"Your material world and the spiritual world (which so few of you know as yet) form the two plates of a pair of scales. Your religions, your laws, your customs, and your passions, have caused the scale of evil so far to outweigh that of good, that evil has reigned as a sovereign over the earth. For ages, the same plaint has exhaled from the lips of man, and he has necessarily been led by suffering to call in question the justice of God, while some men have even been led to deny His very existence. You see the things of your world; but you see nothing of the spiritworld, and you therefore cannot understand the conditions of your earthly life, in which you see superfluity jostling want, gold and clay in close proximity, the contrasts of vice and of virtue which should prove to you the fact of your double nature, but which you cannot explain. Whence comes this state of things? Whose fault is it? This question you should try to answer with calmness and impartiality, remembering that the sincere desire to find a remedy is the first step towards its discovery. Notwithstanding the domination of evil over good, which occurs through your own fault, do you not perceive that all the forces of Nature run steadily in the groove appointed for them by God? Do you ever see the seasons coming out of their time, heat and cold clashing with each other? the sun forgetting to light up the earth? the earth forgetting the grain which man has deposited in its bosom? Is there any cessation of the countless miracles that are constantly taking place under your eyes, from the birth of the blade of grass to the birth of the child, the future man? All that is done by God is well-done; all that is done by man is ill-done. What is the remedy for all this? Something very simple. Let men return to God; let them be united together, and follow the road which, to the eyes of faith and conscience is already marked out." "VINCENT DE PAUL."
Remark - This communication was obtained "as stated above" in the same circle as the preceding one; but what a difference is observable between them, not only in style, but also in thought! This one is clear, profound, sensible, and such as Vincent de Paul would not disavow; and we may therefore safely assume that it is from him.
