have got liberty
of conscience with a witness! And are you casuists allowed the same
latitude in giving your responses?"

"Oh, yes," said he, "we answer just as we please; or rather, I
should say, just as it may please those who ask our advice. Here are
our rules, taken from Fathers Layman, Vasquez, Sanchez, and the
four-and-twenty worthies, in the words of Layman: 'A doctor, on
being consulted, may give an advice, not only probable according to
his own opinion, but contrary to his own opinion, provided this
judgement happens to be more favourable or more agreeable to the
person that consults him- si forte haec favorabilior seu exoptatior
sit. Nay, I go further and say that there would be nothing
unreasonable in his giving those who consult him a judgement held to
be probable by some learned person, even though he should be satisfied
in his own mind that it is absolutely false.'"
"Well, seriously, father," I said, "your doctrine is a most
uncommonly comfortable one! Only think of being allowed to answer
yes or no, just as you please! It is impossible to prize such a
privilege too highly. I see now the advantage of the contrary opinions
of your doctors. One of them always serves your turn, and the other
never gives you any annoyance. If you do not find your account on
the one side, you fall back on the other and always land in perfect
safety."
"That is quite true," he replied; "and, accordingly, we may always
say with Diana, on his finding that Father Bauny was on his side,
while Father Lugo was against him: Saepe premente deo, fert deus alter
opem."*

* Ovid, Appendice, xiii. "If pressed by any god, we will be
delivered by another."

"I understand you," resumed I; "but a practical difficulty has
just occurred to me, which is this, that supposing a person to have
consulted one of your doctors and obtained from him a pretty liberal
opinion, there is some danger of his getting into a scrape by
meeting a confessor who takes a different view of the matter and
refuses him absolution unless he recant the sentiment of the
casuist. Have you not provided for such a case as that, father?"
"Can you doubt it?" he replied, "We have bound them, sir, to
absolve their penitents who act according to probable opinions,
under the pain of mortal sin, to secure their compliance. 'When the
penitent,' says Father Bauny, 'follows a probable opinion, the
confessor is bound to absolve him, though his opinion should differ
from that of his penitent.'"
"But he does not say it would be a mortal sin not to absolve
him" said I.
"How hasty you are!" rejoined the monk; "listen to what follows;
he has expressly decided that, 'to refuse absolution to a penitent who
acts according to a probable opinion is a sin which is in its nature
mortal.' And, to settle that point, he cites the most illustrious of
our fathers- Suarez, Vasquez, and Sanchez."
"My dear sir," said I, "that is a most prudent regulation. I see
nothing to fear now. No confessor can dare to be refractory after
this. Indeed, I was not aware that you had the power of issuing your
orders on pain of damnation. I thought that your skill had been
confined to the taking away of sins; I had no idea that it extended to
the introduction of new ones. But, from what I now see, you are
omnipotent."
"That is not a correct way of speaking," rejoined the father.
"We do not introduce sins; we only pay attention to them. I have had
occasion to remark, two or three times during our conversation, that
you are no great scholastic."
"Be that as it may, father, you have at least answered my
difficulty. But I have another to suggest. How do you manage when
the Fathers of the Church happen to differ from any of your casuists?"
"You really know very little of the subject," he replied. "The
Fathers were good enough for the morality of their own times; but they
lived too far back for that of the present age, which is no longer
regulated by them, but by the modern casuists. On this Father
Cellot, following the famous Reginald, remarks: 'In questions of
morals, the modern casuists are to be preferred to the ancient
fathers, though those lived nearer to the times of the apostles.'
And following out this maxim, Diana thus decides: 'Are beneficiaries
bound to restore their revenue when guilty of mal-appropriation of it?
The ancients would say yes, but the moderns say no; let us, therefore,
adhere to the latter opinion, which relieves from the obligation of
restitution.'"
"Delightful words these, and most comfortable they must be to a
great many people!" I observed.
"We leave the fathers," resumed the monk, "to those who deal
with positive divinity. As for us, who are the directors of
conscience, we read very little of them and quote only the modern
casuists. There is Diana, for instance, a most voluminous writer; he
has prefixed to his works a list of his authorities, which amount to
two hundred and ninety-six, and the most ancient of them is only about
eighty years old."
"It would appear, then," I remarked, "that all these have come
into the world since the date of your Society?"
"Thereabouts," he replied.
"That is to say, dear father, on your advent, St. Augustine, St.
Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and all the rest, in so far as
morals are concerned, disappeared from the stage. Would you be so kind
as let me know the names, at least, of those modern authors who have
succeeded them?"
"A most able and renowned class of men they are," replied the
monk. "Their names are: Villalobos, Conink, Llamas, Achokier,
Dealkozer, Dellacruz, Veracruz, Ugolin, Tambourin, Fernandez,
Martinez, Suarez, Henriquez, Vasquez, Lopez, Gomez, Sanchez, De
Vechis, De Grassis, De Grassalis, De Pitigianis, De Graphaeis,
Squilanti, Bizozeri, Barcola, De Bobadilla, Simanacha, Perez de
Lara, Aldretta, Lorca, De Scarcia, Quaranta, Scophra, Pedrezza,
Cabrezza, Bisbe, Dias, De Clavasio, Villagut, Adam a Manden, Iribarne,
Binsfeld, Volfangi A Vorberg, Vosthery, Strevesdorf."
"O my dear father!" cried I, quite alarmed, "were all these people
Christians?"
"How! Christians!" returned the casuist; "did I not tell you
that these are the only writers by whom we now govern Christendom?"
Deeply affected as I was by this announcement, I concealed my
emotion from the monk and only asked him if all these authors were
Jesuits?
"No," said he; "but that is of little consequence; they have
said a number of good things for all that. It is true the greater part
of these same good things are extracted or copied from our authors,
but we do not stand on ceremony with them on that score, more
especially as they are in the constant habit of quoting our authors
with applause. When Diana, for example, who does not belong to our
Society, speaks of Vasquez, he calls him 'that phoenix of genius'; and
he declares more than once 'that Vasquez alone is to him worth all the
rest of men put together'- instar omnium. Accordingly, our fathers
often make use of this good Diana; and, if you understand our doctrine
of probability, you will see that this is no small help in its way. In
fact, we are anxious that others besides the Jesuits would render
their opinions probable, to prevent people from ascribing them all
to us; for you will observe that, when any author, whoever he may
be, advances a probable opinion, we are entitled, by the doctrine of
probability, to adopt it if we please; and yet, if the author does not
belong to our fraternity, we are not responsible for its soundness."
"I understand all that," said I. "It is easy to see that all are
welcome that come your way, except the ancient fathers; you are
masters of the field, and have only to walk the course. But I
foresee three or four serious difficulties and powerful barriers which
will oppose your career."
"And what are these?" cried the monk, looking quite alarmed.
"They are the Holy Scriptures," I replied, "the popes, and the
councils, whom you cannot gainsay, and who are all in the way of the
Gospel."

"Is that all?" he exclaimed; "I declare you put me in a fright. Do
you imagine that we would overlook such an obvious scruple as that, or
that we have not provided against it? A good idea, forsooth, to
suppose that we would contradict Scripture, popes, and councils! I
must convince you of your mistake; for I should be sorry you should go
away with an impression that we are deficient in our respect to
these authorities. You have doubtless taken up this notion from some
of the opinions of our fathers, which are apparently at variance
with their decisions, though in reality they are not. But to
illustrate the harmony between them would require more leisure than we
have at present; and, as I would not like you to retain a bad
impression of us, if you agree to meet with me to-morrow, I shall
clear it all up then."

Thus ended our interview, and thus shall end my present
communication, which has been long enough, besides, for one letter.
I am sure you will be satisfied with it, in the prospect of what is
forthcoming. I am, &c.