acquainted with what passed under Popes Clement VIII and Paul V, and
knew how the Society was thwarted by the Dominicans in the
establishment of the sufficient grace, you would not be surprised to
find that it avoids embroiling itself in quarrels with them and allows
them to hold their own opinion, provided that of the Society is left
untouched; and more especially, when the Dominicans countenance its
doctrine, by agreeing to employ, on all public occasions, the term
sufficient grace.

    "The Society," he continued, "is quite satisfied with their
complaisance. It does not insist on their denying the necessity of
efficacious grace, this would be urging them too far. People should
not tyrannize over their friends; and the Jesuits have gained quite
enough. The world is content with words; few think of searching into
the nature of things; and thus the name of sufficient grace being
adopted on both sides, though in different senses, there is nobody,
except the most subtle theologians, who ever dreams of doubting that
the thing signified by that word is held by the Jacobins as well as by
the Jesuits; and the result will show that these last are not the
greatest dupes."

    I acknowledged that they were a shrewd class of people, these
Jesuits; and, availing myself of his advice, I went straight to the
Jacobins, at whose gate I found one of my good friends, a staunch
Jansenist (for you must know I have got friends among all parties),
who was calling for another monk, different from him whom I was in
search of. I prevailed on him, however, after much entreaty, to
accompany me, and asked for one of my New Thomists. He was delighted
to see me again. "How now! my dear father," I began, "it seems it is
not enough that all men have a proximate power, with which they can
never act with effect; they must have besides this a sufficient grace,
with which they can act as little. Is not that the doctrine of your
school?" "It is," said the worthy monk; "and I was upholding it this
very morning in the Sorbonne. I spoke on the point during my whole
half-hour; and, but for the sand-glass, I bade fair to have reversed
that wicked proverb, now so current in Paris: 'He votes without
speaking, like a monk in the Sorbonne.'" "What do you mean by your
half-hour and your sand-glass?" I asked; "do they cut your speeches by
a certain measure?" "Yes," said he, "they have done so for some days
past." "And do they oblige you to speak for half an hour?" "No; we may
speak as little as we please." "But not as much as you please, said I.
"O what a capital regulation for the boobies! what a blessed excuse
for those who have nothing worth the saying! But, to return to the
point, father; this grace given to all men is sufficient, is it
not?" "Yes," said he. "And yet it has no effect without efficacious
grace?" "None whatever," he replied. "And all men have the
sufficient," continued I, "and all have not the efficacious?"
"Exactly," said he. "That is," returned I, "all have enough of
grace, and all have not enough of it that is, this grace suffices,
though it does not suffice- that is, it is sufficient in name and
insufficient in effect! In good sooth, father, this is particularly
subtle doctrine! Have you forgotten, since you retired to the
cloister, the meaning attached, in the world you have quitted, to
the word sufficient? don't you remember that it includes all that is
necessary for acting? But no, you cannot have lost all recollection of
it; for, to avail myself of an illustration which will come home
more vividly to your feelings, let us suppose that you were supplied
with no more than two ounces of bread and a glass of water daily,
would you be quite pleased with your prior were he to tell you that
this would be sufficient to support you, under the pretext that, along
with something else, which however, he would not give you, you would
have all that would be necessary to support you? How, then can you
allow yourselves to say that all men have sufficient grace for acting,
while you admit that there is another grace absolutely necessary to
acting which all men have not? Is it because this is an unimportant
article of belief, and you leave all men at liberty to believe that
efficacious grace is necessary or not, as they choose? Is it a
matter of indifference to say, that with sufficient grace a man may
really act?" "How!" cried the good man; "indifference! it is heresy-
formal heresy. The necessity of efficacious grace for acting
effectively, is a point of faith- it is heresy to deny it."

    "Where are we now?" I exclaimed; "and which side am I to take
here? If I deny the sufficient grace, I am a Jansenist. If I admit it,
as the Jesuits do, in the way of denying that efficacious grace is
necessary, I shall be a heretic, say you. And if I admit it, as you
do, in the way of maintaining the necessity of efficacious grace, I
sin against common sense, and am a blockhead, say the Jesuits. What
must I do, thus reduced to the inevitable necessity of being a
blockhead, a heretic, or a Jansenist? And what a sad pass are
matters come to, if there are none but the Jansenists who avoid coming
into collision either with the faith or with reason, and who save
themselves at once from absurdity and from error!"

    My Jansenist friend took this speech as a good omen and already
looked upon me as a convert. He said nothing to me, however; but,
addressing the monk: "Pray, father," inquired he, "what is the point
on which you agree with the Jesuits?" "We agree in this," he
replied, "that the Jesuits and we acknowledge the sufficient grace
given to all." "But," said the Jansenist, "there are two things in
this expression sufficient grace- there is the sound, which is only so
much breath; and there is the thing which it signifies, which is
real and effectual. And, therefore, as you are agreed with the Jesuits
in regard to the word sufficient and opposed to them as to the
sense, it is apparent that you are opposed to them in regard to the
substance of that term, and that you only agree with them as to the
sound. Is this what you call acting sincerely and cordially?"

    "But," said the good man, "what cause have you to complain,
since we deceive nobody by this mode of speaking? In our schools we