And this was over three hundred years ago. It doesn't seem like it, but it
was.

* * * * *

Read the lives of great men and you will come to the conclusion that it is
harder to find a gentleman than a genius. While the clock ticks off the
seconds, count on your fingers--within five minutes, if you can--five such
gentlemen as Sir Philip Sidney! Of course, I know before you speak that
Fenelon will be the first on your tongue. Fenelon, the low-voiced, the
mild, the sympathetic, the courtly, the gracious! Fenelon, favored by the
gods with beauty and far-reaching intellect! Fenelon, who knew the gold of
silence. Fenelon, on whose lips dwelt grace, and who by the magic of his
words had but to speak to be believed and to be beloved.

When Louis the Little made that most audacious blunder which cost France
millions in treasure and untold loss in men and women, Fenelon wrote to
the Prime Minister: "These Huguenots have many virtues that must be
acknowledged and conserved. We must hold them by mildness. We can not
produce conformity by force. Converts made in this manner are hypocrites.
No power is great enough to bind the mind--thought forever escapes. Give
civil liberty to all, not by approving all religions, but by permitting in
patience what God allows."

"You shall go as missionary to these renegades!" was the
answer--half-ironical, half-earnest.

"I will go only on one condition."

"And that is?"