Ancient Stones
June 28, 2020
Abbey of Valmagne
“HE WHO has read the lives of the ancient fathers of the desert without being touched, without feeling profound admiration, and being filled with grave and lofty thoughts; he who, treading under his feet with indifference the ruins of an ancient abbey, has not called up in fancy the shades of the cenobites who lived and died there; he who passes coldly through the corridors and cells of convents half-demolished, and feels no recollections, and not even the curiosity to examine — he may close the annals of history, and may cease to study the beautiful and the sublime. There exist for him no historical phenomena, no beauty, no sublimity; his mind is in darkness, his heart is in the dust.”
— Jaime Luciano Balmes (1810-1848), Protestantism and Catholicity: Compared in Their Effects on the Civilization of Europe. Library of Alexandria. (Kindle Edition.)
