Doing his own benefactions without hope of a celestial harvest, he thought himself on a nobler plane than religious men whom he always accused for making, as he called it, terms with God.
"But," the abbe would say to him, "if all men would be so, you must admit that society would be regenerated; there would be no more misery.

To be benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great philosopher; you rise to your principles through reason, you are a social exception; whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us benevolent in ours.

With you, it is an effort; with us, it comes naturally." "In other words, abbe, I think, and you feel,--that's the whole of it." However, at twelve years of age, Ursula, whose quickness and natural feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did not believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor in providence, nor in God.

Pressed with questions by the innocent creature, the doctor was unable to hide the fatal secret.

Ursula's artless consternation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed and sad he felt how deep an affection her sadness revealed.