Note 100 — CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA. (continued 7)

His aunt, a nun of Port Royal, wrote him a letter to intimate this, which may well be called an excommunication:—"I have learnt with grief," she says, "that you more than ever frequent the society of persons whose names are abominable to the pious; and with reason, since they are forbidden to enter the church, or to partake in the sacraments, even at the moment of death, unless they repent. Judge, therefore, my dear nephew, of the state I am in, since you are not ignorant of the affection I have always felt for you; and that I have never desired any thing except that you should give yourself up to God while fulfilling some respectable employment. I conjure you, therefore, my dear nephew, to have pity on your soul, and to consider seriously the gulf into which you are throwing yourself. I should be glad if what I am told proves untrue; but, if you are so unhappy as not to have given up an intercourse that dishonours you before God and man, you must not think of coming to see us, for you are aware that I could not speak to you, knowing you to be in so deplorable a state, and one so contrary to Christianity. I shall, moreover, pray to God," &c.