362 LITERARY" AND SCIENTIFIC MEN. ’

the pleasurable sense of the action of the grace of God ,and which is a sufficing reason to move the will in allthe pains and privations which abound on the holypaths of virtue. He would have carried this notionfurther, but was obliged to mould his particular notionby the faith of the church, which enforces what it callsa “ chaste hope of salvation,” in contradiction to thequietists, who banish every idea of beatification, andprofess to he willing to encounter perdition, if suchwere the Almighty’s will. He was more opposed tojansenism, which makes salvation all in all, while itconfines it to the elect of God. Jansenism , indeed, heconsidered as peculiarly injurious, and destructive to thetrue love of God . But as bigotry made no part of hisnature, he tolerated the jansenists, though he wouldgladly have converted them ; he invited their chief,father Quesnell, to his palace, promising not to in-troduce any controversy unless he wished; but tes -tifying his desire, at the same time, to prove that hemistook the meaning of St. Augustin , on whom Jan-senius founded his doctrine. Of Pascal’s ProvincialLetters , he wrote to the duke de Beauvilliers, that herecommended that his royal pupil should read them, asthe great reputation they enjoyed, would cause himcertainly to desire to see them ; and sent a memorial atthe same time, which he considered as a refutation ofthe mistakes into which he believed Pascal had fallen.He was equally tolerant of protestants ; and when M.Brunier, minister of the protestants dispersed on thefrontiers of France, came to Mons to see him, Fenelon received him with his accustomed cordial hospitality,and begged him often to repeat his visit.

During the war for the Spanish succession, Fenelon ’sadmirable character shone forth in all its glory. Livingon a frontier exposed to the incursions of the enemy,he was active in alleviating the sufferings of the people.The nobles and officers of the French armies, whopassed through Cambray, pointedly avoided him, out ofcompliment to their mistaken sovereign; while a con-