He
rebuked the passion for war, by his own demeanor disarmed the hostility of
combatants, and by his instructions struck at the root of warfare in the
councils of princes. We may well be amazed at his political wisdom, and
taught more emphatically than ever that we are to look for this not to the
hack-politicians who think only of the cabals of the moment, but to the
sage men who interpret the future from the high ground of reason and
right. His political papers embody the lessons that France has since
learned by a baptism of blood. Hardly a single principle now deemed
necessary for the peace and prosperity of nations, can be named, that
cannot be found expressed or implied in Fenelon's various advice to the
royal youth under his charge. Well may the better minds of France and
Christendom honor his name for the noble liberality with which he
qualified the mild conservatism so congenial with his temperament, creed
and position.
As a theologian, he constantly breathes one engrossing sentiment. With
him, Christianity was the love of God and its morality was the love of the
neighbor. Judged by occasional expressions, his piety might seem too
ascetic and mystical--too urgent of penance and self-crucifixion--too
enthusiastic in emotion, perilling the sobriety of reason in the
impassioned fervors of devotion--sometimes bordering upon that
overstrained spiritualism, which, in its impulsive flights, is so apt to
lose its just balance and sink to the earth and the empire of the senses.
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