Chapter 15 thirteen what he believed

On the question of the true meaning of religion, we cannot have any prying eyes from the Monsieur Bishop of Digne.Facing a heart like his, we can only have admiration.We should have complete confidence in a man of integrity.And we believe that, given certain qualities, the various beauties of human character can be developed in beliefs different from our own. How did he comprehend such a doctrine or such a mystery?Those hidden secrets in the heart, only the grave that welcomes the naked soul can know.One thing we can be sure of, however, is that he never resorted to duplicity and hypocrisy in settling difficult questions of faith.Diamonds never rot.He did what he could, with all his faith. "Believe in the Father," he used to say.Moreover, he desires in doing good a certain degree of satisfaction that is not ashamed of conscience nor of God.

We think it should be pointed out that the bishop has an excess of charity both besides (so to speak) and above his faith.It is in that, "by much love," that he is considered defective by those who are "dignified," "serious," and "understood"; Appreciated by those in our wretched world who pride themselves on putting others down.What is his excessive benevolence?Is a calm concern for people, he cares about everyone, as we have pointed out, in every possible way, and sometimes other creatures.He never had the heart to ridicule in his life.He was never demanding of God's creation.Anyone, even the kindest, always retains a kind of violence unconsciously towards animals.Many priests possessed this violence, but the Bishop of Digne had none of it.Although he has not reached the realm of Brahmanism, he seems to have thought deeply about the sentence "Who knows where the souls of animals end up?" in the holy book.Neither the ugliness of appearance nor the weirdness of nature can disturb him or offend him.On the contrary, he will be moved, almost compassionate.He concentrates, as if he wants to find out the root, reason or difficulty beyond the appearance of life.At times he seemed to be beseeching God to reform him.With the eyes of a linguist who examines the ink left by the ancients, he calmly observes the various chaotic phenomena that still exist in nature so far.That reverie sometimes caused him to say strange things.One morning, he was in the garden, he thought there was no one around, but his sister was walking behind him, and he didn't see him, suddenly, he stopped and looked at something on the ground, a black, furry and scary big spider.His sister heard him say:

"Poor thing! It's not his fault." Why can't you say the kind of baby talk that comes from the heart of a Bodhisattva?Of course it was a kind of childishness, but it was the wonderful kind of childishness that Saint Francis of Assisi and Marcus Aurelius had.One day, because he refused to trample an ant to death, he sprained his muscles and bones. This is how the righteous man lived.Sometimes he slept in his own garden, and that was a most desirable thing. According to legend, Bienvenu had once been a warm man, perhaps a rough one, in his youth and even in his prime.His later kindness, which is all-encompassing, is not so much the innate nature, but the result of his gradual realization of enlightenment step by step in the course of life, because the human heart, like a rock, can also have holes pierced by water droplets.Those gaps will not disappear, those achievements will not be destroyed.

In 1815, we seem to have said, he was seventy-five years old, but he does not appear to have passed sixty.He was short and stout in stature, and, to avoid being fat, he was fond of walking long distances; his legs were still strong, and his back was a little slouch; what conclusion.Gregory was still upright and smiling at the age of sixteen and eighty, but he was still a bad bishop.Bishop Bienvenu's appearance is just like the kind of "beautiful man" that the villagers say, but his amiable character has made people forget the beauty of his appearance. He laughed from time to time during the conversation, a little childish, and that was one of his demeanors.We have already said this, and we feel good physically and mentally when we are near him, as if his talking and laughing will bring happiness to the house.His complexion was ruddy, and he had preserved a mouth full of white teeth, which showed when he smiled, giving him an air of frankness and easy-going, which can make a man of maturity be called a "good boy" or a man. Old people are called "good men".We remember that this was the impression he made on Napoleon.Indeed, at first glance, he was no more than a good fellow in the eyes of those who met him for the first time.But if we have been in contact with him for a few hours, we only need to see him use his mind for a while, and the good man will slowly change, and it will be inexplicably awe-inspiring; The forehead that looked dignified was also doubly dignified because of concentrating on thinking; the majesty comes from kindness, and the kindness is still spreading; we are moved, just like seeing a smiling angel slowly spreading his wings. Still smiling.A kind of respect, a kind of ineffable respect will arise spontaneously and go straight to your breast, so we feel that we are indeed in front of us a firm, experienced and kind old man, whose heart is so open, so he His thoughts must be gentle and honest.

We have seen that the hours of every day of his life were spent in prayer, offering sacrifices, almsgiving, comforting the sad, planting a little garden, practicing charity, dieting, entertaining passers-by, self-denial, faith, study, labor, and so on. full of. "Filled" is the proper word, and the bishop's life must have been filled with good thoughts, good words, and good deeds to perfection.But in the evening, when the two women had retired to rest, if the cold, or the rain, prevented him from going out to the garden for an hour or two before going to bed, he still had a bad day. fulfilled.Facing the silhouetted night scene in the emptiness, Miao Ran recited silently, waiting to fall asleep. For him, this seemed to be a ritual.Sometimes, in the dead of night, if the two old women were not asleep, they would hear him wandering slowly along the paths.There he was, alone, pious, peaceful, loving all, comparing the silence of his own heart to the silence of space, feeling from the darkness the visible beauty of the stars and the invisible beauty of God.At that time, the night flowers were offering their fragrance, and he also offered his heart, his heart was like a lamp, lit in the center of the stars, admiring and admiring, floating in the boundless brilliance of creation.He himself may not be able to say what it is that is haunting him, he only feels that something is flying out of him, and something is falling back.The mysterious intercourse of the soul and the universe!

He thought of the greatness of God, and also of God being with him; he thought of the endless future as a kind of unfathomable mystery, and the infinite past was even more mysterious and vague; he thought of the universe moving in all directions under his eyes Expands endlessly; he does not try to comprehend the incomprehensible, but he gazes at everything.He does not study God, he delights in it.He thought that the wonderful combination of atoms can give matter a shape, can generate power when combined, create individuals in the whole, create breadth and length in space, create infinity in the infinite, and can show beauty through light.That kind of combination, birth and death, has an endless period, so there is birth and death.

He sat on a wooden bench, leaning against a rotten vine, and looked up at the stars through the thin, curled shadows of the fruit trees.In that quarter of an acre, there were so few trees, and the dilapidated shacks were so crowded, but he was nostalgic for it and was content in his heart. What more could an old man wish for when he had so little free time in his life, and what little free time he had spent in gardening during the day and in meditation at night?Was not that little field, with the sky above, enough for him to repeat in admiration of God's sweetest and sublime work?Indeed, isn't that already perfect, what more can one ask for?There is a small garden for him to linger, and a vast sky for him to wander.There are things under his feet for him to cultivate and harvest, and things for his head to discuss and think about. There are a few flowers in the ground, and thousands of stars in the sky.